One week Ken Paxton says he supports IVF. This week — he doesn't. Same candidate, two datelines. If you're just joining us: Paxton had been saying he supports IVF, even while the Texas GOP platform opposes procedures that destroy embryonic life. That set up the tension — anti-abortion activists want tighter limits, plenty of voters want fertility access, and Talarico's campaign was built to press right into that gap. This is Texas Senate Race Daily — and today, a Supreme Court ruling on party money, a new poll putting Democrats in play, and Paxton flinching on IVF. Let's start with that walkback. Here's Julia Mueller at The Hill:
Control of the Senate is up for grabs this November, according to new polling that shows Democrats highly competitive in six key upper chamber battleground states. The New York Times/Siena Polls survey found Democrats leading the Senate races in North Carolina, where Democrat Roy Cooper is battling Republican Michael Whatley to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis(R-N.C.), and in Maine, where progressive Graham Platner…
The number that jumps out at me here — Democrats are competitive not just in Texas, but in Ohio and Maine at the same time. One state, you can call it a candidate story. Three states, and you're looking at an environment moving. Right, and that's why I keep leaning on the average over any single poll. Yesterday's Times/Siena tie in Texas looked like it might be an outlier. This morning, it reads more like a data point in a pattern. But I want to know what's driving it. Is this a Talarico ceiling holding up, or a national wind that lifts any generic Democrat? Because those two answers spend money very differently. And the Fox poll in the same rundown has Collins up three on Platner — so it's not a clean blue wash. The internals matter, and I'd want the house effects disclosed before anyone takes a victory lap. From Washington Reporter:
The ruling strikes down long-standing caps on coordinated party spending, transforming the role of organizations like the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and the Republican National Committee (RNC) overnight. In a new donor memo from the NRSC obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, the NRSC argues that the decision makes the committee “the most important investment vehicle in the 2026 cycle.”
This is the structural story of the week. NRSC v. FEC came down this morning — the Court struck the caps on coordinated party spending, and the NRSC already has a donor memo out calling itself "the most important investment vehicle in the 2026 cycle." That's not subtle. And the irony here is pretty specific: the money the party now spends coordinating with a candidate happens in the open, on the record. The 501(c)(4) buys — the ones with no traceable filing — those still sit in the dark. So suddenly, the entity we can track is the party. The shadows didn't move. Right, and this lands differently in Texas than anywhere else on the map. Before today, anything over four million per race had to go independent — no shared scripts, no joint media plan. Now the NRSC can coordinate directly, unlimited. In a state where Houston and Dallas alone can eat a war chest whole, that firepower matters more here than in Ohio or Maine. So follow the ad-buy geography, not the totals. What I'm watching is whether this unlocks markets neither campaign could saturate alone. That changes how we read cash-on-hand going forward. A depleted candidate war chest meant one thing 48 hours ago. If the party can now pour unlimited coordinated money in, a thin balance sheet on the candidate's own books stings a lot less. If national party committees can now spend unlimited money directly coordinating with Senate candidates, does any of that actually change what a Texas voter experiences — or is this mostly a Washington bookkeeping story? It's a real change, but let's size it right. On June 30, the Supreme Court struck down a post-Watergate-era law capping how much political parties could spend in coordination with their candidates — the case was NRSC v. FEC, and it was a 6-to-3 decision along the court's conservative-liberal lines, per the Associated Press. The key word there is 'coordination': before this ruling, party committees that wanted to spend big had to use a separate, legally firewalled independent-expenditure arm that couldn't share strategy with the actual campaign. That firewall is gone. So in a race like the Texas Senate contest, the NRSC could cut ads with the Paxton campaign's own message and targeting data, rather than running a parallel operation. Per reporting from the Texas Tribune, that's seen as especially significant here because James Talarico has held a fundraising edge, and coordinated party spending gives national Republicans another way to close that gap without Paxton having to outraise him dollar for dollar. But a Boston Globe analysis and academic research on Citizens United — the 2010 deregulation ruling — both suggest the effect can be overstated: when both sides have access to outside money, the spending often offsets, and the net shift in outcomes is more limited than the headlines imply. So if the party can now run ads in full coordination with Paxton's team, does that make the candidates' own quarterly fundraising numbers less meaningful as a signal of where the race stands? Cash on hand and burn rate still matter — a campaign controls its own ground game, voter contact, and rapid response in ways a party committee can't fully replicate, even with coordination. But the ruling does mean a candidate's FEC filing is no longer the full picture of the resources behind them. Going forward, watch what the NRSC and DSCC report in coordinated expenditures. The Texas race is already a national flashpoint — per OpenSecrets, the primary alone set spending records — so those party committee line items are going to matter as we head into the fall. From HuffPost:
His stance was somewhat surprising, considering the Texas GOP just added an IVF ban to its newly approved party platform. But suddenly, Paxton is walking back that support, saying he’d put “restrictions” on the fertility treatment that Americans used nearly 450,000 times in 2024, and that produced more than 100,000 babies nationwide.
Here's the dateline that matters. Last week, Paxton tells HuffPost he's a strong supporter of IVF, quote, "every child is a blessing." Saturday, he tells the Washington Examiner we need restrictions so we don't lose fertilized eggs. Two quotes, one week, one candidate. And the timing isn't subtle. The Texas GOP just wrote an IVF ban into the party platform, and within days he's suddenly on board with restrictions. Step one lasted about five days. And if you've been tracking this with me: his support now comes with restrictions, and still no commitment to the national protections bill. The legislative gap is concrete now — the interview position and the voting position were never the same thing, and now even the interview position is gone. Nearly 450,000 IVF cycles in 2024, more than 100,000 babies, per HuffPost. For a lot of Republican voters, this is personal — a cousin, a neighbor, a daughter who's used IVF. Paxton just flinched on the one issue that could've peeled persuasion voters, and Talarico either builds a clean attack on it or wastes the opening. If Texas Senate Race Daily helps you keep up, take a second to subscribe or leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps other people find the show and stay informed, too.
We've put links to every story from today's briefing in the show notes, so if something stood out, you can dig into the original reporting there. That's Texas Senate Race Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.