Meg Whitman is now the biggest self-funding candidate in history

It's official: Meg Whitman is the biggest self-funding candidate paying her way through a single race in political history.

As the Los Angeles Times' Anthony York notes, the California GOP gubernatorial nominee contributed another $15 million to her campaign on Tuesday. That means that Whitman, who came by most of her wealth during her tenure as CEO of eBay, has spent $119 million of her own cash on the race -- almost $10 million more than previous record-holder Michael Bloomberg, who ran up his $110 million tally during his successful 2009 re-election campaign.

By comparison, Whitman's Democratic opponent Jerry Brown has spent less than $1 million, according to his latest campaign report filed the first week of August. That total has no doubt gone up since then; Brown launched his first statewide TV ads in the race just last week.

And Whitman looks to be on track to keep fattening her own campaign kitty. Just last month, she contributed $13 million of her own cash to the race — a trend that she's matched almost every month this summer. The cash has kept her ads on the air virtually nonstop in California, and she and Brown are nearly tied in the race. That's a big deal considering the outsize advantage that Democrats enjoy in the state's party registration numbers. What's more, Republicans aren't exactly staging a Golden State renaissance -- witness the dismal approval number for GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But with 48 days to go before Election Day, we're now entering the most expensive part of the race. How far will Whitman go to try to win?

(Photo: Michal Czerwonka/Getty Images)