The last batch of finance reports to come in are the federal reports, which for the most part don’t get posted till a full month after they’re due, which in this case was February 1. I’ve created a Google spreadsheet of the Texas FEC reports, taken by querying on Texas from this page, then culling the chaff. You can compare my report to this one at Kos, which focuses on the more interesting race. Note that in my spreadsheet you will find links to each candidates’ report so you can see for yourself what they’ve been up to. You can see all the finance report links on my 2012 Harris and 2012 Texas primary pages. A few highlights:
– Still no report yet from David Dewhurst and Paul Sadler. I can’t say I’m expecting much from Sadler, but I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised. As for Dewhurst, it’ll be interesting to see how his contributions from others compare to his self-funding – he would surely like to do better than Tom Leppert in that regard – and to the contribution totals Ted Cruz puts up.
– There’s Jim Turner in East Texas, who ran his last race in 2002 before being DeLayed into retirement, still sitting on a million bucks in his campaign treasury. Why it is that he hasn’t ever used any of that money to help the Democratic cause, and why it is that we rank and file Democrats tolerate that sort of behavior from so many current and former officeholders is a mystery to me.
– Nick Lampson’s late entry into the CD14 race produces a small fundraising total so far. Given his presence on the early DCCC watch list, I expect much bigger things in the March report.
– Joaquin Castro continues to hit it out of the park. Assuming the courts cooperate, you can see why the DCCC is expecting big things from him.
– A couple of Democratic primaries just got more interesting, as challengers outraised incumbents in both of them. In CD16, former El Paso Council member Beto O’Rourke took in $211K to Rep. Silvestre Reyes’ $177K. There’s a third candidate in this race, but he has no report listed. The Lion Star blog discusses what this means.
– Meanwhile, in CD30, challenger Taj Clayton raised $212K to Rep. Eddie Berniece Johnson’s $95K. State Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway took in $16K. Clayton’s accomplishment is more impressive given his late entry into the race – he did it all in just ten weeks.
– Other Democratic races of interest: David Alameel wrote himself a $245K check for his challenge to Smokey Joe Barton in D06. His co-challenger Don Jacquess had no report. New dad Dan Grant raised $37K in CD10. State Rep. Pete Gallego took in another $137K in CD23 to bump his total to $288K for the cycle. Rep. Lloyd Doggett has over $3.3 million on hand after raising another $150K. Armando Villalobos led the pack in CD27 with $134K raised, followed by Ramiro Garza with $70K and Rose Meza Harrison with $15K. However, Villalobos spent $116K to Garza’s $3K, leaving him with only $16K on hand to Garza’s $67K. State Rep. Mark Veasey collected $46K for CD33, putting him ahead of Kathleen Hicks, who had $5800. Finally, former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez was actually out-raised by Sylvia Romo in CD35, with her getting $35K to his $27K, but he maintained $99K in cash to her $30K.
– On the Republican side, there’s a lot of money flowing into CD14. I don’t know who James Old is, but he’s taken in $433K for the cycle and has $310K on hand. Following him are State Rep. Randy Weber ($313K for the cycle, $206K on hand); Michael Truncale ($269K for the cycle and $149K on hand); and Felicia Harris ($161K for the cycle and $103K on hand). State Sen. Mike Jackson has a surprisingly paltry $61K on hand for CD36, having raised $130K for the cycle. No one else has as much as $10K on hand in that race, however. The Williams non-brothers, Michael and Roger, have plenty of money available to them but as yet not district in which they would want to use any of it. I’m sure they’re burning candles in hope of a favorable map from the judges.
That’s about all I have for now. The good news for me is that with the delayed primary, the next reports won’t be out till April.
Read the reports more carefully. Garza self-funded to the tune of $50k (which is a great advantage), but it means he only raised $20k, which puts him more in line with Harrison’s $15k, and Blanchard’s $14k. Anthony Troiani is being noisy, but his lack of a finance report means he raised less than $5k. Salomon Torres lack of a report also obviously raised less than $5k, but no one knows he’s in the race. Filemon Vela, wife of Republican Rose Vela has been making noise that he’s going to jump in the race as a Democrat (?!?), but he obviously hasn’t raised anything yet either. I’m totally confused as to what Villalobos’ funds raised and spent were on, it’s not like he’s blanketing the airwaves with ads.
TX-27: Read the reports more carefully. Garza self-funded to the tune of $50k (which is a great advantage), but it means he only raised $20k, which puts him more in line with Harrison’s $15k, and Blanchard’s $14k. Anthony Troiani is being noisy, but his lack of a finance report means he raised less than $5k. Salomon Torres lack of a report also obviously raised less than $5k, but no one knows he’s in the race. Filemon Vela, wife of Republican Rose Vela has been making noise that he’s going to jump in the race as a Democrat (?!?), but he obviously hasn’t raised anything yet either. I’m totally confused as to what Villalobos’ funds raised and spent were on, it’s not like he’s blanketing the airwaves with ads.
TX-14: Weber self funded to a tune of $100k raising only 31k in Q4 (way poor). From the looks of things, Q4 was good to Harris and Truncale.
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