Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign announced on Wednesday it had raked in $30 million in donations, more than triple the figure Republican rival Ken Paxton was able to fundraise in one of the country’s most closely watched races.
Talarico, a state representative, is challenging Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, in a bid to succeed outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) this November and flip the seat blue. If successful, Talarico would be the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas since 1988.
The progressive Democrat has made history with fundraising numbers throughout his campaign. This week, he announced another record in the second quarter, raising a staggering $30 million from April through June. That number compares with over $9 million Paxton raised in the second quarter of 2026, according to figures the Republican candidate’s campaign released on Wednesday.
“I’m honored to stand alongside more than 780,000 neighbors who are tired of being divided into teams — red versus blue, Left versus Right, rural versus urban,” Talarico said, noting that around 97% of his contributions were $100 or less. “We are uniting Texans onto one team to change this broken, corrupt political system and bring down costs for working families.”
While Talarico has far eclipsed his rival in fundraising, Paxton’s campaign is on the rise. The GOP Senate candidate raised more between April and June than he had in all prior quarters combined, which was around $7.7 million between April 2025 and this spring.
“These numbers reflect what we see on the campaign trail every day: Texans are energized to send a proven conservative fighter to the United States Senate,” Paxton’s campaign said. “Ken Paxton is building a movement to defend the Lone Star State by uniting every Republican across the country to defeat James Talarico, the most radical and well-funded Democrat running in Texas history.”
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With just three full months to go until the November election, polling paints a razor-thin race between Paxton and Talarico. In the past, Texas has handed Republicans decisive victories, with Cornyn winning his last reelection campaign in 2020 by over 8 points.
This cycle, Talarico’s rise has been fueled by record political spending. His campaign raised a historically massive figure in the first quarter of 2026, at $27 million. In May, in the first two hours following Paxton’s win against Cornyn in the primary run-off for the Republican nomination, Talarico hauled in $600,000, the strongest two hours of his entire campaign.
