Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) hauled in nearly $7 million in the fourth quarter of fundraising last year in the Texas Senate race, raking in more than $13 million since launching his bid in September, his campaign announced Friday.
His campaign said he raised $6.8 million between October and December and said the more than $13 million he’s hauled in overall came from more than 215,000 individual donors.
His team said Talarico accepted no money from corporate PACs and that 98 percent of the donations he’s received since he launched have been small-dollar donations — a maximum of $100. Overall, he’s received contributions from donors in all 50 states and 240 of Texas’s 254 counties.
“With the help of more than 215,000 neighbors, we are building a campaign to win the primary, win the general, and deliver for working people across Texas,” Talarico said in a statement.
Talarico is running against Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) for the Democratic nod for Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) seat this year. Crockett has not publicly announced her fundraising sum for the last quarter of 2024; candidates have until the end of the month to file their fourth-quarter fundraising totals.
Because Crockett launched her bid in December, however, she had less time to raise money last quarter than Talarico did.
Talarico’s numbers are notable and underscore the Senate Democratic primary will be hard-fought as the party eyes the chance to flip a Senate seat in the Lone Star State.
Cornyn is fending off primary challengers from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), and polling has suggested it’s increasingly likely the race will head into a runoff, since a candidate needs to notch more than half the vote outright in the primary to avoid a runoff.