Turns out the “Colbert bump” is still a thing. On Tuesday, James Talarico won the Democratic primary for the Texas Senate seat, beating Jasmine Crockett in a hotly contested race that’s drawn national attention.
Talarico, you may remember, was at the center of a politcal firestorm last month, after his interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show was blocked by CBS’ lawyers from airing on broadcast due to the FCC’s new guidance for political candidates on talk shows. In an unusual move, Colbert devoted an entire segment of his show to the issue raising not only concerns about overreach from the FCC but also boosting Talarico’s profile by association.
The fallout from the Talarico affair then became a multi-day thing on the Late Show and elsewhere, with Colbert discussing his back and forth with CBS’ lawyers and management. In a remarkable piece of television, a clearly exasperated Colbert revealed his tensions with his employers, saying, “I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network.”
Adding further spice to the controversy, and again elevating Talarico’s name recognition, was Colbert’s ongoing issues with CBS, with the network cancelling the long-running Late Show, and his run-in with the FCC that has become more activist in the second Trump admnistration and is seemingly targeting the bastions of soft liberal media including Colbert’s show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The View.
Despite being blocked from airing the Talarico on broadcast, Colbert put the near 15-minute interview in its entirety on the Late Show‘s YouTube channel. In a classic case of the Streisand effect, the Talarico interview garnered a whopping 9 million views and counting since Feb. 17.
The Colbert kerfufulle was also a huge boost to Talarico’s campaign, with Texas pol revealing that he raised more than $2.5 million in the 24 hours after the appearance. He also became something of a cause celebre in liberal media, with a flurry of appearances on cable news — including a notable segment on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MS NOW show that has over a million views on YouTube — and an array of podcasts since the Late Show spot.
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