# Lone Star Rising PAC **Lone Star Rising PAC** (FEC **C00918268**) is the principal super PAC spending against [[Ken Paxton]] and for [[James Talarico]] in [[TX-Sen-2026]]. It registered with the FEC on **September 2, 2025**, files from a post-office box in Fort Worth, and its treasurer is **Alexander Clark**, who taught alongside Talarico in San Antonio through Teach for America. Its director, **Garry Jones**, has said the committee was "explicit" with donors that it shares Talarico's goals. Despite the name, almost everything it buys is negative: in the third quarter of 2026 it spent **$12,550,929.12 opposing Paxton** against **$1,234,564.75 supporting Talarico** — 91.0% of the programme against the Republican rather than for the Democrat. ## The third-quarter report Its Form 3X for July 1 to September 30, 2026 (file **2027513**, received October 15) is the first document that shows the committee at full scale. | Item | Amount | |---|---| | Cash on hand, July 1 | $12,683,122.11 | | Receipts | **$9,578,650.00** | | Disbursements | **$14,495,701.30** | | Cash on hand, September 30 | **$7,766,070.81** | The committee's own itemised independent expenditures for the quarter total **$13,788,276.51** across 22 lines. Almost none of that is new information: 21 of the 22 lines, or **$13,778,334.31**, repeat expenditures the committee had already filed in 24- and 48-hour notices during the quarter. A quarterly report restating money that is already public is normal and expected — but it means the quarterly total is **not** a quarter's worth of fresh spending, and a reader adding it to the notices would double-count almost all of it. ### Where the money went | Race and direction | Amount | Lines | |---|---|---| | TX-Sen — **oppose** [[Ken Paxton]] | **$12,550,929.12** | 16 | | TX-Sen — support [[James Talarico]] | $1,234,564.75 | 4 | | Texas House — support [[Bobby Pulido]] | $1,400.28 | 1 | | Texas House — support Vicente Gonzalez | $1,382.36 | 1 | | **Total** | **$13,788,276.51** | **22** | ### One vendor took 99.4% of it | Vendor | Amount | Share | |---|---|---| | **Old Town Media LLC** | **$13,700,000.00** | **99.36%** | | Declaration Media LLC | $40,480.67 | 0.29% | | Banowetz + Company Inc. | $32,571.00 | 0.24% | | Tusk Strategies LLC | $12,442.20 | 0.09% | | AMM Political Strategies LLC | $2,782.64 | 0.02% | This is the same shape as the committees on the other side of the race: a chamber- or race-level advertising programme placed almost entirely through one firm. Media buying is a concentrated business and a single placement firm is an ordinary commercial arrangement, not evidence of anything — but the concentration is worth recording, because it means one private company decides where nearly $13.7 million of Texas advertising lands. ## Who funds it Four donors gave **$1,000,000.00** each in the third quarter — together **41.8%** of the quarter's receipts. Three of the four are California or Washington money; one is Houston. | Contributor | Amount | Date | Listed occupation / employer | |---|---|---|---| | **[[Reed Hastings]]** | $1,000,000.00 | 2026-08-20 | Chairman, Netflix | | **[[Chris Larsen]]** | $1,000,000.00 | 2026-09-25 | CEO, Ripple | | **Rory Gates** | $1,000,000.00 | 2026-09-29 | Analyst, Afghan War Commission | | **[[Susan Sarofim]]** | $1,000,000.00 | 2026-09-21 | Philanthropist | Below the million-dollar line, the quarter's larger receipts include **[[John Pritzker]]** $650,000.00, the Laborers International Union of North America $500,000.00, the Midwest Region Laborers Political League $400,000.00, Working for Working Americans – Federal $300,000.00, Gail Federici $250,000.00, Martha Karsh $250,000.00, a second Larsen contribution of $250,000.00, and $100,000.00 each from Don Henley, David Gochman, Glen Morgan, Peter Kellner and Illinois governor JB Pritzker. Two Texas names recur: the Channelview rancher Gus Dwairy ($250,000.00 across the quarter) and Dingus Investments Inc. of Midland ($200,000.00). Earlier money, reported by the *Texas Tribune* in May 2026, came from **[[Government That Works PAC]]** ($3.75 million, which the paper said "largely came from undisclosed sources"), **[[Reid Hoffman]]** ($1.5 million), and the dark-money **[[Sixteen Thirty Fund]]** ($4 million). That earlier $9 million was spent on advertising for Talarico and against [[Jasmine Crockett]] in the Democratic primary, not against Paxton. ## Why it matters - **It is the counterweight in the most expensive Senate race of the cycle, and it is losing on money by an order of magnitude.** [[Texas PAC]] alone has itemised $131,529,652.10 of independent expenditure in TX-Sen; this committee's entire quarter is $13.8 million. - **The donor list is a who's-who of tech money on the Democratic side.** [[Reed Hastings]] sits on the board of [[Anthropic]]; [[Chris Larsen]] is the crypto industry's most prominent Democratic megadonor. Both arrive in a Texas Senate race at the same seven-figure size, in the same quarter, from the same part of the country. - **The single-vendor concentration is extreme even by the standards of this cycle.** 99.4% through one firm is higher than any comparable programme this site has measured. ## Open questions - **Who is behind Old Town Media LLC**, which has now placed $13.7 million of Texas advertising. - Whether the committee's $7.77 million of closing cash was spent in the final three weeks, and in which media markets. - Whether [[Government That Works PAC]] appears again as a funder after the primary period. ## See also - [[TX-Sen-2026]] · [[James Talarico]] · [[Ken Paxton]] · [[Lone Star Liberty PAC]] · [[Texas PAC]] - [[Reed Hastings]] · [[Chris Larsen]] · [[Susan Sarofim]] · [[Reid Hoffman]] · [[John Pritzker]] - [[Government That Works PAC]] · [[Sixteen Thirty Fund]] · [[Super PACs]] · [[Dark Money]] - [[Independent Expenditure]] · [[Deals Hub]]