The Republican Party’s long-awaited influx of money to support U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton has tilted the battle for airtime in favor of Republicans less than three weeks before early voting begins in Texas.
But in an election where both parties are desperate to win over Latino voters, a small portion of spending has gone toward Spanish ads.
Since the beginning of September, Paxton-aligned groups have purchased $188 million worth of advertising, including future TV bookings. According to media tracking company AdImpact, only $4.2 million, or about 2 percent, goes to Spanish-language ads.
The absence of pro-Paxton ads on Spanish television and radio has worried some Republicans who say the GOP’s gains with Latino voters across Texas — from the Rio Grande Valley to the rest of the U.S.-Mexico border to the suburbs of the state’s largest metropolises — are at risk.
Among those affected is Mayra Flores, a former congresswoman from the 34th District, anchored in McAllen. On Sunday morning, Flores logged on to Univision to watch an hour-long show called Esta Semana for which she had pre-recorded an interview. Her phone started ringing, as people texted her an observation she herself was making in real time: While some pro-Democrat ads appeared in the ads, there were none for Republican candidates, she said in an interview.
That leaves her perplexed, she said, as Republicans prepare for a tough election.
“I’ve been seeing it for months,” said Flores, who lost his bid for the GOP nomination in the 34th District earlier this year. “All the races in the Valley are going to be within the margin of error. … They’re going to be very close.”
In the 34th, one of three competitive congressional districts that cover the Rio Grande Valley, Democrats spent more than Republicans on Spanish ads, between $2.7 million and $1.6 million. The divide is sharpest in the neighboring 15th District, where, as in the 34th, more than 70 percent of eligible voters are Hispanic. There, Democratic groups more than doubled Republican spending on Spanish frequencies.
The 28th District is the exception of the three: Republicans narrowly outspent Democrats in the general election.
It is unclear whether the absence of Spanish ads will have any consequences for the Republican Party. Two years ago, Republicans ran just $1.1 million worth of Spanish-language ads in the U.S. Senate race, then made big gains among Latino voters. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lost the Latino vote by just three points, after years of Democrats winning the bloc by double digits.
But this year, Republicans like Flores are worried about warning signs that have been flashing for months about eroding Latino support for the GOP. Repeated surveys have shown that Latino voters are unhappy with how much they spend at the gas pump and grocery store under a Republican-controlled state and federal government.
That adds to the sense of betrayal described by some Hispanic Republicans — in focus groups and news reports — who supported President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to deport felons en masse only to see their relatives and employees without records targeted.
And in the race for the top in Texas, Democratic candidate James Talarico’s Hispanic support has consistently fluctuated between the mid-50s and 60s, while Paxton has sat mostly in the 30s. That gap has propelled Talarico to a narrow overall lead in most public polls.
Angie Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who worked on the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024, said Spanish ad buys served multiple purposes. The first is to reach voters who “live their lives primarily in Spanish.” They also have a symbolic purpose, she said.
“It sends a message, even to those who are maybe English-dominant, that campaigns at least value voters enough to try to do that outreach, even if it’s an extra step,” Gutierrez said. “If campaigns really want to be able to capture all the votes on the table, they need to cover these spaces. »
In a recent statewide poll of Latino voters, released by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision, 69 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that when a candidate appears in Spanish-language media, “it signals that Hispanic voters are important to them and makes me feel like they want to win my vote.”
Two-thirds of the state’s eligible Latino voters speak Spanish at home. Half are bilingual and 17% speak primarily Spanish.
For most of the general election, Talarico was the only Senate candidate featured in the Spanish media, spending $2 million compared to virtually none for Paxton or his allied groups. Republicans have since narrowed the gap, with Talarico and his allies maintaining a slight advantage over Paxton and the GOP in Spanish ad spending — $4.6 million to $4.2 million — according to AdImpact.
But Talarico’s dollars went further, under a federal law that gives candidates — but not super PACs — access to discounted advertising rates in the run-up to elections. In September, Spanish pro-Paxton ad spending totaled $4.2 million, surpassing the $2.6 million spent on pro-Talarico ads. But almost all of the GOP’s buying came from a super PAC, leaving both parties with almost the same number of “raw rating points,” a metric used to measure advertising reach.
Talarico also campaigned in Spanish, sometimes speaking the language himself in advertisements and at events. He also launched a WhatsApp service to deliver campaign news and information to Latinos and relied on influential figures such as popular Latino content creator Carlos Eduardo Espina. Talarico’s first ad for the general election was in Spanish – a spot that aired during the FIFA World Cup.
In March, Talarico won the Democratic primary with some of his strongest support coming from predominantly Latino counties.
According to AdImpact, pro-Paxton and pro-Talarico Spanish ads ran in a mix of large urban media markets, including Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, and those covering Harlingen, Weslaco, Brownsville and McAllen in the Valley.
Winning the Latino vote will be imperative to any path to victory for Talarico, who is trying to end Texas Democrats’ 32-year losing streak in statewide elections. When Beto O’Rourke came within three points of defeating Cruz in 2018, he captured 64% of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls. Democrats had long counted on this level of support from Latino voters, seeing their growing numbers in Texas as the key to their return to political relevance, before taking a nose dive in 2024.
Spokespeople for Paxton’s campaign and the main groups supporting him, Texas PAC and Lone Star Liberty PAC, did not respond to requests for comment. The Texas PAC, linked to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC itself affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, accounted for most of the Spanish ad buys promoting Paxton, as well as most of September’s overall spending.
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