Texas Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico told a New Yorker reporter he would reject a super PAC. He said it over red wine. Meanwhile, a super PAC formed by his 15-year friend has blanketed Texas airwaves with nearly $3.7 million in negative ads against his primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, since the start of February.
The vehicle is called the Lone Star Rising PAC. The man who runs it is Alexander Clark, a Texas political operative who identified himself as a 15-year friend of Talarico in now-deleted Facebook posts. Clark formed the PAC on Sept. 2, 2025. One week later, on Sept. 9, Talarico launched his Senate campaign.
Talarico brands himself as an anti-corruption crusader running a "people-funded" and "campaign based on love." He has pledged to ban super PACs if elected. He has not denounced the super PAC or its negative ads.
The Lone Star Rising PAC's donor list reads like a who's who of Democratic mega-wealth. According to its latest FEC report, contributors include:
Hoffman's half-million alone would fund a small congressional race. It also comes with baggage. Hoffman maintained a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in the years leading up to Epstein's 2019 arrest for sex trafficking dozens of girls. That's the caliber of donor bankrolling the "anti-corruption" candidate's air war.
The funding architecture gets more interesting the deeper you look. In January, an outfit called the Government that Works PAC gave $3.75 million to Clark's super PAC. That same month, the Government that Works PAC received $4 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund. In 2025, the Government that Works PAC also raked in another $2.9 million from an entity called Contours Inc., which raised less than $50,000 in 2024 according to the IRS.
Read that again. An organization that could barely scrape together $50,000 in one year suddenly funneled $2.9 million the next. The money doesn't grow on trees. It grows in the labyrinth of pass-through entities that exist for one purpose: to make donor identities disappear.
This is the infrastructure behind Talarico's campaign of love.
When the Dallas Morning News pressed Talarico's campaign in early February, the response was boilerplate: the campaign couldn't have had anything to do with the Lone Star Rising PAC's ads because federal law prohibits coordination with super PACs.
Legally, that's the correct thing to say. But legality and plausibility are different animals. Clark formed the PAC exactly one week before Talarico announced his campaign. Clark publicly called himself a 15-year friend of the candidate. Talarico himself thanked Clark for his "friendship" in a Facebook post four years ago. The Washington Free Beacon reviewed Clark's posts on a Friday; by Monday morning, they were deleted.
Nobody is alleging a crime. But the timeline tells its own story, and the scrubbed social media posts do not scream transparency.
Talarico's pitch leans heavily on faith language. He told the New Yorker reporter:
The central belief in my faith is that the means are the ends.
He went further, musing about the possibility of defeat:
If we lose, it would feel not great. But—but!—it's the belief in the Resurrection, right? The belief that something beautiful would come out of this loss.
It's a lofty framework. It's also completely irreconcilable with what's happening on the ground. The means, in this case, include millions in attack ads funded by billionaires and routed through entities designed to obscure their origins. Those are the means. And if the means are the ends, the end is just another politician dressed in Sunday clothes.
Clark, for his part, was more candid. He said he was proud to lead a super PAC working to elect Talarico "so we can root out corruption by banning … super PACs." He added that he would:
Make no apologies for not unilaterally disarming until we can all play by the same set of rules.
At least one of them is honest about the contradiction. The argument amounts to: we must use the corrupt system to destroy the corrupt system. It's the political equivalent of burning down a house to protest arson.
Talarico is trying to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas in 30 years. To do that, he first needs to get past Crockett in a primary next Tuesday. And despite Crockett's once-commanding polling lead, Talarico has chipped away at it, aided by an air campaign he claims no connection to but has never condemned.
This is not a new play. Democrats have perfected the art of running against the system while operating its most sophisticated machinery. They decry Citizens United while building the most complex dark money networks in American politics. They call for transparency while routing millions through entities that exist solely to avoid it.
Talarico isn't breaking new ground. He's just doing it while quoting Scripture.
The voters of Texas deserve to know whose money is on the field. They know now. Whether it matters is up to them.
