Wow.
It’s not just Beto.
Newly filed campaign finance reports show that money flooded into Democratic congressional campaigns all across the state over the last three months.
Along with Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s blockbuster $38 million haul in his bid against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, no fewer than eight other Texas Democrats outraised their GOP rivals in their bids for Republican-held U.S. House seats. These numbers are so daunting that even GOP House incumbents who have stepped up their game this cycle, particularly U.S. Reps. Pete Sessions of Dallas and Will Hurd of Helotes, found themselves trailing far behind their Democratic rivals.
Looking back to the 2016 cycle, U.S. House candidates who raised more than $400,000 a quarter was considered strong fundraisers. This time around, several Texas Congressional candidates had multi-million dollar quarters.
To give a sense on how much things have changed, consider the state’s only competitive federal campaign in 2016, Texas’ 23rd Congressional District held by Hurd. The Democratic challenger that year, former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, raised less money through the entire two-year cycle than three current Democratic challengers – attorneys Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher and retired Air Force intelligence officer Gina Ortiz Jones – raised in this quarter alone.
The latest numbers are noteworthy enough that GOP sources tell the Tribune that the Democratic numbers lit a fire under some of the state’s most politically active Republican billionaires and millionaires and, they are now, finally, fully engaged in protecting their team in the midterms.
Boy, what would the Republicans do without their billionaires and millionaires? You can see the tallies for each district at the link above, but I’ll summarize for the districts that I’ve been tracking here. Here are the July 2017 finance reports, here are the October 2017 finance reports, here are the January 2018 finance reports, here are the April 2018 finance reports, here are the July 2018 finance reports, and here’s the FEC summary page for Democratic Congressional candidates in Texas.
Todd Litton – CD02
Lori Burch – CD03
Jana Sanchez – CD06
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Steven David – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Vanessa Adia – CD12
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Joseph Kopser – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Linsey Fagan – CD26
Eric Holguin – CD27
MJ Hegar – CD31
Colin Allred – CD32
Dayna Steele – CD36
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
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02 Litton 1,310,731 786,261 0 524,469
03 Burch 246,241 232,138 23,149 40,239
06 Sanchez 577,842 440,807 0 137,034
07 Fletcher 4,604,838 3,015,607 0 1,589,246
08 David 31,664 26,520 0 4,639
10 Siegel 343,403 271,869 10,000 82,259
12 Adia 180,528 105,984 0 74,399
14 Bell 161,105 147,165 0 13,939
17 Kennedy 55,231 95,083 19,356 18,464
21 Kopser 2,527,090 2,162,350 74,231 364,740
22 Kulkarni 1,028,707 576,851 14,400 451,856
23 Ortiz Jones 4,742,935 3,501,768 0 1,241,167
24 McDowell 95,553 63,611 0 32,061
25 Oliver 527,503 308,436 3,125 222,209
26 Fagan 155,893 81,922 0 57,096
27 Holguin 164,678 156,994 0 7,683
31 Hegar 3,535,495 2,792,159 0 738,317
32 Allred 4,238,043 2,337,466 44,978 1,900,577
36 Steele 808,109 627,624 5,926 180,454
There’s nothing I can say here that I haven’t said before several times. A few candidates received DCCC or other PAC money, but the vast bulk of what they raised they did themselves. The amounts raised just in the third quarter are staggering, and it’s not just at the top. Julie Oliver now has more cash on hand than the total amount she had raised as of Q2, despite CD25 being on nobody’s radar. She’s now officially the second-most impressive-to-me fundraiser after Dayna Steele, who could still become the eighth candidate to break the million dollar barrier. My wish right now is that they’re all spending this money like crazy on GOTV efforts.