The primary runoff elections in Texas are this Tuesday, and a lot of is being spent on that.
“You’re seeing beaucoup bucks,” says James Barragán, Texas Tribune’s political reporter. “There’s a lot of money going into it. And the reason for that is that Republicans control the state Legislature pretty dominantly, but now it’s basically an intra-party war.”
“What kind of Republicans do they want to see in those seats?” Barragán asks, drawing attention to the fact that despite the current Republican leadership having “a pretty conservative record … there’s also people from the grassroots conservative side that want them to be even more conservative.” Those groups happen to include Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which is funded by Tim Dunn, who is an oil and gas CEO as well as influential Republican backer.