CNN reports this year’s U.S. Senate contest between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has topped $500 million in ad spending.
That includes advertising already purchased and reserved across the primaries, runoff and general election.
Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, joined Texas Standard with details on where the money comes from and how it’s actually used.
CNN reports this year’s U.S. Senate contest between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has topped $500 million in ad spending.
That includes advertising already purchased and reserved across the primaries, runoff and general election.
Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, joined Texas Standard with details on where the money comes from and how it’s actually used.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How does this year’s Senate race compare with previous Texas elections looking at similar spending targets?
Brendan Glavin: It’s really blowing it out of the water, even compared to other Senate races across the country historically. The race in Ohio in 2024 was the most expensive Senate race we’ve seen when you include all the money spent by candidates and outside groups. But this is going to easily exceed that.
What’s driving these numbers? How much is the cost of reaching voters in a state this size? And how much reflects the stakes of this particular election, do you think?
You know, the stakes have changed. Well, the stakes have always been high, but which races and how that’s going to play out have shifted over time.
And if you go back to the beginning of the summer, there was some question about will there be a lot of money spent on this Senate race, because of questions about whether or not Talarico would really be able to compete with Paxton.
So, at the time, people didn’t really know, and people thought, money’s going to be spent in other places — and then things got very tight, and now the money is just pouring in.
Once upon a time in a completely different media environment, people were watching, you know, terrestrial television or cable TV. These days, with our attention so fragmented over a wide number of channels online and that sort of thing, where’s this money being spent?
It’s certainly more spread out now, but even in this situation like you described, there’s still a lot of money that goes into TV ads. It’s still a very big piece of how the money gets spent. And it’s the most expensive part, too.
People who see the ads probably aren’t surprised, but when you think about all the other ways that the money can be spent, certainly there is a lot of digital advertising. You can buy ads on Google, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.
So there’s all these other avenues that take it up there. And some of them are very good at being able to target people, but they certainly cost money, but they’re not as expensive as old school, running some TV ads.
This isn’t the only race, either; we’re beginning to see more money coming into the gubernatorial contest between Greg Abbott and Gina Hinojosa.
What stands out about the mix of overall donors, wealthy individuals and organized interests? Just how much is coming from outside Texas, from what you can tell?
Yep, a lot of donors — well-known donors, donors who are known at the national level — contribute to that race. You know, there’s a big difference between how the candidates at the gubernatorial level can raise money and how the candidates at the Senate level can raise money, because at the federal level there is contribution limits that limit an individual giving $7,000 over the course of an election cycle.
So all the money, all this hundreds of millions of dollars we’re talking about, a lot of it is coming in from the outside super PACs, not directly to candidate. But in the gubernatorial race, these wealthy donors can just give directly to the candidates; they don’t have to use an intermediary.
Yes, that’s an important distinction that you’re pointing out, the difference between a campaign’s own spending and spending by a super PAC. But what does that independence mean in practice, and how strong is that separation? Is that what’s referred to by this phrase “dark money”?
Well, dark money would be, where there’s the super PAC where it’s the super PAC itself, and it may not be a dark money group, but they may take contributions from a group that does not disclose its donors. And that’s the heart of what, when people talk about dark money, is that it’s money that’s being put into the elections and we don’t know where it came from.
So oftentimes it might be like a 501 (c)(4), which is a type of nonprofit organization. And they’re not required to disclose their donors, but they are active in political activity, and they can make donations to super PACs and then the super PAC spends the money on the election.
And we don’t know who — I say we, the citizens, voters — money’s being spent to influence them, but we don’t know who it is and what are their motivations and what do they stand to gain out of the election.
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