Elon Musk $158M Infusion in Paxton Bailout
Could Be PR Gold for Talarico with Backlash
Capitol Inside
October 16, 2026
The public relations value could be worth as much or more for Democrat James Talarico than Elon Musk's $158 million investment in Ken Paxton's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat that Republicans have decided they can't win without buying it.
With 17 days to go before the midterm election, Musk's belated emergence in a desperation Paxton rescue ride has given Talarico the perfect villain for a campaign that's promised to run billionaires out of government who the Democrat says have corrupted it. Musk is no popular than President Donald Trump, who's been a drain on the Republicans by all accounts including Paxton's own admission. The DOGE initiative that Musk directed culminated in substantial federal layoffs amid projections of vast savings that it never could substantiate.
Prominent election tracker Nate Silver's publication the Silver Bulletin pins Musk's average approval rate at 37 percent compared to a disapproval mark of 53 percent. That put Musk more than 16 percentage points under water - which puts him in the same general league as President Donald Trump.
Paxton has to take the money because he has nothing else at this point on which to pin hopes for a victory on November 3. Paxton has been no match for Talarico in any phase of the competition - including but not limited to the fundraising arena. Talarico raised $63 million in the past three months - the largest haul by a Senate candidate in history in the third quarter before a general election.
While Talarico pushed his total take for the race beyond $133 million, Paxton rounded up $10 million in the same three-month span for a campaign that's raised $19 million - seven times less than the record-setting Democrat in the Senate race despite a head start of several months. But the state attorney general won't have to worry about running out of money with Musk throwing so much at the race.
Musk - a South African native who's been a Texas resident for six years - has pumped $25 million more into the Paxton bid than Talarico's total tally after breaking the record for fundraising by a Senate candidate in both the second and third quarters this year. But the Republicans here have discovered that their massive advantage in campaign cash hasn't been as worth as much for them in a election year that has the potential to produce a blue tsunami.
Musk funneled the money to Paxton through a maze of super PACs including the SLF, which is controlled by Senate leaders, and the committee Texas PAC that they'd created for the Texas race. The infusion had been incorrectly attributed to Senate leaders, who apparently decided to hold off on the Texas contest but agreed to pass Musk's money along to Paxton.
Musk, who moved to Texas during the covid pandemic in 2020 after relocating businesses like Tesla and Space X here, has been closely associated with Trump's tumultuous second term as the president's pick to lead the DOGE study that led to substantial layoffs at the federal level for the stated goal of saving money.
But Musk may be more concerned about Abbott's fate than he is with the outcome of the Texas Senate contest given the vast amount of money that is at stake with a slew of valuable government contracts that his companies have landed with the state since he started giving money to the Republicans who've had monopoly control of state government and the Legislature here for nearly two dozen years.
Abbott has had a massive fundraising advantage over Hinojosa - but that hasn't stopped the Democrat from pulling even with the third-term incumbent governor in some polls and leap-frogging him into the lead in several others in the past few weeks. Abbott spent $150 million over the course of a 21-month period that ended September 30. Abbott led Hinojosa by almost 4 points on average in the polls that have been taken on the governor's race since the primary runoff election in late May. But the governor was up on Hinojosa by just 2 points in the months of September and October. Abbott had an average lead of 0.7 points in four polls that have been taken on the governor's race this month. Talarico - in contrast was in front of Paxton by nearly 3 points on average in a half dozen polls on the Texas Senate contest in the first half of October.
Mike Hailey is the editor, publisher and founder of Capitol Inside. His column appears here on a fairly regular basis
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