© 2021
In touch with the world ... at home on the High Plains
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Ted Cruz To Report Raising Less Than Half What Beto O’Rourke Raised This Year

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, has outraised U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in his bid to unseat him in the Senate.
Laura Skelding /Douglas Young
U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, has outraised U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in his bid to unseat him in the Senate.

When U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke announced his latest fundraising haul earlier this month – a stunning $6.7 million – it was widely expected to surpass what his rival, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, brought in over the same period. Now it's clear by how much: roughly $3.5 million.

Cruz raised $3.2 million in the first three months of this year, according to his campaign.

O'Rourke, an El Paso Democrat, did not outpace just Cruz – he posted one of the top quarterly federal fundraising hauls ever, outside of presidential campaigns. If not for O’Rourke’s large sum, Cruz’s fundraising would be considered robust for any incumbent seeking re-election.

In tallying Cruz's numbers, his team takes into account three groups: Ted Cruz for Senate, a re-election campaign committee; the Jobs, Freedom, and Security PAC, a leadership PAC; and Ted Cruz Victory Committee, a joint fundraising committee that sends contributions to the re-election campaign and his leadership PAC. O'Rourke, who only has a single campaign account, has sworn off PAC money.

Cruz's re-election campaign fund alone raised $2.7 million. The rest of the $3.2 million was raised via his leadership PAC and his joint fundraising committee. Cruz's campaign will report having $8.2 million on hand across all three groups. Late Friday, O'Rourke's campaign announced it "now has more than $8 million on hand."

Since his plans to vacate his U.S. House seat in a bid to unseat Cruz a year ago, O'Rourke has frequently outpaced Cruz on the hard-dollar fundraising front. But Cruz also has a network of aligned groups that will spend on his behalf in the race. 

He is also expected to have massive super PAC support in the fall. O'Rourke, meanwhile, has publicly asked super PACs to not help him in the race.

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994. But O'Rourke's campaign has excited Democrats around the country, in part due to his ability to draw large crowds around Texas, including in some conservative strongholds.

Yet the enthusiasm behind O'Rourke's bid remains perplexing to some national political observers. While repeatedly outraising an incumbent helps a challenger signal that their campaign is viable, most political insiders say privately if not publicly that Cruz remains in a strong position to win re-election.

________________________________________

From The Texas Tribune

Copyright 2018 KUT 90.5

Abby Livingston joined the Tribune in 2014 as the publication's first Washington Bureau Chief. Previously, she covered political campaigns, House leadership and Congress for Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. A seventh-generation Texan, Abby graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She grew up in Fort Worth and has appeared in an episode of "The Bold and The Beautiful." Abby pitched and produced political segments for CNN and worked as an editor for The Hotline, National Journal’s campaign tipsheet. Abby began her journalism career as a desk assistant at NBC News in Washington, working her way up to the political unit, where she researched stories for Nightly News, the Today Show and Meet the Press. In keeping with the Trib’s great history of hiring softball stars, Abby is a three-time MVP (the most in game history —Ed.) for The Bad News Babes, the women’s press softball team that takes on female members of Congress in the annual Congressional Women’s Softball breast cancer charity game.
Patrick Svitek is a reporter for the Texas Tribune. He previously worked for the Houston Chronicle's Austin bureau. He graduated in 2014 from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He originally is from Fort Wayne, Indiana.