Fundraising watch: Thirty days out

The Chron reports on campaign finances for two State House races, HDs 134 and 149.

Democratic incumbent Hubert Vo has nearly $52,000 available for his race against Republican Talmadge Heflin, whom he narrowly defeated in 2004. Heflin was not far behind, with about $42,000 left to spend.

And Democrat Ellen Cohen has roughly $181,000 available in her bid to unseat Rep. Martha Wong, R-Houston, whose report was not available by mid-evening Tuesday.

It's available now. Wong raised a ton of money, $291K, spent nearly $270K, and has $401K on hand. If you live in HD134 and watch cable TV, get ready for a lot of Wong ads.

Vo raised $99,000 and spent $59,000 during the July-September period. He got $500 from the Association of Texas Professional Educators PAC, $1,000 from the Texas Federation of Teachers COPE, $2,000 from ACT for Texas Classroom Association and $5,000 from the Texas State Teachers Association PAC.

The Trial Lawyers Association PAC kicked in another $5,000.

[...]

Most of Heflin's money came from home builder Bob Perry, who contributed $40,000 over two weeks. Heflin received $9,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform and paid that lawsuit-limitation group $5,000 for "consulting," according to his report.

Heflin raised $80K total, so more than half his money came from Bob Perry (I'm counting the TLR money as Perry money, since it's all one big donor circle). That's some grassroots outreach.

In case you ever wondered why Democrats held the thankfully-departed Vilma Luna in such contempt:

Heflin also got $1,000 from a Democrat, former State Rep. Vilma Luna of Corpus Christi, who resigned earlier this year and is now a lobbyist.

Good riddance.

BOR has some more numbers from 20 high profile races, which they helpfully put in this Numsum spreadsheet. A few more Houston races of interest:

HD126

Chad Khan: $55K cash on hand
Patricia Harless: $59K cash on hand

HD129

Sherrie Matula: $10K cash on hand, plus $30K in Unitemized Pledges
John Davis: $30K cash on hand

HD133

Kristi Thibaut: $63K cash on hand
Jim Murphy: $55K cash on hand

Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 12, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack