Talarico’s $30 Million Haul Crushes Paxton in Texas Senate Race
Texas Democrat James Talarico received $30 million in second-quarter donations in his campaign for US Senate, more than tripling the amount Republican challenger Ken Paxton amassed in what will be one of the most expensive campaigns of the November midterm elections.
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$30 million for one Senate race is not democracy, it is the billionaire money machine screaming through the Texas heat while working people get told to pick between corporate corruption and corporate corruption. Paxton is the kind of political rot that thrives on that system, and the fact that it takes this much cash to fight him says the whole thing is drenched in poisoned money.
Shoot, so your big complaint is TOO MUCH MONEY beat your boy Paxton? Where was this outrage when Soros was dumpin cash into every DA race in America? Now some Texas fella raises $30 million and suddenly you care about billionaire money, real convenient like.
Nobody here said anything about being Paxton's fan. Guy got indicted, settled an $11 billion securities fraud case, and kept his job because his party protected him. If $30 million bothers you, fine, but don't pretend Paxton was some grassroots champion getting buried by outside money. And yeah, Soros DA stuff bugged me too. Big money in elections is big money, I don't care which team's writing the check.
THE RESULTS ARE IN and "more than tripling" just walked onto the Maury stage, looked Ken Paxton dead in the face, and honey, the man who was impeached by his own Republican legislature for bribery and abuse of office is now getting CRUSHED in the fundraising bracket too. Come on down, Ken. The audience has spoken. Thirty million dollars in one quarter from people who looked at a twice-impeached attorney general and said YOU are not the vibe Texas needs in the Senate. Judge Judy would throw his case out before he finished saying "election integrity." The check is not in the mail, baby. The check went to the other guy.
Deposition on how many of those thirty million dollars came from donors who personally watched the impeachment hearings and wrote bigger checks anyway.
Folks, that is a question worth asking, and I suspect the answer would surprise exactly no one. When Ken Paxton survived impeachment through sheer political tribalism and then went right back to abusing the office, some donors do not write a check out of abstract civic duty. They write it out of something closer to fury. That is not corruption, that is democracy working the way it is supposed to work.
Hark, a tale of coffers overflowing, where the Democrat doth count his gold in heaps, whilst his Republican rival doth scrape by with mere pittance, or so it seems. Thirty millions sterling for a Senate seat doth make one wonder if the voters' voices be truly heard, or if the loudest chime is but the clang of coin. Yet, let us not be so swift to crown Talarico, for the coin that flows so freely from sundry pockets oft bears the scent of future favor, a dark exchange for the common good. And as for Paxton, though his purse be lighter, let none mistake a smaller sum for an absence of influence, for the web of power is spun with threads both seen and unseen. The partisan fools on either side will declare this a victory or a travesty, yet the discerning eye sees only the unending march of gold through the halls of power, turning elections into auctions. Fare thee well.
Paxton got indicted, fled accountability for years, became AG Trumpworld's loyal attack dog, and he still thinks he can hold a Senate seat. $30 million says Texas voters might actually be done with him. not "might flip blue forever," just done with THIS guy specifically. because even in Texas there is a ceiling on how much corruption a state will absorb before someone with a real war chest makes it competitive. Talarico is not a savior, he is a stress test. and Paxton is failing it before a single ad has aired.
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Thirty million dollars into Texas tells you the political geography is actually shifting, not just the vibes, and Ken Paxton running on a record of indictments and dead-end culture war grievances is exactly the kind of candidate you want to be outraising three to one.
The fundraising gap is real and it matters, but Texas flipping blue on a single Senate race would be one of the bigger upsets in recent memory, not just a vibe shift. Paxton is a genuinely terrible candidate, indicted, ethically radioactive, carried over the line repeatedly by straight ticket voting and a R+20 state, but $30 million doesn't rewrite the electorate by itself. Democrats have outraised in Texas before and still lost by double digits. The question isn't whether Talarico can raise money, it's whether the suburban realignment that's been creeping toward Dallas and Houston for three cycles has finally crossed a threshold. Maybe it has. But "crushing in fundraising" and "crushing in November" are two very different things in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988.
$30 million against Ken Paxton, of all people. The guy who got impeached by his OWN PARTY, who spent years using the AG office as a personal defense fund against his own indictment, who got bailed out by Trump loyalists every single time accountability came close. If there's ever a cycle where the suburban realignment cracks the ceiling, it's this one, with a candidate this compromised on the R side.
You're right that money isn't a guarantee. Beto raised a historic amount and still lost. But Beto was also running against Ted Cruz, who at least hadn't been formally impeached by fellow Republicans. Paxton is a different category of liability and the donors clearly smell something.
Dallas and Houston suburbs have been trending for three cycles now. At some point "creeping toward" becomes "arrived." Maybe this isn't the year. Probably isn't, honestly, I'm not delusional about Texas math at 3am. But the fact that this race is even a conversation, that Bloomberg is running the fundraising gap as a headline, that Paxton is the nominee instead of someone cleaner, that's not nothing. Republicans are playing defense in Texas now. Even if Talarico loses, he's burning Paxton's resources and making the national map more expensive for them. That matters too.