The next round of finance reports for the November elections are available now, so let’s take a look at them, beginning with HISD. Here are the July reports for comparison.
Gretchen Himsl
Monica Flores Richart
Elizabeth Santos
Carlos Perrett
Jesse Rodriguez
Rodolfo Reyes
Sergio Lira
Kara DeRocha
Sean Cheben
Sue Deigaard
Sue Shafer
Holly Flynn Vilaseca
Daniel Albert
Robert Lundin
Wanda Adams
Karla Brown
Gerry Monroe
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
=========================================================
I Himsl 14,805 16,822 500 14,514
I Flores Richart 5,005 7,946 17,197 13,298
I Santos 12,538 7,363 0 10,584
III Perrett 1,250 0 0 0
III Rodriguez 4,601 1,738 0 3,296
III Reyes 1,650 1,550 900 0
III Lira 1,645 1,512 0 138
V DeRocha 1,935 3,856 0 0
V Cheben 5,900 5,332 4,200 3,385
V Deigaard 13,361 9,995 0 25,192
V Shafer 1,275 6,391 0 1,382
VI Vilaseca 18,210 12,019 0 11,651
VI Albert 750 10,965 30,000 19,784
VI Lundin 13,675 6,665 0 18,925
VII Sung 12,597 24,563 0 31,245
VII Luman 17,125 5,352 500 10,221
IX Adams 23,075 6,627 0 18,317
IX Brown 3,150 1,771 0 1,379
IX Monroe 900 900 0 0
Observations:
– Some candidates had not officially entered the race as of June 30, so not all of them have July reports. Only candidates on the ballot are required to post 30 day reports, so incumbents who are not up till 2019 do not have these.
– My general assumption is that people who post a zero or a blank for the Cash On Hand total have filled the form out incorrectly. I don’t know why this happens.
– There are no great surprises in these numbers. Harvey obviously had a dampening effect on fundraising overall, but it’s hard to say what we might have seen if everything had been normal. Maybe in a different year with no city races more money flows to school board candidates because it has to go somewhere, or maybe it doesn’t because those races just aren’t as interesting to the masses.
– Neither Wanda Adams nor John Luman had any fundraising activity to speak of in the July report. Both seem to be engaged in a more expected fashion now. I still have no explanation for their earlier reports, especially Adams’.
– It’s better to have a strong cash position than not, but we are rapidly approaching a point where money has diminishing returns. Some people have already voted, via mail. Others will have voted by the time your ad or mailer or robocall reaches them. Either empty your coffers right now, or commit to a possibly risky strategy of saving a few bucks for a runoff.
Hi there. For some reason Elizabeth Santos campaign finance reports related to income appears to be duplicates of the same page. Can this be corrected?
Elizabeth – Thanks for the catch. There’s a corrected report, which I have now posted.
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