Utah donors double down on Ken Paxton as Texas Senate race fundraising soars

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah conservative donors confirmed this week they will host a fundraiser for Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton on Aug. 21, bringing one of the country's wildest congressional elections to the Beehive State.

Defense contractor Doug Quezada and real estate investor Ben Rogers framed it as an opportunity to play a role in sending Paxton to Washington, D.C., to secure conservative victories like he has as Texas attorney general.

Paxton came to Utah in 2025 for another event organized by Quezada and attended by Rogers, making Utah one of Paxton's top sources of out-of-state cash well before he beat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in May's primary runoff.

The early endorsement underscored Utah's reputation as the West's most influential red state, according to Quezada, who took the lead on coordinating Utah's Trump 2024 fundraiser as a member of the "Latter-day Saints for Trump" coalition.

"Utah doesn't chase whoever's hot that month. We back people we've got real relationships with, and we keep backing them when it stops being convenient," Quezada told the Deseret News. "That's not political machinery. It's community, and community forms around high-impact ideas and the people willing to carry them."

After dumping millions to oppose Paxton in the most expensive Senate primaries on record, Senate GOP leaders backed the embattled Texas firebrand as he faces record-breaking hauls from the Democratic nominee James Talarico.

With establishment support, Paxton raised $9 million in the second quarter. This fell far short of Talarico's $30 million, building on $27 million in the first quarter — the most raised during these periods for a U.S. Senate campaign ever.

Democrats are pouring money into the race in a longshot bid to take control of the Senate through a state that gave President Donald Trump a 14 percentage-point win in 2024. Democrats believe Paxton's candidacy gives them a chance for an upset.

Paxton carries a track record Democrats have capitalized on.

In 2023, the GOP-led Texas House impeached Paxton over allegations he had abused his office to help a campaign contributor, Nate Paul, who has pled guilty to federal charges for making false statements to obtain $170 million in loans.

Paxton was later acquitted by the Texas Senate. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute Paxton based on complaints made by his aides to the FBI in 2020 accusing him of corruption.

The conservative case for Paxton

Talarico's campaign has focused heavily on these legal issues and alleged extramarital affairs. The attacks have not swayed conservative voters who believe Paxton's track record in office outweighs his checkered past.

"Because he is so effective, I think that they are going to deploy every arrow they can find in their quiver against him," Rogers told the Deseret News. "I have a lot of admiration for people who have the bravery, despite their own failings and despite their past sins, to go out and face the world unafraid."

Conservatives have recoiled at the progressive views of Talarico, who is a Protestant pastor, because of his embrace of transgender ideology, his "woke" framing of Christian theology and his view that Americans need to "reduce their meat consumption."

Meanwhile, Paxton's list of conservative court victories is long.

In more than 100 lawsuits against President Joe Biden, Paxton successfully ordered the administration to continue construction of a border wall, overturned Biden's "parole in place" immigration policy and opposed vaccine mandates.

Paxton also led the nation in securing a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta over user data privacy, $7.4 billion with Purdue Pharma over opioid prescriptions and won lawsuits restricting porn websites for minors and abortion tourism.

With this resume, Paxton may be the "most important Republican in the entire country" at the state level, according to Rogers, who often comments on Utah politics from his popular social media account Dr Manhattva on X.

The Senate may be the most powerful legislative body on Earth. What it needs right now is a "warrior" of conservative principles, Rogers said, pointing to Paxton's work on election security and transgender athletes in girls' sports.

"If we don't have good representation in that body, then the results can be catastrophic," Rogers said. "This isn't even about the state of Utah. It's about the United States of America and therefore the whole world."

One of the most conservative senators in the country, Sen. Mike Lee, has thrown his support behind Paxton, too. He endorsed Paxton after his primary win and is listed as a guest at a Paxton fundraiser in Washington, D.C., on July 22.

Lee's office did not respond to a request for comment before this story was published.

Before Paxton became the party nominee, his biggest private donation came from Chelsey Milton, and her husband, Trevor, former CEO of the Utah electric truck startup Nikola Corp. Combined, the couple donated $600,000 to Paxton's PAC.

Milton was pardoned by Trump in March 2025 after he was convicted in 2022, and sentenced to four years in prison in 2023, for securities fraud and wire fraud for allegedly misleading investors about his electric vehicle products.

Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to the Trump reelection effort about six months before.

Related topics