Republican money is flooding into Texas as the Senate fight tightens, with top GOP leaders and aligned outside groups jumping in to help Ken Paxton. The push is aimed at keeping the seat red, slowing James Talarico’s momentum, and turning the race into a sharp contrast between the two candidates as Election Day gets closer.
Senate Leadership Fund, the powerful super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, is rolling out a new Texas PAC built to pour cash into the state race. The group plans an aggressive ad blitz that will keep pressure on Talarico while putting Paxton in a more favorable light, a sign that Republicans see Texas as a must-hold battleground.
Paxton faces a serious challenge from Talarico, a Texas state lawmaker who has become a favorite target for conservatives arguing that he is too far left for a state that still leans hard red in statewide contests. That ideological divide is now the centerpiece of the fight, with Republicans eager to make the election about values, not just personality.
Thune made the GOP’s mindset plain in a statement that framed the race as part of a larger struggle inside the Democratic Party. “As the Democrat Party gets pulled further to the left, extreme candidates like James Talarico are becoming the norm,” Thune told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Republicans are united in keeping him out of the U.S. Senate, which is why I’m proud of the work the Senate Leadership Fund is doing to ensure Texas stays red.”
The money move comes at a key moment, right after the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas and with ads set to run nonstop through November. The first wave is expected to focus on Paxton in a positive way before shifting to direct contrast messaging, a familiar playbook when Republicans want to sharpen the choice for voters and stop a challenger from defining the race first.
Trump’s orbit has already thrown serious weight behind Paxton, adding to the sense that the party is now lined up behind him after a brutal primary season. That mattered because Senate Republicans had previously backed John Cornyn, only to watch Trump’s endorsement of Paxton knock Cornyn out of the picture and force a quick political reset.
The Texas fight has also become a money race, and Talarico enters the final stretch with a big financial edge. Federal filings show his campaign has pulled in more than $72 million since launch, while Paxton has raised about $17 million, a gap Republicans are trying to close with outside spending and a flood of late ad support.
Paxton has leaned into that imbalance, arguing that his campaign got a late start because of the long and messy primary battle. He told Bret Baier that Talarico benefited from months of extra fundraising and ad time, while his own side was still digging out from the primary grind and building back up.
“Talarico had three extra months to raise money and not spend it. So he was able to start spending on ads that tried to pivot him from a radical socialist to a moderate Democrat,” Paxton said. “So he’s been running ads for about two months,” he continued. “My ads have just started. We had to raise some money. But once we’re able to highlight the stark differences between a socialist and a constitutional Republican, he will not win Texas.”
That kind of language captures exactly where the contest is heading, with both sides betting that voters will respond to a clean, loud contrast. For Republicans, the new Texas PAC is not just about one Senate seat, but about showing they can still marshal big resources, settle internal feuds, and put a high-pressure national operation behind a candidate who now has to make up ground fast.
