January 2019 campaign finance reports: Congress

We come to the last of our January finance report roundups. The next one will be in April, for Congressional candidates, which will be our first indicator of who among the repeaters and the newcomers has gotten off to a fast start and who is still biding their time. This post covers the last three months of 2018, though as always remember that unlike other systems, the FEC reports are cumulative for the cycle. You have to compare to earlier reports to see how much was raised and spent in the period in question. Given that this period covered the month before the election, you will see from the vastly diminished cash on hand totals just how much was being spent at this time. As it should have been, of course.

Here are the July 2017 finance reports, here are the October 2017 finance reports, here are the January 2018 finance reports, here are the April 2018 finance reports, here are the July 2018 finance reports, here are the October 2018 finance reports, and here’s the FEC summary page for Democratic Congressional candidates in Texas.

Todd Litton – CD02
Lori Burch – CD03
Jana Sanchez – CD06
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Steven David – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Vanessa Adia – CD12
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Joseph Kopser – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Linsey Fagan – CD26
Eric Holguin – CD27
MJ Hegar – CD31
Colin Allred – CD32
Dayna Steele – CD36


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Litton        1,536,148  1,515,116        0     21,032
03    Burch           292,395    322,136   25,649     -1,278
06    Sanchez         734,004    707,924        0     58,590
07    Fletcher      6,226,876  6,184,824        0     42,067
08    David            34,332     30,263        0      3,565
10    Siegel          489,172    485,681   10,000      3,490
12    Adia            208,585    198,453        0      9,987
14    Bell            211,652    211,652        0          0
17    Kennedy         132,158    130,830   11,789      1,427
21    Kopser        3,251,295  3,241,756   49,231      9,538
22    Kulkarni      1,637,103  1,609,335        0     27,767
23    Ortiz Jones   6,216,644  6,098,297        0    118,346
24    McDowell        108,709     95,507        0     13,320
25    Oliver          645,926    645,926      644          0
26    Fagan           176,157    106,139        0     53,142
27    Holguin         200,712    198,801        0     -1,460
31    Hegar         5,122,102  5,069,600        0     47,481
32    Allred        5,972,679  5,869,234        0    103,445
36    Steele          902,066    901,866        0          0

Please note that some of those report links about will not take you directly to the candidate’s summary page. At this juncture, before any 2019-2020 reports are filed, candidate who span cycles will go to a landing page asking you to pick what cycle you want. That includes first-time-candidates-who-won, like Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, for whom the link will say that nothing from this cycle has been filed yet. You can then choose the 2017-2018 cycle from the dropdown and see the data I’m reporting on here.

I don’t know how a candidate can report a negative cash on hand balance. I’m just giving you what the website gave me. I tried in some previous posts to differentiate between the cash actually raised by the candidate and money that came from loans or transfers from committees like the DCCC, but that was too much work for this effort, so what you get in the Raised column is the top line number indicated by the candidate.

Reps. Fletcher and Allred start with fairly modest balances, but I’m not at all worried about that. Both will rake it in, as the Republicans try to win those seats back. Allred is already drawing interest, and I’m sure so is Fletcher, but if so I’ve not seen any stories about who might want to take her on. I’ll be honest, no names pop into my head as obvious challengers for her.

Mike Siegel and Sri Kulkarni are known to be interested in running again – Siegel is already a declared candidate, Kulkarni may be although I can’t independently verify that. Gina Ortiz Jones is acting like someone who may take another crack at it, though I’d expect she will have company in a primary, while Siegel and Kulkarni are more likely to have either a clear path or token opposition. MJ Hegar may run again or may run for Senate. I don’t know what Todd Litton, Jana Sanchez, or Joseph Kopser are up to, nor do I know about Julie Oliver or Lorie Burch. I also don’t know about Jan McDowell, but as CD24 is now firmly on the national radar, I’m 100% sure that other potential candidates are being courted, or making themselves known. McDowell may be a candidate next March, but I’ll be more than a little surprised – and disappointed – if she’s the candidate next November.

That’s it for this round of campaign finance reports. Tune in again in April for the first look at Congress 2020, and in July for the first real indicators of who’s got it going on for Houston City Council. Let me know what you think.

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2 Responses to January 2019 campaign finance reports: Congress

  1. ken roberts says:

    Someone named Thomas Christian Devor filed an FEC Form 2 Statement of Candidacy against Lizzie Fletcher as a Republican back on November 14.

    There is a YouTube video dated January 2010 about Devor running for Texas Senate District 13. He wasn’t on the GOP Primary ballot, though.

    I’ve never heard of him DeVor, which doesn’t mean he isn’t a serious candidate. I have my doubts.

    http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/H0TX07154/1291371/

  2. asmith says:

    The 2 rumored candidates in CD32 on the gop side aren’t top tier candidates. Missy Shorey just ran through an election where as chair of the dallas gop, her party lost CD32, SD16, 5 state house seats, and came within 1300 votes of being wiped out in the texas house in 2 other seats. Seay might be Clements grandson but he has no political talent. I think she is more interested in challenging John Turner in HD114 than running for congress.

    If they cant get state Rep Morris Meyer or maybe RNC Co-chair Tommy Hicks, they’ll have no chance in a district that is moving away from them quickly. I think their best chance against Allred would be after redistricting if they take give uptown and lakewood to CD30 and add Rockwall county to CD32 and pair Allred with John Ratcliffe. Former state Rep Jason Villalba would have been an interesting choice had he not run for Dallas mayor.

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