Billionaire Cash and Candidate Theater Flood Texas

Elon Musk has spent more than $150 million of his own money to help Ken Paxton keep pace with James Talarico's fundraising in Texas. That's one man's checkbook, deployed to decide who sits in a Senate seat. The race, a tossup, entered its closing stretch Saturday with both candidates promising to be the answer to a rotten system they're both asking to join.

Who Has the Power

Paxton is the longtime state attorney general who has weathered indictment and impeachment and collected Trump's endorsement anyway. He beat Republican Sen. John Cornyn in this year's GOP primary with Trump's help. Talarico, a state lawmaker, seminarian and former teacher, went after him in Houston. "This election is about whether you want a senator who puts money in your pocket or who puts money in his own," Talarico said. Then he cast himself as the underdog against Musk. "It's David vs. Goliath," he said. "The people of Texas are my slingshot."

The slingshot, it's worth noting, comes with a fundraising operation capable of matching a $150 million billionaire.

Paxton, in Fort Worth, called Talarico too liberal and a would-be lackey for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. "I'm not exaggerating when I say, if we lose Texas, we lose America," he said. "Pray for our Texas. Pray for me."

What They're Calling "Order"

The national script ran the same way. House Speaker Mike Johnson told a Michigan crowd that voting is a spiritual duty. "I know God does not hold us responsible for the results, but he does hold us responsible to be faithful in our duty," he said, framing Democrats as a godless party. "These are Marxists, socialists, communists," he said, invoking the tens of millions murdered under communism in the 20th century.

Trump, meanwhile, posted an Islamophobic cartoon of a man with a flaming torch knocking on America's door, aimed at Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. The president himself spent the morning and early afternoon at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, before calling into six tele-rallies. "Answer your phones, and ENJOY!" he posted. On Sunday, he's set to hold rallies in Iowa and Kansas that were scheduled, pulled down and then rescheduled.

On the other side, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries campaigned in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District with former Rep. Elaine Luria, who lost to Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans four years ago. He promised votes on reversing Republicans' healthcare cuts, sweeping voting rights laws, and limits on Trump's military actions on Iran. "Beginning on day one, we're going to hold the crooks accountable," Jeffries said. He singled out Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. "One of the first things we are going to do is run Pete Hegseth out of town," he said.

The Reform Trap

Democrats need to pick up at least four new seats to win a Senate majority, and at least five if they lose Michigan. Republicans hold a 53-47 advantage. Early balloting was approaching 50 million heading into the weekend, against about 112 million total votes in the 2022 midterms.

The fights inside the party tell their own story. In Michigan, El-Sayed's campaign is no longer welcoming rival Haley Stevens to events after she renewed her criticism of him. She has demanded he condemn an advertisement linking U.S. support for Israel to rising grocery prices. El-Sayed answered with a different argument. "We ought to keep our money here to invest in schools here, in infrastructure here, rather than sending it somewhere else to drop a bomb somewhere else," he said in Sterling Heights. He also noted how much Stevens and her supporters outspent him in the primary. "They might as well have set their money on fire, because we beat them anyway," he said.

The pitch from both parties, in the end, is the same: hand over your vote, and trust us to fix what the last batch broke. Voters are being asked to pray, to pick a slingshot, to answer their phones.