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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPolitical campaigns cost a lot of money. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPolitical campaigns cost a lot of money. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Adobe Stock<\/p>\n
Texas is hosting some of the most high-profile, competitive and expensive races in this year\u2019s election cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Republican control on the line, PACs and wealthy donors have continued to pour money into Texas races. The razor-thin Senate race between Attorny General Ken Paxton and Rep. James Talarico is generating a lot of attention, and a ton of money.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The two candidates combined broke the campaign advertising spending record in early October when ad spending exceeded $240 million. That number is now over $500 million.<\/p>\n
The race for governor isn\u2019t short on cash either, as Gov. Greg Abbott raised $20 million and Rep. Gina Hinojosa raised $ 13 million in the third campaign quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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THANK YOU!<\/p>\n
You’re all set.<\/p>\n
CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s put these numbers into perspective using some Dallas staples.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas State Fair<\/p>\n
The Texas State Fair, which just wrapped up its 2026 season, totals <\/a>more than $70 million in operating costs each year. In 2025, the State Fair spent a little over $72 million. This equals what Abbott\u2019s campaign has spent since July 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n If all of the city of Dallas\u2019 1.3 million residents bought a Fletcher\u2019s Original Corny Dog at the State Fair of Texas, priced at $8, the total would be $1.5 million over the donations Abbott accepted from data center donors<\/a> as he called for statewide regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dallas\u2019 most expensive restaurant<\/p>\n As we reported last year, Tatsu and Monarch are Dallas\u2019 most expensive restaurants.<\/a> Tatsu is one of the few restaurants North Texas with a Michelin star and costs $185 for each person. The $185 price tag does not include drinks, tax, and an automatic 18% gratuity, so let\u2019s just call it $250 per person.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city of Dallas could have its population eat at Tatsu for $250 each, totaling over $332 million, and still not match the amount spent on campaign advertisements for Talarico and Paxton.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same 1.3 million Dallasites could then head over to Monarch and order the Mayor of Speyside, a signature cocktail made with Glenfiddich 18-year, Laird\u2019s Applejack, Fernet Vallet and smoke with a price tag of $85, and would be about $15 million shy of the $128 million in donations gathered by Talarico.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dallas Cowboys tix<\/p>\n Paxton has been outspent by Talarico for a majority of the campaign period, until President Donald Trump and Elon Musk\u2019s Super PAC\u2019s opened their wallets for his cause. The world\u2019s wealthiest man is heavily bankrolling the Texas PAC, a new super PAC launched by the Senate Leadership Fund, and has dropped nearly $190 million in air support for Paxton\u2019s ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who has played 11 seasons for the team, makes $60 million annually. In three years, his salary will be nearly equal to the funds Musk has poured into Texas\u2019 Senate race.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ring of Honor Suites at AT&T Stadium for the Cowboys\u2019 Nov. 15 game against the San Francisco 49ers are selling for over $56,000<\/a>.\u00a0This suite price is $6,000 more<\/a> than a donation Abbott received from Tarek Mansour, a co-founder of the prediction market company Kalshi.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Election Day fast approaching, candidates are using every bit of campaign time and money left to influence the polls. Texas is already seeing record early-voting turnout, which began on Oct. 19 and runs until Oct. 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political campaigns cost a lot of money. Adobe Stock Texas is hosting some of the most high-profile, competitive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,113,104,103,409,1967,368],"class_list":["post-473310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-election","tag-ken-paxton","tag-state-fair-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}