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Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

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Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

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How a GOP megadonor became frontrunner for Texas AG

Mayes Middleton helped fund the right — but that’s nothing next to the money he’s spent on himself

Published May 23, 2026 6:00AM (EDT)

This article originally appeared on The Texas Tribune.

Over the last 15 years, Mayes Middleton has become a prolific GOP donor, spending millions of his oil and gas fortune on conservative candidates and causes. His largesse has helped fund the rise of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and quietly enabled challenges to Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Most of all, though, his money has fueled his own political rise, from a little-known oil and gas heir to a state legislator and, now, front-runner in the race to replace Paxton. After coming first in the March primary, Middleton, a senator from Galveston, will face U.S. Rep. Chip Roy in the May 26 runoff.

Middleton has spent more than $16 million of his own money on the race so far, dwarfing any of his previous political spending many times over. Roy and his backers argue Middleton is trying to buy the race, through his deluge of television ads and endorsements from candidates and groups he’s supported, despite his thin legal resume and qualifications for the job.

“I look at the amount of money being thrown around by my opponent, into groups that then endorse him, somebody tell me how that’s not a conflict of interest,” Roy said at a recent campaign stop in Dripping Springs. “It just don’t smell right to me.”

Middleton didn’t respond to a request........

© Salon