Even though most of the focus for the last couple of months has been on the outcome of contested primaries, nearly half of the next Legislature has already been chosen.

Will gubernatorial contests that have already cost more than $51 million last another six weeks? Will there be runoffs in judicial, legislative, or other down-ballot races? Will Texas voters go for the smart ones, the rich ones, the kooks, the old pros, the kids, or the insurgents? We'll soon know the answers to these and other pressing primary questions.

"My job is to communicate to as many people as I can about where I'd like to go in the future of this state," he said in Austin last week, "and to hope that people want a better future for this state and are willing to support somebody who will work for the people."

Whether or not the outcome of tomorrow's gubernatorial primary is conclusive — whether or not we have a runoff six weeks hence — we can say this with certainty: One of the five main candidates on the ballot will be the next governor of Texas. And this: 40 hours from now, we'll know much more about the state's coming political landscape than we do today. While we bide our time and wait for results, we present these final snapshots of the campaigns as they wound down.

More than 120 federally subsidized day care centers had their licenses denied or revoked by the state for violations of regulations and minimum standards in the last two years. Map their locations and drill down into the records by the provider name or action taken by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Find the salaries of more than 340,000 public employees with our enhanced data application, including those working at the largest state agencies as well as individual public schools, cities and mass-transit operators. And universities: Did you know, for instance, that of the 10 highest-paid professors at the state's two largest universities, nine are Aggies?

The six Texas congressional candidates who ended the year with $1 million or more on hand are incumbents. Only two of the candidates with the 20 biggest bank accounts are not.

Houston homebuilder Bob Perry tops the list of the biggest donors to Texas candidates in the last half of 2009. McAllen developer Alonzo Cantu and Dallas businessman Ross Perot Sr. also gave large sums.

To better understand the geography of the money race, we mapped the candidates' contributions by city, using graduated symbols to highlight their most lucrative areas. The bubbles in the maps get larger based on the percentage of a candidates' total take. 

To find the most-common occupations among the thousands of people who've donated to the major candidates in the last year, we created word clouds, a visualization technique that boosts the size of words depending on their frequency.

Search more than $35 million in campaign donations and loans collected by the top candidates in the governor's race. You can also explore how they spent the money.

Find the highest and lowest performers in Texas. Learn why nearly 500 campuses failed to meet minimum standards — and how the state inflated the rankings in the top category.