WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic candidate James Talarico is clarifying the timeline of his “nasty” flu diagnosis after missing more than a week of in-person campaigning in the critical Texas Senate race and sparking widespread online speculation.
The campaign told The Post on Monday that Talarico had visited urgent care on Sept. 29 before going to an appointment with his primary care physician in Texas the following week. The added information was intended to provide more detail on why he was sidelined in the race that will determine control of the US Senate.
His campaign also said that he’s surely well enough to debate Republican Ken Paxton, whom they accused of hiding from voters.
“James is excited to be back on the campaign trail after recovering from the flu,” said spokesman JT Ennis in a statement Monday. “It’s been 87 days since James challenged Ken Paxton to come out of hiding and answer Texans’ questions in a debate, which even President Trump called on him to do. Ball is in Paxton’s court.”
Talarico, 37, initially said he was sick “so bad that I went to the urgent care in Dallas,” but when he emerged Sunday night — amid internet speculation over denied claims of a mental breakdown — Talarico said he went to his “primary care physician, but it wasn’t anything worse than a nasty case of the flu.”
The disappearances and discrepancies on his healthcare visits fueled online speculation that he was seeking mental health treatment in Ohio — which has been debunked by the campaign and the facility itself.
“Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas recovering from the flu,” spokesman JT Ennis posted on X after a self-described “right-wing provocateur” published claims — including a purported phone call — that the Texas state rep checked himself into a Cincinnati-based treatment center.
“Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope,” the mental health facility, which specializes in treatment for depression, anxiety, and other psychotic disorders, also wrote on X.
The candidate added himself in response, “I’ve never even been to Ohio,” with a crying-laughing emoji.
While Talarico had been seen publicly at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Oct. 9, GOP-aligned accounts with large followings had begun speculating about the trip to a mental clinic days after the Texas Democrat was seen visibly ill on a videotaped forum Sept. 30 with the Hispanic Business Council.
From Sept. 28-29, Talarico had been visiting New York City for high-dollar campaign fundraisers with fellow Senate Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown, who is running again after being ousted in 2024 by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), and alongside celebrities like the actor Robert De Niro.
On Sunday, he told an NBC affiliate in the Dallas area: “I got the flu and I’m feeling much better and I’m glad I had a chance to recover.”
After being asked whether he needed more time to recover since he’s a diabetic, Talarico added: “I just went to my primary care physician, but it wasn’t anything worse than a, you know, nasty case of the flu.”
He earlier mentioned visiting an urgent care center in Dallas on the evening of Sept. 29, the same night he had been scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Greenwich Village.
It’s unclear if the Senate hopeful left that fundraiser early. His campaign issued a statement on Oct. 6 that he had contracted the flu and would return “soon,” which he did three years later in his appearance at the Austin-based music festival.
Hours before Talarico’s reemergence on Oct. 9, though, former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt alleged in an X post: “My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility. His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign.”
The claim was boosted by other Republican-aligned accounts on X, several of which claimed that Talarico had taken private jet flights between Austin and a small private plane runway outside Cincinnati to get to the Mason, Ohio-based mental health treatment center.
Rhein Amacher, a former 2024 Trump campaign aide, subsequently posted audio of a phone call he allegedly had with an employee of Lindner Center of Hope on Saturday night, during which the staffer can apparently be heard claiming Talarico had been “just discharged this evening.”
But Talarico had been publicly photographed the evening before on Oct. 9 at Austin City Limits.
The social media insinuations come after Paxton, who is currently trailing Talarico in public polls, also kept a low profile off the campaign trail while traveling with his alleged mistress in Iceland and London, the Daily Mail reported.
Talarico would beat Paxton by 2.8 percentage points if the election were held today, per the RealClearPolitics polling average.
