James Talarico returns to campaign trail at ACL festival after illness spurred GOP calls for “proof of life”

After a nine-day illness-induced absence from the campaign trail, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico re-emerged Friday with an unannounced appearance at the Austin City Limits music festival.

With early voting fast approaching, Talarico stepped off the trail near the start of last week after revealing he had been diagnosed with the flu. His showing at ACL was his first public appearance since Sept. 30, when he called in virtually to an event with the U.S. Hispanic Business Council. His last scheduled in-person event before that was a Sept. 28 fundraiser in New York with Robert De Niro.

Talarico was seen walking the grounds of Austin’s Zilker Park, the site of ACL, and greeting voters ahead of an expected onstage appearance at the festival Friday afternoon.

“Hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but James is still alive and meeting with voters at ACL today,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis posted on X Friday afternoon, alongside a video ofphotos of Talarico at the festival.

Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and President Donald Trump ripped the Austin Democrat for his absence from the trail. Over the past few days, Paxton’s campaign demanded “proof of life,” launched a “Tala-Freak-Out Tip Line” for sightings of Talarico in the state and promoted missing person posters of him. Talarico’s campaign told reporters Thursday he was still recovering and planned to return to the campaign trail this weekend.

A bevy of right-wing commentators online have promoted unverified theories about Talarico’s absence, suggesting without evidence that his campaign was falsely using the flu to cover for a more serious, politically damaging condition.

“Low-T Jimmy appears to be having a full-blown mental Tala-freak-out on the national stage,” Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said in a statement Thursday. “If James Talarico is too fragile to face Texans, he has no business asking for their vote.”

Talarico, 37, has Type I diabetes, a diagnosis he received during his 2018 campaign for the Texas House. During that race, he went into a state of ketoacidosis and fell asleep for 36 hours after walking the length of his district for a set of town halls. Earlier this year, Talarico’s campaign aired TV ads promoting legislation he championed that caps monthly out-of-pocket insulin costs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with diabetes, an autoimmune condition, have a higher risk for “serious flu complications,” and are more prone to getting sick and staying sick for longer.

“I guess I’ve been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail, and so I want to keep everybody safe,” Talarico said Sept. 30, when he called into an event with the U.S. Hispanic Business Council while appearing sickly. “If I was passing on this illness to somebody and got someone’s grandmother or someone’s baby sick, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Talarico added during that event that his sickness sent him to urgent care in Dallas the night before.

At a rally in San Antonio Wednesday, his third trip to Texas in a month, Trump tied Talarico’s illness to a routine that has become a mainstay of his stump speeches here, in which he says Talarico is a vegan who gets sick after eating meat for show. Talarico is not a vegan.

In a Truth Social post after the rally, Trump wrote that Talarico was “MISSING IN ACTION,” adding, “Where is he? What is wrong with him? Bad rumors are coming out.”

Trump also said Talarico should “immediately report to a Debate Stage against Ken Paxton, who is ready, willing and able.”

Talarico has accepted four debate invitations and repeatedly challenged Paxton to face off, including on Fox News. Paxton has not accepted any invitations to debate, despite his campaign saying in July, “of course we’re going to debate.” Talarico is also set to headline a CNN town hall next week.