Republicans plan to pour an extra $30 million into TV ads Friday for Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign in Texas, even as polls show him trailing Democrat James Talarico.
The Senate Leadership Fund’s Texas PAC will hit the airwaves hard to back the Republican attorney general in the final stretch of a race that has tightened in the deep-red state. A source familiar with the plans confirmed the new buy will push the group’s Texas television spending to about $155 million and overall outlays near $200 million, the Daily Caller reported.
Jake Sherman flagged the move first, noting Punchbowl News text subscribers got the tip. The PAC had already planned more than $100 million in TV ads after layering over $35 million onto earlier $65 million reservations. Punchbowl News had previously put the full Republican effort to boost Paxton in the $150 million to $200 million range.
Texas has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1993. Republicans dominate statewide offices. Yet RealClearPolling shows Talarico leading by an average of 2.8 points, and the Cook Political Report rates the contest a toss-up.
President Trump endorsed Paxton over primary rival John Cornyn and stood with him at a Wednesday rally in San Antonio. That appearance came as Trump warned Texas voters about the stakes if the Democrat prevails.
Paxton has faced headwinds on the trail. In leaked audio from September 30, he told private donors the problem was not tariffs.
"It’s not tariffs. It’s the war, it’s gas prices. Diesel is over $6 a gallon... people are feeling the pinch. That’s probably the biggest problem... that’s by far our biggest problem."
He said Republican numbers dropped after the midterm convention. Publicly in March, Paxton defended Trump’s decision on Operation Epic Fury, saying the president “did the right thing” to keep Iran from a nuclear weapon.
Talarico has been absent from the campaign trail for the past 12 days for reasons that remain unclear. His record supplies plenty of material for the incoming ads.
In 2021 he called God “non-binary,” later walking it back as “deliberately provocative.” In May 2023 he told a podcaster he loved transgender children. By September he claimed he would vote for a national ban on transgender surgeries for minors and flipped his stance on men in women’s sports. Those reversals track the pattern laid out when Talarico scrambled left-to-right under pressure.
RealClearPolitics’ generic congressional ballot shows Democrats at 50.6 percent and Republicans at 42.3 percent. National numbers like that help explain why party committees are treating even Texas as a defense zone.
The same Senate Leadership Fund machinery is moving money in other states. It planned $5 million for South Carolina to support Darline Graham, who sits neck-and-neck with Democrat Annie Andrews after Trump rallied behind Graham in her earlier runoff.
Spending has paused in North Carolina and Georgia. In North Carolina, Republican nominee Michael Whatley’s campaign temporarily pulled its own television ads Wednesday while it reconsidered strategy. Kansas and Iowa also figure in the broader map of competitive seats.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has publicly bet on broader GOP gains even as Democrats eye dozens of Republican-held districts. That midterm math sits behind decisions to fortify Paxton now rather than later, the same calculus visible when Johnson weighed the House battlefield.
Trump has tied Republican success to concrete payoffs for voters, including his repeated pitch for large direct payments if the party holds Congress. The Texas air war fits the larger push to convert presidential backing into Senate retention.
Friday’s $30 million drop lands in a state that still leans heavily Republican on paper. The PAC’s total near $200 million shows how seriously leadership treats the threat of a Democratic pickup. Paxton’s private comments about gas prices and the war underscore the pocketbook pressures voters feel. Talarico’s long stretch off the trail and his shifting social positions leave openings the ads will exploit. Texas voters will decide whether the late cash and Trump’s San Antonio appearance close the gap before Election Day.
Deep-red states stay red when Republicans defend them with both money and a clear record, and this spend aims to make sure Texas does exactly that.