Bush Family Members Cross Party Lines to Back Talarico Over Paxton in Texas Senate Race

Barbara Bush donated $2,500 to Lone Star Rising PAC, a political committee supporting Democrat James Talarico in Texas's U.S. Senate race, according to Federal Election Commission filings made public in October. The contribution, dated September 23, makes her the second Bush family member in recent weeks to publicly break with Republican Ken Paxton.

Her uncle Neil Bush, chair of the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, previously announced on Facebook that he had voted for Talarico instead of Paxton. Neil Bush said it was the first political post he had ever shared on the platform, citing Paxton's 2020 attempt to overturn election results in other states as an affront to democratic institutions.

“If we lose Texas, we lose America.”

The Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit sought to withhold certified vote counts in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and the state has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988.

Paxton defeated George P. Bush, Neil Bush's nephew and son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, in the 2022 Republican primary for attorney general. Paxton reached this year's general election by defeating four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn in a May Republican runoff.

Paxton was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 over corruption accusations and has also been through a very public divorce. He now portrays Talarico as an extreme liberal out of step with Texas, while Talarico told a crowd this week that his campaign would shock the world by taking back Texas.