{"id":335359,"date":"2026-06-13T22:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T22:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335359\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T22:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T22:08:14","slug":"will-trump-spend-his-350-million-war-chest-to-win-texas-republicans-are-worried-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335359\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Trump Spend His $350 Million War Chest To Win Texas? Republicans Are Worried."},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) – Republicans<\/a> want President Donald Trump<\/a> to put his money where his mouth is: behind his scandal-plagued ally, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n

Paxton ousted four-term Senator John Cornyn in a primary runoff last month on the heels of Trump\u2019s 11th-hour endorsement to become the Republican U.S. Senate<\/a> nominee in Texas. That prompted political forecasters to shift the race in a state Trump won by nearly 14 points in 2024 from likely Republican to lean Republican.<\/p>\n

Paxton now faces a rising star in the Democratic Party<\/a> and a fundraising juggernaut in state Representative James Talarico, whose campaign reported raising $40 million through March with $9.9 million on hand. Paxton, who has been indicted for felony fraud and was impeached by the Texas House, raised just $7.6 million through May 6 and reported having just $2.3 million in the bank. He has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\"HOUSTON,HOUSTON, TEXAS – JUNE 12: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Texas GOP convention in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday, June 12, 2026. (Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Houston Chronicle\/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be very helpful if the president would help the people he endorsed,\u201d Senator Cynthia Lummis, a retiring Republican from Wyoming, said when asked if Trump should put his financial might behind Paxton.<\/p>\n

Texas is an expensive state with 20 television media markets. The Republican establishment already burned through tens of millions of dollars boosting Cornyn, who was widely considered a safer bet for retaining the seat. Senate Republicans\u2019 campaign arm warned in an internal memo last August that a Paxton nomination would put Texas in play for Democrats<\/a> \u201cand cause Republicans to divert hundreds of millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent winning key battlegrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no doubt that Ken Paxton needs outside money to help him win this race,\u201d said one Texas political operative.<\/p>\n

Gregg Keller, a spokesman for the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC, said Republicans are coalescing behind Paxton as he builds momentum through Election Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thankful to the president for his endorsement and leadership and look forward to joining the Senate majority next year,\u201d Keller said in a statement. \u201cThere is no amount of money Talarico can spend to erase his radical and dangerous record.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TexasTexas Democratic Senate candidate Texas state Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, meets with attendees after speaking for the first time since winning the Democratic nomination in Austin, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo\/Eric Gay)<\/p>\n

Talarico has pulled in crowds in deeply Republican counties in Texas by openly talking about his Christian faith and policies to take on billionaires he says are bent on keeping the working class angry and divided to protect their interests. Republicans in turn have accused him of holding heretical views and attacked him on immigration and gender issues. A June 9 Texas Pulse poll shows a tied race.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaxton is now forcing the GOP to develop a completely new strategy for a state they never believed would be in play,\u201d said Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Democrats\u2019 super PAC.<\/p>\n

Republicans Defend Narrow Majority<\/p>\n

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. They\u2019re targeting two Democratic-held seats in states Trump won in 2024 – Georgia and Michigan – but are also defending seats in several states expected to be competitive this fall: North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Alaska and possibly Iowa and Texas.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s super PAC, MAGA Inc., is sitting on a $356 million war chest, but it has not yet committed any money to help Paxton. MAGA Inc. spent nearly $377 million to elect Trump in 2024 and $1.7 million this cycle to boost Republicans Matt Van Epps and Clay Fuller in special congressional elections in Tennessee and Georgia.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans\u2019 primary super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, intends to spend $342 million in battleground states this fall, but its strategy does not include Texas. Senate Leadership Fund declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe assumption is that he is\u201d going to invest in Paxton, a Senate Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said of Trump. \u201cI think he should. He put his foot on the scale for his candidate that won. So we are assuming that he will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final two years of Trump\u2019s presidency are at stake. If Republicans lost control of Congress, Democratic-led congressional committees could investigate the Trump administration, and a Democratic Senate majority would have more control over the president\u2019s nominees.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In interviews, Senate Republicans were reluctant to be seen telling the president how he should spend his war chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t begin to tell the president what he should do,\u201d Senator John Curtis of Utah said.<\/p>\n

Asked if the president\u2019s potential investment in Texas would be helpful to Senate Republicans, Curtis maintained it\u2019s up to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s his funding,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cThat\u2019s his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser at MAGA Inc., told Politico the super PAC is raising money to spend on campaigns but doesn\u2019t disclose when or where it will spend. He described Texas, however, as an open Republican seat \u201cthat we\u2019ll have to ensure that we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HOUSTON,HOUSTON, TEXAS – JUNE 12: Texas Governor Greg Abbott is shown at the Texas GOP convention in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday, June 12, 2026. (Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Houston Chronicle\/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Greg Abbott Steps In?<\/p>\n

Analysts say Paxton faces a significant fundraising challenge against Talarico, and some blame Trump for creating a race that didn\u2019t need to be this close.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational Republicans understand Paxton\u2019s vulnerabilities – at least that he\u2019s likely to run in a close race – and they want to be in a position to do what\u2019s required to pull him through,\u201d said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd lots of people are pointing the finger directly at Donald Trump because it was his endorsement that created that stampede to Paxton in the runoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another possibility is that Texas Governor Greg Abbott steps in. Abbott\u2019s political committee, Texans for Greg Abbott, reported nearly $96 million in cash on hand in February.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Leal, Texans for Greg Abbott\u2019s press secretary, said Abbott is supporting the entire Republican ticket, but declined to say if he would fund Paxton.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are united and focused on delivering a decisive victory, and we\u2019re confident Texans will once again reject the radical left\u2019s agenda,\u201d Leal said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) – Republicans want President Donald Trump to put his money where his mouth is:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[392,2135,1967,3311,3270,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-335359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-greg-abbott","tag-james-talarico","tag-ken-paxton","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-republican-party","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335359","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=335359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}