A Republican super PAC has spent roughly $7.7 million a day over the past two and a half weeks trying to keep Ken Paxton’s U.S. Senate campaign afloat, according to Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by Newsweek, as polling shows the Texas race unexpectedly close.
The filings show the PAC spent $131 million over 17 days backing Paxton’s campaign against Democrat James Talarico. Much of that money has flowed through Texas PAC, a group tied to the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). Texas PAC had already purchased $51.3 million in broadcast advertising in September across the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin markets, according to AdImpact figures reported by the Texas Tribune.
Paxton’s own campaign added to the spending Wednesday, announcing a $20 million advertising buy that was set to begin running Friday in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio before expanding statewide.
A Race Tighter Than Expected
Whether the spending is working depends on which poll you read. A Fox News poll released Thursday found Texas likely voters nearly evenly divided on which party should control the Senate, with 49 percent preferring a Democratic majority and 50 percent favoring Republicans. Eight percent of self-identified Republicans said they’d prefer Democrats in control, compared with 1 percent of Democrats crossing over the other way.
In the head-to-head matchup, Talarico held a slim 2-point edge over Paxton, 51 to 49 percent, among likely voters — within the poll’s margin of sampling error. Among the larger pool of registered voters, Talarico’s lead widened to 7 points, just outside the margin of error, and up from a 3-point edge in July.
The Fox poll was the first of its kind taken in the race, so no prior comparisons from the same poll are available.
Republicans Dig In
The spending in Texas is part of a broader Republican push to shore up Senate campaigns across seven states as the midterms approach. Senate Leadership Fund executive director Alex Latcham has framed the investment as a defensive necessity in a state Republicans have controlled at the Senate level for decades.
“Senate Leadership Fund’s investment through Texas PAC affirms our commitment to maintaining the Republican majority and defeating Far-Left liberals like James Talarico,” Latcham told Newsweek, adding that the party has been “united to elect Ken Paxton and keep Texas red in November.”
Texas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988, a streak Republicans are spending heavily to protect as Talarico mounts a competitive challenge against the state’s embattled attorney general.
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