A Republican political action committee spent $131 million over 17 days supporting Ken Paxton's Texas Senate bid, equivalent to roughly $7.7 million per day, according to official filings reviewed by Newsweek. The intervention comes as Paxton lags Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in many polls, with the November 3 midterm election approaching. Talarico, a former Presbyterian seminarian and middle school teacher, is seeking to become the first Democrat in decades to win a Texas Senate seat.
A victory would give his party a significant gain in its attempt to take control of the Senate. Texas has long been central to the Republican Senate majority, but Paxton's vulnerability has seen outside groups pour vast sums into the contest. The scale of the outside investment shows how urgently the party is treating the contest, which threatens both its hold on the seat and its wider Senate majority.
Polymarket traders currently price Talarico at a 63 percent probability of winning and Paxton at 38 percent, with more than $1.6 million traded on the market. On Kalshi, traders give Talarico a 62 percent chance of defeating Paxton, compared with a 42 percent chance of a Paxton victory. Those prices represent traders' expectations rather than voter preferences.
They can move rapidly in response to polling, campaign developments and individual transactions, so they should not be presented as an election forecast. This is a developing story. Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story.
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