Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
Things are undoubtedly rough for Republicans as they face the prospect of deep losses in the U.S. Senate. The map is shocking given that the Democratic Party’s path to the majority runs through states like Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio—deep red states that shouldn’t, under any normal circumstances, be competitive.
It’s particularly crazy since even redder states like Nebraska and South Carolina are also in play come Election Day.
But there is one state that looms largest among all the Senate battlegrounds: Texas. And the amount of money Republicans are sinking into this expensive state despite this massively expanded battleground map is remarkable.
“From the start of September through Election Day, Republican-aligned groups are planning to spend $166 million to boost the embattled Texas attorney general – more than they’re set to spend than on competitive Senate campaigns in Michigan, $83 million, and Maine, $61 million, combined,” reported CNN.
And that’s just part of the GOP’s Texas election bill, which CNN says “is expected to exceed $300 million.”
I have been skeptical and remain skeptical about the massive amounts spent on TV ads that no one watches, and no one is swayed by. President Donald Trump was dramatically outspent on the airwaves by both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024, for all the good it did them.
And while candidates in lower-ballot races can benefit from a boost to their name recognition, how much value is GOP Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton really getting from seeing his ad on Judge Judy 258 times in September alone, per CNN? That’s nearly 12 times per episode, assuming the show ran every weekday that month.
Paxton’s poll numbers certainly aren’t looking better as a result of the tens of millions spent saturating the airwaves, nor are Democratic nominee James Talarico’s as a result of his own massive spending. (And Democratic spending is far more efficient since our candidates don’t depend on billionaire-funded super PACs, which pay far higher ad rates.)
Those stubborn poll numbers led data maven Lakshya Jain, director of political data at The Argument and co-founder of the election forecasting site Split Ticket, to make a sensible point.
“If I was the GOP, I would just cut Texas and start focusing on Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Alaska, Michigan, and Minnesota,” he posted on X. “They’re demographically friendlier and Texas is as expensive as all of them combined, with no evident ROI on Paxton’s slim airtime edge.”
Pollster Adam Carlston responded, “This is analytically correct, but it’s also missing how important — from a psychological perspective — holding Texas is to Republicans, including many GOP donors.”
He concluded: “Texas is the heart of 21st Century conservatism, and even one statewide loss would be a symbolic disaster for them.”
And that’s really it.
That Texas Senate seat counts just as much as the Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, or Alaska one. There is no quantitative advantage to winning the Lone Star State over any other. And in fact, if the GOP manages to squeeze out the Texas victory but narrowly loses Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina, or others, it could very well end up materially worse off.
But there’s a very real chance Republicans would make that trade in a heartbeat—a deeper minority while holding that Texas Senate seat, rather than a narrower one without it.
Imagine Democrats on the verge of losing a California Senate seat. It’s that same energy—and it’s perhaps even worse.
There’s a sense that any Democratic victory in states like Kansas, Nebraska, or South Carolina could be a six-year rental, kind of like when Alabama Democrat Doug Jones won a 2017 Senate special election against a deeply flawed Republican opponent. Jones served three years and then Alabama voters snapped right back to conservative form.
Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. That’s more than three decades of total Republican control despite countless predictions that the state was on the verge of turning purple.
So electing Democrat Talarico wouldn’t just cost Republicans one Senate seat: It would breach the wall. It would prove that a Democrat can actually win statewide in modern Texas.
And that could have consequences that reach far beyond a single Senate term.
Texas’ demographics should give us a more competitive state than actual election results have delivered. Republicans have survived thanks to chronically weak turnout among younger and urban voters, while making enough gains with Latinos to offset Democratic growth in the state’s booming metropolitan areas.
If any of those dynamics change—and the Latino vote is certainly swinging hard against the GOP this cycle—the implications get much bigger than the Senate.
Texas would be different.
Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. That’s more than three decades of total Republican control despite countless predictions that the state was on the verge of turning purple.
So electing Democrat Talarico wouldn’t just cost Republicans one Senate seat: It would breach the wall. It would prove that a Democrat can actually win statewide in modern Texas.
And that could have consequences that reach far beyond a single Senate term.
Texas’ demographics should give us a more competitive state than actual election results have delivered. Republicans have survived thanks to chronically weak turnout among younger and urban voters, while making enough gains with Latinos to offset Democratic growth in the state’s booming metropolitan areas.
If any of those dynamics change—and the Latino vote is certainly swinging hard against the GOP this cycle—the implications get much bigger than the Senate.
Texas has 40 electoral votes. Alaska has three. Iowa and Kansas have six each.
Republicans can lose any of those smaller states and find another path to the White House. Losing Texas would blow a crater in their presidential map.
And Republicans don’t even have to actually lose Texas for that nightmare to begin. They just have to lose the luxury of assuming they’ll win it.
And we’re seeing the cost of that right now.
Republicans are on track to spend more than $300 million defending a single Senate seat in Texas while simultaneously fighting fires in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota. Every dollar they dump into Texas is a dollar they can’t spend protecting a Senate seat somewhere else.
Now imagine that becoming the norm.
A reliably Republican Texas allows the GOP to pour its presidential election coffers (with much of that money originating from Texas itself) into Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and wherever else the battleground happens to be. A genuinely competitive Texas forces Republicans to spend enormous sums defending 40 electoral votes that previously cost them virtually nothing to secure.
This year’s Senate race is a preview of what could be. Texas has become a funding black hole, sucking Republican money away from an extraordinarily broad Senate battlefield. Even if Paxton ultimately wins, Republicans will have paid an enormous opportunity cost just to preserve something they once could simply assume was theirs.
That’s why the Republican Party’s ultimate nightmare isn’t simply losing Texas this November.
It’s having to fight for Texas every November.
Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
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