Donald Trump’s political operation has committed $10 million to boost Ken Paxton in the closely fought Texas Senate race, marking the first major deployment of the president’s midterm war chest.
MAGA Inc., Mr Trump’s super PAC, disclosed the spending in a Federal Election Commission filing on Saturday, September 5. Half of the money will fund attack adverts against Democratic candidate James Talarico, while the remainder will be used to promote Mr Paxton.
The television and digital advertisements are being produced and placed by Del Ray Media, a political communications company. The intervention comes as Republicans face an unexpectedly competitive contest in a state that has not elected a Democratic US senator for more than three decades.
Mr Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, secured the Republican nomination after defeating incumbent senator John Cornyn in a May runoff with the backing of Mr Trump. He now faces Mr Talarico, a 37-year-old state representative from the Austin area.
A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll conducted in August found Mr Talarico ahead on 42 per cent to Mr Paxton’s 39 per cent, with 14 per cent of voters undecided or expressing no preference. The survey of 1,200 registered voters had a margin of error of 2.83 percentage points.
The scale of the spending reflects the pressure on Mr Paxton, who has struggled to match his opponent’s fundraising. The Texas Tribune reported that Mr Talarico’s campaign had raised $72 million since the start of his bid, compared with $16.8 million for Mr Paxton, leaving the Democrat with $23.3 million in cash at the end of June.
MAGA Inc. had accumulated at least $400 million but had made little significant expenditure in the 2026 midterm contests before the Texas advertising buy. Mr Trump had previously said he intended to spend heavily on Republican candidates, claiming in August that he had raised about $850 million for political efforts.
The super PAC’s only earlier contribution this cycle of comparable note went to Senator Darline Graham’s campaign in South Carolina, where it gave approximately $827,000. Before that, its reported spending on a 2026 midterm race amounted to about $18,000.
Mr Trump has intensified his attacks on Mr Talarico in recent weeks, referring to him as “Tala-freako”. The Democrat responded by selling campaign T-shirts bearing the nickname, while continuing to present the race as a contest over affordability and the direction of Texas.
Mr Paxton remains popular among Republican voters, despite years of controversy and his 2023 acquittal in a state impeachment trial involving allegations including bribery and dereliction of duty. The latest spending by MAGA Inc. is intended to consolidate Republican support and prevent Mr Talarico from turning the contest into one of the cycle’s most significant Senate upsets.
