Linda McMahon Has Spent $78 Million so Far on Senate Races

U.S. Senate hopeful Linda McMahon has spent nearly $28 million of her own money on her political aspirations during the current campaign, and about $78 million on her campaigns for this election and the election of 2010.

Campaign finance records show that McMahon has loaned or contributed to her current campaign nearly $28 million for the 2012 campaign. That amount includes $14.7 million in a two-month period that ended last month, according to The Day of New London. The paper gleaned the campaign finance spending data from mandated reports McMahon and other candidates filed in September with the Federal Election Commission.

The former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment lost her bid for the Senate to Democrat Richard Blumenthal in 2010 after spending nearly $50 million of her own money. She and her opponent, Chris Murphy, are locked in a bitter contest for the Senate seat being vacated by Joseph Lieberman this year.

While McMahon has largely financed her campaign with her personal fortune, Murphy’s battle to win the Senate seat has been paid for mostly with $8.7 million in campaign donations, The Day reports.  Recent polls show the two locked in a statistical dead heat.

While McMahon’s spokesman says the candidate’s use of her own money underscores that her vote can’t be bought by lobbyists or outside interests, Murphy’s campaign aides have said McMahon is using money she made at the WWE “selling sex and violence to children to fund her desperate campaign of lies, smears, and attack ads,’’ the Boston Globe reports.