Fear and hope in Texas: Paxton vs. Talarico in an expensive US Senate
showdown
[October 24, 2026]
By JESSE BEDAYN
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Winning Texas has been the Democratic Party's white
whale for years, the much-hyped attempts repeatedly ending in
disappointment.
Now, the U.S. Senate contest between Democrat James Talarico and
Republican Ken Paxton is another tantalizing opening, and as the long
race enters its final few days, the contest could well turn on its
unusual points of friction.
Can a campaign rooted in hope douse one of fear? Will Paxton’s embrace
of President Donald Trump propel or cost him? Can the world’s richest
man tip the scales? And is Talarico his party’s salvation or just
another expensive mirage?
The answers will have echoes beyond Texas and not just by helping decide
which party controls Congress in Trump’s final two years in office. A
Talarico victory in a Republican state could signal a redrawing of the
national political map. A win by Paxton would extinguish a dream by
Democrats that the state's shifting demographics would eventually
prevail after decades of Republican dominance.
“We’re going to shock the world when we take back Texas,” Talarico told
a crowd this week. Hours later, Paxton, at his own rally, told an
energized crowd: “If we lose Texas, we lose America.”
Paxton paints a dark picture
As Paxton describes it, this election is like a drop of water above the
Continental Divide — the line running down the spine of the Rocky
Mountains where, on one side, the drop flows to the Pacific Ocean and,
on the other, the Atlantic.
“They end up 3,000 miles apart. That’s what our elections are like now,”
he explained to a crowd near the U.S.-Mexico border. “It’s the America
our founders gave us versus something they wouldn’t recognize.”
But a Senate seat that seemed like a Republican lock when the year began
has instead become a referendum on Paxton's fraught background that
includes being impeached by his own party over corruption accusations
and a very public divorce. Still, he was able to win the coveted
endorsement of Trump and defeat the incumbent, Sen. John Cornyn, in a
primary.
Now, in the campaign's closing days, he is casting Talarico as an
extreme liberal out of step with the state.
A vote for Talarico “is a vote for every dangerous idea that Democrats
across the country are putting forward,” he said, which means violent
criminals will destroy the country and the U.S. Supreme Court will
become a radical liberal rubber-stamp.
Earlier that day, Talarico's rally had a different tenor, and without
one direct attack on the Republican Party in a race in which he will
need GOP voters to win.
“We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis,”
he told a revved-up crowd at the University of Houston. “But we can
change that in this election, in this state, in this race, if we come
together not as Democrats or Republicans but as Texans.”
That reminds him, he often says these days, of David locked in a battle
against Goliath, or, in this case, billionaire megadonors.
“(David) may not have had as many weapons, but he had faith, he had hope
and he had a slingshot,” said Talarico, a Presbyterian seminary student.
“You are my slingshot.”
His strategy? Stir every Texan's hopes despite the “D" beside his name.
Is Talarico the Democrat to win Texas?
Texas Democrats have had their hopes dashed before, notably when former
congressman Beto O'Rourke lost a race to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in
2018 by less than 3 percentage points.
Talarico has generated at least as much enthusiasm, has amassed more
money and has a less formidable opponent in Paxton.
Supporters who lived through O'Rourke's and others' attempts often hold
contradictory feelings: a confidence that Talarico can win in such a
deeply conservative state and a nagging suspicion that he, like many
before him, will fall short.
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At left, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks in McKinney,
Texas, May 19, 2026, and at right, Texas state Rep. James Talarico,
after voting, in Austin, Texas, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero
and Eric Gay,File)
Paxton has tried to leverage cultural issues against Talarico,
emphasizing his support for transgender rights and previous
statements such as “God is nonbinary.”
But Talarico has proved to be a nimble counter puncher, hammering
Paxton about corruption and tying him to the struggling economy
while also trying to sidestep partisanship and proffering a positive
agenda.
In a state with a majority of Republican voters, Paxton is betting
on the partisan loyalties holding.
"It's simple math,” said Carmen Calderone, the Nueces County GOP
chair, in his warm-up speech at Paxton's rally. "We can win if we
turn out the vote."
Paxton's campaign slogan for his final bus tour sledgehammers that
point home: “Come and take it.”
Elon Musk and the most expensive Senate race
Total ad spending sits just under $340 million since each candidate
locked up his nomination, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
While Talarico's campaign outpaced Paxton's, big donors, including
the world’s richest man, have come to the Republican's aid via super
PACs. Musk has headquartered his companies Tesla and SpaceX — as
well as himself — in Texas, and he has staked millions of dollars to
defend its Republican monopoly in Congress. Trump, too, has flown to
Texas several times and praised Paxton's work as attorney general,
if not his appearance and attire.
To Talarico, it's a trifecta of Goliaths — “the richest man in the
world, the most powerful man in the world, the most corrupt
politician in Texas” — and plays into his own campaign message.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University
of Houston, said Talarico's more forward-looking message can meet an
electorate weary of partisan politics as “high-stakes drama,” while
Paxton's message of doom if Talarico wins may struggle with voters
dissatisfied with the economic status quo in a state — and a nation
— led by Republicans.
“The fact that people are shocked into reassessing their own
partisan beliefs is because of a sour economy," he said.
Paxton, who has never wavered in his public fealty to Trump, is now
hoping that Texas will be a place where the president's presence, in
person and on camera, will help deliver a victory. While Trump's
poor approval ratings might dampen that advantage, Paxton just needs
to motivate enough Republicans to turn out.
His challenge is that there is ample evidence that Talarico has won
over independents and even several better-known Republicans. Neil
Bush, the brother of Republican President George W. Bush, endorsed
the Democrat this week, along with a few others from an older guard
of the Republican Party.
While Trump's influence on the race is less clear, Musk's isn't.
He's contributed a total of $158 million to the Senate Leadership
Fund. The fund gave $158 million to Texas PAC, the largest
contributor to Paxton’s campaign. Musk also gave $10 million to the
Paxton-supporting Lone Star Liberty PAC.
Paxton, now with an advantage in total spending, doesn't talk about
Musk. But it's played into the hands of Talarico's corruption spiel.
“Ken Paxton is funded by one dude," he told supporters at the rally.
“He wants his very own personal United States senator.”
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