October 7, 2026
- Texas’s 10 billionaires control $1.7 trillion of national wealth as of September 1st, That is up $800 billion (85%) just since November of 2024.
- Texas’s billionaire class has spent $175 million to influence the outcomes of federal 2026 midterm elections.
- Democratic committees and liberal outside spending groups received $2.8 million from Texas billionaires, while Republican committees and conservative outside spending groups received $170 million from Texas billionaires.
- The top Texas billionaires federal election spenders are Elon & Kimbal Musk ($91 million), Kelcy & Amy Warren ($15 million), the Perot Family ($12 million), and Tim & Terri Dunn ($11.5 million).
- As of August 28th, billionaires have contributed $3.6 million directly to Texas candidates running for federal office and $446,000 to state & local party committees. Outside spending groups—primarily Super PACs—have flooded Texas’s airwaves and mailboxes with nearly $30 million of billionaire sourced political spending for federal candidates. With the general election just weeks away, expect this figure to grow dramatically.
- The races for Texas’s open Senate seat and 18th Congressional districts have received the most billionaire spending, $14.8 million and $5.2 million respectively.
- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was not the billionaire donor class choice for the Republican nomination. Billionaires spent $5.7 million attacking Paxton in the leadup to the spring primary and $1.2 million supporting incumbent Senator John Cornyn. So far billionaires have only spent $462,000 on Paxton’s behalf, five times less than his Democratic opponent James Talarico has gotten ($2.6 million) from billionaires so far. However, with MAGA Inc scheduled to spend $49 million in this race – of which we estimate 52% comes from billionaires – Paxton will likely overtake Tallarico in billionaire spending by a wide margin in the general.
- In a member-on-member democratic primary (thanks to Republican mid-cycle districting) Christian Menefee beat Al Green, in part due to $6.4 million of spending from the crypto super PAC “Protect Progress” on his behalf, of which we can source $5.2 million to billionaire contributors.
- Dark Money groups, who don’t have to reveal their donor lists, have spent at least $10.6 million to influence the midterm elections in Texas.