Moving on to the Q3 FEC reports, we again have new candidates making their appearance. The January roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April report is here, and the July report is here. For comparison, the October 2017 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.
MJ Hegar – Senate
Chris Bell – Senate
Amanda Edwards – Senate
Royce West – Senate
Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez – Senate
Sema Hernandez – Senate
Adrian Ocegueda – Senate
Michael Cooper – Senate
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessia Cisneros – CD28
Hank Gilbert – CD01
Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Tanner Do – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Shannon Hutcheson – CD10
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Jennie Lou Leeder – CD21
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Derrick Reed – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Liz Wahl – CD23
Rosey Ramos Abuabara – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Crystal Lee Fletcher – CD24
John Biggan – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Heidi Sloan – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Murray Holcomb – CD31
Dan Jangigian – CD31
Eric Hanke – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
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Sen Hegar 2,058,080 1,211,904 0 893,657
Sen Bell 206,629 94,894 10,000 111,734
Sen Edwards 557,430 219,645 0 337,785
Sen West 347,546 172,926 202,162 376,782
Sen T-Ramirez 459,442 233,953 0 225,489
Sen Hernandez 7,551 7,295 0 3,891
Sen Ocegueda 1,048 262 900 786
Sen Cooper
07 Fletcher 1,789,359 391,448 0 1,439,978
32 Allred 1,705,723 355,711 0 1,453,457
28 Cuellar 1,099,758 400,328 0 3,244,434
28 Cisneros 465,026 173,329 0 291,697
02 Cardnell 177,733 115,886 0 61,847
03 McCaffity 155,404 7,080 0 148,324
03 Do 16,947 15,725 0 1,221
06 Daniel 111,009 70,409 0 40,600
10 Siegel 355,691 207,532 20,000 161,650
10 Gandhi 527,967 209,989 0 317,978
10 Hutcheson 534,515 161,665 4,000 372,850
17 Kennedy 31,298 15,079 11,953 17,646
21 Leeder 15,697 14,509 0 1,188
21 Davis 940,581 336,645 8,863 603,936
22 Kulkarni 817,139 299,219 0 545,687
22 Moore 112,311 102,863 12,915 9,447
22 Reed 114,137 60,268 0 53,868
23 Ortiz Jones 1,652,739 303,861 0 1,440,396
23 Wahl 9,000 6,521 1,000 2,478
23 Abuabara
24 McDowell 57,515 52,519 0 18,316
24 Olson 567,394 241,708 20,000 325,685
24 Valenzuela 201,377 92,814 0 108,563
24 Fletcher 122,427 35,099 823 87,327
24 Biggan 45,893 35,999 13,834 9,894
25 Oliver 223,417 75,836 2,644 147,580
25 Sloan 56,043 23,125 0 32,918
26 Ianuzzi 67,828 35,539 47,604 32,288
31 Mann 95,449 58,685 0 38,200
31 Holcomb 66,610 57,770 0 8,840
31 Jangigian 23,265 2,248 1,500 21,016
31 Hanke 18,302 9,098 0 9,203
31 Imam 60,441 7,088 0 53,353
There’s a lot here – so much that it’s taken me this long to post, and so much that I thought about splitting this into two separate posts – but let’s start with the Senate candidates. MJ Hegar has been in the race the longest, and she has raised the most, matching her performance from the previous quarter. All the other candidates (save for the low-profile no-hope types, and hey isn’t it nice to finally see Sema Hernandez file a finance report?) entered during Q3 and their finance reports can be graded on a curve as a result. That said, time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, and John Cornyn keeps on raising piles of money, so everyone needs to kick it up a notch or two. It was nice that every candidate at the Texas Signal candidate forum was asked about their path to victory, but raising money is a key part of that, even if it is a tacky subject to bring up. We’re going to need to see a lot more in the January reports.
Incumbents Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred are doing what they need to do. Their potential Republican opponents are raising a bunch of money, but they’re staying ahead of them, which they need to keep doing. Jessica Cisneros has done well in her challenge to Henry Cuellar, who is made of money, and she is getting some national press for her efforts. I still don’t know how much either money or national attention will mean in this race, but I do know that if she does win, it will be a very big deal and will make a lot of Dem incumbents look over their shoulders.
There are a number of new names on this report. Hank Gilbert is not going to win in CD01 because it’s a 70%+ Trump district, but Hank is a mensch and Louie Gohmert is a death eater from a hell dimension, so the least I can do is note that Hank is taking on the thankless task of challenging Gohmert. We noted last time that Lorie Burch has ended her campaign in CD03, and now several others have stepped in. Sean McCaffity, who is off to a strong fundraising start, and Tanner Do have reports for this quarter, and they will have company next time. Chris Suprun, whom you may remember as one of the wannabe faithless electors from 2016, has entered the race. He had also run in the CD27 special election last year, and had a brush with the voter ID law before that. Plano attorney Lulu Seikaly is also in the race, and I apologize to her for making her follow that.
Elsewhere in new candidates, Heidi Sloan has entered the race in CD25. Julie Oliver, the nominee from 2018, is well ahead of her fundraising pace from that year, so we’ll see how that goes. There are now a bunch of candidates in CD31, though I can tell you now that that article from August is out of date. I’ll have more on that in a separate post. Among the newcomers here are Dan Jangigian, Eric Hanke, and Donna Imam. Jangigian may have the most interesting resume of any Congressional candidate in recent memory – he’s a onetime Olympic bobsledder, and acted in the legendary bad movie The Room. He was subsequently portrayed in the movie The Disaster Artist, the movie about the guy who made The Room, by Zac Efron. And now he’s running for Congress. What have you done with your life?
A more familiar candidate making her first appearance here is Wendy Davis, who took in nearly a million bucks for CD21. That’s one of several top target races where there’s a clear frontrunner, at least as far as fundraising goes, which is a change from 2018 when most of the hotter primaries had the money more widely dispersed. Gina Ortiz Jones did even better, topping $1.6 million already. Rosey Abubara, who I thought might give her a challenge, has not filed a report. Candace Valenzuela and Crystal Fletcher have raised a few bucks in CD24, but Kim Olson is well ahead of them both, while Sri Kulkarni is lapping the field in CD22. The exception is in CD10, where all three candidates are doing well, but 2018 nominee Mike Siegel is a step behind Pritesh Gandhi and Shannon Hutcheson.
Rounding up the rest, Elisa Cardnell stepped it up in CD02, but faces a steep challenge as Dan Crenshaw is one of the biggest fundraisers in Congress now. Stephen Daniel is doing all right in CD06. I know their totals don’t look like that much compared to some of these other folks, but remember how much time we spent in 2018 talking about how rare it was for any Democratic challenger to raise as much as $100K for an entire cycle? We’ve come a long way. And I’m still hoping for either Rick Kennedy to start doing more in CD17 or for someone else to jump in, even if that race is a big longshot. The Quorum Report made my heart flutter with a teaser about a poll testing former CD17 Rep. Chet Edwards against carpetbagger Pete Sessions. I don’t know if this is a real thing or just someone’s idea of a cool thought experiment, but I’d be all in on another run by Edwards. We’ll see if there’s anything to it.
And we have a challenger for Kevin Brady (not quite the demonic death eater that Gohmert is, but still) in CD08. Laura Jones is the County Chair in San Jacinto County now, and also a leader in the TDP Rural Democrats group. And there is a possibility of a primary as I have spoken with another potential candidate. Laura didn’t jump in he race until after October 1, so no finance report, yet. Hopefully she can generate more than the $35k that Steven David raised in 2018.
And I don’t see numbers for Hank Gilbert – I don’t recall if he was in before October 1.
Marc, thanks for the CD08 candidate info. I’ll look for them in the next roundup. I believe Hank entered too late to have a Q3 report.