Paxton Camp Says AG Raised $9 Million
after Win in U.S. Senate Primary Runoff
Capitol Inside
July 8, 2026
Talarico $30 Million Haul
More than Three Times
Paxton Fundrasing Take
Democrat James Talarico revealed on Wednesday night that he'd raised $30 million in a three-month span for a U.S. Senate bid just hours after GOP foe Ken Paxton touted a second-quarter haul less than one-third the size as a reflection of a movement that's united Republicans for the fight.
Paxton's campaign announced midway through the afternoon that the state attorney general had rounded up more than $9 million between the start of April and the end of June with the vast majority coming after he defeated incumbent John Cornyn in a primary runoff election on May 26 with almost two-thirds of the vote. .
The Paxton camp said the AG raised more campaign cash during the period that any Republican Senate nominee who's not an incumbent. But Talarico knocked the steam out of the Paxton camp's gloating two hours later when he made his dramatically larger contribution total public in a social media post.
After setting a record for Senate fundraising in the first quarter of an election year with $27 million during the first three months, the Democratic state representative from Austin pushed his total take beyond the $70 million mark with a staggering $57 million in the first six months of 2026. Talarico's newest report will keep him on the record-consuming trajectory and widen his lead in the critical arena of money where the Democrat has to succeed to have a viable shot at winning.
More than 780,000 individual donors contributed to Talarico during the past three months - according to the Democrat on X. Talarico locked the nomination down in March when he beat Jasmine Crockett by 6 points in the Democratic primary election after running as the underdog until the race's later stages. After Paxton's campaign bragged about uniting Republicans for the Senate fight, Talarico took the partisan out of his statement on the money.
"We’re uniting Texans onto one team to take on this broken, corrupt political system," Talarico declared.
Republicans have spent huge sums trying to derail the Texas Democrat with attempts to define himsef as a radical socialist weirdo who hates meat, loves trans children and wants to groom them. But the wild portraits have failed to make a noticeable dent in the polling on the Texas race that's shown Paxton and Talarico running even in a state where Democrats haven't won statewide in 32 years.
And the new Talarico fundraising numbers give the distincts impression that the stereotype isn't having an adverse effect on fundraising that it appears to be fueling instead.
Talarico said that 97 percent of his donations in the three-month period were for $100 or less. Teachers continued to be the Democrat's most common contributors. farmers, ranchers, oil workers, nurses, firefighters and other Texans who are "looing to build a new kind of politics."
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to turn the tide on a stretch of bad publicity on Wednesday when his campaign announced that he'd raised a record sum of money in the past three months for a U.S. Senate bid that's been on hold while he vacationed in Europe this month.
Paxton's camp said in a statement that the Republican Senate nominee rounded up more than $9 million in the second quarter - with the lion's share coming after he eliminated longtime incumbent John Cornyn from the race in a primary runoff election in the final week of May.
The AG's Senate campaign said Paxton's fundraising during the three-month span represented the most lucrative fundraising haul in a single quarter by a Republican Senate candidate who's not already a member of the upper chamber in Washington D.C. The Democrats' nominee - James Talarico - has not yet revealed the amount that he generated in the same quarter.
"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," the campaign said in a post on social media midway through Wednesday afternoon. "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.
"But the job is far from finished," a campaign spokesperson added. "We will continue to raise the funds necessary to expose James Talarico's record, keep Texas strong, protest our elections. defend our freedoms, and keep Texas out of the radical left's grip."
Cornyn had a massive advantage over Paxton in the donor dollar chase for the primary and subsquent overtime election that the attorney general won with 64 percent of the vote. But Paxton more than offset the campaign cash disparity with President Donald Trump's endorsement a week before the runoff vote.
Paxton's team did not break out the amounts of money that came from individuals and political committees that had supported Cornyn in the first and second rounds. Cornyn had most if not all of the major business establishment forces here in his corner. Paxton knew he could expect substantial backing from them as the GOP nominee regardless of feelings they'd harbored about him in the past.
But Talarico has shattered records in the fundraising arena since his emergence as a candidate for the Senate last fall. The state representative from Austin raised more money in the first three months of 2026 than any Senate candidate in any state ever had in the opening quarter of an election year.
Talarico generated more than $40 million in his first seven months as a candidate - an total that will be expected to soar when he files his own second quarter report with the Federal Election Commission. The Texas race appears destined to break the overall record for a Senate race at the rate that it's gone up to now - especially with Paxton's fundraising picking up.
Paxton has been showered with unflattering attention this month after leaving the U.S. with a girlfriend for a trip that began in Iceland before shifting to London for the Fourth of July. Paxton has been skewered by Democrats for spending U.S. Independence Day with the British while Americans celebrated the nation's 250th birthday back home.
Paxton took another significant shot on Tuesday amid revelations that he'd voted in six elections while registered at a different address from the ones where he's resided during the past years since a separation from his wife - GOP State Senator Angela Paxton of McKinney. The attorney general, who's led a crusade against voter fraud, may have violated election law himself by failing to keep his residential address updated as required by state law. Paxton has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the accusations.
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