Senate Democrats and their coastal donors are pouring millions into deep-red Mississippi and Texas, attempting to purchase Senate seats voters have denied them for decades. When persuasion fails, the checkbook opens.
The Senate Majority PAC announced a $1.2 million television ad buy in Mississippi starting Wednesday and running through Election Day, backing Democratic nominee Scott Colom against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, according to the Daily Caller. The PAC’s spokesperson, Lauren French, claimed Colom has put Hyde-Smith "on her heels." A Wedgwood Polls survey, however, shows Colom still trailing 52% to 48%. Mississippi last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1982, and President Trump carried the state with 60.9% of the vote in 2024. Colom has already outspent Hyde-Smith nearly $4.6 million to $3.2 million, with a total of just $8 million spent in the race so far.
Colom has campaigned with Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and is scheduled to rally with former Vice President Kamala Harris. He has centered his campaign on affordability and benefited from name recognition as the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District. Redistricting has also stirred the electorate; after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana’s racially gerrymandered map unconstitutional, Mississippi Republicans considered redrawing the state’s lone majority-black district before Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session following constituent backlash. NAACP executive director Charles Taylor told the Washington Post that rising costs and the Supreme Court decision have mobilized black voters, who make up roughly 35% of the state’s voting population, according to Mississippi Today.
Meanwhile in Texas, the effort to flip a red state blue is getting a boost from Republican royalty. Fox News confirmed through FEC filings that Barbara Bush—daughter of former President George W. Bush—donated $2,500 to the Lone Star Rising PAC, which accounts for nearly all outside spending supporting Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. Bush, who serves as the NBA’s vice president of social impact and inclusion and lists a Clinton Hill, Brooklyn address on her filing, works on "social justice" and "health equity" initiatives. The PAC also hauled in $150,000 from musician Don Henley.
Talarico has publicly lambasted big money in politics, criticizing opponent Ken Paxton for wanting "corporations and billionaires to decide our elections, not Texans," but told the Texas Tribune he will not "unilaterally disarm" on spending. Republican PACs have fired back, spending over $326 million to support Paxton.
The Senate Majority PAC is replicating this strategy elsewhere, dropping $5 million in Kansas—a state without a Democratic senator since 1939—and tens of millions in Iowa, Ohio, and Alaska, while pulling funds from Georgia and North Carolina where Democrats hold comfortable leads.
Out-of-state cash and celebrity donors are betting that saturation advertising can override the values of voters who have rejected their party for a generation. The question is whether bought airtime can buy a Senate seat, or if it merely proves the establishment's contempt for the electorate it cannot convince.
