Texas has long placed married “family men” candidates in top positions, but the Paxton Talarico Senate race will be the first in which voters choose between two unmarried men.
Texas has never elected an unmarried man to the Senate or governor.
For generations, Texas politics has treated marriage as a political qualification, not just a personal biography. Governors posed with their wives and children in campaign ads. The First Lady became an extension of the campaign. Family values are more than just a message point. They were often part of the image voters expected from their top elected leaders.
Sometimes those expectations were clearly stated.
In June 2001, at a reception for then-Gov. George W. Bush’s Rick Perry said family life is central to leadership, saying, “What I appreciate most is your integrity and your values and the fact that you put your family first. I love the fact that you love your wife and you love your children.”
Now, that long-standing pattern faces a new test in the closely watched U.S. Senate race between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, in which voters will for the first time choose between two unmarried men for one of the state’s highest offices.
The showdown has already drawn attention not just for its ideological stakes, but also for how each candidate’s personal history is discussed in political messages and online commentary. This is a familiar feature of high-profile Texas elections, where statewide competition is often intense.
Paxton, whose wife filed for divorce in July 2025, comes into the election after many years in public office and a period in which his family life was part of his political identity.
Meanwhile, as Talarico competes in one of the state’s most high-profile races, he also faces renewed public interest in his personal life. Some online critics have focused on his support for LGBTQ+ rights and condemnation of veganism, but he has challenged that label by appearing to eat meat in public and on social media. In recent days, as the contours of his race have come into focus, attention to his relationship status has been the focus of online discussion, thrusting his previously mysterious girlfriend Brianna Menard into the spotlight and making headlines across the country, including in the New York Post.
While family structures have changed in recent years, with more Americans marrying later in life and more unmarried adults, remnants of old expectations may still be surfacing in voters’ perceptions, even if they are less obvious.
Whether that will carry any weight in the Paxton vs. Talarico matchup remains to be seen.
Has Texas ever elected an unmarried man to the Senate?
According to historical biographies compiled by the Texas State Historical Society, no Texas senator was ever elected to the Senate unmarried.
The state’s current U.S. senators, Republicans Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, married during the campaign and remain in office. Cruz, who was elected in 2012 and sworn in as a junior senator in 2013, married his wife Heidi in 2001. Cornyn, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002, has been married since 1979.
And all previous senators, whether senior or junior, were married at the time of their election. However, not all senators remained married throughout their terms, and there have been instances in Texas history of unmarried men serving in the U.S. Senate without being elected by voters.
They included Morgan C. Hamilton, John Henninger Reagan, and Matthias Ward, who served in Congress during the Reconstruction and pre-17th Amendment eras. At the time, U.S. senators were appointed by the Texas Legislature rather than standard election practices.
In modern times, the most obvious examples are William A. Blakely and Andrew Jackson Huston, who, according to their biographies, were appointed to fill vacancies caused by the death or resignation of sitting senators.
Blakely served two short terms as U.S. senator pro tempore, in 1957 after the resignation of Price Daniel, and in 1961 after the resignation of Lyndon B. Johnson, who left the Senate to become vice president. In both cases, Blakely lost subsequent special elections and was replaced by voters’ choice.
Additionally, Andrew Jackson Houston was appointed in 1941 after the death of Senator Morris Shepard. He served the shortest term of any Texas senator, just over two months, and did not seek reelection.
Still, there is no documented case of a candidate being elected to the U.S. Senate by Texas voters who was unmarried at the time of the election.
Has Ken Paxton ever been married?
yes. Paxton was married to his wife for nearly 40 years before she filed for divorce last year.
He met Angela Paxton at Baylor University and they married in 1986. The couple remained married for 38 years, raising four children together, and both were active in Texas politics, he as attorney general and she as a state senator.
In July 2025, she announced on social media that she had filed for divorce, writing that although she had filed for divorce “on Biblical grounds” and had been seeking reconciliation, she no longer believed it was appropriate to remain in the marriage.
“I believe that marriage is a sacred contract and have passionately pursued reconciliation,” she wrote. “However, in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that remaining married honors God or has any love for me, my children, or Ken. I move forward with complete confidence that God always works all things together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purposes.”
Ken Paxton also posted on X soon after, saying the couple had decided to “start a new chapter in their lives” and asking for privacy.
At the time of these public statements, neither the details of the filing nor the underlying circumstances cited in the court record were publicly available. The records were initially sealed at the couple’s request, and the reason for the divorce was not disclosed.
But the records were unsealed in February after a group of news organizations challenged the decision, arguing that the case involved public interest issues related to public office, the potential use of taxpayer funds and transparency in the court, according to Texas Newsroom. The filing alleges infidelity as the reason for the divorce.
Allegations of infidelity also surfaced during Mr. Paxton’s impeachment proceedings in 2023, with former aides testifying as part of a broader allegation of abuse of power, conflicts of interest, and Mr. Paxton’s interactions with political donors at a company that employed a woman involved in an affair with the attorney general. The Texas Senate ultimately acquitted Paxton.
At the time of his U.S. Senate campaign, which began in November 2025, Paxton was divorced. She is expected to remain unmarried in the general election scheduled for November.
Has James Talarico ever been married?
No, Talarico has never been married.
The 37-year-old Democratic state representative from Austin has largely shunned politics from his personal life during his time in the Texas House, but he has built a reputation around education policy and a progressive message often framed around Christian language and values.
As he prepares to run for the U.S. Senate in 2026, his personal life is increasingly in the public eye, including controversy over his relationship status.
It was first revealed that they were dating during an appearance on the show. jamie kern lima showThere, he described his girlfriend as his “rock” and said, “I don’t know if I would have made it through the last six months of this crazy race if she hadn’t been by my side.”
But it wasn’t until last week that his girlfriend, 30-year-old Brianna Menard, was publicly identified in widespread news reports. The two met when Menard took a job as Talarico’s chief of staff in 2022, but they didn’t start dating until January of the following year. New York Post.
She currently works as a lobbyist for the Texas Medical Association, which claims to focus on “bipartisan efforts to advance early learning, child care access, workforce development, and health care affordability.” The association also supports gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone care.
Talarico was not married at the time of his U.S. Senate campaign, which began in September 2025. Voters are expected to remain unmarried when they head to the polls in November.
Brandi D. Addison covers weather across the United States as a Weather Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network and Texas. She can be reached at baddison@gannett.com.. Find her on Facebook.
