11NOV

Texas PAC hits $69.3m in Paxton race

2 min read

18:10UTC

Texas PAC's latest FEC notice puts its Senate spending at $69.32m: $36.75m for Ken Paxton and $32.57m against James Talarico.

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PoliticsAssessed

Key takeaway

TEXAS PAC has reported $69.32m in the Texas Senate race, nearly half of it attacking Talarico.

TEXAS PAC filed its latest spending notice with the FEC on 23 September, taking its reported independent expenditures in the Texas Senate race to $69.32m as of 21 September⁠¹. Of that, $36.75m supports Republican Ken Paxton and $32.57m opposes Democrat James Talarico. A committee must file such a notice within two days once its independent spending on a race passes a legal threshold.

The committee filed three such notices after this briefing first reported its spending alongside a sibling committee's⁠²⁠³. Lowdown summed every line item across all seven notices on record; the total matches the cumulative figure the committee itself reports on its latest filing, to the cent. Nearly half the money has gone on attacking Talarico rather than promoting Paxton.

Fox News reported that the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, launched TEXAS PAC⁠⁴, although the committee's own registration names no connected organisation. Its first periodic report naming donors falls due on 15 October.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

A group called TEXAS PAC has now told federal regulators it has spent $69.32m trying to influence the Texas Senate race, split between $36.75m helping Republican Ken Paxton and $32.57m opposing Democrat James Talarico. The group's donor names are not due to the FEC until 15 October, a later filing deadline than the spending notices it has already filed. That gap is legal under current campaign finance rules, which require groups to report how much they spend and on what before they have to say who funded them.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

TEXAS PAC's $69.32m figure is built from three successive 48-hour notices rather than a single filing, each disclosing only the specific expenditure that triggered it. The structure lets a group report large cumulative totals in instalments.

The group has not yet filed the annual or semi-annual report that would name its donors, a sequencing gap in FECA's disclosure calendar rather than a violation of it; that report is due 15 October.

What could happen next?

Risk
Texas voters will not see Texas PAC's donor list before the 15 October report deadline, meaning the group's full spending influence on the race will have accumulated before any accountability for its funding source arrives.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from United States

United States

Primary parallel: Ken Paxton's 63.8%-36% defeat of incumbent John Cornyn in the 26 May Republican Senate runoff came despite pro-Cornyn forces outspending him roughly nine-to-one, showing large disclosed spending gaps have not been decisive in this race before; TEXAS PAC's undisclosed $69.32m tests whether an opaque late-cycle sum can succeed where a large disclosed one did not.

Counter-parallel: The Senate Leadership Fund, by contrast, discloses its donors and had confirmed $84.1m in 2026-cycle independent-expenditure spending as of 13 September, showing that large-scale outside spending in this same race is not structurally required to withhold donor identity, only that TEXAS PAC has chosen to.

Consensus view: One argument holds that the 48-hour notice regime lets a group like TEXAS PAC report $69.32m in spending while disclosing zero donors, treating the gap between spending transparency and donor transparency as the central failure of current disclosure law.

Counter-view: A defence of the same structure holds it consistent with SpeechNow.org v. FEC, arguing that donor privacy for independent spenders is protected political association and that spending-level disclosure, which TEXAS PAC is meeting, is the disclosure the law actually requires.

Key tension: Whether a filing that meets the letter of the law while leaving Texas Senate voters unable to see who is behind $69.32m of persuasion spending before November reflects a functioning disclosure regime or a loophole in it.

Sources:Federal Election Commission·Federal Election Commission·The Hill

Mentions:Ken Paxton →James Talarico →Senate Leadership Fund →Texas →John Thune →John Cornyn →TEXAS PAC →Fox News Channel →SpeechNow.org v. FEC →

First Reported In

Update #18 · Republicans spend first, Democrats hold cash

Federal Election Commission· 24 Sept 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

$85m of Texas ads, no donor named

The two PACs' undisclosed $85m in Texas Senate ads on 15 September is the base Texas PAC's total has now grown from.

Occurred 15 Sept 2026

Read story →

This Event

Texas PAC hits $69.3m in Paxton race

A single outside committee, whose donors stay unnamed until mid-October, has put $69.32m into the Texas Senate race since registering in late August.

Led to

Texas PAC's Senate spending hits $131.5m

Texas PAC's race total rose from $69.32m as of 21 September to $131.5m.

Occurred 30 Sept 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

University of Florida Election Lab

The lab, run by Michael McDonald, estimates about 124.3 million ballots, a raw midterm record, and turnout of about 49.4% of eligible voters, second to 2018's 50.05%. The raw record reflects population growth more than a record rate, so the late count is working through a near-2018 electorate.

Thune's critics on the right, including Senator Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson backed the failed 31-15 motion to delay Thune's re-election, after activists such as Mike Cernovich blamed the leader for the defeat. Their complaint is that Republicans could have passed the SAVE Act; in January it meets a Democratic Senate instead.

Senator John Thune

Thune was re-elected Senate Republican leader by acclamation on 10 November after a motion to delay failed 31-15. He kept the filibuster that stopped the SAVE Act, the choice his critics on the right blame for the defeat.

House Republicans under Jim Jordan

House Republicans elected Jordan minority leader by 106 votes to 73 over Steve Scalise on 10 November, after Speaker Mike Johnson declined to run. They replaced the leadership that lost the majority, while Senate Republicans kept theirs.

Donald Trump

Trump asked on Truth Social on 9 November whether anybody believed the election "was honest" and blamed the machines, having told The New York Times on polling night he would accept the results. No Republican campaign had sued over a 2026 result by 10 November, so the claim has no case behind it.

Judge David O. Carter

Carter closed the Justice Department's suit over about 20,000 California mail ballots on 10 November after the department withdrew it, writing that the suit "attempted to disrupt an ongoing election". The closure leaves the department with no court order touching a 2026 California ballot.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.