Eva Guzman raises a few bucks

It’s not bad, but she’s gonna need a lot more than this.

Eva Guzman, one of the 2022 Republican primary challengers to Attorney General Ken Paxton, raised more than $1 million in her first 10 days as an announced candidate— and has garnered the support of some of the state’s top GOP donors, according to her campaign.

Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, raised $1,051,723 between when she declared her campaign on June 21 and the end of the fundraising period on June 30. Perhaps more notably, though, are the donors who fueled the haul and are backing her against the incumbent, who also faces a primary challenge from Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

According to a list provided by the Guzman campaign, she has gotten support from top Texas GOP contributors including Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, Dallas billionaire businessman Robert Rowling, Dallas investor Tom Hicks Sr. and El Paso developers Woody Hunt and Paul Foster. Other names include Drayton McLane, Jan Duncan and Dick Weekley, whose influential tort-reform group, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, quickly endorsed Guzman after she announced her campaign.

The list of supporters also includes Harriet Miers, the White House counsel under former President George W. Bush, George P. Bush’s uncle.

[…]

But Paxton still maintains support among major Texas GOP donors. The host committee for a recent Paxton fundraiser in Dallas included heavyweight names such as textiles mogul Arun Agarwal, hotelier Monty Bennett and biotechnology entrepreneur Darwin Deason.

And Guzman starts the primary as the underdog, at least according to one recent survey. In the Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler Poll from late June, Guzman registered a distant third in the primary, getting 4% of the vote to 34% for Bush and 42% for Paxton.

Raising a million bucks over ten days is definitely better than raising less than a million bucks over ten days. It’s a nice, round number, which gives it some cachet. But look, Paxton had over $5.5 million on hand as of his January report (neither he nor P Bush have pre-announced their June totals yet); Guzman had $133K in her Supreme Court SPAC treasury in January. He won’t be out-fundraised, and as we have discussed before, both he and Bush have a large name recognition advantage on Guzman. You may not be aware of this, but Texas is a big state, with a lot of media markets, and it costs a lot of money to advertise successfully statewide. In that context, a million bucks ain’t much. Also, a million bucks from a handful of moneybag donors is not the same as a million bucks in thousands of small donations from a broad range of actual voters. Guzman has done well generating earned media, and I’m sure some number of Republicans are looking for an alternative to their scandal machine of an AG. She’s got a long road ahead of her, that’s all I’m saying.

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