# Talarico wins Texas Senate race despite Musk’s $200m Republican spending

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/not-even-200-million-could-help-elon-musk-buy-texas/
- Published: 2026-11-04T15:33:59+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-04T15:53:21+00:00
- Original publisher: The Verge
- Original article: https://www.theverge.com/policy/1026329/elon-musk-paxton-talarico-texas-election-funding
- Topics: Elections, Government, Politics

## Key points

- Talarico beat Paxton by more than 12 points.
- Musk-backed spending in Texas exceeded $200 million.
- Democrats also won the state’s governor’s race.

## Summary

Democrat James Talarico won Texas’s Senate race by more than 12 points, despite Elon Musk spending over $200 million to support Republicans in the state. The result made Talarico Texas’s first Democratic senator since 1988 and showed that Musk’s substantial spending did not secure the outcome he wanted.

More than $573 million was spent on advertising by the candidates and aligned political action committees. Musk directed over $168 million to groups supporting Ken Paxton, while his America PAC spent another $34.7 million in Texas; Paxton raised $22.3 million in direct donations, compared with Talarico’s $146 million. Musk-funded attacks focused heavily on transgender issues, while Talarico presented the race as a contest between the wealthy and everyone else; Democrat Gina Hinojosa also defeated Republican governor Greg Abbott.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.