A bipartisan group of federal campaign operatives is launching a new super PAC in support of state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, with plans to hammer Republicans’ standard-bearer, Ken Paxton, on his legal and ethical scandals.
Moment of Truth PAC, according to the group’s pitch to donors, plans to deploy “rapid, large-scale advertising” that “gives Republicans permission to defect” to Talarico and that makes the Austin Democrat “safe for moderates.” The goal of the ad blitz will be to center the Senate race around “affordability, corruption and character.”
“Every major Republican PAC in the world is going to be out there trying to protect and save Paxton,” Dane Waters, the group’s treasurer and senior adviser, said in an interview. “We’re going to be involved in making sure voters remember who Ken Paxton is — the fact that he is the most scandal-ridden politician in recent history.”
Moment of Truth is looking to spend up to $62 million on advertising, polling, research and more through November, per the PAC’s donor pitch, to take aim at the attorney general and “protect Talarico from counter-definition.” The group put its “minimum viable” spend, which would establish an “initial presence” in major Texas media markets but be “limited in sustained reach,” at $41 million.
Waters declined to share details about how much cash Moment of Truth has raised since it registered with the Federal Election Commission April 21, but he said he expects the group to begin hitting the airwaves over the next several weeks. The PAC’s first FEC filing deadline is July 15, when it will have to disclose its fundraising and spending activity through the end of June.
Moment of Truth’s leadership includes Waters, a veteran GOP operative who worked on the presidential campaigns of Republicans George H.W. Bush, Phil Gramm, John McCain and John Kasich; and Ron Jacobs, a Washington attorney and Federalist Society member who worked on a super PAC supporting Jon Huntsman in the 2012 GOP presidential primary. They’re joined by Mark Putnam, a major Democratic ad-maker who worked on Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s White House bids, and Geoff Garin, a national Democratic pollster whose clients include Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Democratic leadership.
The group’s fundraisers are Rachel Hirschberg and Stephanie Berger, who, according to reports filed with the FEC, helped fundraise for U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and former astronaut Terry Virts in their unsuccessful Senate runs. Among numerous Democratic congressional and Senate candidates this cycle, the pair’s clients included former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, who dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after several women accused him of sexual assault and harassment.
In a statement, Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said the campaign has “no affiliation” with the newly formed group.
“Shady PACs like Moment of Truth PAC are why we need to get big money out of politics,” Ennis said. “They are the embodiment of the broken, corrupt political system our campaign is running against, where DC insiders look to make a profit off this movement to take power back for working people.”
As he has railed against the outsized influence of wealthy donors, Talarico has benefited from an existing super PAC, Lone Star Rising, that is largely fueled by a combination of megadonors and so-called dark money groups, or nonprofits that do not need to disclose their donors. Lone Star Rising has supported the Austin Democrat’s bid since his September campaign launch, during which it has spent more than all but 13 other super PACs in the country, according to Capitol Hill Access, a campaign finance tracking website.
Lone Star Rising’s board chair is Michelle Castillo, who served as Talarico’s first chief of staff in the Texas House, and its secretary is former state Sen. Beverly Powell, D-Burleson, who overlapped with Talarico in the Legislature from 2019 to 2023 — previously unreported details about the group’s leadership. The PAC’s treasurer is Alex Clark, who met Talarico during their time teaching in San Antonio through Teach for America.
“After raising nearly $9 million through March and millions since, Lone Star Rising PAC is the preeminent super PAC supporting James Talarico and bringing his principled, faith-driven vision that leads with humility, listens with purpose and puts people first to Washington,” Castillo said in a statement.
Campaigns are prohibited under federal law from coordinating with outside groups like super PACs. Talarico has put banning super PACs — in addition to corporate PACs, congressional stock trading and partisan gerrymandering — at the top of his priorities if elected. He has also sworn off corporate PAC donations and outlined a plan to tax billionaires.
Moment of Truth’s hefty spending target is only the latest sign of how costly the fall campaign for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat is poised to be. The primary, which concluded with Paxton’s May 26 drubbing of Sen. John Cornyn, established an all-time record for the most expensive U.S. Senate primary, and several super PACs, which can take unlimited donations, and nonprofits are already active in the race.
Washington Republicans, after accounting for much of that record spending in a failed effort to boost Cornyn, quickly consolidated behind Paxton — signaling the Senate GOP’s well-heeled campaign apparatus is preparing to unleash its war chest to help the attorney general compete with Talarico. The Democratic nominee has set fundraising records and is running essentially neck-and-neck with Paxton in early polling.
If Moment of Truth follows through on its eight-figure forecast, it will only intensify both sides’ efforts to win over right-leaning moderates — a bloc Talarico and his supporters see as a riper target than usual given Paxton’s list of controversies, which is long but largely resolved.
The attorney general has been accused of corruption by top deputies who reported him to the FBI. Those allegations were the driving force behind his 2023 impeachment, which ended in acquittal by the GOP-controlled Texas Senate, and a federal investigation, after which the Department of Justice declined to prosecute him. The deputies won a $6.6 million payout from the state of Texas after a judge found Paxton had fired them in violation of state whistleblower law and after Paxton dropped his appeal of the judgment.
Paxton, who has denied all wrongdoing, also spent nearly nine years under indictment for felony securities fraud charges. Prosecutors dropped the case weeks before it was set to go to trial, in exchange for Paxton taking legal ethics courses and paying restitution to the people he was accused of defrauding. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, is divorcing him on “biblical grounds,” accusing him of infidelity.
In its “investment proposal” to donors, Moment of Truth cites a statewide survey by Texas Public Opinion Research, fielded immediately after the Republican runoff election, that found nearly a third of Cornyn’s primary supporters planned to back Talarico in the general election. TPOR is run by Democratic strategist Luke Warford, and Cornyn himself previously took a shot at the polling group’s Democratic links.
“These voters are not abandoning conservative principles,” Moment of Truth says in the donor pitch. “Their concerns are not primarily ideological. They are concerns about judgment, character, accountability and whether public trust still matters in American politics.”
Republicans have sought to erode whatever crossover appeal Talarico is starting with, casting him as far too liberal for Texas by resurfacing his past statements about gender, climate change, race and more. Paxton and Republican groups have circulated clips of Talarico saying there are six biological sexes while referring to people with chromosomal abnormalities, and noting he was running a “non-meat” campaign during his 2022 Texas House reelection because it was “existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption.”
Talarico recently said some of his past comments “missed the mark,” and he accused Paxton of “intentionally clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption.”
Once it gets going, Moment of Truth PAC plans to primarily target five groups, according to a May 27 memo authored by Garin: “non-MAGA Republicans” who oppose Paxton and have soured on President Donald Trump over the economy and rising everyday costs; “faith voters” who connect with Talarico’s Christian faith-forward campaign or are turned off by Paxton’s alleged misdeeds; Latino voters, including those who abandoned Democrats in recent cycles; Black voters who “have not yet fully embraced” Talarico after his primary victory over Crockett; and low-propensity voters, including young people and Texans of color, who do not typically cast ballots in Texas’ perennially low-turnout midterm elections.
“What we’re going to be very critical in helping people understand is that, hey, this isn’t about agreeing with everything that Talarico stands for — if you’re Republican, you’re not becoming a Democrat, or if you’re an independent or a moderate, you’re not just suddenly becoming a Democrat,” Waters said. “It’s a matter of understanding the national consequences of this race.”
