The hotly contested Texas Senate race is setting spending records ahead of Tuesday’s primary

By JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

Candidates and political groups are pouring money into Texas’ hotly contested U.S. Senate race at a record pace, partly fueled by Democrat James Talarico’s fundraising and allies of Republican Sen. John Cornyn trying to save his long career.

Heading into Tuesday’s primary elections, the cost of advertising and reserved advertising time had topped $110 million, the most ever for a Senate primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. The heavy spending in Texas is a preview of the money that is expected to flood this year’s midterm elections across the U.S. with control of Congress at stake.

Talarico faces U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination and on Wednesday launched his final television ad before the primary. It attacks the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, describing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “secret police.”

Talarico reported raising more than $21 million through last week. Crockett has raised nearly $8.6 million, though the majority was transferred from her House campaign account after she entered the race in December, three months after Talarico.

Crockett has positioned herself as the bigger fighter, and the tone of Talarico’s last ad contrasts with appeals he’s made to disaffected Republicans by discussing his Christian faith.

“We can transform this broken political system,” Talarico said during a rally Tuesday in Tyler in northeastern Texas, an area President Donald Trump carried by a wide margin in 2024.

Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Texas since 1988, but Cornyn is facing the race of his career in the primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

The bulk of the spending in Texas, more than $75 million, has come from groups not tied to the candidates, according to AdImpact.

The vast majority of that is on the Republican side, with the spending by groups helping Cornyn’s bid for a fifth term approaching $57 million so far. The pro-Cornyn Texans for a Conservative Majority has dropped more than $22 million on anti-Hunt ads.

Cornyn’s official campaign committee has raised more than $11 million and two other groups bearing his name have spent another $10 million helping him.

Republicans expect Paxton to at least make a May 26 runoff, despite a low-key campaign until recently and years of legal problems.

Cornyn and the Senate’s GOP leaders worry that Republicans will have to spend tens of millions of additional dollars to keep the Texas seat if Paxton is the nominee.

“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”

Other Republicans disagree. Paxton was in Washington on Tuesday, attending President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address as the guest of Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls.

Paxton so far has raised about $6 million for his campaign, and Hunt, about $2 million, though he had about $3 million in his House campaign account when he entered the Senate race in October, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

But the Republican candidates’ collective campaign fundraising of $19 million doesn’t match what Talarico’s campaign has raised on its own, suggesting that outside groups will be crucial to helping the GOP retain the seat.

Talarico got a financial boost this month when his campaign said it raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after late-night host Stephen Colbert pulled an interview with him for his nightly Feb. 16 broadcast, citing the demands of CBS lawyers. Contributions of less than $1,000 at that point don’t have to be reported until after the primary.

Crockett recently told supporters during a campaign stop that when she ran for the Texas House in 2020 — two years before winning her Dallas-area seat in Congress — she was outspent 5-to-1.

“People said, ‘There’s no way she’s going to win,’” Crockett said, tearing up. “I show up, authentically me. That makes some people cringe, but the people are tired of politics as usual.”

Associated Press journalist Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.