Texas Democrats have found their newest shiny hero to shower with eye-watering piles of money right before the inevitable November heartbreak. State Representative James Talarico is pulling off what looks like a miracle on paper: he’s out-raised controversial Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by a ludicrous margin, raking in $72 million to Paxton’s weak $16.8 million. He’s even eking out leads in fresh statewide polls, leading Paxton among independents, voters without college degrees, and keeping 79% of Black voters in his column—despite a messy, racially fraught primary battle against Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett where 77% of Black voters openly admitted the Democratic Party takes them for granted anyway.
Meanwhile, Ken Paxton—fresh off surviving a brutal GOP primary where a pro-Cornyn super PAC dropped $25 million reminding everyone why they hate him—is running his campaign on pocket change and out-of-state checks from Florida. While Talarico is out here burning $4.4 million on ads where he walks out of grocery stores talking about inflation, Paxton is leaning hard on new Supreme Court rules that let national party bosses bail out his cash-strapped war chest. Over half of Talarico’s cash is coming from small-dollar donors, including hopeful folks in California and New York who apparently still believe Texas is turning blue this cycle.
Because if living in Texas has taught us anything, it’s that a Democrat raising unprecedented cash and leading early polls is just the official state prelude to a crushing election night loss. We’ve seen this exact movie before: Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred combined to set tens of millions of donor dollars on fire, only to watch Ted Cruz waltz right back into office while West Texas voters happily hit the straight-ticket Republican button without missing a beat.
Will Talarico actually break the state’s 30-year Democratic drought, or are we just watching the most expensive, highly polished political ritual sacrifice in Texas history?
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