Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Senate campaign is sharing "MISSING" posters of Democrat James Talarico, pointing to the candidate's nearly two-week absence from public events after he fell ill with the flu. "MISSING: James Talarico. Missing posters are popping up across Texas as the search continues.
LAST SEEN: 12 days ago," Paxton wrote on X on Thursday. "Texans everywhere are asking: where is James Talarico?" He shared photos of flyers outside Kyle Field at Texas A&M University in College Station, Fort Worth and Dallas. Republicans, with President Donald Trump out front, have spent the week turning Talarico's illness into a campaign issue less than four weeks before Election Day.
Talarico, a state representative from Austin, holds a narrow polling lead in a race that could decide control of the Senate. Talarico's campaign insists the diagnosis is real and says he will be back soon. Meanwhile, it has used the attacks to needle Paxton, who has yet to agree to a debate.
Newsweek reached out to Talarico's campaign for comment Thursday. Talarico disclosed his diagnosis on September 30, when he joined a U.S. Hispanic Business Council event in Edinburg by video.
He had been scheduled to attend in person. "I was starting to feel kind of under the weather a few days ago and last night it got so bad that I went to the urgent care here in Dallas, and I was diagnosed with the flu," Talarico told attendees. "I'm running a fever, and I'm at my most contagious right now, and I guess I've been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail and so I want to keep everybody safe." If he passed the illness to "someone's grandmother or baby," he said, he "couldn't live with myself." Paxton's campaign keeps its own count.
By its tally, Talarico has not held a rally since September 16 or appeared in person in Texas since September 26. Two days after that, he was in New York City for a fundraiser hosted by actor Robert De Niro, sharing the bill with Ohio Senate nominee Sherrod Brown. His urgent care visit came the following night, according to the timeline Talarico gave the Hispanic Business Council.
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