As campaign season continues, politicians are turning up the volume on campaign rhetoric. To cut through the noise, we’re launching Campaign Context, a series providing clarity on the messages you’re hearing from candidates on the campaign trail. We’re digging past the politics and into the facts to provide you with the transparent, spin-free information you need to make informed decisions this election season.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan’s narrow escape this week didn’t come cheap. His Republican runoff victory against challenger David Challenger in District 21 saw fundraising and ad spending never seen before in a Texas House race.

Between June of last year (when Covey announced his run) and this week’s nail-biting finale, Phelan’s campaign raised $9.6 million in total political contributions, according to campaign finance records on the Texas Ethics Commission’s website.

During that same time period, Covey’s campaign reported $2.6 million raised, though the candidate did get major help from outside groups in terms of ad spending, including the national conservative group the Club for Growth which pledged nearly $900,000 on anti-Phelan messaging.

According to advertising analytics firm AdImpact, $1.9 million was spent in total on ads targeting the speaker, $4.2 million spent on pro-Phelan ads, and $1.8 million on pro-Covey spots.

For a fundraising comparison, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who also found himself in a GOP runoff in 2022 — raised more than $8 million in campaign funding in his statewide battle against then-Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Campaign finance records show the Bush campaign raised slightly more than Paxton at $8.4 million, though Paxton ultimately ran away with the runoff, defeating Bush by 36 percentage points.

In another fairly recent high-profile race, former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke raised a staggering $80 million in his 2018 U.S. Senate bid, according to federal election records. The figure eclipsed Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign tally of $31 million.

In the end, Cruz kept his seat, besting O’Rourke by two-and-a-half percentage points.