{"id":252269,"date":"2026-04-16T08:35:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252269\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:35:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:35:23","slug":"james-talarico-raises-record-breaking-27-million-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252269\/","title":{"rendered":"James Talarico raises record-breaking $27 million in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0State Rep. James Talarico<\/a> raised $27 million in the first three months of 2026 in his bid to flip Texas, according to his campaign.<\/p>\n

The Austin Democrat\u2019s haul is the largest-ever sum for a Senate candidate \u2014 in any state \u2014 in the first quarter of an election year. He outraised other Democrats this cycle who posted impressive hauls of their own in competitive Senate races where Democrats have better odds, including Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, and more than doubled the totals of former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and former Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola.<\/p>\n

Talarico significantly outpaced Texas\u2019 last two Democratic Senate candidates to win their primaries outright \u2014 both strong fundraisers. Colin Allred raised over $9.5 million in the first quarter of 2024, and Beto O\u2019Rourke brought in $6.7 million in 2018 \u2014 though both ultimately lost.<\/p>\n

The massive haul will bolster Democrats\u2019 hopes about making Talarico the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas in over three decades \u2014 an uphill battle in any cycle and an expensive proposition in a massive state with 20 media markets. <\/p>\n

\u201cWinning in Texas will require unprecedented resources,\u201d said Seth Krasne, Talarico\u2019s campaign manager. \u201cThis grassroots fundraising haul puts our movement in a strong position to spread our message in some of the most expensive media markets in the country. But we can\u2019t take our foot off of the gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico spent much of the first quarter in a tight primary against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, contributing to his massive haul. But his campaign says he raised over $10 million since the March 3 primary.<\/p>\n

The $27 million quarter brings Talarico\u2019s total fundraising for the race, since he got in last September, to over $40 million. Talarico\u2019s campaign said that over the course of the race, he has received donations from over 540,000 individual contributors, and from 246 of Texas\u2019 254 counties, according to his campaign. <\/p>\n

Talarico also continued his streak of outraising his potential Republican opponents, tripling Sen. John Cornyn\u2019s haul and beating Attorney General Ken Paxton by twelvefold. Cornyn, who is locked in a bitter runoff battle with Paxton, raised nearly $9 million in the first quarter across his fundraising apparatus, including $3.4 million in the weeks after the primary, his campaign announced. Paxton raised $2.2 million.<\/p>\n

Talarico began April with a war chest of about $9.9 million, bigger than Cornyn\u2019s $8.2 million and Paxton\u2019s $2.6 million. He spent over $24.4 million in the first quarter \u2014 more than either Republican \u2014 but can spend the second quarter focused on reloading rather than a pricey runoff.<\/p>\n

Lone Star Rising PAC, the main super PAC supporting Talarico, spent nearly all of the money it raised on his behalf throughout the first quarter. The group raised nearly $8.6 million, but had just $240,000 in cash on hand at the end of March.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 record for U.S. Senate fundraising is O\u2019Rourke\u2019s 2018 third quarter, when he posted a $38 million haul. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2135,27,29,28,2134,6588],"class_list":{"0":"post-252269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-james-talarico","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-news","12":"tag-u-s-senate","13":"tag-well-c-homepage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}