The primary to select the Republican Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate this year will go down in the record books as the most expensive party primary in Texas history. Through July 11 — that is, 20 days prior to election day — the GOP candidates had already spent $37 million dollars. Particularly given the considerable amount of television advertising time purchased by the campaigns of David Dewhurst (especially) and Ted Cruz in the final weeks of the campaign, it goes without question that the combined expenditures by the GOP candidates’ respective campaigns during the 2012 primary electoral cycle will surpass $45 million, and quite possibly $50 million, by the time the contest is finally wrapped up. This former amount alone is greater than that spent in the state’s previously most expensive intra-party contest, the primary to select the GOP’s 2010 gubernatorial candidate, where Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison and, to a much lesser extent, Debra Medina, combined to spend $42 million.
Furthermore, the $45-50 million record above does not include the record amounts of expenditures by independent groups, some more “independent” than others, in support of the different candidates. These include those by the Texas Conservatives Fund on behalf of David Dewhurst and those by Club for Growth Action to help the Ted Cruz campaign. The most recent reports from the Center for Responsive Politics indicate that more than $14 million has already been spent by these third party groups, a number that will likely stand close to $20 million when all is said and done Tuesday evening.
Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.