Dont California my Texas has become more than a bumper sticker in the Lone Star State; it is now a defining fault line in a bruising U.S. Senate race where both candidates wield Californian as a political slur.
In recent days, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have turned the states longstanding suspicion of coastal liberalism into a central campaign weapon. According to Conservative Daily News, an account tied to Talaricos campaign mocked Paxtons roots in a Friday Facebook post, declaring that [Republican Texas Attorney General] Ken Paxton clearly misses his old home in California, and circulating a clip of Paxton saying, I like places in California, even though I dont like to admit that I go to California.
The Austin Democrat doubled down at the Texas Democratic National Convention, branding Paxton a California transplant in his speech to party activists. Paxton, however, is countering by framing the attack not as a jab at geography, but as a smear on his late fathers military service and the sacrifices of military families more broadly.
Paxtons father, Warren Kenneth Paxton Sr., served as a B-52 pilot in the United States Air Force, a career that required frequent relocations across the country. The Paxtons path took them from an Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, where Warren Kenneth Ken Paxton Jr. was born, to Florida, New York, North Carolina, California and Oklahoma, as detailed in a 2016 profile in the Houston Chronicle.
Like many service families, they lived simply and on the move, at one point calling a white-and-gold trailer without air conditioning both home and transportation. Paxton highlighted this background in a Facebook post on Monday, underscoring that his time in California was a function of his fathers orders, not a political or cultural choice.
Talaricos campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation, leaving his team silent on whether they stand by the California transplant line of attack. Paxtons campaign, by contrast, has seized the moment to draw a sharp contrast between Talaricos rhetoric and the realities of military life.
It is outrageous that Talarico is attacking the Attorney General for growing up in a military family, claiming that if you werent born in Texas you arent a Texan, Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy told the DCNF. I would like Talarico to tell the 1.7 million military families and veterans that Texas is home to that statement or better yet, tell them about the $9 billion in funding for troop/military family quality of life and the $2.9 billion to boost the basic housing allowance that he wanted to deny them, Cercy added.
At the heart of that criticism is Talaricos opposition to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans sweeping 2025 tax and spending package, which Paxtons team notes contained major quality-of-life upgrades for service members and their families. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by Trump on July 4, included $9 billion for troop and military family initiatives such as improvements to public schools serving large numbers of military children, expanded child care, and upgrades to barracks, according to the National Military Family Association.
The same legislation also provided an additional $2.9 billion for the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), which helps service members cover rent or mortgage costs in an increasingly expensive housing market. For conservatives, that package represented a blend of pro-military priorities and pro-growth tax policy, while Talaricos opposition places him at odds with both the armed forces community and Texass strong pro-military culture.
The Attorney Generals father served this country with honor, and its outrageous that anyone seeking public office in the United States could use a fathers military service as a political attack, Cercy told the DCNF. Paxtons allies argue that Talaricos rhetoric effectively tells countless military families stationed in Texas that they are second-class Texans if their children were not born within state lines.
Talaricos own campaign website touts him as an eighth-generation Texan, a phrase he has leaned on repeatedly to bolster his cultural bona fides. Yet that emphasis on ancestral roots risks alienating the many Texans who arrived by way of military orders, job opportunities, or simple pursuit of the American dream, and who now see their loyalty questioned by a progressive Democrat eager to score points with the party base.
Paxton, for his part, has worked to flip the California label back on his opponent by highlighting Talaricos fundraising trips to the Bay Area. POLITICO reported in June that Talarico attended at least four San Franciscoarea fundraisers in mid-April with prominent Democratic donors in the technology sector, a world closely associated with progressive politics and regulatory overreach.
Talarico has also tried to distance himself from his earlier embrace of identity politics, including his declaration that God is nonbinary and his admission that he loves trans children, as he attempts to project a more moderate image in a red-leaning state. Paxton told the DCNF he is unconvinced by the makeover, arguing that Talaricos donor base and ideological record remain firmly aligned with the coastal left.
He went to San Francisco to raise money. In my opinion, those are his people; theyre not in Texas, Paxton told the DCNF in a Saturday interview in Washington, D.C., casting his rival as more accountable to Silicon Valley progressives than to Texas voters.
As the campaign intensifies, the clash over who counts as a real Texan is morphing into a broader referendum on military service, cultural identity and the influence of liberal coastal elites on Texas politics. With Talaricos camp refusing to clarify its stance and Paxtons team tying the Democrats rhetoric to opposition to pro-military funding, voters are left to weigh whether the California transplant line is a harmless jab or a revealing slight against the very families who defend the nation and now call Texas home.
Login