Politics
Talarico’s $64 million quarter dwarfs Paxton’s reported haul as Texas Senate race enters final stretch
Democrat James Talarico says he raised $64 million in the third quarter, a record for a Senate candidate in that period and far above Republican Ken Paxton’s reported $18 million. The fundraising comes as early voting is set to begin Monday in a closely watched race in a state where Democrats have not won a Senate election since 1988.
Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico says his campaign raised $64 million over three months, setting a record for a third-quarter fundraising haul by a Senate candidate. The campaign announced the figure Thursday, four days before early voting begins in Texas.
The haul brings Talarico’s total fundraising since announcing his candidacy last year to $134 million, according to his campaign. Republican opponent Ken Paxton said earlier this month that he raised $18 million during the same three-month period.
Talarico’s reported quarter tops the previous third-quarter record of $57 million, raised in 2020 by South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison, whose Senate bid was unsuccessful. Democrat Beto O’Rourke raised $38 million over the same period in 2018, then a record.
The scale of the fundraising is notable in Texas, where no Democrat has won a U.S. Senate election since 1988. Recent polls have shown Talarico with a narrow lead over Paxton, the state attorney general.
Paxton secured the Republican nomination after defeating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary. Republicans have spent heavily to support Paxton, while President Donald Trump has traveled to Texas three times in a month to campaign for him, according to the reported account of the race.
Talarico has centered his campaign on household costs and government accountability. At a CNN town hall Wednesday, he linked rising costs to political corruption, saying, “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.”
He also pushed back against false online claims about his recent absence from the campaign trail, saying he had been home with the flu. Talarico said conspiracy claims that he had dropped out, traveled to a mental health facility or died had attracted millions of views online.
Paxton announced Wednesday that he would begin a two-week bus tour near Fort Worth this weekend, ending at the Alamo on the eve of Election Day. Texas early voting starts Monday.