SLF Making Prophesy on Texas Come True
with $32 Million Infusion for Ken Paxton Bid
Capitol Inside
September 11, 2026
A super PAC tied to U.S. Senate leaders revealed on Friday that it's pouring $32 million into Ken Paxton's bid for a seat in Texas after warning for months that the GOP would have to spend a fortune to try to stop Democrat James Talarico from flipping it if the incumbent John Cornyn was not the nominee for the Republicans this fall.
The Senate Leadership Fund committee's largess represents the second wave of major reinforcements for the state attorney general in the money chase in the Texas race after President Donald Trump's MAGA Inc contributed $10 million to Paxton last week.
Paxton and other Republican candidates in swing races have been hoping for substantial infusions from the president's super PAC which had more than $400,000 in cash reserves on July 31. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who controls the SLF PAC, has pressed Trump to spend more on Paxton and other GOP nominees who've been trailing Democrats by various amounts in the races that will decide which party has the chamber's majority in 2027.
The leadership fund rallied behind the Texas AG on the morning after the curtain fell on the Republicans' midterm convention in Dallas where Paxton made a 10-minute pitch for his campaign on Wednesday night before Trump spoke for nearly two hours at the event in Texas. The reception that Paxton received at an American Airlines Center was loud when he emerged on the stage but less enthusiastic as his speech unfolded. But Trump explained to the audience that Paxton was not a good speaker when the president spoke to the event for nearly two hours later that evening.
The money that Paxton scored from the Senate Leadership Fund will help him shrink a massive gap in money for the Senate race in Texas where Talarico has had a massive advantage as a first-time statewide candidate who's been breaking records in the fundraising competition.
Talarico rounded up $68 million in his first 10 months as a Senate candidate before ending June with nearly $22 million in the bank compared to less than $2 million in cash on hand for the Republican AG. A super PAC backing Talarico had raised more by that point in time than a counterpart organization that's support Paxton in the Texas Senate contest. Talarico reported an unprecedented $30 million in a three-month span in the second quarter of 2026. The lion's share of Talarico's donations have come in tiny chunks from individuals in cities and towns across the U.S.
The SLF had given the impression that it would stay out of the Texas fight if Paxton eliminated Cornyn in a primary runoff election late in May. The Senate Leadership Fund's executive director, Alex Latcham, said in an interview that the New York Times published in February that a general election campaign with Paxton as the nominee could be a costly disaster for the GOP if it materialized.
“We were the first to raise the alarm bells that this race was going to be a problem if Ken Paxton is the nominee,” Latcham said in the NYT piece. Latcham, who's close to Thune, said warned contributors to get behind Cornyn or face the prospects of shelling out as much $150 million in an attempt to keep pace with Talarico.
Talarico portrayed the GOP midterm convention as the Billionaires Ball - and he spent the days leading up to it as the leader of a food drive that delivered 20,000 pounds of groceries before the Dallas event that he said Republicans were paying $20,000 to attend.
more to come ...
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