Ted Cruz Steps In With $1.7 Million to Save the Texas Senate Seat

Breaking

A super PAC aligned with Sen. Ted Cruz is dropping $1.7 million into a new advertising campaign backing Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, running spots on broadcast TV, Fox News, and college football broadcasts in the Houston and Dallas markets. The ads target Democratic nominee James Talarico over his opposition to legislation banning Chinese nationals from purchasing Texas farmland, with one narrator warning bluntly that “Communist China is buying up Texas.”

The move comes as Paxton’s own campaign has been almost entirely absent from the airwaves, spending just $119,000 on ads since the general election began in late May — nearly all of it on digital. Talarico, by contrast, has spent more than $25 million in the same window, including $10.7 million on broadcast and $8.4 million on streaming, a roughly 200-to-1 advantage that has let him dominate Texas screens uncontested for months.

Details & Background

Paxton’s financial disadvantage traces back to an expensive Republican primary runoff that drained his campaign account even as he raised more money than any non-incumbent GOP Senate candidate in the country this cycle, over $9 million. Talarico, who wrapped up his own primary in March, has had months longer to stockpile cash and build a spending lead before the general election even began in earnest.

Other Republican outside groups have tried to fill the gap, with limited success. The pro-Paxton super PAC Protecting America’s Future, funded by West Texas billionaire Tim Dunn, spent just $120,000 on early anti-Talarico ads focused on crime and China policy — a fraction of the $7.3 million Talarico spent over the same stretch. GOP strategist John Wittman put the stakes plainly: “Paxton needs to define Talarico, and he needs to do it soon.” Conservative radio host Dana Loesch was blunter still, telling donors “GOP donors need to get off their asses and make a decision.”

Reactions

Paxton himself has acknowledged the financial gap is becoming urgent. In a Fox News interview, he said plainly: “We need help now, because James Talarico’s been spending $3 or $4 million a week on TV.” Cook Political Report has already responded to the shifting money and polling picture by downgrading the race from safely Republican to genuinely competitive, a reclassification that has caught the attention of national GOP donors.

Veteran strategist Karl Rove has framed the race as a test of whether national Republicans will step in before it’s too late, noting that the outcome may ultimately hinge on whether President Trump taps his personal PAC’s roughly half-billion-dollar reserves to help close the gap. Cruz’s own super PAC’s $1.7 million buy is the most concrete answer yet to that question, though it remains far smaller than what Talarico has already spent.

Why This Matters to You

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Republicans have long treated the seat as safe territory that frees up money and attention for competitive races elsewhere. Cook Political Report’s downgrade, combined with a Democratic nominee who has been able to outspend his Republican opponent by 200-to-1 for months without serious pushback, suggests that assumption may no longer hold — and every dollar Republicans now have to spend defending Texas is a dollar not spent on offense in states Democrats currently hold.

Senator Cruz has faced similar summer spending gaps before, in both his 2018 and 2024 races, and won both times after outside Republican money arrived later in the campaign. Whether that pattern repeats in a race featuring a different candidate, a bigger financial deficit, and a shorter runway before Election Day is now one of the more closely watched questions of the entire midterm cycle. For a state Republicans have long taken for granted, that alone is a wake-up call.