Get Quartz in your inbox

Free daily briefing on global business news.

Texas is drawing $287 million in outside money. Here’s where else it’s going

The Senate Leadership Fund leads at nearly $174 million, and Texas tops all races at $287 million. See where outside money is going

Louis Velazquez / Unsplash

Outside spending, the money that super PACs, party committees, nonprofits and other groups spend independently of candidates' campaigns, has become one of the defining features of American elections since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as they don't coordinate with campaigns, and in the 2026 midterms they are doing it in the billions. Corporations alone have put a record $737 million into the cycle, according to a Public Citizen analysis of FEC data through October 23.

OpenSecrets' latest tally, published October 10 and covering spending through October 5, counts nearly $2 billion from 794 groups, with weeks of spending still to come. A small number of groups account for much of it: the top six spent more than $678 million, over a third of the total, and 16 organizations account for more than half. OpenSecrets classifies conservative groups as spending about $1.1 billion and liberal groups about $727 million, with $120 million not tied to either side. Because later filings will raise every figure below, each slide gives the date of its numbers. The 10 slides below cover the biggest groups, the most expensive races and the industries with the most at stake.

Senate Leadership Fund

Tim Mossholder / Unsplash

The Senate Leadership Fund is the biggest outside spender of the cycle, at nearly $174 million through October 5, according to OpenSecrets. The super PAC was founded in January 2015 by allies of then-Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and has become the principal super PAC aligned with Senate Republican leadership. It is closely affiliated with One Nation, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that isn't legally required to disclose its donors, and it led the field in 2022 as well.

Its plans have been larger than its spending so far. In April, the group announced about $350 million of advertising across an eight-state Senate battleground, with $236 million to defend five Republican-held seats and $106 million to target three Democratic-held ones, including $29 million for Iowa's open seat, according to Wikipedia's summary of New York Times reporting. CNBC put its reservations at $342 million. Politico and Punchbowl characterized the scale as evidence of a defensive posture for Senate Republicans. The fund has also shifted money as the map changed. Quartz reported in October that it pulled future ads from the North Carolina Senate race and moved resources to Kansas, where Republican Sen. Roger Marshall faces Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton.

Elon Musk is a major donor to the fund. The New York Times, as relayed by Quartz, reported that Musk gave $158 million to the fund as part of more than $276 million to Republican groups since July. In 2024 the fund spent about $211 million in independent expenditures, the third-highest among super PACs, and $296.6 million overall.

The Texas Senate race

No race has drawn more outside money than the Texas Senate contest between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton. OpenSecrets counted nearly $287 million through October 5, almost $253 million of it from conservative groups, much of it during the Republican primary.

The biggest single vehicle is Texas PAC, a new group run and partially funded by the Senate Leadership Fund and formed on August 28 to back Paxton, the Republican nominee. It had spent nearly $134 million by October 5, more than doubling its total in two weeks, including media buys of nearly $27 million and more than $28 million to oppose Talarico within 13 days in September, according to FEC filings. A second pro-Paxton group, Lone Star Liberty PAC, received $10 million from Musk. CNN reported that at least $168 million of Musk's money has been spent in Texas through groups other than his own America PAC, and that donations to the Senate Leadership Fund were quickly transferred to Texas PAC. The fund's executive director, Alex Latcham, said the Texas donors ensured it didn't have to divert resources from other key races.

On the Democratic side, CNN reported that Reid Hoffman gave $10 million to a super PAC supporting Talarico. Texas Tech political scientist Joel Sievert told OpenSecrets that the lopsided spending during the........

© Quartz