Texas PAC, the affiliate of Senate Majority Leader John Thune's Senate Leadership Fund, is dropping another $61.4 million into the Texas Senate race, reporter @rpyers says in a post that Dave Weigel amplified.
The race pits Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee and Texas attorney general, against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. Politico says it is quickly becoming one of the most expensive races in the state's history.
Developing, unverified: the $61.4 million figure rests on that one post. The version we have is cut off before the new running total, so we are not printing one. No filing or ad-buy record came with it.
The backdrop is a lot of money already in motion. Politico reports that AdImpact found collective ad spending by the two campaigns and their supporting groups totaled more than $153 million. Politico also says the Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC closely aligned with Thune, has committed millions to Paxton.
Paxton's own campaign is spending too. It announced a $20 million ad buy ahead of November's election, which Politico calls one of the largest single media investments ever in a Texas Senate race. The ad starts in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, then expands statewide.
We built this campaign to go up early, stay up, and never go dark, and that's exactly what we're doing.
That is Nick Maddux, senior strategist for the Paxton campaign, in a statement.
Democrats are not sitting out. Senate Majority PAC, aligned with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, announced it would begin running ads hitting Paxton. It gave no figure.
Talarico has his own cash. Politico says he raised a record-breaking $30 million from April to June.
Here is the plain part: the ads are the easy line item. Eight-figure checks are now routine in a race where, per Politico, recent polls show Talarico ahead of Paxton by 1 to 6 percentage points.
So the number to watch is the one that got cut off. If you see the full post, check it against the filings.