TDP Releases NRSC Ad Attacking Paxton
as Dem Breaks Senate Fundraising Record
Capitol Inside
October 15, 2026
As James Talarico revealed on Thursday that he'd broken the all-time record for fundraising for a U.S. Senate race in the past three months, the Texas Democratic Party recycled an attack ad that Republicans in Washington D.C. aired exactly one year ago in an attempt to derail Republican Ken Paxton's campaign.
Talarico knocked the wind out of Paxton's claim of new momentum when he announced that the record-crushing haul in a post on X on Thursday morning. The Democratic state representative's third-quarter haul pushed his total take to almost $134 million as a Senate candidate for the past 12 months.
"Our grassroots campaign raised $64 million in Q3 — the most of any Senate campaign in American history. All without taking a dime from corporate PACs," Talarico said. "Our people-powered movement is going to change this broken, corrupt political system."
Paxton, the state attorney general for nearly 12 years, has said that he raised $18 million in the same time period. That means that Talarico rounded up $3.50 for every dollar that Paxton's campaign in the three-month span. Despite his inability to compete with the Democrat in the donor dollar chase, Paxton expects to have more spent on him than Talarico thanks to the Senate Leadership Fund and President Donald Trump to a lesser degree. The SLF has pledged to pour somewhere in the vicinity of $200 million into Senate leaders' bid to save the Texas seat.
But some of the money that the National Republican Senatorial Committee dished out in its support for longtime incumbent John Cornyn could be helping Talarico at his GOP foe's expense now thanks to an advertisement attacking Paxton that the Texas Democratic Party "re-released" today.
“One year ago, the NRSC released an ad saying Ken Paxton was too dangerous for Texas," TDP communications director Ryan Martin said in an email this morning. "We agree. The NRSC deleted it hoping Texans would forget what Republicans have said about their own corrupt candidate; they don’t want voters to think for themselves. In the words of the NRSC: Texas deserves better than Ken Paxton.”
The 30-second spot portrayed the Lone State State as a place that's been overrun with crime on Paxton's watch as the state's top lawyer. The NRSC ad claims that Texas with Paxton as the AG had the highest homicide rate in nearly 30 years, a 40 percent jump in rapes, a 30 percent rise in aggravated assaults and car thefts that nearly doubled.
The NRSC commercial says that 250 human trafficking cases that were dismissed on Paxton's watch, that sex traffickers "walked free" and that 40 percent of the workers in the attorney general's anti-trafficking unit quit while the GOP's current Senate nominee was in charge.
The year-old NRSC advertisement ends with a shot of Paxton sticking fingers in both of his ears as the sound of gunfire, screaming police sirens and pandemonium in the streets crackles around him.
more to come ...
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