Paxton’s “Low-T” attacks turn Texas Senate race ugly

Paxton’s “Low-T” – Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s runoff win over John Cornyn has been followed by a general-election campaign that leans hard on insults about masculinity—“Low-T,” “vegan” and a trail of mocking nicknames for Democratic state representative James Talarico—c

On Tuesday night, with Donald Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the MAGA faithful, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton defeated incumbent US senator John Cornyn in a runoff primary to claim the Republican nomination for the seat.

Paxton wasted no time once the nomination was secured. In his victory speech. he went after Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico as insufficiently masculine. calling him “the most extreme radical that Democrats have ever nominated.” He then mocked Talarico’s diet and gender presentation with a stream of derogatory nicknames. including “Tofu Talarico. ” “Six-Gender Jimmy. ” “James Talafreako. ” and “Low-T Talarico.”.

The jokes didn’t land cleanly with everyone. and the Talarico campaign—already described as a fundraising juggernaut—began selling “I’m a Talafreako” T-shirts right away. Still. Paxton’s messaging fit a darker thread: the attacks appeared to draw from manosphere and incel culture. communities built around unscientific obsession with gender. sex. hormones. and diet.

That theme continued in Paxton’s first general-election ad. The spot portrays Talarico as out of step with Texan values and lacking in testosterone, ending with the declaration that the Democrat is “too low-T for Texas.”

The rhetoric spread beyond Paxton’s own ads. On Wednesday, Trump adviser Stephen Miller posted to X that “Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.”

Trump himself added another version of the same approach, claiming that Talarico is “a vegan in Texas, and you can’t get elected as a vegan in Texas.”

But Talarico’s situation doesn’t match the campaign’s framing. While his actual hormone levels are not public knowledge, Talarico is neither transgender nor vegan. The vegan claim appears to come from comments he made while running for reelection to the Texas House of Representatives in 2022.

In 2022. at a fundraiser for the Texas Humane Legislation Network. Talarico talked about the need to reduce meat consumption—in part to combat climate change—and said his campaign was only buying vegan food products for its events. He did not claim to be a vegan himself at the time. later denied that he is. and has eaten meat and dairy on the campaign trail.

The distinction became hard to ignore during his campaign stop at Austin’s Taco Joint earlier in May, when Talarico ordered two potato, egg, and cheese tacos—an order described as legitimate, and one that was not vegan.

Paxton’s broader fixation on diet and testosterone echoes a set of ideas that have been circulating for years in male-dominated podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience and in toxic online spaces where men deride supposedly weaker men as “soy boys.” Those views have also found a higher-profile home inside the Trump administration. particularly in the messaging and policy of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” pitch embraces medical pseudoscience. He has sounded alarm about low testosterone in men. misstating the issue because testosterone levels have declined in research while most men are not in the clinically “low” range. Kennedy has also repeatedly urged Americans to eat more meat for protein, including staging photo-ops at barbecue and burger restaurants.

At the same time, the protein argument cuts against the campaign’s insults: whole soy foods such as tofu are a rich source of protein, containing all the essential amino acids for human nutrition.

Republicans weaponizing these concepts against Talarico suggests the masculinist dogma has penetrated mainstream political messaging. Yet there’s no guarantee it will move voters in the way the campaigns hope. The article notes it’s far from clear that any given Texan will be particularly swayed by depicting Talarico—a former teacher and Presbyterian seminarian—as “effete.”.

And even if “vegan” and “low-T” function as insults in certain online hot spots, the piece emphasizes that the language of internet squabbles doesn’t necessarily translate to a statewide contest that will be decided by nearly 19 million eligible voters.

For now, the Texas Senate race is being fought less over policy than over caricatures—one built from hormone talk that can’t be verified in public, and another built from a disputed diet label that doesn’t match what Talarico has said or eaten on the trail.

Ken Paxton James Talarico Texas Senate race Low-T vegan Stephen Miller Donald Trump incel culture manosphere Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testosterone MAGA