Billionaire Elon Musk endorses Texas Attorney General Paxton — The Hill

Billionaire Elon Musk has officially endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Texas. In a post on the X platform, Musk urged state residents to vote for the Republican, saying that the fate of Texas and the United States is at stake.

As The Hill reports, Musk donated more than $150 million to Texas PAC, a political action committee that supports Paxton’s candidacy. Musk is the committee’s sole donor.

Advertising spending

Paxton is competing against Texas House member and Democrat James Talarico. The Hill calls these elections important for determining party control of the U.S. Senate.

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According to AdImpact, both parties spent more than $500 million on advertising in the Texas Senate race, with more than $350 million coming from Republicans. At the same time, outside political advertising receives less favorable television rates than advertising paid for directly by election campaigns. Therefore, Republican funds account for 74% of advertising spending but only 58% of actual television ad airings as of Monday.

Polling data

Talarico raised $64 million in the third quarter, the largest recorded amount raised by a U.S. Senate candidate during such a period. This sum significantly exceeds the funds raised by Paxton’s campaign.

According to the Decision Desk HQ polling average, Talarico was leading Paxton by 3.3 percentage points at the end of August. As of October 20, his lead was estimated at 2.2 points, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in Republican advertising spending.