We’re now 26 days out from the May 29 primary, which means more campaign finance reports from candidates for state and county offices who are in contested primaries. I’m going to post about all of these, starting today with reports from Harris County candidates for state offices. Here are the Democrats, whose reports are linked from my 2012 Democratic primary election page:
Candidate Office Raised Spent Loans Cash
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Nilsson SBOE6 1,100 1,267 0 1,092
Jensen SBOE6 8,105 9,462 0 4,699
Scott SBOE6 200 474 0 346
Allen HD131 103,451 52,965 0 60,002
Adams HD131 17,930 70,768 411 24,110
Madden HD137 15,968 12,232 0 13,987
Smith HD137 29,352 24,993 0 6,255
Winkler HD137 15,575 4,170 20,000 35,914
Wu HD137 35,579 30,539 0 73,468
Perez HD144 48,120 20,238 0 40,729
Risner HD144 9,315 15,158 0 4,156
Ybarra HD144 4,650 7,586 0 27
Miles HD146 16,600 27,776 730,000 58,573
Edwards HD146 14,449 13,685 0 764
Coleman HD147 41,525 39,052 0 84,433
Hill HD147
My post on the January reports is here. Some thoughts about these reports:
I think we can say that Rep. Alma Allen has eradicated the early lead Wanda Adams had in cash on hand. The establishment has rallied to Rep. Allen’s side, as is usually the case with an incumbent in good standing. A lot of money has already been spent in this race, and I don’t expect that to change over the next four weeks.
Usually, establishment support and fundraising prowess go hand in hand, but not always. HD137 is one of the exceptions, as Gene Wu has been the strongest fundraiser despite garnering only one endorsement (that I’m aware of) so far – HAR, which is certainly a nice get but not a core Democratic group. Joe Madden and Jamaal Smith have racked up the endorsements but don’t have the financial support to match. Other than there will be a runoff, I have no idea what will happen in this race.
For a variety of reasons, many organizations have not endorsed in HD144. The candidates got off to a late start thanks to the changes made to the district in the second interim map, and no one had much to show in their January finance reports. HCC Trustee Mary Ann Perez, who has the backing of Annie’s List, clearly distinguished herself this cycle, which will undoubtedly help her in a part of town that’s not used to having competitive D primaries for State Rep. The other news of interest in this race has nothing to do with fundraising. Robert Miller reported on candidate Kevin Risner having had three arrests for DUI, a fact that I’m sure was going to come out sooner or later. Miller, who’s a Perez supporter, thinks Risner is in a good position to win the primary. I’m not sure I agree with his analysis, but we’ll see.
Poor Al Edwards. It’s hard running a race without Tom Craddick’s buddies, isn’t it? I think Rep. Miles is going to break the pattern of alternating victories this year. On a side note, the Observer’s Forrest Wilder listened to my interview with Rep. Miles, even if he didn’t link to it. I guess he’s not much of a fan of either candidate in this race.
As of this writing, Ray Hill had not filed a 30 Day report. He finally did file a January report that listed no money raised or spent.
Here are the Republicans:
Candidate Office Raised Spent Loans Cash
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Cargill SBOE8 4,474 10,059 0 18,626
Ellis SBOE8 6,614 2,795 0 5,224
McCool SD11 5,957 4,959 0 997
Norman SD11 6,200 44,086 30,000 1,007
Taylor SD11 344,708 330,586 0 169,468
Huberty HD127 77,536 44,423 0 64,691
Jordan HD127 791 1,731 0 0
Davis HD129 49,816 42,193 0 70,317
Huls HD129 1,482 1,314 0 167
Callegari HD132 67,385 27,632 0 258,286
Brown HD132 2,275 2,380 0 93
Murphy HD133 110,665 89,167 0 211,004
Witt HD133 9,043 139,943 240,100 34,207
Bohac HD138 38,975 18,931 0 44,094
Smith HD138 22,998 13,562 100,000 105,504
Salazar HD143
Weiskopf HD143
Pineda HD144 28,100 6,591 0 19,613
Pena HD144 3,968 1,368 0 0
Lee HD149
Williams HD149
Mullins HD149
Riddle HD150 8,175 24,461 0 92,216
Wilson HD150 11,900 8,520 1,100 4,272
Note that there are differences from the last time. In January, there was a four-way race for HD136, which was eliminated by the San Antonio court in each of the interim maps. Ann Witt, who had been one of the candidates in HD136, moved over to HD133 and replaced the previous challenger, who apparently un-filed during the second period. In that second period, HD144 incumbent Ken Legler decided to drop out, and incumbent Dwayne Bohac picked up an opponent, and multiple people filed in HDs 143, 144, and 149.
Candidates Frank Salazar in HD143 and Jack Lee in HD149 did not have reports filed as of posting time. Their opponents did have reports filed, but those reports are not viewable until each candidate in the race has filed.
Witt had loaned herself $100K as of January; she has since more than doubled that amount. Whet Smith dropped $100K on himself in his challenge against Bohac. Why he’d do that and not have spent any of it as of the reporting deadline is a question I can’t answer. His $23K raised is a decent amount for the time period, but having more cash on hand with 30 days to go than the amount you loaned yourself makes no sense to me.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more money raised in HD144. That’s a key pickup opportunity for Dems. Gilbert Pena has run for office twice before – HD143 in 2010, and SD06 in 2008 – and I had assumed he’d be the frontrunner in this primary because of that. Am I missing something here?
That’s all I’ve got. I’ll work on the other Dem primaries in Texas and the Harris County races next.