NRA Targets Talarico Over Gun Ban

The NRA has launched its first major ad of the 2026 cycle, and it's aimed squarely at Texas Senate candidate James Talarico's past support for an "assault weapons" ban.

Driving the news: The NRA announced a "multi-million-dollar campaign" Wednesday built around an ad that revives a 2020 clip of Talarico endorsing a ban on semi-auto rifles and magazine capacity limits — a clip The Reload first surfaced back in June.

• The ad's message: "With control of the Senate up for grabs, Talarico sides with the most radical gun grabbers in Washington. Don't be left defenseless. Vote like your rights depend on it."
• Ground game: A "Gun Bus battleground tour" through Texas, plus the NRA's usual get-out-the-vote machine — Orange Cards, targeted texts, door-knocking.

State of play: Talarico has consistently led Republican Ken Paxton in polling, which explains why the NRA is dropping its first big buy here rather than somewhere safer. If Texas flips, Senate control could flip with it — Democrats already face a brutal map everywhere else.

"Nearly half of Texas households have guns, and millions of law-abiding Texans own the very rifles and standard-capacity magazines he would ban. Gun owners will decide this election—and Talarico just gave them another reason to vote." — John Commerford, NRA-PVF Chairman

Meanwhile, Everytown isn't slowing down. The gun-control group's Victory Fund is adding $3 million in digital ads targeting state legislative races in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — a shift from congressional races into statehouses, where most gun-control laws actually get written.

The new Everytown spots lean harder into gun politics than past campaigns, accusing Republican targets of opposing "assault weapons" bans, red-flag laws and background check expansions, while branding them "MAGA extremists" tied to Trump. One Michigan ad claims Republicans "want to flood our streets with deadly assault weapons." An Arizona ad asks voters to pick between "families and law enforcement" or "the gun lobby."

By the numbers: FEC filings show the gun-control side has outspent the NRA so far this cycle. Everytown and Giffords reported roughly $1.35 million and $1.65 million respectively in recent expenditures, much of it against Reps. Bob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.). The NRA, by contrast, spent just over $400,000 on printing and mailers for 52 House and Senate candidates through mid-October — plus nearly half a million on the Talarico ad alone, $156,629 backing Sen. John Husted (R-Ohio), and smaller sums for candidates in Ohio, Iowa and North Carolina.

What gun owners should know: This is the first real sign the NRA plans to contest 2026 at scale rather than cede the airwaves. Everytown's pivot to state legislatures matters too — that's where magazine bans, permit-to-purchase bills and red-flag laws actually pass, often with far less national attention than a Senate race.

The bottom line: Texas just became the marquee gun-rights fight of the midterms, and both sides are betting the outcome there sets the tone for everything downstream.