James Talarico's midterm victory in the Texas Senate race is an early sign that a "new era" is beginning in one of the country's deepest red states, one expert told The New York Times.
For decades, Texas politics had been dominated by a form of conservative evangelicalism that seemed almost unshakable. Republicans passed bills requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools, required teachers to post the Ten Commandments in their classrooms, and used state powers to target Muslim religious groups, the Times reported.
But Talarico's victory signals a growing base of progressive congregations that resonate with the message Talarico spread rather than the combative conservative religious messaging touted by his opponent, Ken Paxton, according to the report.
“If that form of conservative Christianity was going to die out, this is what it would look like,” Joseph Locke, a historian and author who has studied religion in Texas for decades, told the outlet.
“It would start with these isolated victories, and you could see the cracks forming,” he added.
Talarico's progressive religious messaging became a flashpoint of his midterm campaign. Republicans seized on his statements about God being nonbinary and attempted to twist them into attack ads. Those efforts fell short, as Talarico bested Paxton by roughly 1.2 million votes.
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