In October 2026, a rumor spread that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas Democrat, had received treatment at a mental health care facility in Ohio.
The claim erupted after Talarico, a state representative, disappeared from the campaign trail for nearly 10 days. On Oct. 11, the candidate told Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS's Phil Prazan in a video interview he'd been lying low at home due to a bout of influenza (archived).
Still, social media posts claiming he had actually been hospitalized at a mental health facility the whole time multiplied on Facebook and X, where one post said, for example, "the flu thing was a BIG FAT LIE" (archived):
Many Snopes readers emailed, asking us to verify whether the rumor was true.
As we outline below, we found no credible evidence to support the claim Talarico had received treatment at a mental health facility. Both the facility named in these rumors and Talarico himself denied the claim on social media. In addition, the timing of his alleged discharge didn't match Talarico's schedule. Snopes obtained visual evidence, which we reviewed but aren't publishing due to privacy concerns, that Talarico was at his home in Austin every day for the entirety of his bout of flu.
For these reasons, we rate the claim false.
Two conservative influencers, Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, started the rumor, offering as evidence the recording of an alleged employee of the Lindner Center of Hope in Ohio appearing to say Talarico had just been...
In October 2026, a rumor spread that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas Democrat, had received treatment at a mental health care facility in Ohio. The claim erupted after Talarico, a s...