Texas Nationalist Movement Launches a Public Index of Outside Money in Texas Politics

The Texas Nationalist Movement has launched whoboughttexas.com, a public index that traces the money in Texas politics to its source. Built entirely on public campaign-finance records, the site scores officeholders and candidates on how much of their funding comes from outside Texas, and it applies the same measurement to every one of them, whatever their party or office.

The index draws on the itemized reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission and the Federal Election Commission, sorting every dollar into one of three categories: Texas, outside Texas, or unresolved, the last reserved for money that current disclosure rules leave untraceable. Money routed through political action committees is traced back toward the states its donors live in. The index describes the outside share it reports as a floor rather than a ceiling, the real figure being at least what it shows and higher where disclosure is incomplete.

This week the movement extended the index to the federal ballot. A new section covers Texas's 2026 races for Washington, the United States Senate seat and all 38 United States House districts, and scores more than 120 candidates on the share of their money that comes from outside Texas. The federal page is presented as a separate view, because money crosses state lines in a congressional race as a matter of course and the outside shares run higher than they do in a state race. What it measures is which candidates for a Texas seat lean on Texans and which lean on money from elsewhere.

The index is published on a single premise: that Texas elections should be decided by Texans. It does not advocate the election or defeat of any candidate, and it makes no claim about any person named on the site. It restates, in one place, what the public record already shows.

"For the first time, Texans can see in one place how much of the money in their politics comes from people who cannot vote here," said Daniel Miller, President of the Texas Nationalist Movement. "The records were always public. No one had ever added them up. A people who mean to govern themselves are entitled to know who is paying for the government they have now."

The index is at whoboughttexas.com, and the federal section is at whoboughttexas.com/federal.