This article was adapted from the Tuesday edition of our premium politics newsletter, The Blast, which delivers exclusive reporting, nonpartisan analysis and the first word on political moves across the state. Subscribe today.

Most voters tuned into the midterm elections only recently, but the general election has been raging for months. In that time, Republicans and Democrats have evolved and refined their top issues, creating a more combative campaign as the statewide races have remained tight.

A Blast analysis of campaign advertising data from AdImpact shows that, of the $359 million Republicans have spent in Texas since June 2, their top issues are crime, taxation, transgender minors, transgender sports, “character” and LGBTQ+ rights. Of the $156.1 million Democrats have spent in that time, they’ve focused on taxation, healthcare, character, corruption, inflation and bipartisanship.

Over the summer, Democrats’ leading issues in advertisements were healthcare, inflation, housing and bipartisanship. Since Labor Day, healthcare advertising has fallen to the wayside while ads about crime, corruption and special interests became leading issues. And thanks to a late focus on taxation by Democrats the last two weeks, that topic skyrocketed into the party’s No. 1 most expensive issue of the general election at $35.8 million spent since June 2 — $16.9 million of that since Sept. 29.

On the Republican side, taxation was their candidates’ leading campaign issue until mid-September, when crime and transgender issues overtook everything else. Republicans have spent $103.1 million on crime-centric advertising, with tax-focused ads at $92.7 million. When combining the three, transgender minors, transgender sports and LGBTQ+ rights take the top spot at $119 million.

An important note here is that the biggest tranche of money is being tossed around in the Senate race. That means when Democrat James Talarico started running ads this month taking Republican attacks about China and transgender issues head-on, those ads skyrocketed to the fore of Democratic campaign advertising. Similarly, as national Republicans, funded by billionaire Elon Musk, went all in on crime and transgender issues, those topics have dominated GOP ads.

However, Senate Republicans weren’t always in the GOP driver’s seat. For months, Gov. Greg Abbott’s property tax-focused ads were the party’s main ads on the air. As it became clear that Democrat Gina Hinojosa had grown into a serious challenger, the governor’s ads shifted to painting her as a “radical” on transgender issues and accusing her of voting to raise property taxes.

The timeline of political advertising topics also shows the natural course of the campaign. Early on, Abbott tried to shape his image around his plan to reduce property taxes while Talarico painted himself as a bipartisan lawmaker. After a brief period of “character” advertising in September, when candidates introduced themselves to voters just tuning in, Republicans ratcheted up the attacks, and Democrats pivoted to portraying themselves as moderates in response.

Take Talarico’s top ad of October, on which he’s spent $5.8 million. The state representative from Austin accuses Republican Ken Paxton of lying about his record, countering attacks about Chinese influence and sex change surgeries for children. Hinojosa’s top ad of the cycle alludes to “lies” from the Abbott campaign, his assertion being that she voted to raise property taxes 40 times during her tenure in the House. (She didn’t explicitly vote to raise property taxes, as the Abbott attack implies, but the list does include 40 votes contrary to the leading GOP proposals to reduce property taxes.)

Some other miscellaneous tidbits from the advertising timeline:

• In recent weeks, Democrats have increasingly marketed around data centers and artificial intelligence, those issues totaling $16 million.
• There was a blip in September when Jeffrey Epstein became a top–three Democratic campaign issue. Democrats have spent a total of $7.6 million on ads mentioning the deceased New York financier and child sex offender.
• Democrats no longer have the monopoly on Social Security, as Republicans spent $15.1 million advertising around lower taxes on the program.