Welcome to Washington: How Does One Say Pyrrhic Victory with a Texas Accent?

By the time voters go to the polls in less than a month, more than $11.5 billion will have been spent on the 2026 midterms — hundreds of millions of dollars more than were spent in the national general election just two years ago. Republicans have a large cash advantage, though there is one money hole that could imperil the entire map — the state of Texas. Welcome to Washington, where Democrats’ hopes of taking the Senate majority are higher than anyone could have imagined 18 months ago. The Senate Leadership Fund — the chief outside group aimed at electing Republican senators — has pulled out of North Carolina, all but ceding the state’s Senate seat to Democrats. Georgia’s Democratic senator is outraising his GOP opponent, with little national Republican spending being sent to back up their nominee. And now, Republicans are playing defense in states President Trump won by double digits less than two years ago. Texas turns out to be one of the places where Republicans are really betting big. The state attorney general, Ken Paxton, has struggled to raise money for his own campaign as he trails in the polls behind his opponent, James Talarico, a Democratic state representative. As of Monday, the Senate Leadership Fund, Mr. Trump’s MAGA Inc. committee, and other outside GOP groups are expected to spend more than $200 million to boost Mr. Paxton.In total, about 288 million spondulix is expected to be spent in the Texas Senate race, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. That $288 million represents more than 8 percent of the $3.4 billion that is projected to be spent across all 35 Senate races taking place this year. After the 2006 midterm elections, when Democrats flipped 31 House seats, five Senate seats, and six governors’ mansions, President George W. Bush famously said that his party had suffered a “thumping” thanks to narrow wins by Democrats in dozens of races across the country. That year, Democrats picked up 12 House seats by five points or less, and 11 seats by between five and ten points. Those 23 seats accounted for nearly three-quarters of Democratic net gains that year. The cost of saving Mr. Paxton will clearly be a steep one, even if he can reverse his fortunes and pull out a win. According to two gold-standard polls, Mr. Paxton faces significant headwinds, even after more than $100 million has been spent on his behalf. One poll from Fox News finds Mr. Talarico leading by two points among likely voters and by seven points among registered voters.Another survey from the New York Times and Siena College found Mr. Talarico leading by six points — 51 percent to Mr. Paxton’s 46 percent. An average of polling aggregates now shows Mr. Talarico with a three-point lead over Mr. Paxton. Most forecasters now have Mr. Talarico as the favorite in the Texas Senate race, despite the fact that Texas may be the most famous Republican stronghold in the Union. Senator John Cornyn, who lost the Republican primary to Mr. Paxton this year, was a far better fundraiser on the Dallas, Austin, and Houston donor circuits, and many of those donors have so far refused to open their checkbooks for Mr. Paxton.Mr. Cornyn has consistently said he would support the Republican ticket, though he has declined to say explicitly if Mr. Paxton will win his vote on election day. Mr. Cornyn previously told The New York Sun that he personally decided to not invite Mr. Paxton with other GOP Senate candidates to a Dallas fundraiser that had been headlined by Mr. Bush.The real problem for Republicans is the sheer cost of buying ad space in Texas. Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio consistently rank as some of the largest — and most expensive — media markets in the country for both television and radio, requiring tens of millions of dollars to save Mr. Paxton. Other Republican battleground Senate states that the GOP is hoping to hold — Kansas, Alaska, Ohio, and Maine — as well as Democratic-held targets like New Hampshire and Michigan are far less expensive in which to spend ad dollars than the Lone Star State. On top of that, outside groups upon which Mr. Paxton has had to rely have to pay more than individual candidates for ad space. That means strong fundraisers like Mr. Talarico are able to get more bang for their buck. If Mr. Paxton pulls out a win while Democrats net four Senate seats elsewhere by that narrow “thumping” margin, then it will have been for the GOP the most famous Pyrrhic victory in modern American politics.

Welcome to Washington: How Does One Say Pyrrhic Victory with a Texas Accent?

Welcome to Washington: How Does One Say Pyrrhic Victory with a Texas Accent?

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