U.S. Senate

Texas
Statewide

Election day: November 3, 2026

Three candidates are on Texas's U.S. Senate ballot. Write-ins have a separate list.

Sabato's Crystal Ball: Toss-up

Ratings checked October 1, 2026

Updated October 12, 2026

At a glance

A quick look at the candidates

One stated goal, one checked action and the top committee funding for each candidate. Read the detailed guide for the rest.

What the funding line covers

Funding shows up to the two largest listed committee categories, without individual-donor conduit entries.

Record checked Oct 12, 2026. Money dates are shown separately.

Ken Paxton

Republican

One stated goal Carry President Trump's legislative programme in the Senate, naming tax cuts, border security and deportations, ending what he calls the weaponization of government, and draining the swamp.

One checked action Jan 5, 2015. Sworn in as attorney general on January 5, 2015, the 51st holder of the office; his office's biography records the human-trafficking unit as his first major initiative.

Campaign cash $1,755,294 on Jun 30, 2026, principal committee only.

Listed committee funding Leadership PACs: $70,000; Party committees: $62,000.

Through June 30, 2026. Cash above has its own date.

Funding scope

Itemized receipts from political committees in the 2025-2026 cycle filings through June 30, 2026, grouped by the FEC's recorded organization type or designation of the contributing committee. The rows sum to $219,500.00, equal to the FEC summary's other-committee contributions of $157,500.00 plus its party contributions of $62,000.00. Not in the table: $6,597.58 of itemized line-12 transfers from two joint fundraising committees, against $6,632.58 on the summary; $83,600.00 of itemized line-11AI receipts from partnerships and limited liability companies, which the filing records as individual contributions; $2,358.55 of itemized line-14 offsets to operating expenditures; and 456 memo entries totalling $3,242,577.43, almost all of them the campaign's own fundraising platform attributing donors above the itemization threshold. A memo entry restates money the report already counts elsewhere, so adding one would count it twice.

James Talarico

Democratic

One stated goal Make an anti-corruption package the first legislation he pursues, banning super PACs and corporate PACs, banning partisan gerrymandering, and banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

One checked action Jun 12, 2023. First-named author of HB 25 of the 88th Legislature, the wholesale prescription drug importation act, with 117 coauthors and Senator Kolkhorst as its Senate sponsor; it took effect September 1, 2023.

Campaign cash $21,548,155 on Jun 30, 2026, principal committee only.

Listed committee funding Leadership PACs: $147,000; Labor organization PACs: $83,000.

Through June 30, 2026. Cash above has its own date.

Funding scope

Itemized receipts from political committees in the 2025-2026 cycle filings through June 30, 2026, grouped by the FEC's recorded organization type or designation of the contributing committee. The rows sum to $348,408.24, equal to the FEC summary's other-committee contributions; the summary records no party contributions at all. There is no corporation-connected row and no trade-association row because the filing itemizes no contribution from a committee the FEC records under either type. The unclassified rows are where that check is weakest: six committees the FEC carries without an organization type, and sixteen state or local committees the filing lists without an FEC id. Not in the table: $2,594,220.00 of transfers from other authorized committees on the FEC summary, which are not itemized receipts from political committees, and four memo entries totalling $13,500.00 recording contributions earmarked through a conduit, which the report already counts elsewhere.

Ted Brown

Libertarian

One stated goal Repeal the federal income tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service without replacing either.

One checked action No official action is listed in this desk. The detailed guide explains the gap.

Campaign cash $1,151 on Jun 30, 2026, principal committee only.

Listed committee funding No committee funding breakdown is included here.

Through June 30, 2026. Cash above has its own date.

Funding scope

His committee has itemized no receipt from any political committee and none from any party committee. The FEC's own cycle summary for TED BROWN ELECTION COMMITTEE through June 30, 2026 records $0.00 under both headings, so there are no rows to group: of $7,459.52 in total receipts, $5,000.00 is a contribution from the candidate himself and $2,459.52 is from individuals, $1,150.00 of it itemized.

Who is running?

Printed ballot candidates

Ken PaxtonRepublican
James TalaricoDemocratic
Ted BrownLibertarian

Declared write-ins are certified separately by the election authority.

Source: Texas Secretary of State final ballot certification

Checked September 2, 2026

Read the detailed guide, goals, actions and campaign funding

Voter guide

The candidates, side by side

Goals come from each campaign's own platform. Record lines are official actions.

How this guide is built

Background comes from government or official office records, and from the campaign's own biography where the bullet says so. Goals are summarized from each campaign's own platform page and stay attributed to the campaign. The record lines are official votes, sponsorships, and filings with the government source attached. Money is shown as filed, by the type the FEC records for the contributing committee, and is not evidence of why any position was taken. Money rows are itemized receipts from political committees; transfers from joint fundraising committees and the conduit entries for earmarked individual contributions sit on their own rows; other memo entries, reimbursements, and receipts from organizations that are not political committees are excluded; each candidate's note gives the filings it covers, and some notes also compare the rows with the campaign's own FEC summary.

Ken Paxton

Background

Attorney General of Texas since January 5, 2015; his office's own biography records him as the state's 51st attorney general, elected on November 4, 2014 and re-elected in 2018 and 2022, leading more than 4,000 employees in 38 divisions.
Before that he sat in the Texas Legislature for twelve years: the Legislative Reference Library records him in House District 70 from January 14, 2003 to January 8, 2013, across the 78th to 82nd Legislatures, and in Senate District 8 from January 8, 2013 to January 13, 2015, in the 83rd, with McKinney in Collin County as his home city throughout.

What they say they want to do

Carry President Trump's legislative programme in the Senate, naming tax cuts, border security and deportations, ending what he calls the weaponization of government, and draining the swamp.
Take on pharmaceutical and food companies and widen transparency in food and health care.
Finish the border wall and deport people he describes as criminal illegal aliens.
Pass a regulatory framework for digital assets, naming the CLARITY Act.

What the official record shows

Jan 5, 2015 Sworn in as attorney general on January 5, 2015, the 51st holder of the office; his office's biography records the human-trafficking unit as his first major initiative.
Jan 13, 2015 Authored 280 bills and resolutions in the Texas Legislature across the 78th to 83rd Legislatures and their called sessions, of which 46 carry a last action recording that they took effect; he sponsored a further 37 as the other chamber's sponsor, 25 of which took effect.
Aug 26, 2026 The attorney general's numbered opinion series under his name runs KP-0001 to KP-0526, the most recent issued August 26, 2026. An attorney general opinion is a written interpretation of existing law and, in the office's own words, cannot create new provisions in the law and cannot resolve factual disputes.
Aug 26, 2026 Announced a settlement of over $1 billion with Meta Platforms on August 26, 2026, which his office records as the third settlement over $1 billion it has reached with a technology company, after $1.4 billion from Meta over facial-recognition data and $1.375 billion from Google. A settlement is official action by the office; it is not a vote.

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Leadership PACs 13 committees	$70,000
Party committees 1 committee	$62,000
Corporation-connected PACs 8 committees	$38,500
Membership organization PACs 4 committees	$20,000
Hybrid PACs 2 committees	$13,500
Other PACs (no organization type recorded) 1 committee	$5,000
Trade association PACs 1 committee	$5,000
Other candidates' committees 1 committee	$4,000
Committees listed without an FEC id in the filing 2 committees	$1,500

Source: Federal Election Commission

James Talarico

Background

Texas state representative since November 19, 2018, when he was sworn in after the special election of November 6, 2018 for the unexpired term of Larry Gonzales; the Legislative Reference Library records him in District 52 for the 85th to 87th Legislatures and in District 50, in Travis County, for the 88th and 89th.
His campaign describes him as an eighth-generation Texan, a former middle-school teacher on the west side of San Antonio and a Presbyterian seminarian; he sat on the House Public Education Committee in each of the four full terms the library records, and is vice chair of two subcommittees in the 89th.

What they say they want to do

Make an anti-corruption package the first legislation he pursues, banning super PACs and corporate PACs, banning partisan gerrymandering, and banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
Let every American buy into Medicare at any age, cap out-of-pocket drug costs and regulate pharmacy benefit managers.
Pass comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border and widens legal entry, and bar immigration agents from wearing masks or refusing to identify themselves.
Reject federal private-school voucher programmes and establish universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds.

What the official record shows

Jun 12, 2023 First-named author of HB 25 of the 88th Legislature, the wholesale prescription drug importation act, with 117 coauthors and Senator Kolkhorst as its Senate sponsor; it took effect September 1, 2023.
Jun 14, 2021 One of the two House sponsors of SB 827 of the 87th Legislature, authored by Senator Kolkhorst, which bars a health plan from charging an enrollee more than $25 per prescription for a 30-day supply of insulin; it took effect September 1, 2021.
May 29, 2023 First-named House sponsor of SB 1145 of the 88th Legislature, the local-option property-tax exemption for child-care facilities, and author of its identical House companion HB 3621; the act was to take effect January 1, 2024 if the voters approved SJR 64.
Sep 17, 2026 Across the 86th to 89th Legislatures and their called sessions Texas Legislature Online records 299 measures he authored or joint-authored, 29 of which took effect and 10 of those with him as the first-named author, and 17 he sponsored or joint-sponsored as the House sponsor of a Senate bill, 9 of which took effect and 5 of those with him named first. A further 169 measures list him as a coauthor.

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Leadership PACs 29 committees	$147,000
Labor organization PACs 19 committees	$83,000
Hybrid PACs 13 committees	$58,500
Other PACs (no organization type recorded) 6 committees	$25,308
Committees listed without an FEC id in the filing 16 committees	$17,350
Other candidates' committees 6 committees	$9,500
Membership organization PACs 3 committees	$7,750

Source: Federal Election Commission

Itemized receipts from political committees in the 2025-2026 cycle filings through June 30, 2026, grouped by the FEC's recorded organization type or designation of the contributing committee. The rows sum to $348,408.24, equal to the FEC summary's other-committee contributions; the summary records no party contributions at all. There is no corporation-connected row and no trade-association row because the filing itemizes no contribution from a committee the FEC records under either type. The unclassified rows are where that check is weakest: six committees the FEC carries without an organization type, and sixteen state or local committees the filing lists without an FEC id. Not in the table: $2,594,220.00 of transfers from other authorized committees on the FEC summary, which are not itemized receipts from political committees, and four memo entries totalling $13,500.00 recording contributions earmarked through a conduit, which the report already counts elsewhere.

Ted Brown

Background

His campaign biography records him as born in Steubenville, Ohio in 1960, a graduate of UCLA in political science in 1984, and a self-employed independent insurance adjuster until his retirement; he and his wife live in the Wells Branch neighbourhood of Austin.
His party service is long and his own site states it: he joined the Libertarian Party in 1979, chaired the Libertarian Party of California, sat on the Libertarian National Committee, and is now vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Travis County and candidate coordinator for the Libertarian Party of Texas. The FEC's candidate index records him as a Libertarian candidate for this same Senate seat in 2024.

What they say they want to do

Repeal the federal income tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service without replacing either.
Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and open an Ellis Island-style system in which people may enter at any international port after a criminal and health check.
Bring every deployed American soldier home, end foreign aid, and withdraw from NATO.
Abolish the federal Department of Education and replace vouchers with tuition tax credits.

What the official record shows

The Texas legislative and attorney general records checked list no service for Brown. A search of the Legislative Reference Library's member index, which covers every Texas legislator from the 1st Legislature to the present, returns 45 members whose surname begins Brown, and none of them is Theodore E. Brown Jr. The Office of the Attorney General's opinion index, which gives a numbered series to every attorney general since Gerald Mann in 1939, does not include him either; it does not reach further back than that, so it cannot show that nobody has held the office before then. What the official record does carry is his candidacy: the FEC's candidate index records him as a Libertarian candidate for this Senate seat in 2024 and again in 2026, and the Texas Secretary of State's final ballot certification places him on the November 3, 2026 ballot.

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Race outlook

How an approved rating source sees this race

Categories are ordered judgments, not win probabilities. A rating appears only when that publisher allows the use.

Sabato's Crystal BallToss-up
Sabato's Crystal Ball assessed this Sep 22, 2026; checked Oct 1, 2026.

Sabato's Crystal Ball allows this rating to be used with credit, so their name and date stay on the row. A Stated Record comparison is added only when two or more approved ratings are current. The rule is in Methodology.

What to know

The race in context

The reporting reviewed so far centers on polling. Poll sponsor, field dates, sample, methodology, and uncertainty still need a claim-level review before publication.

Latest record

Updates to this race desk.

CorrectionPublished Oct 12, 2026

Brown office-history wording narrowed

The Texas legislative and attorney general records checked list no service for Brown. The earlier wording said he had never held office; the search does not establish his entire office history. Its original dates and the opinion index's 1939 limit remain visible.

Named in this record: Ted Brown

Candidate records

The field, without the campaign gloss

Current public roles come from government sources. Campaign-finance IDs come from the FEC.

Republican

Ken Paxton

Attorney General of Texas since January 5, 2015; previously Texas House District 70 and Texas Senate District 8.

FEC candidate: S6TX00388
Principal committee: C00901918

Public profiles

X @KenPaxtonTX
Instagram: not foundHis campaign site's footer links Facebook, X and YouTube and no Instagram account. The Office of the Attorney General's newsroom does link an Instagram account, but it belongs to the agency rather than to him, so it is not carried here as his profile.

Democratic

James Talarico

Texas state representative for District 50; in the Texas House since November 19, 2018.

FEC candidate: S6TX00479
Principal committee: C00919084

Public profiles

Libertarian

Ted Brown

Libertarian candidate for this Senate seat in 2024 and again in 2026.

FEC candidate: S4TX00888
Principal committee: C00857623

Public profiles

X @TedBrownLiberty
Instagram: not foundHis campaign site links X and Facebook and no Instagram account; the whole site is one served page, and it carries no other social link.

Profile links show what is public now, not a complete archive. Each was confirmed through the campaign site unless a note says otherwise.

How social posts are used

Individual social posts enter the evidence record only with a post URL, date, context, and review note.

Issue comparison

What each campaign says

Each campaign's own positions, not promises The Stated Record has verified or endorsed.

Costs and the economy

Paxton's campaign would cut taxes and wasteful spending and remove rules it says target energy companies. Talarico's campaign backs a $15 minimum wage, a bigger Child Tax Credit and repealing tariffs. Brown's campaign would end the federal income tax and IRS and return tariff power to Congress. On the record, Talarico was first-named House sponsor of a 2023 Texas law allowing local property tax breaks for child care centers; it cuts no tax by itself.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page puts costs under fiscal restraint: he is described as a strong fiscal conservative who will cut taxes and stop wasteful spending against a national debt of over $36 trillion, and who will bring down costs and remove regulations he says were designed to hurt energy companies, while backing President Trump's economic agenda, manufacturing and jobs. The page carries no numbered proposal. His campaign's home page carries no issue text at all: the five cards under its "we are fighting for..." heading are unfilled template placeholders reading "issue title one goes here and here and here" over Lorem ipsum.

James Talarico

His campaign says the cost of living is the centre of his economic programme: raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand overtime eligibility, tax corporations that pay executives more than 250 times their median worker, end the tax breaks that let the largest corporations pay no federal income tax, expand the Child Tax Credit, pass paid family leave, protect Social Security by lifting the tax cap above $400,000, and repeal the tariffs he says are raising prices.

Ted Brown

His campaign's tax platform is the whole of his economic programme: repeal the federal income tax, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and, in his words, "replace them with nothing", which he puts at an average of $25,844 per federal income taxpayer; never vote to raise taxes; cut spending to match; and on trade, revoke the president's emergency tariff authorities and restore tariffs to Congress because tariffs are "taxes on consumers".

Health care

Paxton pledges action against food and drug companies and greater transparency. His office reports a Kellogg's cereal-dye agreement, supporting the food-company pledge; health effects were not checked. Talarico backs Medicare buy-in, drug-cost caps and reversing health-program cuts. Brown backs free-market care, medical savings accounts and replacing the FDA with private certification. Talarico was first author of Texas's Canada drug-import law and second of two House sponsors of its $25 insulin-cap law.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page carries one health section, headed "TAKE ON BIG FOOD AND BIG PHARMA". It says Americans deserve transparency, accountability and the freedom to make informed choices about their health, and that in the Senate he will work with President Trump to take on pharmaceutical and food companies and increase transparency in food and health-care systems. It names no bill and no programme. His office's related actions in 2026 are investigations and settlements rather than legislation, including settlements requiring cereal brands to remove synthetic dyes and an investigation of an insurer over denied claims.

James Talarico

His campaign says health care is a human right and would let every American buy into Medicare at any age as a not-for-profit option, cap out-of-pocket drug costs and regulate pharmacy benefit managers, reverse this year's cuts to the Affordable Care Act credits, Medicare and Medicaid, reform prior authorisation, codify Roe v. Wade and protect contraception and IVF, and keep medical debt out of credit scores.

Ted Brown

His campaign says health care is "a service, and like other goods and services, it should be provided by free-market competition", and blames the cost of care on federal intervention since the 1960s, naming Medicare and Medicaid, occupational licensing, regulation and the Food and Drug Administration. He would promote medical savings accounts, make health expenses tax-deductible, allow insurance to be bought across state lines, allow catastrophic-only policies, replace the FDA with private certification and allow drugs to be bought from other countries.

Immigration and the border

Paxton's campaign says he will help finish the border wall, deport criminals who are here illegally and secure the border. Talarico's campaign backs immigration reform, enforcement aimed at criminals and traffickers, and a path to citizenship for long-settled immigrants and DREAMers. Brown's campaign would abolish ICE and let people enter at any port after a criminal record and disease check, with work allowed from day one.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page makes the border its own section, headed "Sovereignty Matters. Borders Must Hold." He says he will help President Trump finish the border wall, deport people he describes as criminal illegal aliens, and secure the border, and the page grounds that in his record of suing the previous federal administration over its border policies.

James Talarico

His campaign uses one image for its position, that the border "should have a welcome mat out front and a lock on the door", and would pass comprehensive immigration reform, focus immigration enforcement on criminals and traffickers rather than settled residents, bar immigration agents from wearing masks or refusing to identify themselves, create a path to citizenship for long-settled immigrants and DREAMers, hire more immigration judges, and deploy detection technology at ports of entry.

Ted Brown

His campaign would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement outright, confine Customs and Border Protection to the border and ports of entry, end interior checkpoints and detention facilities, and open what he calls an Ellis Island-style system: free movement across borders, entry at any international port after a criminal-record and communicable-disease check, and work permitted from the first day. He says a border wall would no longer have a reason to exist.

Government accountability

Paxton's campaign pledges to end what it calls the weaponization of government. Talarico's campaign would ban super PACs, corporate PACs and stock trading by members of Congress. Brown's campaign would make Congress approve every executive order and end qualified immunity for police. On the record, Paxton's office says he secured over $1 billion from Meta; through June 2026, Talarico's Senate filings show no corporate PAC money, and Brown's show no political or party committee money.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page treats accountability as ending what it calls the weaponization of government and draining the swamp, alongside President Trump's legislative priorities, and separately as standing against Republicans it calls RINOs. It proposes no ethics, disclosure, term-limit or stock-trading measure. What his own account posts instead are actions of the office he heads: settlements, investigations and suits, including a settlement of over $1 billion with Meta in August 2026.

James Talarico

His campaign makes this the first thing he says he would legislate: an anti-corruption package banning super PACs and corporate PACs, banning partisan gerrymandering through independent commissions, passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, banning congressional stock trading, term limits of six House terms and two Senate terms, required annual town halls, an end to presidential pardons, and Supreme Court term limits with a binding code of conduct.

Ted Brown

His campaign's accountability material is about executive power and the courts: require congressional approval of every executive order and emergency declaration before it takes effect, sunset all emergency authorities, protect habeas corpus, abolish civil asset forfeiture, end mandatory minimum sentences, require judges to tell jurors they may judge the law, and end qualified immunity for police officers.

Energy and the environment

Paxton's campaign says he will help bring down costs and remove rules it says were designed to hurt energy companies. Talarico's campaign backs renewable energy tax credits, making big users like AI data centers pay for grid upgrades, and money to weatherproof the Texas grid. Brown's campaign lists no energy or environment position on the pages checked.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page puts energy inside its fiscal section: it says the previous administration declared war on American energy and that he will help bring down costs and remove regulations it describes as designed to hurt energy companies. The page carries no separate energy or environment section and names no measure.

James Talarico

His campaign carries a full energy and environment section: reinstate federal tax credits and loans for renewable development, streamline permitting without weakening environmental protection, expand the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, require large users such as AI data centres to pay for the grid upgrades they need, strengthen the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and dedicate federal money to weatherproofing the Texas grid.

Ted Brown

No position on energy or the environment appears anywhere this desk read. His campaign site serves its whole content in one page, and that page's twelve platform sections are digital privacy, taxes, immigration, foreign policy, free trade, emergency powers, gun rights, the war on drugs, justice reform, education, police reform and health care; none is about energy, electricity, the grid, climate or the environment. The words energy, grid and climate appear in none of them; environmental appears once, in the justice section, in a list of federal law whose enforcement he objects to rather than as a position on the environment. The page also carries a News Coverage index of dated outside articles about his campaign, which this desk did not search, and a Media section of interviews and a Quotes section of other people's words. His own posts were read too: the account his site links was collected in full from July 1, 2026 to the retrieval on September 14, 2026, 339 posts and replies, exhausted rather than stopped at a cap, and nothing in them states a position of his on energy or the environment.

Education

Paxton's campaign says he will protect parental rights and fight what it calls woke indoctrination in classrooms and men in girls' sports. Talarico's campaign backs pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, reading and math grants and more school meals, and opposes federal vouchers. Brown's campaign would abolish the federal Department of Education, offer tuition tax credits instead of vouchers, and back charter schools and home schooling.

What each campaign says

Ken Paxton

His campaign's issues page reaches education through its section on conservative principles, which says he will stand with President Trump to defend the unborn, protect gun rights and defeat what it calls the radical transgender movement putting men in girls' sports and woke indoctrination in classrooms, and through its section on the Democratic candidate, where it says he will protect parental rights. It proposes no schools, funding or curriculum measure.

James Talarico

His campaign's education section is the longest on his site: grants for evidence-based reading and mathematics instruction, expansion of teacher-training programmes, opposition to federal private-school voucher programmes, universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds with protection for Head Start, protection of federal special-education oversight, career and technical pathways from middle school, expansion of the school lunch and breakfast programmes, and guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in classrooms.

Ted Brown

His campaign would abolish the federal Department of Education, which it says educates nobody and only imposes regulation on local schools, and would replace vouchers with tuition tax credits for anyone paying a child's private-school fees, on the argument that vouchers would lead to government control of private schools. He supports charter schools and home schooling and calls for "the complete separation of school and state".

Words and record

Where statements meet official action

Each card sets one thing a candidate says beside their own official record, with one label from a fixed list and its limit. No card says why someone did something.

How the cards work

The number of cards varies with what each candidate's official record supports, and every card carries the same required parts: what they say, what the official record shows, one label from the fixed list, and its limit. Each card is labeled narrowly, by rule. A single vote, sponsorship, or filing can match one claim without proving a candidate's whole record.

Ken Paxton

Record in office: the settlements with Meta

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign account says he secured a settlement of $1 billion with Meta in the week before the post, and separately that he secured $1.4 billion from the same company in 2024 over personal data.

What the record shows · Aug 26, 2026

His office's August 2026 release says he secured over $1 billion from Meta and, earlier, $1.4 billion; the court filings were not read.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign account says he secured a settlement of $1 billion with Meta in the week before the post, and separately that he secured $1.4 billion from the same company in 2024 over personal data.

“Kids are being exposed to harmful content on social media every day. My mission has always been to protect children and put parents back in control. Last week, I secured a $1 billion settlement with Meta and I’ll keep delivering wins for Texas families as your U.S. Senator. Help me keep fighting for Texas families. Donate today:”

What the record shows · Aug 26, 2026

The office's own release of August 26, 2026 says it: "Attorney General Ken Paxton secured over $1 billion as part of a historic settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) to protect Texas children online." The same release records the earlier figure he cites and a third: it calls this "the third settlement worth over $1 billion that Attorney General Paxton has secured from Big Tech companies" and states that he previously secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta over facial-recognition data and a $1.375 billion settlement with Google. It also records what the settlement requires of the company beyond money, including age assurance, a daily two-hour limit for teenage users and notifications disabled by default during school hours. This is official action by the office he heads, and it is a settlement, not a vote, a sponsorship or a cosponsorship.

Limit: Both figures he gives are in his office's own release, and the release is the office's account of its own work rather than a court record: this desk did not read the settlement agreement, any court filing, or any docket. What kind of action this was matters for how it is read here. A settlement is an exercise of the attorney general's litigating authority, not a recorded vote or a sponsorship, so it cannot be set beside a roll call the way a legislator's record can. Whether Texas has received any of the money, and whether the safeguards have been put in place, are questions about administration that this card does not assess.

Ken Paxton

Health care: action against food companies

Matches stated direction

What they say

His campaign pledges action against food and drug companies and greater transparency in food and health care.

What the record shows · Aug 13, 2025

Paxton pledges action against food and drug companies. His office reports a Kellogg's cereal-dye agreement, supporting the food-company part of that pledge. Health effects were not checked.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign pledges action against food and drug companies and greater transparency in food and health care.

What the record shows · Aug 13, 2025

Paxton pledges action against food and drug companies. His office reports a Kellogg's cereal-dye agreement, supporting the food-company part of that pledge. Health effects were not checked.

Limit: The August 13, 2025 office release reports a signed Assurance of Voluntary Compliance requiring WK Kellogg Co. to remove artificial cereal colorings by the end of 2027. The signed agreement and any court docket were not read. This executive action supports the food-company part of the pledge; it does not establish pharmaceutical action, completed rollout or health effects, and is not a Senate vote or enacted law.

Ken Paxton

Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration

No assessment

What they say

His campaign's issues page and its biography page both give a number for the suits he brought against the Biden administration.

What the record shows · Sep 10, 2026

His office publishes no docket or count of its lawsuits, and this desk did not read federal court dockets, so the number has not been checked.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign's issues page and its biography page both give a number for the suits he brought against the Biden administration.

“Attorney General Paxton led the national legal charge against Biden’s radical agenda and sued the lawless Biden Administration over 100 times, including to put an end to disastrous open borders policies.”

What the record shows · Sep 10, 2026

The Office of the Attorney General publishes no docket and no ledger of the suits it has filed. Its newsroom is the only list it offers and it is a paginated index of press releases, ten to a page, which returned page one unchanged whether a search term or a larger page size was requested, so it cannot be filtered to suits against one administration and is not a count of filings in any case. The office's own biography carries two related numbers and neither is this one: it says he filed 27 lawsuits against the Obama administration during a two-year stretch, and that he has "obtained an injunction or other winning ruling in more than 75 percent of the cases he's brought against the federal government". The one countable ledger the office does publish is its opinion series, which counts written opinions and not suits. His own account of the litigation is on his campaign account in general terms: "When the Corrupt Biden Administration came for us, I took them to court and I won."

Why there is no assessment here

Suits by Texas against the federal government plainly exist, and the office's own biography, cited here, describes them, so there is nothing missing from the record in the way "not comparable" would mean. What is missing is a count. The office publishes no docket and no ledger of its filings, and its newsroom is a paginated press-release index that cannot be filtered to one administration and would not be a count of filings if it could. Every label on the methodology page would therefore say something untrue about why this claim is not judged, so this card carries none.

Limit: What would settle it is a docket: a list of cases filed by the State of Texas against federal defendants over a stated period, from the courts rather than from the office's press releases. This desk did not read federal court dockets, and it is recording that it did not, rather than counting press releases and calling the result a check. Nothing here says the claim is wrong, and nothing here says it is right.

Ken Paxton

Before the office: twelve years in the Texas Legislature

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign biography sums up his time in the Legislature in one sentence.

What the record shows · Jan 13, 2015

He served in the Texas House from 2003 to 2013 and the Senate from 2013 to 2015; the ranking as one of the most conservative lawmakers was not checked.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign biography sums up his time in the Legislature in one sentence.

“Before becoming Attorney General, Paxton served in the Texas House and Senate, where he was consistently ranked among the most conservative lawmakers.”

What the record shows · Jan 13, 2015

The service half is exact. The Legislative Reference Library records him in House District 70 from January 14, 2003 to January 8, 2013, in the 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st and 82nd Legislatures, and in Senate District 8 from January 8, 2013 to January 13, 2015, in the 83rd, where a footnote records that he drew a two-year term in the January 23, 2013 drawing. What he did there is countable too: the library's bill search records 280 bills and resolutions with him as author across those six legislatures and their called sessions, 46 of which carry a last action recording that they took effect, and a further 37 he carried as the other chamber's sponsor, 25 of which took effect. The ranking half is not in any official record. It is an assessment by organisations outside the Legislature, and no Texas legislative source scores a member.

Limit: The label attaches to the half a record can settle: he served in both chambers, for the districts and across the years the sentence implies, and the legislative record of that service is substantial. The other half, that he was consistently ranked among the most conservative lawmakers, is a third-party rating and this desk checked no rating publication, so it is neither confirmed nor doubted here. Counts of authored bills are as the library records them and include resolutions; a bill that took effect is not necessarily one he carried alone.

Ken Paxton

Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign biography says the political establishment has repeatedly tried to silence him and that he never yielded to it; his issues page puts the same claim as a politically motivated investigation of him and of President Trump.

What the record shows · Sep 16, 2023

The Republican-held House impeached him in 2023, suspending him for 108 days; the Republican-held Senate acquitted him on all 16 articles it tried. The motive behind it is not judged here.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

“He’s never bent a knee — not against the Biden administration, not against corporate overreach, and certainly not against the corrupt political establishment that’s tried to silence him time and time again.”

What the record shows · Sep 16, 2023

Both chambers acted on him in 2023 and both were Republican-held. On May 27, 2023 the Texas House adopted H.R. 2377, impeaching him and preferring 20 articles, by 121 yeas to 23 nays with 2 present and not voting (Record 2191); the Journal accounts for 149 members, 85 Republicans and 64 Democrats, and of the 121 yeas 60 were Republicans and 61 Democrats, while all 23 nays were Republicans. He was then out of the office: the attorney general's own opinion index records John Scott serving as provisional attorney general from May 31 to July 14, 2023 and Angela Colmenero from July 14 to September 16, 2023, in each case "Pursuant to article 15, section 5 of the Texas Constitution". The Senate tried 16 of the 20 articles and acquitted on every one on September 16, 2023. The presiding officer stated on the record that conviction on a single article would remove him and that the threshold was 21 votes; no article drew more than 14. The Senate then had 31 members, 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats, and 30 votes were recorded on each article; Senator Angela Paxton, the respondent's wife, is not among the members whose votes the record carries. On each of the twelve articles that drew 14 yeas those yeas were the chamber's 12 Democrats and 2 Republicans and all 16 nays were Republicans; Article IV drew 2 yeas to 28 nays, Article VIII 8 to 22, Article IX 12 to 18 and Article V 13 to 17. The four articles held in abeyance, XI to XIV, were dismissed 19 to 11 on Senator Birdwell's motion, and the judgment records that "A dismissal of these articles of impeachment does not constitute an acquittal of any charge contained in the articles of impeachment". The judgment reinstated him the same day and he holds the office now.

Limit: What the record bears out is the checkable part of the sentence: formal proceedings were brought against him, they kept him out of the office for the 108 days between May 31 and September 16, 2023, he contested them rather than resigning, and they ended in acquittal on every article tried. The record calls that a suspension, not a removal, and this desk uses the same word on both cards that touch it. What no record can settle is the rest of the sentence, whether the proceedings were corrupt or were an attempt to silence him. That is a claim about motive and this site does not assess motive, in either direction. Two things are stated here so the record is not read as an argument: the chamber that brought the articles and the chamber that acquitted were both Republican-held, and the party split of each vote is given above. The dismissal of the four remaining articles is carried in the words of the judgment because the judgment itself says a dismissal is not an acquittal. This desk read the trial rules only as the record of proceedings quotes them, and did not read the articles' underlying allegations or any evidence.

James Talarico

Health care: insulin costs and importing drugs from Canada

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign's health-care page says he passed two measures on drug costs in the Texas Legislature, one capping insulin copayments at $25 a month and one letting Texas import prescription drugs from Canada.

What the record shows · Jun 12, 2023

Both became law in Texas: he was first author of the drug import act and the second of two House sponsors of the Senate's $25 insulin cap bill.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

“So when I got elected, I passed bills that capped insulin copays at $25 a month and allowed Texas to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada at a fraction of what they cost in the U.S. due to price gouging by Big Pharma.”

What the record shows · Jun 12, 2023

Both measures are law and the figures are exact. HB 25 of the 88th Legislature, the wholesale prescription drug importation act, lists him as the first of five authors, with 117 coauthors and Senator Kolkhorst as its Senate sponsor; it took effect September 1, 2023, and Texas Legislature Online indexes it under CANADA. On insulin, SB 827 of the 87th Legislature took effect September 1, 2021, and its enrolled text bars a health plan from imposing a cost-sharing requirement where "the total amount the enrollee is required to pay exceeds $25 per prescription for a 30-day supply", which is the cap he describes. On that bill the Author field names Senator Kolkhorst and fourteen joint authors, and the House Sponsor field names two members, Lucio III and Talarico, in that order.

Limit: The word doing the work is "passed", and it holds differently on the two bills. On the importation act he is the first-named author of a House bill that became law. On the insulin cap he is the second of the two House sponsors of a Senate bill someone else authored; unlike the single-name Sponsor field on a federal bill, the Texas record can and does name more than one sponsor, so it is able to record a co-lead and here it records him second. Neither bill is his alone, and both carry large bipartisan coauthor lists. Whether the importation programme has begun operating, and what either law has done to prices, are questions this card does not assess.

James Talarico

Costs: property taxes on child-care centres

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His own account says he passed a bill cutting property taxes for child-care centres.

What the record shows · May 29, 2023

He was the first-named House sponsor of a 2023 act letting each county or city exempt child care centers. It cuts no tax by itself, and the voter approval it needed isn't confirmed here.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His own account says he passed a bill cutting property taxes for child-care centres.

“Childcare is now more expensive than college. In the Legislature, I passed a bill to cut property taxes for childcare centers, allowing small businesses like Green Space Nature Preschool to cut costs for working families. In the Senate, I’ll keep fighting for our tiny Texans. 🌱”

What the record shows · May 29, 2023

SB 1145 of the 88th Legislature created a local-option exemption from property taxation, by a county or a municipality, of all or part of the appraised value of real property used to operate a child-care facility. Senator West authored it; the House Sponsor field names five members and he is the first of them. Its identical House companion, HB 3621, is his own bill. Its last action, on May 29, 2023, reads "E See remarks for effective date", and the remarks record that the act takes effect January 1, 2024 but only if the voters approve SJR 64; whether they did is not established by any source this desk cites.

Limit: He is the first-named House sponsor of the act and the author of the identical House companion, which did not itself pass, so "I passed a bill" is borne out on the record's own fields. Two bounds. The exemption is local option: it cuts no tax by itself, and each county or city decides whether to adopt it, which this card does not check for any jurisdiction. And the act depended on a constitutional amendment, SJR 64, that needed the voters' approval; whether it reached the ballot or was approved is not established by any source this desk cites. The post carries no link and no video and nothing outside its text was read.

James Talarico

Government accountability: corporate PAC money

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign's corruption page makes a claim about his own funding and dates it to his first race.

What the record shows · Jun 30, 2026

His Senate campaign's filings through June 2026 show no money from committees the FEC classes as corporate or trade groups; his state races were not checked.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign's corruption page makes a claim about his own funding and dates it to his first race.

“That’s why I’ve never taken a dime of corporate PAC money”

What the record shows · Jun 30, 2026

His Senate committee's filings through June 30, 2026 itemize $348,408.24 of receipts from political committees, and not one of those committees is recorded by the FEC under the organization type Corporation or the type Trade Association. What the money is instead, on the FEC's own classification, is $147,000.00 from 29 leadership PACs, $83,000.00 from 19 labor-organization PACs, $58,500.00 from 13 hybrid PACs, $9,500.00 from 6 other candidates' committees, $7,750.00 from 3 membership-organization PACs, $25,308.24 from 6 committees the FEC carries without an organization type, and $17,350.00 from 16 committees the filing lists without an FEC id at all. The FEC summary records no party-committee contribution to the committee.

What the filings show

No itemized contribution from a corporation-connected or trade-association PAC, against $43,500.00 from nine such committees itemized by the Republican candidate's committee over the same cycle.

Amounts are what the filings record, grouped by the FEC's own committee types. They are not a measure of a candidate's independence, and no contribution here is placed beside any position as its cause.

Limit: On the FEC's own classification the filing bears the claim out for this committee and this cycle: no itemized contribution from a committee the FEC records as connected to a corporation. The check is only as fine as that classification, and two rows are where it is weakest. Six committees, holding $25,308.24, are carried by the FEC with no organization type, and sixteen, holding $17,350.00, are state or local committees the filing lists without an FEC id, so the FEC classifies them not at all. The claim is dated to his first Texas House race in 2017 and this check covers only his federal committee's 2025-2026 filings; his Texas state filings are a separate jurisdiction and were not read. Unitemized receipts are not in this check at all.

James Talarico

Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did

Matches stated record claim

What they say

His campaign's corruption page republishes his post of the day of the vote, which states what the vote was and what it did.

What the record shows · Sep 16, 2023

He voted for the bipartisan impeachment in May 2023; the vote suspended the attorney general rather than removing him, and the Senate later acquitted.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign's corruption page republishes his post of the day of the vote, which states what the vote was and what it did.

“This may be the most consequential vote I’ll cast as a member of the Texas Legislature. I—along with a bipartisan majority of my colleagues—just voted to impeach our corrupt Attorney General. Ken Paxton is hereby removed from office.”

What the record shows · Sep 16, 2023

The first two sentences are exact. The House adopted H.R. 2377 on May 27, 2023 by 121 yeas to 23 nays with 2 present and not voting (Record 2191), he is recorded among the yeas, and the majority was bipartisan on the record's own arithmetic: of the 121 yeas 61 were Democrats and 60 were Republicans, and all 23 nays were Republicans, in a chamber the Journal accounts for as 85 Republicans and 64 Democrats. The third sentence is not borne out. Impeachment by the House did not remove him; it suspended him pending trial, and the office's own record says so in the only words it uses for it: the attorney general's opinion index records John Scott as provisional attorney general from May 31 to July 14, 2023 and Angela Colmenero from July 14 to September 16, 2023, in each case "Pursuant to article 15, section 5 of the Texas Constitution", the provision the Senate's judgment also cites. Removal required conviction by the Senate. The presiding officer stated on the record that conviction on one article removes him and that 21 votes were needed; on September 16, 2023 the Senate acquitted on all 16 articles it tried, no article drawing more than 14 yeas, dismissed the four held in abeyance, and the judgment reinstated him. He has held the office since. That Senate was Republican-held too: 31 members, 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats, with Senator Angela Paxton not among the thirty whose votes the record carries, and on every article that drew 14 yeas those yeas were the chamber's 12 Democrats and 2 Republicans while all 16 nays were Republicans.

Limit: The claim he makes about his own record is borne out exactly: he voted to impeach, and the majority was bipartisan by the roll call's own count. One clause of the post, "Ken Paxton is hereby removed from office", is not a claim about his record at all but about the respondent's status, and it is worth setting beside what the record shows. The vote suspended rather than removed: the attorney general was out of the office for 108 days while two other people held it, and removal is the penalty a conviction imposes, which the Senate declined. He posted this on the day of the House vote, months before that acquittal. What the record shows the vote did is suspend, not remove. The check read the source the campaign itself cites, which is the post as the campaign republishes it today on its own issues page, the House Journal for that day, the Senate's record of proceedings and judgment, and the attorney general's own opinion index, which is where the office states who held it and under what authority. What the check cannot see is what he understood at the moment he posted, and the Senate had not yet voted; this desk takes no view on that, and the point of carrying the card is that the sentence is still published on the campaign's own site three years after the acquittal. The Texas Constitution's own text was read only as the official records quote it, because the state's statutes site would not serve the article to an automated reader. Both chambers here were Republican-held and both party splits are given above.

Ted Brown

Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate

Not comparable yet

What they say

His campaign site states what he says he would do with the seat.

What the record shows · Aug 28, 2026

The Texas legislative and attorney general records checked list no service for Brown. He is on the November 2026 ballot as the Libertarian candidate.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

His campaign site states what he says he would do with the seat.

“I am not running for U.S. Senator to be a "lawmaker." I am running to repeal as many laws as I can.”

What the record shows · Aug 28, 2026

No comparable action was found in the records checked. The Texas legislative and attorney general records checked list no service for Brown. A search of the Legislative Reference Library's member index returns 45 Texas legislators whose surname begins Brown and none of them is him, and the attorney general's opinion index, which reaches back to 1939, does not include him. What the official record does carry is the candidacy itself. The FEC's candidate index records him as a Libertarian candidate for this Senate seat in 2024 and again in 2026, and the Texas Secretary of State's final ballot certification of August 28, 2026 places him on the November 3, 2026 ballot as the Libertarian candidate.

Limit: No comparable action was found in the Texas legislative and attorney general records checked; the opinion index starts in 1939. This bounded search does not establish his entire office history or predict future votes.

Ted Brown

Government accountability: who is funding the campaign

Matches stated record claim

What they say

The banner at the top of every part of his campaign site makes a claim about his funding.

What the record shows · Jun 30, 2026

His filings through June 2026 show no money from any political or party committee; of $7,459.52 raised, $5,000 came from himself and the rest from individuals.

Read the full check

Quotes, full record and limits

What they say

The banner at the top of every part of his campaign site makes a claim about his funding.

“This candidate is not beholden to any special interest groups or corrupt party leaders.”

What the record shows · Jun 30, 2026

The filings record no political-committee money at all. The FEC's cycle summary for TED BROWN ELECTION COMMITTEE through June 30, 2026 records $0.00 in contributions from other political committees and $0.00 from party committees, and the itemized schedules carry no such receipt to group. Of $7,459.52 in receipts for the cycle, $5,000.00 is a contribution from the candidate himself and $2,459.52 is from individuals, of which $1,150.00 is itemized and $1,309.52 is not.

What the filings show

No contribution from any political committee or party committee, against $219,500.00 and $348,408.24 of committee and party contributions itemized by the two major-party committees over the same cycle.

Limit: The checkable part of the banner is the funding, and the filing bears it out completely for this cycle: no committee money of any kind. Two bounds sit beside it. A committee this small itemizes little, so the check has almost nothing to classify rather than a classification that came back clean; and the word "beholden" is about influence, which no filing measures and this card does not assess. His largest single receipt is his own $5,000.

Campaign finance

FEC snapshot through Jun 30, 2026

Principal campaign committees only. Receipts and disbursements are the election-cycle-to-date figures, Column B on each filing's summary page; cash on hand and debt are period-end figures. All are carried by reports ending on the same date, although the individual report periods start on different dates. Money is not a score of candidate quality or voter support.

Candidate	Cycle receipts	Cycle disbursements	Cash on hand	Debt owed
Ken PaxtonC00901918	$1,640,066	$2,227,722	$1,755,294	$0
James TalaricoC00919084	$28,271,821	$16,582,532	$21,548,155	$0
Ted BrownC00857623	$1,260	$1,119	$1,151	$0

Read the filing details

Ken Paxton: July Quarterly 2026, coverage May 7, 2026 to Jun 30, 2026, received Jul 15, 2026, file 1996198, image 202607159875888624.

James Talarico: July Quarterly 2026, coverage Apr 1, 2026 to Jun 30, 2026, received Jul 15, 2026, file 1997887, image 202607159890734938.

Ted Brown: July Quarterly 2026, coverage Apr 1, 2026 to Jun 30, 2026, received Jul 4, 2026, file 1988042, image 202607049874765347.

Retrieved from OpenFEC on Sep 14, 2026. FEC amendments can revise these committee-reported figures.

Chronology

How the field took shape

Jan 14, 2003
Paxton's legislative service begins
The Legislative Reference Library records Ken Paxton taking House District 70 on January 14, 2003, at the start of the 78th Legislature; he held that seat through the 82nd and then Senate District 8 in the 83rd, to January 13, 2015.
Jan 5, 2015
Paxton sworn in as attorney general
The Office of the Attorney General records Ken Paxton as the 51st attorney general of Texas, elected on November 4, 2014 and sworn into office on January 5, 2015, and re-elected in 2018 and 2022.
Nov 19, 2018
Talarico sworn in to the Texas House
The Legislative Reference Library records James Talarico winning the special election of November 6, 2018 for the unexpired District 52 term of Larry Gonzales, who resigned on June 7, 2018, and being sworn in on November 19, 2018.
Mar 6, 2024
Brown's first federal filing for this seat
The FEC's candidate index gives March 6, 2024 as the first filing date for Theodore E. Brown Jr. as a Libertarian candidate for the United States Senate in Texas, and records him as a candidate for the seat in both the 2024 and the 2026 election years.
Aug 28, 2026
Final ballot certification
The Texas Secretary of State's final ballot certification for the November 3, 2026 general election, signed by the Deputy Secretary of State on August 28, 2026, lists three candidates for United States Senator: Ken Paxton (Republican), James Talarico (Democratic) and Ted Brown (Libertarian), in that order, which is the ballot order this desk follows.

The details

Election facts. Original sources.

Election date: November 3, 2026
Added: September 2026 launch set
Ballot source updated: Final certification generated August 28, 2026; reviewed September 2, 2026.
Candidate field: Printed candidates checked against official election records.

Coverage

What this page includes, and what is not yet included.

As of Nov 11, 2026. Only what passed a source check is listed. How coverage works.

BallotIncluded
3 printed candidates, checked September 2, 2026 against the official election record.
Race outlookIncluded
1 of 1 specialist rating is current as of Nov 11, 2026.
Reported contextNot yet
The reporting reviewed so far centers on polling. Poll sponsor, field dates, sample, methodology, and uncertainty still need a claim-level review before publication.
Words and recordIncluded
11 statement-to-action comparisons across 3 candidate records, each with a stated limitation.
Campaign financeIncluded
FEC filing snapshots for 3 principal campaign committees, with a common coverage cutoff.
PollingNot yet
No published poll has been reviewed for this race yet.

1 correction recorded for this race; each is dated in the corrections log. Report an error.

Sources55 source records

Snapshot as of Nov 11, 2026. The live page may have changed: https://statedrecord.com/races/texas-us-senate-2026

How we use sources

Texas Secretary of State final ballot certification (document)
Ballot Certification Report, 2026 November General Election
Texas Secretary of State · Published Aug 28, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The final ballot certification for the November 3, 2026 general election, signed by Deputy Secretary of State Dave Nelson on August 28, 2026 under sections 142.010 and 161.008 of the Election Code. Its U. S. SENATOR block lists KEN PAXTON (REP), JAMES TALARICO (DEM) and TED BROWN (LIB), in that order, which is the ballot order this desk follows. The document is served slowly and closes the connection part-way; it was fetched with a resuming request until the whole 5,919,631 bytes arrived, because a truncated copy reads as a corrupt PDF rather than as a failed download.
official election record
For: Election facts, ratings and race context; Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate; Comparisons, reporting, support and chronology
Separate write-in record (document)
For: Election facts, ratings and race context
How these races were chosenhttps://statedrecord.com/methodology#race-selection
For: Election facts, ratings and race context
Sabato's Crystal Ball ratingshttps://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2026-senate/
For: Election facts, ratings and race context
About the Attorney Generalhttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/about-office
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The office's own biography of the officeholder: 51st attorney general, elected November 4, 2014, sworn in January 5, 2015, re-elected 2018 and 2022; more than 4,000 employees in 38 divisions and 117 offices; 27 lawsuits against the Obama administration in a two-year stretch, and an injunction or other winning ruling in more than 75 percent of cases brought against the federal government. The page is dated in its own content: its collections figure is for fiscal year 2020 and its litigation examples end before 2021. The address www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/about-office/attorney-general-ken-paxton, which an earlier pass recorded as answering HTTP 402, answered HTTP 404 on 2026-09-14; this page is where the biography is served.
official office record
For: Candidate roles and profiles; Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration; Comparisons, reporting, support and chronology
Ken Paxton on Xhttps://x.com/KenPaxtonTX
X · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Handle confirmed through the link in his campaign site's own footer, read live on September 14, 2026. His campaign account, and a separate account from the Office of the Attorney General's account, which the agency's own site links. Its posts and replies were collected in full for the window July 1, 2026 to September 14, 2026, 195 items, the account exhausted rather than stopped at a cap.
social profile
For: Candidate roles and profiles
Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, home pagehttps://www.kenpaxton.com/
Ken Paxton for Senate · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The campaign site answered a plain request directly. Its navigation is Home, The Fight at Hand, Meet Ken Paxton, Join Paxton's Patriots, Merch and Donate; there is no news or press index. The home page's five issue cards are unfilled template placeholders, each headed "issue title one goes here and here and here" over Lorem ipsum text, so the site's issue content is entirely on the page behind The Fight at Hand. Its footer links Facebook, X, YouTube and Flickr and no Instagram account. Cited for his biography, for the placeholder cards, and for the absence of an Instagram link.
candidate statement
For: Candidate roles and profiles; Costs and the economy
Member profile for James Talaricohttps://lrl.texas.gov/legeLeaders/members/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=5831
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Terms of service: House District 52 from November 19, 2018 for the unexpired term of Larry Gonzales, who resigned June 7, 2018, then District 52 for the 86th and 87th and District 50, in Travis County, for the 88th and 89th. Committee assignments record Public Education in the 86th, 87th, 88th and 89th, and in the 89th also House Administration, vice chair of the Public Education subcommittee on academic and career-oriented education, and vice chair of Trade, Workforce and Economic Development.
official legislative record
For: Candidate roles and profiles; James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; Comparisons, reporting, support and chronology
James Talarico on Xhttps://x.com/jamestalarico
X · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Handle confirmed through the link in his campaign site's own footer, read live on September 14, 2026. His official Texas House page at house.texas.gov links no social account of any kind, so there is no official-office account to set beside this one. Its posts and replies were collected in full for the window July 1, 2026 to September 14, 2026, 64 items, the account exhausted rather than stopped at a cap.
social profile
For: Candidate roles and profiles
James Talarico on Instagramhttps://instagram.com/jamestalarico
Instagram · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Handle confirmed through the link in his campaign site's own footer, read live on September 14, 2026. The account itself was not collected or read; this desk's social collection covers X only.
social profile
For: Candidate roles and profiles
BROWN, THEODORE E. JR., candidate recordhttps://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/S4TX00888/
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
FEC candidate S4TX00888: Libertarian Party, United States Senate, Texas, challenger, status C, election years 2024 and 2026, first filing March 6, 2024. Read from the OpenFEC candidate endpoint on 2026-09-14. The FEC records party and office; it does not record a party's nomination.
official election record
For: Candidate roles and profiles; Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate; Comparisons, reporting, support and chronology
Ted Brown on Xhttps://x.com/TedBrownLiberty
X · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Handle confirmed through the link in his campaign site's own Spread the Word section, which also embeds the account's timeline, read live on September 14, 2026. His candidate-controlled account is used here. Its posts and replies were collected in full for the window July 1, 2026 to September 14, 2026, 339 items across two windowed runs, the account exhausted rather than stopped at a cap; the first run stopped on a transport error and the second reached the rest. Most of that number is replies to other people rather than posts of his own: a later run of the same account over a comparable window returned 360 items of which 292 were replies, so his own posts in the period number in the dozens. Cited as the scope of the search behind the silence recorded against him. A draft enumeration of which posts the search words reached was withdrawn before publication; the posts were re-swept on 2026-09-17 and nothing in them states a position of his on energy or the environment.
social profile
For: Candidate roles and profiles; Energy and the environment
Ted Brown - Libertarian for U.S. Senator from Texashttps://tedbrown.org/website/index.html
Ted Brown Election Committee · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The whole campaign site is this one served page; tedbrown.org itself is a redirect to it, and every navigation item, Home, About, Platform, Media, Quotes, Contact and Donate, is an anchor within it. Its twelve platform sections are digital privacy, taxes, immigration, foreign policy, free trade, emergency powers, gun rights, the war on drugs, justice reform, education, police reform and health care. It carries the banner claim about special interests, his biography, his party offices, and links to X and Facebook and to no other account. It also carries a News Coverage index of dated outside articles about his campaign, which this desk did not search; the Media section lists interviews and the Quotes section lists quotations from others.
candidate statement
For: Candidate roles and profiles; Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Costs and the economy; Health care; Immigration and the border; Government accountability; Energy and the environment; Education; Ted Brown: Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate; Ted Brown: Government accountability: who is funding the campaign
Member profile for Ken Paxtonhttps://lrl.texas.gov/legeLeaders/members/memberDisplay.cfm?memberID=5556
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Terms of service: House District 70 for the 78th to 82nd Legislatures, January 14, 2003 to January 8, 2013, home city McKinney in Collin County; Senate District 8 for the 83rd, January 8, 2013 to January 13, 2015, covering Collin and Dallas counties, with a footnote recording that he drew a two-year term in the drawing of January 23, 2013. The profile's biographical section lists him as Texas Attorney General from 2015.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Before the office: twelve years in the Texas Legislature; Comparisons, reporting, support and chronology
The Fight Is Now. Paxton's All In For Texas.https://www.kenpaxton.com/issues
Ken Paxton for Senate · Reviewed Oct 12, 2026
Health-care pledge re-read October 12, 2026; no visible statement date. The campaign's whole platform, in seven sections: carrying President Trump's agenda, taking on food and pharmaceutical companies, the border, conservative principles including gun rights and transgender policy, an America-first foreign policy, fiscal restraint and energy, the case against the Democratic candidate, and support for cryptocurrency naming the CLARITY Act. It proposes no ethics, disclosure, term-limit or stock-trading measure, and the words ethics, term limits, campaign finance and disclosure appear nowhere on it.
candidate statement
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Costs and the economy; Health care; Immigration and the border; Government accountability; Energy and the environment; Education; Ken Paxton: Health care: action against food companies; Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration; Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial
Legislative Archive System bill search, Ken Paxton as authorhttps://lrl.texas.gov/legis/billsearch/searchresults.cfm?authors=Paxton_Ken:AU
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
280 distinct bills and resolutions with Ken Paxton as author, across the 78th to 83rd Legislatures and their called sessions; he is the first-named author on every one. 46 carry a last action recording that they took effect, one of them as a placeholder effective date. The result count in the page header is rendered in the browser and is empty in the served page, so the rows were counted instead. Pulled 2026-09-14.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Before the office: twelve years in the Texas Legislature
Legislative Archive System bill search, Ken Paxton as sponsorhttps://lrl.texas.gov/legis/billsearch/searchresults.cfm?authors=Paxton_Ken:SP
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
37 bills he carried as the other chamber's sponsor, 28 of them in the 83rd Legislature, of which 25 carry a last action recording that they took effect. Pulled 2026-09-14.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Before the office: twelve years in the Texas Legislature
Opinionshttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The office's own index of every attorney general's numbered opinion series. Ken Paxton, 2015 to present, KP-0001 to KP-0526, the most recent listed being KP-0526 of August 26, 2026. The same index lists John Scott, 2023, provisional attorney general, JS-0001 to JS-0007, and Angela Colmenero, 2023, provisional attorney general, AC-0001 to AC-0005. This is the only countable ledger the office publishes; it counts opinions and not lawsuits.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration; Ted Brown: Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate
Attorney General Opinionshttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/attorney-general-opinions
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The office's own statement of what an opinion is: a written interpretation of existing law which cannot create new provisions in the law or correct unintended effects, does not necessarily reflect the attorney general's personal views, and cannot resolve factual disputes. Cited so that an opinion count on this desk is read as what the office says it is.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money
Attorney General Ken Paxton Secures Over $1 Billion from Meta in Historic Settlement that Protects Texas Kids Onlinehttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-secures-over-1-billion-meta-historic-settlement-protects-texas-kids
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Published Aug 26, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The office's release on the settlement: over $1 billion to the State of Texas, plus stricter age assurance, a daily two-hour limit for teenage users, notifications disabled by default during school hours, likes and reactions hidden by default and a nighttime access mode. It calls this the third settlement worth over $1 billion the office has secured from a technology company and names the other two, $1.4 billion from Meta over facial-recognition data and $1.375 billion from Google. It records a trial against TikTok scheduled for the autumn of 2026. The release is the office's account of its own work, not a court record.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; Government accountability; Ken Paxton: Record in office: the settlements with Meta
KEN PAXTON FOR SENATE, itemized receipts, 2025-2026https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00901918&two_year_transaction_period=2026&is_individual=false
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Itemized non-individual receipts for the 2025-2026 cycle through June 30, 2026, read from the OpenFEC schedule A endpoint on 2026-09-14 and grouped by the recorded organization type or designation of each contributing committee. Line 11C contributions from other political committees total $157,500.00 across 35 non-memo rows and line 11B party contributions $62,000.00 in one, together $219,500.00, exactly the FEC summary's other-committee plus party contributions.
fec filing
For: Ken Paxton: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Government accountability: corporate PAC money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: who is funding the campaign
Talarico for Texas, home pagehttps://jamestalarico.com/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The campaign site answered a plain request directly. Its own sitemaps enumerate the whole site: twenty pages and thirteen issue pages, with no news or press index among them. The home page carries his biography in the campaign's words, an eighth-generation Texan, former middle-school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, and its footer links X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.
candidate statement
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money
Issues: Public Educationhttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/public-education/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his account of teaching on the west side of San Antonio, the claim that he served on the Public Education Committee in each of his four terms, his opposition to private-school vouchers, and a federal programme on reading and mathematics, teacher training, universal pre-kindergarten, special education and school meals.
candidate statement
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; Education
Issues: Corruption & Democracyhttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/corruption-democracy/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his anti-corruption programme, his claim never to have taken corporate PAC money, his claim to have broken quorum twice, and his Texas record on campaign-contribution caps and an independent redistricting commission. The page also republishes ten of his own and his campaign's posts as embedded quotations, among them his post of May 27, 2023 on the impeachment vote, which is the source of the quotation this desk carries for it; the page itself is undated and the embedded post carries the date May 27, 2023.
candidate statement
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; Government accountability; James Talarico: Government accountability: corporate PAC money; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
Issues: Health Carehttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/health-care/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his account of his type 1 diabetes diagnosis and the $684 he paid for a first 30-day supply of insulin, the claim about the $25 insulin cap and importation from Canada, his federal programme on Medicare buy-in and drug pricing, and a track record list naming the insulin cap, Canadian importation, surprise billing, rural hospitals and medical marijuana.
candidate statement
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; Health care; James Talarico: Health care: insulin costs and importing drugs from Canada
Issues: Immigration & Border Securityhttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/immigration-border-security/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries the front-porch formulation of his border position, his federal programme on comprehensive reform, enforcement priorities, identification of immigration agents, paths to legalisation, port-of-entry technology and asylum, and a Texas record naming X-ray inspection technology at border crossings.
candidate statement
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; Immigration and the border
88(R) HB 25, wholesale importation of prescription drugshttps://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=88R&Bill=HB25
Texas Legislature Online · Published Jun 12, 2023 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Caption: relating to wholesale importation of prescription drugs in this state; authorizing a fee. Author: Talarico, first of five, followed by Frank, Burrows, Rose and Klick, with 117 coauthors. Senate sponsor: Kolkhorst, with five cosponsors. Last action 06/12/2023 E Effective on 9/1/23. The subject index carries CANADA and WHOLESALE PRESCRIPTION DRUG IMPORTATION ACT. The House select committee reported it 7 ayes to 0 nays.
official legislative record
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Health care: insulin costs and importing drugs from Canada
87(R) SB 827, cost-sharing requirements for prescription insulinhttps://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=87R&Bill=SB827
Texas Legislature Online · Published Jun 14, 2021 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Author: Kolkhorst, with fourteen joint authors including Senator Paxton, who is Angela Paxton of District 8 and not the candidate on this desk. Sponsor: Lucio III, then Talarico, with 95 cosponsors. Last action 06/14/2021 E Effective on 9/1/21. The Senate committee reported it 8 ayes to 0 nays.
official legislative record
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Health care: insulin costs and importing drugs from Canada
87(R) SB 827, enrolled texthttps://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/html/SB00827F.HTM
Texas Legislature Online · Published Jun 14, 2021 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Section 1358.103(b) of the Insurance Code as added: a health benefit plan may not impose a cost-sharing provision for a formulary insulin if the total the enrollee must pay exceeds $25 per prescription for a 30-day supply, regardless of the amount or type of insulin. Section 2 applies the change to plans delivered, issued for delivery or renewed on or after January 1, 2022. Read because a caption is a title and only the enrolled text carries the figure.
official legislative record
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Health care: insulin costs and importing drugs from Canada
88(R) SB 1145, local-option property-tax exemption for child-care facilitieshttps://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=88R&Bill=SB1145
Texas Legislature Online · Published May 29, 2023 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Author: West, with coauthors Blanco and Eckhardt. Sponsor: Talarico, first of five, then Button, Bernal, Julie Johnson and Goodwin. Companion: HB 3621 by Talarico, identical. Last action 05/29/2023 E See remarks for effective date; the remarks record that the act takes effect January 1, 2024 but only if SJR 64 is approved by the voters, and the page records it as enabling legislation for SJR 64.
official legislative record
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Costs: property taxes on child-care centres
Bills authored, sponsored and coauthored by Rep. James Talaricohttps://capitol.texas.gov/reports/report.aspx?LegSess=89R&ID=author&Code=A3685
Texas Legislature Online · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Member code A3685. The author, sponsor and coauthor reports have now been requested for every session he has served, the 85th regular and first called, the 86th regular, the 87th regular and three called, the 88th regular and four called, and the 89th regular and two called. Totals across them: 299 measures authored or joint-authored, 29 with a last action recording that they took effect and 10 of those with Talarico first-named; 17 sponsored or joint-sponsored as the House sponsor of a Senate bill, 9 taking effect and 5 of those with him first-named; 169 coauthored, 32 of which took effect. A session in which he filed nothing answers with the words no bills have been authored. The coauthor reports for the 87th and 88th second called sessions were missed on the first pass and read on 2026-09-17, which is where six of the coauthorships above come from; the earlier count of 163 omitted them. Every session had to be requested rather than assumed. Pulled 2026-09-14, and the two second-called-session coauthor reports on 2026-09-17.
official legislative record
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money
TALARICO FOR TEXAS, itemized receipts, 2025-2026https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00919084&two_year_transaction_period=2026&line_number=F3-11C
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Itemized receipts from political committees and party committees for the 2025-2026 cycle through June 30, 2026, read from the OpenFEC schedule A endpoint on 2026-09-14 in four date windows because the unfiltered query times out, and grouped by the recorded organization type or designation of each contributing committee. Line 11C totals $348,408.24 across 101 non-memo rows, exactly the FEC summary's other-committee contributions; line 11B returns nothing, and the summary records no party contribution. Four memo rows totalling $13,500.00 record contributions earmarked through a conduit and are excluded because the report already counts them.
fec filing
For: James Talarico: background, goals, record and money; James Talarico: Government accountability: corporate PAC money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: who is funding the campaign
Texas Legislators: Past and Present, member search for the surname Brownhttps://lrl.texas.gov/legeLeaders/members/lrlhome.cfm
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The library's member index covers every Texas legislator from the 1st Legislature to the present. A search on the last name Brown, submitted as the form's own POST because the equivalent GET returns a narrow-your-search redirect and no result, returned 45 members, from Albert 'Al' Brown to Linda Harper-Brown. None of them is Theodore E. Brown Jr. Cited for the absence of any Texas legislative record for the Libertarian candidate.
official legislative record
Member search, 88th Legislature House members by party
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Two POST searches of the member index, one for Republican and one for Democrat, each with the 88th Legislature and the House selected, returned 89 and 64 members; the rosters cover everyone who served in that legislature rather than the seats filled on one day. They were used only to give the May 27, 2023 roll call its party split: each name in the Journal was mapped onto a roster entry, the surname initials the Journal uses to separate members of the same name were resolved by hand, and the resulting party counts were required to add back to the Journal's own printed totals before being used. They do. The party value must be the full word; party=R returns a no-records answer that reads exactly like a real negative.
official legislative record
Member search, 88th Legislature Senate members by party
Legislative Reference Library of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The same two POST searches for the Senate returned 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats for the 88th Legislature. One of the 13, Molly Cook, took her seat in 2024, after the September 2023 trial, and appears in none of its roll calls; the 31 members sitting at the trial were 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Used only to give the Court of Impeachment's roll calls their party split, with the same requirement that the party counts add back to the printed totals.
official legislative record
For: Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did; Ted Brown: Government accountability: a pledge to repeal rather than legislate
TED BROWN ELECTION COMMITTEE, itemized receipts, 2025-2026https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00857623&two_year_transaction_period=2026&line_number=F3-11C
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The same query run for this committee returns no row at all on line 11C and none on line 11B, in any window of the cycle through June 30, 2026. There is nothing to group, which is why this desk states the absence rather than printing an empty table.
fec filing
For: Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: who is funding the campaign
TED BROWN ELECTION COMMITTEE, cycle totals 2026https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00857623/?cycle=2026
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The FEC's own cycle summary through June 30, 2026: receipts $7,459.52, disbursements $6,376.43, cash on hand $1,150.97, individual contributions $2,459.52 of which $1,150.00 itemized and $1,309.52 unitemized, candidate contribution $5,000.00, other political committee contributions $0.00, party committee contributions $0.00. Read from the OpenFEC totals endpoint on 2026-09-14.
fec filing
For: Ted Brown: background, goals, record and money; Ted Brown: Government accountability: who is funding the campaign
Issues: Labor & Businesshttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/labor-business/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his wage and workplace programme, including a $15 federal minimum wage, overtime expansion, a tax on corporations paying executives more than 250 times the median worker, Social Security funding above $400,000, paid family leave and the PRO Act.
candidate statement
For: Costs and the economy
Issues: Taxes & Cost of Livinghttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/taxes-cost-of-living/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his cost-of-living programme and his account of the tax provisions he says raised costs. Read as part of the whole-site sweep and cited with the labour page for his economic position.
candidate statement
For: Costs and the economy
News Releaseshttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The office's only public list of its own actions, paginated ten releases to a page. It ignores a full-text search parameter and a page-size parameter, returning the first page either way, so it cannot be filtered or enlarged by an automated reader. The first page on 2026-09-14 ran from the TikTok liability verdict of September 10, 2026 back to a Houston County sentence of August 18, 2026, and included the Meta settlement, an Amazon suit, investigations of an insurer and of avocado-oil labelling, and settlements on synthetic dyes in cereals. Cited for what the office has published and for the fact that it publishes no docket or count of suits filed.
official office record
For: Health care; Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration
Post of August 31, 2026 on the Meta settlementhttps://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/2094448530563702809
X · Published Aug 31, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Collected from his declared campaign account and re-read against the platform on 2026-09-14, when it came back unchanged, by the same author, at the same publication time, with a single-entry edit history. A post is the candidate's own words and is not a record of any official action; the official action it describes is cited separately.
social profile
For: Government accountability; Ken Paxton: Record in office: the settlements with Meta
Issues: Energy & Environmenthttps://jamestalarico.com/issue/energy-environment/
Talarico for Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Carries his federal energy programme, including renewable tax credits, permitting, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, data-centre cost allocation, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and grid weatherproofing, and a Texas record naming an annual independent grid audit, a Texas Climate Action Act, lead in school water fountains and water infrastructure funding.
candidate statement
For: Energy and the environment
Post of August 31, 2026 on the 2024 Meta privacy settlementhttps://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/2094553570234282264
X · Published Aug 31, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Collected from his declared campaign account and re-read against the platform on 2026-09-14, when it came back unchanged, by the same author, at the same publication time, with a single-entry edit history. A post is the candidate's own words and is not a record of any official action. The post carries a link this desk did not follow.
social profile
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the settlements with Meta
Kellogg's cereal-dye agreement, August 13, 2025https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-paxton-secures-historic-legal-agreement-kelloggs-remove-toxic-artificial-dyes-its
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Published Aug 13, 2025 · Reviewed Oct 12, 2026
The office reports a signed Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with WK Kellogg Co. to remove artificial cereal colorings by the end of 2027. The release was read; the signed agreement and any court docket were not. It supports an office-reported formal action, not a measured health benefit or completed rollout.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: Health care: action against food companies
Built For This Fighthttps://www.kenpaxton.com/about
Ken Paxton for Senate · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The campaign biography. It carries the claim of over 100 suits against the Biden administration, the account of the opioid and Big Tech litigation, the description of the establishment having tried to silence him, his degrees from Baylor and the University of Virginia, fourteen years in his own law firm in McKinney, and the sentence on his service in the Texas House and Senate.
candidate statement
For: Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration; Ken Paxton: Before the office: twelve years in the Texas Legislature; Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial
Post of September 10, 2026 on suing the previous federal administrationhttps://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/2097858631161057557
X · Published Sep 10, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Collected from his declared campaign account and re-read against the platform on 2026-09-14, when it came back unchanged, by the same author, at the same publication time, with a single-entry edit history. A post is the candidate's own words and is not a record of any official action. The post carries a link this desk did not follow.
social profile
For: Ken Paxton: Federal litigation: how many suits against the Biden administration
88(R) HR 2377, articles of impeachmenthttps://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=88R&Bill=HR2377
Texas Legislature Online · Published May 27, 2023 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Caption: impeaching Warren Kenneth Paxton, Attorney General of the State of Texas, and preferring articles of impeachment against him. Authors: Murr, Ann Johnson, Geren, Longoria and Spiller. Laid before the House and adopted on May 27, 2023 on record vote 2191, at Journal page 5958; reported enrolled the same day and signed in the House on May 29. The page links the Journal for that day at the page carrying the vote.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
House Journal, 88th Legislature Regular Session, 73rd day (document)
Texas House of Representatives · Published May 27, 2023 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Saturday, May 27, 2023. At page 5958: HR 2377 was adopted by record vote 2191, 121 yeas, 23 nays, 2 present not voting, with one member absent excused and two absent. The Journal prints every name and no party. Mapped against the library's 88th House rosters the 121 yeas are 61 Democrats and 60 Republicans, the 23 nays are all Republicans, the two present-not-voting are one of each, and the 149 members accounted for are 85 Republicans and 64 Democrats. The server closes the connection part-way through this PDF; it was fetched with a resuming request until the whole 574,311 bytes arrived.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
John Scott Opinionshttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/john-scott
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The page states in the office's own words: pursuant to article 15, section 5 of the Texas Constitution, John Scott served as Provisional Attorney General from May 31, 2023 to July 14, 2023, and it carries his series JS-0001 to JS-0007. An official, non-editorial record of who held the office in that period.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
Angela Colmenero Opinionshttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/angela-colmenero
Office of the Attorney General of Texas · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The page states in the office's own words: pursuant to article 15, section 5 of the Texas Constitution, Angela Colmenero served as Provisional Attorney General from July 14, 2023 to September 16, 2023, and it carries her series AC-0001 to AC-0005.
official office record
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
Record of proceedings of the High Court of Impeachment, tenth day, and the judgment (document)
Texas Senate · Published Sep 16, 2023 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Saturday, September 16, 2023. A verbatim transcript: each article is read, the clerk reads the ballots in a random order, and the presiding officer then confirms every member's vote by name, so each roll call appears twice and the two agree. Sixteen articles were tried and every one drew a finding of acquittal: twelve at 14 yeas to 16 nays, Article V at 13 to 17, Article IX at 12 to 18, Article VIII at 8 to 22 and Article IV at 2 to 28. Thirty votes are recorded on each; Senator Angela Paxton is not among them. The presiding officer states that conviction on one article removes him, and, on the later motion, that it is a simple 16 vote and not 21. Articles XI to XIV, held in abeyance, were dismissed 19 to 11 on Senator Birdwell's motion. The judgment is printed at the end of the same document and reinstates him the same day. The Senate journal site is a browser application whose document list comes from a separate service; this file is served directly.
official legislative record
For: Ken Paxton: Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial; James Talarico: Government accountability: what his impeachment vote did
Post of July 28, 2026 on property taxes for child-care centreshttps://x.com/jamestalarico/status/2082206232819958140
X · Published Jul 28, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Collected from his declared campaign account and re-read against the platform on 2026-09-14, when it came back unchanged, by the same author, at the same publication time, with a single-entry edit history. A post is the candidate's own words and is not a record of any official action; the act it describes is cited separately.
social profile
For: James Talarico: Costs: property taxes on child-care centres
TALARICO FOR TEXAS, cycle totals 2026https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00919084/?cycle=2026
Federal Election Commission · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
The FEC's own cycle summary through June 30, 2026: receipts $68,560,930.42, disbursements $47,012,775.34, individual contributions $65,585,741.88, other political committee contributions $348,408.24, party committee contributions $0.00, transfers from other authorized committees $2,594,220.00. Read from the OpenFEC totals endpoint on 2026-09-14 and used to reconcile the itemized table.
fec filing
For: James Talarico: Government accountability: corporate PAC money
KEN PAXTON FOR SENATE, July Quarterly 2026 (document)
Federal Election Commission · Published Jul 15, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Committee C00901918, file number 1996198, beginning image 202607159875888624, the current non-superseded version. Coverage May 7 to June 30, 2026: receipts $1,640,065.57, disbursements $2,227,721.59, cash on hand $1,755,294.47, no debts owed by or to the committee. The period starts later than the other two because the committee also filed a pre-runoff report covering April 1 to May 6, 2026. Committee C00901918; July Quarterly 2026; coverage 2026-05-07 to 2026-06-30; received 2026-07-15; file 1996198; image 202607159875888624.
fec filing
For: Campaign finance
TALARICO FOR TEXAS, July Quarterly 2026 (document)
Federal Election Commission · Published Jul 15, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Committee C00919084, file number 1997887, beginning image 202607159890734938, the current non-superseded version. Coverage April 1 to June 30, 2026: receipts $28,271,821.27, disbursements $16,582,531.54, cash on hand $21,548,155.08, no debts owed by or to the committee. Committee C00919084; July Quarterly 2026; coverage 2026-04-01 to 2026-06-30; received 2026-07-15; file 1997887; image 202607159890734938.
fec filing
For: Campaign finance
TED BROWN ELECTION COMMITTEE, July Quarterly 2026 (document)
Federal Election Commission · Published Jul 4, 2026 · Reviewed Sep 14, 2026
Committee C00857623, file number 1988042, beginning image 202607049874765347, the current non-superseded version. Coverage April 1 to June 30, 2026: receipts $1,259.52, disbursements $1,118.64, cash on hand $1,150.97, no debts owed by or to the committee. Committee C00857623; July Quarterly 2026; coverage 2026-04-01 to 2026-06-30; received 2026-07-04; file 1988042; image 202607049874765347.
fec filing
For: Campaign finance
Brown's repeal-laws pledge and recordhttps://statedrecord.com/claims/texas-us-senate-2026/brown-repeal-laws-pledge
For: Brown office-history wording narrowed

A quick look at the candidates

Who is running?

The candidates, side by side

Background

What they say they want to do

What the official record shows

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Background

What they say they want to do

What the official record shows

Campaign money from other committees, by type

Background

What they say they want to do

What the official record shows

Campaign money from other committees, by type

How an approved rating source sees this race

The race in context

Updates to this race desk.

The field, without the campaign gloss

What each campaign says

Where statements meet official action

FEC snapshot through Jun 30, 2026

How the field took shape

Paxton's legislative service begins

Paxton sworn in as attorney general

Talarico sworn in to the Texas House

Brown's first federal filing for this seat

Final ballot certification

Election facts. Original sources.

What this page includes, and what is not yet included.