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Page A4From§Eachthe matinee edition — 3 October 2026

Republicans panic after spending $100 million to save Paxton, who still trails by five.

By LouOne More Question

“The price tag on the Ken Paxton rescue mission has Republicans panicking”, 3 October 2026 (Photo via Politico — the original report)

As it ran on the front

My cousin reupholsters furniture for a living, works out of a shop behind his house, chairs mostly, some couches, and I take him seriously, because the man can look at a sofa from across a room and tell you what's wrong with the frame before he even touches it. He says the trick of the trade is that anybody can staple new fabric over an old chair and make it look like it just came off a show floor. The question, he says, is what's holding the thing up once a person sits down in it. He's redone eleven chairs this year, by his own count. He's turned the frame over and found real work needed on two of them. I wrote that down.

I didn't expect to carry a chair back to my own breakfast table, but here we are, because the Texas Senate race has been reading like that shop some mornings. Let me walk through what I've got, in order, because I've been collecting it for weeks.…

…(cont) September 2nd: an ad goes up from the Talarico campaign, the Washington Examiner's headline on it, accusing Paxton's side of ducking a debate. Same day, the Examiner runs its own item, Republicans debating among themselves over defending Paxton's position on debating at all. September 3rd, the Hill quotes Karl Rove: time is running out for Paxton. September 9th, the Hill again, a House Republican named Pete Sessions, on the record, saying Paxton has to get on a stage with Talarico if he wants to win the state. That's two Republicans, in print, inside a week of each other, on the same piece of furniture. I wrote all of that down too, in case anyone wants to check my dates against theirs.

Here's where I slow down, because this is this week's chair, and I want to turn it over properly.

September 27th: the Washington Examiner reports that Republican spending to save Paxton has topped one hundred million dollars, a ramp-up the paper itself calls fast and large, Texas PAC among the groups that opened their wallets. Same date, the Hill publishes a poll: Talarico 49, Paxton 44, a five-point lead, three percent undecided, a little over a month out from the vote.

Today, two more pieces land on the same desk. The New York Times writes that after more than three decades without one, Democrats are daring to believe they can win a top-of-the-ballot race in Texas, built on that five-point number. Politico writes, the same day, that Republicans are panicking over the price tag on the Paxton rescue, and that some of them now want an outside group, MAGA Inc., to take over the spending entirely for the final stretch.

I've been sitting with that. A five-point lead is the dream — the Times says so, in those words, more or less. A hundred million dollars and rising is the rescue — Politico says so, same week, same morning's ink. My cousin would turn that chair over and look at the frame before he decided which part of it to believe, the fabric or the joints underneath.

So before you go — one more thing, and then I'll let you get on with your day. If one party's candidate is ahead by five points, and the other party's candidate needed more than a hundred million dollars just to be panicked about, and some of them are now talking about handing the checkbook to MAGA Inc. for the home stretch — whose name is actually on the chair once the fabric's all done?

“A hundred million dollars to save one attorney general and he's still down five points — that ain't a campaign, that's a bailout with yard signs. Follow the money and you'll find it's not coming out of the pocket of anybody who's telling you there's nothing left for your school or your clinic.”
Sal
“This is just enthusiasm, folks — Republicans believe in their nominee so much they're funding him at historic levels, that's commitment, not panic. Sure, some of us want MAGA Inc. to take the wheel on spending entirely, but that's — wait, why would you need to take the wheel if the car's already winning? Forget I said that.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

· The GOP’s Ken Paxton rescue mission tops $100 million in Texas from the morgue, 27 Sep 2026

· Talarico leads Paxton by 5 points in Texas Senate race poll from the morgue, 27 Sep 2026

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.