Talarico Is Country Music's Hottest Senate Special Guest — SkimNews
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- James Talarico joined the Chicks onstage at their San Antonio show on Oct. 17, telling the crowd he taught sixth grade at a local middle school and praising the band as representing "courage, conviction and a willingness to speak truth to power" — "the best of country music" and "the best of Texas."
- Willie Nelson gave Talarico his official endorsement and hosted him backstage at his annual 4th of July Picnic; Talarico also appeared in the crowd at Kacey Musgraves' Dallas show earlier this month.
- All three artists are from Texas, where Talarico holds a slight lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton in what the source describes as an extremely tight Senate race.
- Talarico's praise nodded to the Chicks' 2003 controversy, when Natalie Maines told a London crowd she was "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas" — after which they were pulled from country radio and received death threats but, per the source, never backed down from their activism.
- Kristi Noem posted on X that she'd "take Ella Langley over Kacey Musgraves any day" and back Paxton, though the source notes Langley has declared nothing about her politics and isn't even from Texas; Musgraves replied that Noem doesn't have a "dog in this fight" and "if [she] did [she] would have shot it."
- Elon Musk, who the source says prefers dance and EDM to country, has been pumping a reported $190 million into the race on Paxton's behalf — the only major figure of comparable weight rallying around the incumbent.
Why it matters: Three of Texas's biggest country artists have organically lined up behind Talarico in a knife-edge Senate race, while Paxton is leaning on Elon Musk's reported $190 million and failed MAGA celebrity outreach — crystallizing a stark gap in grassroots cultural support just weeks before the midterms.
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