Trump’s first major midterm money move: A $10M Texas Senate ad blitz - AP News

MAGA, Inc. Is dropping $10 million on television and digital ads in the Texas Senate race, according to a Saturday Federal Election Commission filing, marking the political group's first significant spending in a premier general election contest this midterm cycle.

The money targets a race that not long ago looked like a sure Republican hold. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who won the GOP nomination with Trump's backing, now faces Democrat James Talarico, a 37-year-old state representative whose candidacy has made the seat genuinely competitive.

For folks in Lubbock, this race lands close to home. West Texas has long sent reliable Republican margins to statewide candidates, and a Senate seat flipping would reshape the political math that this part of the state has taken for granted for decades. An ad buy this size signals that national Republican money is treating this as a real fight, not a formality.

The sheer size of the early spend tells the story. MAGA, Inc. Does not drop eight figures into a race it considers safe, and Talarico's entry triggering this kind of response suggests internal polling is showing something that outside observers are only starting to catch up to.