Texas Senate Race Is Now the Costliest Non-Presidential Contest in U.S. History at $573 Million in Ad Spending
AdImpact puts the Paxton-Talarico air war at $573 million - $165.7 million of it in the primary alone - in a Texas midterm cycle projected to reach $1 billion overall.
The Texas Senate race is now the most expensive non-presidential contest in American electoral history. Political advertising spending and reservations in the race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico have reached $573 million, according to advertising intelligence firm AdImpact in figures reported Monday and read in full this cycle - $165.7 million spent in the primary and another $407.5 million in the general election.
Texas is only the second non-presidential race ever to cross $500 million in advertising, after Ohio's 2024 Senate contest at $542.7 million, and this cycle is the first in which two such races have cleared the mark at once: this year's Ohio Senate race stands at $514.3 million. The Texas figure is more than double the $202.2 million spent on the state's 2024 Senate general election between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred, and the broader Texas midterm campaign is projected to reach $1 billion, more than half of it aimed at this one Senate seat.
The late money ran heavily Republican. Democratic advertisers dominated the air until mid-August, spending $21.4 million to the Republicans' $2.5 million, but from the week of Aug. 25 through election week Republicans outspent Democrats by an average of $15.3 million a week - $29.2 million more in the week of Sept. 15 alone - and finished the general election $140.7 million ahead. The single biggest spender was a Senate Leadership Fund-aligned Texas PAC, which put $182.1 million behind advertisements supporting Paxton and attacking Talarico, making it the eighth-highest-spending advertiser in the entire election cycle. Outside groups delivered $251.7 million of support to Paxton against $30.6 million for Talarico; on the Democratic side, Lone Star Rising PAC spent $14 million and Texas Forever $7.8 million.
All of it buys a race that goes to the voters Tuesday still led by the candidate who was outspent. The final New York Times/Siena survey of 1,215 Texas voters, published this weekend and covered by this station, showed Talarico ahead of Paxton 50 percent to 43 percent, in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988.
