Democrat James Talarico defeats Ken Paxton for Texas Senate seat
Democrat James Talarico won the Texas Senate race over Republican Ken Paxton, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in the state since 1988 despite more than $200 million in spending from Elon Musk supporting Paxton.
Democrat James Talarico has defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the race for the U.S. Senate in Texas, NBC News and Decision Desk HQ projected, ending a long Republican hold on the state's Senate seat. The 37-year-old becomes the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988, when Lloyd Bentsen won his last term, and the first Democrat to win any statewide office there since 1994.
The victory came despite heavy spending on the Republican side. According to a New York Times analysis cited by Fortune, Elon Musk spent more than $200 million to help elect Paxton. Most of that money flowed through the Senate GOP's main super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. Musk gave the group $75 million on Sept. 9 and $83 million on Sept. 23, and each time the group moved nearly the same amount into a new entity called Texas PAC the following day, the Texas Tribune reported. Musk's trust also gave $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, the main outside group backing Paxton.
Outside groups led by the Senate Leadership Fund had spent more than $217 million on advertising in the race by the end of September, and Trump's main super PAC added $10 million, its first major outlay of the midterms. Talarico relied mostly on his own campaign. By early September he had raised $72 million to Paxton's $16.8 million, and he finished the cycle as the most prolific fundraiser in the country. He made Musk's spending part of his message, saying on the campaign trail, « This Senate seat doesn't belong to Elon Musk. »
Paxton reached the general election by defeating Senator John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent, in the May runoff. He won by nearly 28 points after Trump endorsed him. Cornyn had warned that a Paxton nomination could cost Republicans $150 million to $200 million to hold the seat, the Texas Tribune reported. Paxton had been impeached by the Texas House on bribery and corruption allegations in 2023 and was acquitted by the state Senate. After losing the runoff, Cornyn called Paxton « lazy » and said he would help Republicans elsewhere instead of raising money for him.
Paxton never agreed to debate Talarico, making this the first Texas Senate race since 2000 without a debate between the major-party nominees. Talarico, a state legislator and Presbyterian seminarian, campaigned on affordability and corruption. He argued that Paxton had served wealthy donors while Texans struggled with the cost of groceries, housing and health care. The race also turned on masculinity and anti-transgender attacks, according to The 19th.
Texans voted early in record numbers, with early voting reaching 40.5 percent of registered voters, the highest midterm early-turnout rate on record in modern Texas. Talarico built his lead in the suburbs. In partial returns, he was winning Tarrant and Collin counties, which Trump carried by 5 and 11 points in 2024. Trump had won Texas by 13.7 points two years earlier.
The result came on the same night that another Republican whose path to the nomination ran through Trump lost a seat his party had held for decades. Democrat Annie Andrews defeated Senator Darline Graham in South Carolina, with double-digit swings in several counties helping her flip the seat.
Source: fortune.com
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