I know there’s been a real firehose of news lately, but it’s July and that means it’s time to review campaign finance reports. This list will be a little smaller than the previous one as again there are fewer races of interest now. The April 2024 reports, where we could again combine the Senate and Congressional candidates, are here. The January reports for Senate are here, the October 2023 reports are here, the July 2023 reports here, and the April 2023 reports are here. The January reports for Congress are here, and the October 2023 reports are here. The earlier reports had both Senate and Congress, as the fields were small enough then to do them together.
Colin Allred – Senate
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
John Love – CD06
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Sheila Jackson Lee – CD18
Amanda Edwards – CD18
Kristin Hook – CD21
Sam Eppler – CD24
Melissa McDonough – CD38
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
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Sen Allred 38,433,747 27,983,265 0 10,450,482
03 Srivastava 308,779 290,585 543,233 21,786
06 Love 93,405 84,082 0 9,976
15 Vallejo 1,341,298 671,740 100,000 682,275
18 Jackson Lee 546,872 893,651 4,906 22,130
18 Edwards 1,626,347 1,626,205 0 142
21 Hook 279,387 61,938 2,170 217,449
24 Eppler 707,569 499,476 0 208,093
38 McDonough 143,310 130,374 107,415 14,716
Colin Allred keeps on raising a ton of money, and stays ahead of Beto’s pace from 2018. He also keeps on spending money, which keeps his cash on hand total stationary. Indeed, though he outraised Ted Cruz again, Cruz now has more cash on hand. Not a big deal, certainly not as long as he can keep this up, but noted for the record.
I’ve taken Rep. Lizzie Fletcher and Pervez Agwan from CD07 and Michelle Johnson from CD32 off the report, as there’s not much of interest in those spots anymore. As noted in April, Agwan was still raising money to retire his debt. He succeeded, raising and spending over $1.7 million for the result he achieved. Also as noted in April, he’s disappeared from the scene. It is what it is.
I had thought that I could also retire CD18 from this list, but the death of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee re-casts the spotlight here. As I said before, I don’t want to speculate about who might be interested in being the new candidate in CD18, but for obvious reasons Amanda Edwards will be in the conversation. The precinct chair process for picking a new nominee isn’t exactly expensive, but if one wants to publicize one’s candidacy, even to such a limited audience, it takes resources. Edwards doesn’t have any cash remaining in her Congressional account, so she doesn’t have that advantage going in, if indeed she intends to enter. I feel icky talking about all this now, but this process will move quickly once it gets started, so for better or worse here we are.
As for Rep. Jackson Lee, the remaining cash in her account will need to be reimbursed, spent on some limited items, donated to charity, or contributed to other campaigns or PACs within a couple of years.
There’s a new name among the other candidates, Dr. Kristin Hook, who is running against the odious toadstool Chip Roy in CD21. This district is not particularly competitive thanks to the 2021 redistricting, but Dr. Hook (and let’s face it, that’s a Grade A name) has raised a more than respectable amount of money, and that gets her on the list. I wish her all the best in her endeavor.
Beyond that, Michelle Vallejo and Sam Eppler are doing what you’d want them to be doing in the two biggest target districts, while Sandeep Srivastava barely collected $15K this past quarter. We need to figure out a better way to ensure candidates in even these marginally viable districts can get the resources they need, and also make sure we’re finding and supporting the candidates who can help make that happen for themselves. That’s an exercise for another time. I’ll have more of these reports soon.
Note to self: Start a thrash or death metal rock band, name it ‘Odious Toadstool’.
TY, Kuff.
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