Held: The 'who's your favorite drag queen' approach isn't exactly wowing Texas voters. Maybe some cold, hard cash will do the trick instead.
Just how deep are Democrat pockets in a state that cast 8.1 million votes in the most recent midterm cycle? Do James Talarico and his allies have the necessary $200 million cash on hand to buy an election? Or will he use the Joe Kennedy "Don't buy a single vote more than necessary" approach? Our colleagues at Townhall have undercover video of Texas Majority PAC organizing manager Sky McAdams admitting to a vote-buying scheme at $25 bucks a pop:
Sky McAdams, organizing manager for Texas Majority PAC, was caught on video dishing on the scheme they hope will propel Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico to victory in November.
“We are paying people $25 to attend a one-hour Zoom class to learn why voting is important and why the Republicans are causing all of these bad things,” McAdams says in the undercover video. “So it’s like a roundabout way of paying people for their votes, essentially.”
In the video, McAdams says it’s called a “paid relational program,” which is operated by Relentless that uses software called Rally.
The video is short, mainly because McAdams makes quick work of his admission of his "shady as f***" project:
“You can’t pay someone to vote for someone,” McAdams says in the video. “You can’t be like, ‘Here’s $25, go vote for me.’ You can say, ‘Attend a one-hour class and you can receive $25.’ And then the class just talks about the importance of… It’s a little gray,” he continues, apparently referring to the legality of the activity.
“If I was a Republican, I would be pissed. I would be like, that’s shady as f**k.”
I'm more amused than "pissed," in part because of the petty nature of both the payment and the results. Relentless' own claims make this scale of this look rather lame, and that's assuming it works the way they say it does:
According to Relentless’s website, the company’s “paid relational programs recruit low-propensity voters and compensate them for their time as they reach, persuade, and mobilize their friends and family to vote.”
Relentless claims it orchestrated similar campaigns in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania in 2024 and netted “47,533 Democratic votes.”
In a campaign finance report filed in July, Texas Majority PAC said it paid Relentless $500,000 for a “relational organizing program,” or about 20 percent of all its expenditures up to that point. At $25 per vote, that could be good for 20,000 ballots.
Ahem. Colin Allred ran for Senate two years ago against Ted Cruz and lost by 959,000 votes. It would take $25 million and a boatload of hour-long cult sessions to make up that gap. John Cornyn won in 2020 by over a million votes. Even Beto!!1!1!! lost by well over 200,000 votes in 2018 against Cruz, and then by almost 900,000 against Greg Abbott in the 2022 gubernatorial campaign. Twenty thousand votes likely wouldn't matter even in a Texas primary; Talarico beat Jasmine Crockett by 145,000 votes, for instance.
Furthermore, this looks more like a racket than a vote-swinging effort. Which voters are most likely to endure an hour-long lecture for $25? The voters who are already inclined toward high engagement. The likeliest outcome of this is that Relentless is buying voters who would have turned out anyway. It's the Cash For Clunkers model all over again.
Nevertheless, just how shady is this on the AF scale? Former federal prosecutor Shipwreckedcrew argues that it flips the needle all the way into the red:
The intent to violate the statute is there. THis is no different than the use of straw donors in making contributions.
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) September 16, 2026
I think this guy and his group have a bigger problem than he imagines. Creating "evading" of federal law is just another word for "conspiracy."
This might… https://t.co/YDApahhVN4
It may also run afoul of Texas law on evasion of election law. Given that Talarico is running against the sitting Attorney General of the state, we can safely refer to this as a bold strategy, at the very least. Stay tuned.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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