Talarico Fears Election Won’t Be ‘Free And Fair.’ Here’s How He’s Fought Election Safeguards.

Original admin June 23, 2026 0 Comments

Talarico Fears Election Won’t Be ‘Free And Fair.’ Here’s How He’s Fought Election Safeguards.

Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico recently suggested that the November election will not be “free and fair.” But when in a position to improve election integrity in his state, Talarico said he hated the effort with “every fiber of my being.”

As a state lawmaker, Talarico was one of the Democrats who fled the state after a Republican-backed effort in 2021 to require proof of identity when voting by mail and increasing the oversight of poll watchers. After Democrats failed to block passage of the bill, Talarico called the election safeguards “voter suppression” and said he hated the proposal.

Five years later, Talarico says he is worried that he will have to overperform to beat Republican Ken Paxton in a critical Senate race because he does not think the election will be held under “free and fair” conditions. But he has historically fought measures that would ensure secure elections.

Talarico described the 2021 Texas election integrity bill that tightened up mail-in voting as “an immoral, anti-American, anti-Democratic bill,” adding that it was “one that I hate with every fiber of my being.” He also critiqued the bills provisions on poll watchers and added that he didn’t think that poll watchers “should be in the polling place at all.”

Those comments were made in 2023 during an appearance on the “Lone Star Left” show unearthed by The Daily Wire.

“We flew to D.C. to really beg national Democrats, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the leaders in the House and the Senate, to pass federal voting rights legislation, because that’s the only way that we were going to stop the voter suppression bill here in Texas,” Talarico said.

After he and fellow state Democrats realized that the Senate would not void the filibuster to ram through a bill targeting state election integrity laws, they returned to Texas to weaken the proposal from Republicans.

The law opposed by Talarico created uniform statewide voting hours, added a requirement for people to provide an ID number when voting by mail, ended drive-through voting, and enhanced the jurisdiction of poll watchers.

Now running against Paxton, Talarico said he will have to overperform to get past “voter suppression” and other “shenanigans” during the November election.

“We already have a lot of voter suppression in Texas. It’s baked into our laws. I fought fiercely against many of those laws when they were coming through the legislature,” Talarico said recently. “We’re probably gonna have to win by a little more than we would normally have to in a completely free and fair election.”

Paxton has made a key plank of his campaign support for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) Act, which would require photo identification to vote in federal elections. He promised to drop out of the Texas GOP primary if the Senate passed the SAVE Act which did not happen before he defeated incumbent Senator John Cornyn.

Talarico, for his part, has said he opposes requiring ID to vote.

“I oppose having to have a driver’s license to vote,” he said. “I oppose voter ID. Currently it’s the law in Texas, but I opposed that law… there are a lot of Texans, currently hundreds of thousands who don’t have a driver’s license.”

To get a driver’s license in Texas, a person must provide documentation to complete an application form, provide proof of citizenship or legal residency, proof of Texas residency, and pass a written and driving exam.

“James Talafreako is openly admitting his only path to victory in ruby red Texas is eliminating voter ID and allowing illegal aliens to vote,” GOP spokesman Zach Kraft told The Daily Wire. “MAGA Warrior Ken Paxton will slam the door on Democrats’ election fraud nonsense by getting the SAVE America Act signed into law to ensure only Americans vote in our elections.”