Five dimensional chess: inside James Talarico’s extraordinary bid to break Texas Democrats’ losing streak

The Texan could pull off a historic victory in the Lone Star state, which hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1988

When a young, untested former school teacher stood up to address a modest gathering of local donors in Austin, the state capital of Texas, Wendy Davis felt sorry for him. Poor kid," she remembers thinking.

Then James Talarico began speaking. He was like five or six sentences in and I knew that something was different about him," recalls Davis, a former Democratic state senator. He was as articulate and unique then as he is now. From that day, I started calling him Baby Obama'."