Texas – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is accusing Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico of misleading Texas voters after his campaign shared video showing what it described as a “huge crowd” in deep-red Lubbock, with multiple reports indicating the footage was actually from an event held months earlier.
“James Talarico has lied to Texans about his radical record throughout this race,” Paxton said in a post on X on October 4. “He is now deceiving voters about campaigning in Texas this weekend when he’s been out of state campaigning with liberal elites who want to destroy Texans’ way of life. It’s time to put Texas first!”
The criticism came after Team Talarico posted a video on October 2 with the caption, “HUGE crowd to see @jamestalarico in deep-red Lubbock, Texas. This county hasn’t voted for a Democrat in 50 years.”
The post presented the footage in the context of Talarico’s current Senate campaign, but reports published afterward found that the same video had already been posted by the campaign in February.
Townhall reported on October 4 that the footage came from a February 2026 campaign event and that Team Talarico had posted the same video and caption months earlier. The outlet reported that the original post appeared on February 23, following a February 22 event in Lubbock.
The footage also appears to correspond with Talarico’s February campaign stop in Lubbock during the Democratic Senate primary. Local outlet KCBD reported at the time that Talarico campaigned in Lubbock on February 22 as he sought support ahead of the March 3 Democratic primary.
KCBD’s February report described Talarico’s Lubbock appearance as part of his effort to reach voters in the Texas Panhandle. Talarico said during that campaign stop that Democrats do not always campaign in the area and that he wanted voters to know he was serious about representing the region.
The resurfaced footage drew criticism online after users compared the October post with the campaign’s earlier February post.
Townhall cited Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft, who questioned why the campaign was using footage from February while Talarico was reportedly outside Texas for a fundraising event. Matt Whitlock, another critic cited by the outlet, also questioned why an official Talarico campaign account was using the eight-month-old footage while the candidate was fundraising out of state.
The Independent Sentinel separately reported on October 4 that Team Talarico had used an eight-month-old video without identifying it as old footage. The report highlighted the identical wording used in the February and October posts and noted that the video showed Talarico speaking to a crowd in Lubbock.
Twitchy also reported on the controversy, saying the footage was from Talarico’s February 22 appearance at the Historic Watson Building in Lubbock during his “Take Back Texas Tour.” The outlet compared the October post with the earlier campaign post and cited social-media users who identified the footage as being from February.
The timing has become another point of contention in the increasingly heated Texas Senate race between Paxton and Talarico. Paxton is using the incident to argue that Talarico’s campaign was attempting to give voters the impression that the footage represented a current campaign appearance in Lubbock.
The controversy centers specifically on the campaign’s presentation of the video. The footage itself is from a real Talarico event in Lubbock, and local reporting confirms that he campaigned there in February. The dispute is over the October social-media post presenting the footage without making clear that the event occurred months earlier.
Neither the original October Team Talarico post nor the reports reviewed for this story establish that the February footage was filmed during the October campaign weekend.
The episode comes as both campaigns continue an increasingly aggressive social-media fight. Paxton and Talarico have repeatedly attacked each other’s records and campaign messaging, with both sides using online videos and advertisements to reach voters.
For Paxton, the Lubbock video provided another opportunity to challenge Talarico’s campaign messaging and question his presence on the campaign trail. For Talarico’s campaign, the footage was genuine video from a previous event, but its reuse in an October post without an explicit indication that it was from February has prompted criticism from Paxton and conservative outlets.
