Harris County campaign finance reports, 30 days out

I will try to put together a report on the Harris countywide races, time permitting. Here for now is an accounting of the more interesting legislative races:

Dist   Candidate   July COH    Raised   Current COH
===================================================
129       Matula     73,153   125,824       136,934
129        Davis     66,915    46,563        62,046
133      Thibaut     94,078    86,065       102,982
133       Murphy    171,797    87,401       169,294
134        Cohen    231,337    70,469       216,670
134        Agris      2,614     4,875           463
138      McDavid     18,584    38,400        18,632
138        Bohac    135,569    52,651       124,106
144      Redmond     87,206   137,045        90,446
144       Legler          0    44,720        14,276
149           Vo     44,440    97,621        54,233
149       Meyers     26,795   105,757        37,070

11      Jaworski    410,390   135,418       101,018
11       Jackson  1,210,257   134,480     1,205,115
17          Bell              658,428       457,750
17       Simmons               47,500        47,500
17       Harpold               44,078        27,252
17       Huffman               97,017         1,605
17         Furse              145,550       371,045

“July COH” refers to the cash on hand total from the July 15 report. I skipped that for the SD17 contenders, since not all of them were actually in the race then. The other columns refer to how much they raised since then, and what their current cash on hand totals are.

Going through the House numbers, I included the 134 totals for grins, and because I don’t think I’ve quite finished whipping that deceased equestrian. But I admit I’m getting close. While Ginny McDavid hasn’t quite kept up with her colleagues in HDs 129, and 133, and 144, she’s done a respectable job considering how overlooked she’s been. Kristi Thibaut has kept pace in each period with Jim Murphy; the cash on hand difference is basically due to Murphy having $80K in the kitty as of January.

If you aren’t blown away by the Democratic dominance in HDs 129 and 144, you should be. Sherrie Matula and Joel Redmond basically tripled their Republican counterparts, and that’s with them being beneficiaries of that Karl Rove fundraiser. Matula in particular, running against an incumbent in a district that wasn’t thought to be competitive last cycle, has truly excelled. If these are leading indicators for November, Harris County Democrats will have a lot to celebrate.

The dark cloud is in HD149, where Greg Meyers outraised incumbent Hubert Vo this period. Vo has the cash on hand lead, and the ability to write himself a check as needed, but this should be a wakeup call. I believe Vo will prevail, but this race is a lot tighter than it should be. Unfortunately, Vo has himself and his apartments to blame for this.

On the Senate side, Mike Jackson started out with a huge cash advantage, and he maintains a huge cash advantage. Sometimes, though, that can be too much of a good thing. Joe Jaworski’s diminished bank balance from July is due to his spending over $300K in this period, with a lot of it going into TV ads – he told me he’s been on the air continuously, with the exception of the two weeks around Hurricane Ike, since August. Jackson spent a tiny bit more than he raised, and would have to run five-minute spots during “Dancing With The Stars” to make full use of his coffers. Far as I know, at least as of the end of September, he wasn’t on the air. I’ve no idea what he has in mind.

As noted before, Chris Bell has been the 800 pound gorilla, with nearly triple the haul of his four top rivals combined. (There’s another Republican in the race, whose name escapes me; I seriously doubt he’s a factor.) Austen Furse, who has been in the race the longest, had $323K on hand in July, which included a $200K loan. He’s spent $90K since then (Bell has spent $200K) and still shows that loan on the books, as the majority of his cash on hand.

I can’t make head or tail of Huffman’s report. According to her report, she’s spent a staggering $1.6 million, but most of that – $1.25 million, according to the detailed report – was repayment of two loans, a $500K bank loan, and $750K as “Loan as itemized on SPAC Texans for Joan Huffman”. I didn’t find a report for that PAC, though, so I don’t know if it just isn’t published yet (some other reports were not available as I wrote this) or if I’m just missing something. If you can help me understand all this, drop me a note and let’s talk.

Finally, there’s Stephanie Simmons, the alleged Democrat who filed at the last minute. Her detailed report shows a total of four donors: $30K from Ron Wilson (plus a $7K loan for legal services); $2500 from the Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC; $10K from Jeff Sandefer, who is an Austin developer and board member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; and $5K from a Preston Marshall, about whom I know nothing because Google kept directing me to pages for the late former Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. All I can say is that if that’s the donor profile of a for-real Democratic candidate, I’m John Riggins.

So that’s what I know at this point. Let me know what you think.

UPDATE: OK, this doesn’t actually have anything to do with finance reports, but I’m putting it here anyway. Remember how I mentioned the local debate schedule and pointed to the Red, White, and Blue webpage because they had a bunch of them queued up? Well, today was supposed to be taping day for a debate between Joe Jaworski and Mike Jackson, to be aired on Friday. Except that Jackson never bothered to show. Can’t wait to see how that plays out.

UPDATE: Here’s the link for the Texans for Joan Huffman PAC, which is where the action is for her. She reports $131K in donations and an impressive $876K on hand for the PAC, of which $750K is a loan. According to a press release from her campaign, she has raised $405K since announcing her candidacy. So there we have it.

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