Trump super PAC opens midterm spending with $10 million ad blitz in Texas Senate race

President Trump's flagship super PAC has placed its first television and digital advertising order of the general election, committing $10 million to the Texas Senate race in a sign that Republicans view the once-safe seat as genuinely at risk of flipping to Democrats.

MAGA Inc., the outside spending group aligned with the president, disclosed the buy in a filing with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend, splitting the money evenly: $5 million in ads promoting Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and $5 million attacking Democratic nominee James Talarico, the 37-year-old state representative seeking the seat being vacated by Sen. John Cornyn. The spots, produced through the Alexandria, Virginia media firm Del Ray Media, began airing Saturday.

It is the first general-election expenditure by MAGA Inc. this cycle, as The Texas Tribune reported, and the clearest signal yet that the party's most closely watched Senate contest is no longer regarded as a formality.

The numbers

The ad buy arrives against a backdrop of polling that has narrowed sharply over the summer. An Emerson College Polling survey conducted with Nexstar Media found the race a dead heat, with Paxton at 47 percent and Talarico at 46 percent among likely Texas voters, well within the margin of error. An earlier survey reported by Houston Public Media showed Talarico with a slim edge. Both polls found a pronounced generational split: voters under 50 favor Talarico by roughly 15 points, while voters over 50 break for Paxton by a similar margin.

Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. MAGA Inc. has told allies it holds roughly $400 million on hand for the midterm cycle, meaning the Texas outlay represents a fraction of what the group could ultimately spend, but its timing — the first dollars out the door in a general election contest — was read by strategists in both parties as a statement about where Republicans see the greatest exposure.

How the race got competitive

Cornyn, a four-term incumbent, lost the Republican primary runoff earlier this year after Trump endorsed Paxton over him, ending Cornyn's Senate career and elevating a nominee whose path to the general election has been unusually turbulent. Paxton was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 on charges including bribery and abuse of office, then acquitted by the state Senate. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce in 2025, citing infidelity, and his tenure as attorney general has drawn additional scrutiny over a long-running securities fraud indictment that was resolved through a pretrial diversion agreement.

Talarico, a Presbyterian seminary student and three-term state representative from the Austin area, has built a campaign around denouncing what he calls "billionaire-backed" influence in politics and has drawn national attention through appearances on podcasts aimed at young, disengaged voters. His campaign committee, Talarico for Texas, reported strong grassroots fundraising in its FEC filings even as it has been vastly outmatched by the financial firepower now arrayed against it, including Paxton's own campaign committee and the outside groups backing him.

Who is affected

The contest is one of a small number of races that will decide whether Republicans retain their narrow Senate majority past January. A Talarico win would require Democrats to hold every other competitive seat and would reshape assumptions about Texas as reliably Republican terrain, a shift both parties' data operations have been tracking since suburban and Hispanic voting patterns began moving in the spring.

For Texas voters, the ad blitz means months of saturation advertising ahead of the state's Oct. 19 start to early voting. Broadcasters in the state's major media markets, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune has noted a single week of statewide advertising can run roughly $8 million, are bracing for a volume of spending that could rival past presidential contests in the state.

What people are saying

Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for MAGA Inc., framed the opening salvo as a contrast on taxes. "High Tax Talarico wants to take money out of Texans' pockets," Pfeiffer said in a statement announcing the buy, adding that the group intended to make sure "Texas knows about Talarico's radical policies" while highlighting Paxton's positions on tax relief for first-time homebuyers and families with children.

"Billionaire-backed dark money groups are lying about James Talarico because they're scared of the people-powered movement he's built," said JT Ennis, a spokesman for the Talarico campaign, responding to the ad buy.

Trump himself has been explicit about the money's origin and purpose, telling reporters the spending was coming from funds he personally controls rather than the Republican National Committee. He has also said he intends to campaign directly for Paxton despite acknowledging the attorney general's uneven public performances, telling one interviewer that "you might not love his television interviews, but he was the best attorney general." Republican operatives who have watched MAGA Inc. sit on its cash for months, even as GOP candidates in tighter races pressed for help, said the Texas buy was overdue. "Time will tell if he was wrong to wait this long," one operative said.

What happens next

MAGA Inc.'s spending in Texas is expected to be the first of several waves; Trump has indicated the group may reserve a portion of its war chest for 2028 rather than spend it all this cycle, leaving open how much more will flow into Texas specifically. Additional FEC disclosures in the coming weeks, filed as new expenditures are made, will show whether the $10 million buy is topped up or whether Republican money shifts to other battlegrounds.

Early voting begins Oct. 19 and Election Day is Nov. 3, giving both campaigns roughly seven weeks to define Talarico and Paxton before ballots are cast. Both sides are expected to file additional independent-expenditure reports with the commission as the buy expands, and additional public polling is likely before early voting begins that will show whether the advertising has moved a race both parties now agree is genuinely competitive.