Texas Campaigns Ramp Up Ads, Voter Texts

Texas’s 2026 midterm campaigns are spending heavily and using increasingly aggressive, unconventional messaging, including AI-generated spots, fabricated scenarios and attack ads that critics say distort candidates’ remarks. Campaign-ad spending and priorities differ by party: Republicans have emphasized crime and transgender-related issues, while Democrats have highlighted taxes, health care, corruption and inflation, with taxes recently becoming a major focus for both. Campaigns and outside groups are also flooding voters with inexpensive text messages; strategists disagree about their effectiveness, though they see them as more useful for mobilizing known supporters than persuading undecided voters. Campaigns can target recipients using voter files that combine public registration and voting data with information purchased from third-party vendors.