Republicans' $100 million Paxton rescue operation leaves Talarico's five-point lead exactly where it started.

…(cont) On September 24th, I wrote down, the Marist Poll had James Talarico at 50 percent in the Texas Senate race, Ken Paxton at 44. Four percent undecided, two percent for the Libertarian. That's the fabric going on — new, tight, good color.

Three days later, on the 27th, a different outfit — Texas Public Opinion Research, 1,007 likely voters, margin of error 3.6 — had it a little closer. Talarico 49, Paxton 44. Five points. I wrote that one down twice, because I wanted to be sure I had it right.

That same week — I've got the date written as the 27th again, a different piece this time — the Washington Examiner put a dollar figure on what the other side was doing about that five-point gap. The Paxton rescue operation, they called it. Over $100 million.

I didn't know what to do with that figure, so I asked my cousin about it, in the abstract — whether you can put that much work into a frame and still feel it shift when you sit down. He said sure, that happens all the time. New fabric's not framing.

The next day on my pad, the 28th, an AARP poll out of North Carolina had Roy Cooper up 11 over Michael Whatley, and the item I clipped alongside it said Democrats were starting to think big about the Senate map generally — not just Texas. I don't have a clock on how fast those fifteen races moved. I've only got two dates for it in my notes — the 25th, and today, the 3rd — and whatever speed that works out to, that's the speed the receipts say it was.

And then today — I wrote this part down this morning, before I'd had coffee — the wire says Democratic candidates crossed 50 percent in two states at once, Texas and Alaska, and a separate count out the same day has five Senate races now either leaning Democratic or dead even. My cousin would ask, at that point, whether the frame's still the problem, or whether somebody's decided the fabric costs less than fixing it.

I don't reupholster anything myself. I just keep the pad.

Oh — before you go. One more figure, I did write it down, I just had it a second ago. The same week the party was spending past $100 million trying to close a five-point gap in Texas, the poll underneath all of it still had Talarico ahead by five. Does a hundred million dollars buy you anything, when the number at the end of it is the same number you started with?