Talarico Casts Texas Senate Race as David vs. Goliath as GOP and Musk Pour in $158M

Under bright lights at a packed Thursday night rally in San Marcos, a small city south of Austin, James Talarico reached for a biblical image. David, he told the crowd, may not have had Goliath's strength, but he had a slingshot. "You are my slingshot," the Democratic Senate candidate said. "We are going up against our own Goliaths."

He did not name Elon Musk or mention the money being spent against him. But the numbers were filed the same day. Federal campaign spending records showed Musk, the world's richest man, who last year headed President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund. That group in turn gave $158 million to Texas PAC, the largest contributor to Ken Paxton's campaign. Musk also put $10 million into Lone Star Liberty PAC, another group supporting Paxton. Outside spending by Republican leadership and Musk against Talarico now exceeds $158 million.

The David framing fits how Talarico has long talked about politics: not as left versus right, but as the ultrawealthy versus everyone else. He is a state representative and a seminarian, and he is trying to become the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas in more than 30 years. His own campaign has raised record sums in one of the country's most expensive and competitive Senate races, and it has outpaced Paxton's in fundraising, with donors eager to see Texas lose its solidly Republican label.

The race looks different than it did months ago. Talarico was first seen as the latest in a line of Democrats who raised hopes of flipping Texas, only to see them fade on Election Day. Now he is regarded as a real contender. Part of that is voter wariness of Paxton, who has faced corruption questions, including impeachment by his own party in the Texas legislature. He was later acquitted. Trump has made several trips to Texas to rally for Paxton, and Republicans appear to recognize both Talarico's pull with voters and Paxton's struggle to gain traction in what would normally be a relatively easy Republican race.

Talarico has tried to stay as nonpartisan as he can, traveling from the big metro areas that already lean Democratic, through border towns that swung from blue to red last election, to the Republican high plains and desert. He has distanced himself from former President Joe Biden's administration and from his own party. Bernie Sanders is coming to Texas this month, but will not share a stage with him.

His message centers on affordability, the costs that have climbed for years. Talarico argued at the rally, which was packed with younger voters, that billionaires and corrupt politicians rigged the system. It landed with Kaitlyn Johnson, a 29-year-old bartender. "They think that they can buy us, and that they can essentially be the kings of the country," she said. Johnson said he put words to a feeling she had held for a while. "I make decent money," she said, "but there's no way in hell that I'm going to be able to buy a house anytime soon."

The rally followed nine days earlier this month when Talarico was out of public view with the flu. His absence set off online conspiracy talk, including a false claim, spread by conservative social media influencers, that he was in a mental health treatment center in Ohio. The claim fell apart under scrutiny.

The stakes reach past Texas. Whoever wins will help decide which party controls the Senate during the last two years of Trump's term, whether that means smooth sailing for his agenda or a bog of investigations and opposition. The final weeks will test whether a record-setting small-donor-style surge can hold against the outside money.