Originally Posted: March 2, 2018
As election day draws near, the closely watched Texas Senate District 8 Republican primary battle between businessman Phillip Huffines and educator Angela Paxton is shaping up to be one of the most expensive races in recent memory, with the two expected to spend upwards of $10 million combined.
And it may go down as one of the nastiest, too, with negative ads recently filling airwaves and mailboxes.
Huffines’ campaign is largely funded with a $4.25 million personal loan. His expenses have topped $6 million, with nearly half of that spent in the past month in his bid to join his twin brother, state Sen. Don Huffines, in the Texas legislature.
That total is more than twice the $2.7 million spent so far from Paxton’s side. Her campaign includes a $2 million bank loan secured by the campaign of her husband, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. On Tuesday, records showed his campaign loaned $500,000 to his wife’s campaign at eight percent interest.
And the intensive advertising blitz — in mailers, in digital ads and especially on TV — has largely gone negative and a bit dark. A Huffines TV ad opposing toll rolls ends with three people — purportedly toll workers — hanging upside down by their feet.
The ad — which includes Huffines saying “they’ll put a toll on [Highway] 75 over my dead body” — has drawn some criticism on social media, but political experts say it’s not unusual to that type of campaigning.
Ads that attack an opponent are often more memorable for voters, said Cal Jillson, a political scientist with Southern Methodist University.
“The reason you see so much negative advertising is that it does work,” he said. “The themes in negative ads tend to stick in people’s minds,” he said. READ MORE