Scoop: Cruz-linked super PAC jumps into Texas Senate race

Driving the news: Cruz's (R-Texas) Truth and Courage PAC will spend more than $1.7 million on broadcast TV and Fox News in Houston as well as on college football in Dallas and Houston, according to plans first provided to Axios.

• The ad focuses on Chinese purchases of Texas farmland, attacking Talarico for opposing legislation to ban the practice.
• "Communist China is buying up Texas," the narrator says.

The big picture: Multiple polls this month have shown Talarico with a narrow lead over Paxton. Cook Political Report on Thursday moved the race from "lean Republican" to "toss-up."

• Talarico has been out-fundraising Paxton roughly 7-1.
• The Talarico campaign has nearly $22 million in cash on hand, compared to Paxton's nearly $2 million, according to FEC filings.

What to watch: Neither the National Republican Senatorial Committee nor the top Senate leadership super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, have made any ad reservations in Texas since the May primary.

• Both groups backed Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost to Paxton, during the primary.
• GOP officials expect Paxton to get a boost from the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Republican National Committee and President Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc.
• How much of that money they will spend — and when — is still unclear.