Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico will jet to Los Angeles for a celebrity-hosted fundraiser with tickets up to $13,500, drawing sharp Republican attacks on his out-of-state money trail.
Talarico, a progressive state representative running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate, is scheduled to attend a September 10 fundraiser in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the hit television series "Lost," and his wife Heidi will host the event, Fox News Digital reported. Tickets start at $500 and climb as high as $13,500.
The timing is striking. While Talarico courts donors in one of the most liberal zip codes in America, Republicans will gather in Dallas for the Republican National Committee's midterm convention, where President Trump and Paxton are expected to rally support for the Texas seat.
The Brentwood event is not Talarico's first trip to the Hollywood well. In June, he attended a fundraiser at the home of Hollywood producer Peter Chernin, an event Page Six Hollywood described as a "glitzy Dem fundraiser." First-quarter campaign finance records show that roughly 50 percent of the money Talarico raised came from donors outside Texas.
That figure sits at the center of the Republican case against him. RNC spokesperson Zach Kraft did not hold back in a statement to Fox News Digital:
"It is no surprise that James Talarico feels more comfortable in crazy liberal California than when his handlers force him to wear a fake cowboy hat and rent a pickup truck to pretend to be a 'real' Texan."
The "fake cowboy" line captures a broader argument Republicans are building: that Talarico markets himself as a homegrown Texan while relying on coastal money and holding views well outside the Texas mainstream. He has drawn scrutiny for calling God "nonbinary," claiming there are six sexes, and describing reduced meat consumption as "existential" to fighting climate change.
Talarico's campaign has faced other credibility questions closer to home. He has dodged residency questions after a report revealed five votes cast from his parents' address.
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, speaking with Fox News on Sunday, laid out the Republican funding gap bluntly. "Money is an issue," Kennedy said. "Mr. Talarico has been raising bucketloads of money from California, Hollywood."
Kennedy went further, calling directly on the president to step in financially. "We in the Senate don't have the money budgeted for Texas; we need help from the president," he said. That a Republican senator would publicly flag a cash shortage in the largest red state underscores how seriously the party is taking the race.
A Fox News poll from July showed Talarico leading Paxton 51 percent to 48 percent, a three-point edge that falls within the survey's margin of sampling error. The race is close enough to demand serious investment from both sides, and Republicans know it.
Talarico's record on social issues has also raised questions about consistency. He now says he opposes child sex-change surgery, but his legislative record tells a different story, a pattern that fits the broader Republican argument about a candidate who shifts his positions depending on the audience.
President Trump has made clear he intends to put personal capital behind Paxton's bid. "I'm going to help Ken Paxton, and I'm going to spend a lot of time in Texas," Trump told Fox News. He added: "I'll be going to Texas, and we're working really hard. We want to win that race."
Trump called Paxton a "very good candidate" and touted his own record of winning Texas three times at the presidential level. Paxton, for his part, told Fox News Digital that Talarico's lead in the polls was not surprising given the head start Talarico gained while Paxton navigated a difficult primary runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. The Texas Senate race has tightened amid scrutiny of both candidates, but the fundamental question of who funds each campaign is emerging as a central battleground.
Fox News Digital reached out to Talarico's campaign, Damon Lindelof, and Peter Chernin for comment. None had responded by the time of publication.
The dueling strategies extend beyond Texas. On the same night Republicans convene in Dallas, former President Barack Obama will headline a Democratic House fundraiser in New York, according to The New York Times. Both parties are marshaling their biggest names ahead of the midterms, and the Texas Senate seat sits near the top of every national target list.
Democrats leaning on out-of-state celebrity cash is hardly a new phenomenon. Rep. Ilhan Omar's campaign drew attention for burning thousands on Ritz-Carlton stays and luxury rides far from her own district, a reminder that the party's spending habits often look nothing like the working-class voters it claims to champion.
For Talarico, the math is simple: he needs money, and Hollywood is happy to pen checks. But every dollar raised in Brentwood makes the Republican argument a little easier to land in Lubbock, Amarillo, and every other Texas town where $13,500 is not a dinner ticket, it is a year's rent.
Voters in the largest red state will decide whether their next senator answers to Texas or to the zip codes bankrolling his campaign. That question tends to answer itself.