GOP's midterm pitch: one man, $9.7 million in ads, 2,000 free tickets to watch him in Texas.

…(cont) The third invoice does not have a dollar sign on it. It has a ticket count: 2,000, distributed by the NRCC for next week's midterm convention in Texas. The guest list, per the same filing, runs thinner — around 100 members and candidates confirmed. Run that against the 2,000 and the gap is roughly 1,900 seats, held for people who are not, technically, running for anything, to watch a rally the RNC itself has been describing, since late August, as a two-day pep rally meant to bolster turnout ahead of a midterm the party is entering with an approval rate the same reporting called shrinking.

None of these three items, filed on the same day, mention a House map, a Senate map, a district, or a challenger by name. They mention him. The ad money says he is the pitch. The reservation money says he is the closing argument in twenty separate districts that do not share a zip code, a demographic, or, in several cases, an incumbent who wants him showing up. The ticket count says the party would rather fill an arena with him than fill it with the candidates the money is nominally protecting.

Three checks, three different drawers — a PAC, a campaign arm, a convention committee — and one face clears all three. Nobody wrote a check this week for a member of Congress. They wrote checks for the man who is not, in fact, on the ballot in a single one of the 20 races this money is supposed to save.