January 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

Here are the Q2 finance reports, here are the Q3 finance reports, and here’s the FEC summary page for Democratic Congressional candidates in Texas. The Trib summarizes some of the highlights.

For many Texas congressional races, Wednesday was the most consequential day yet on the primary calendar.

That was the deadline for U.S. House and Senate campaigns to file finance reports covering the last three months of 2017. Those watching the races closely are sure to pore over the mishmash of donations and expenditures to separate viable candidates from the long shots.

And that weeding out process could be more intense than past years. Of the eight Texans in Congress who are not running for re-election, six waited until the fall to announce their decisions, prompting late scrambles for those open seats.

Over in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was easily outraised by his leading Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso.

Texas is hosting the first statewide primaries of 2018 on March 6. Early voting begins on Feb. 20.

As before, here are links to individual reports of interest, with a table showing the important bits below.

Todd Litton – CD02
Ali Khorasani – CD02
Silky Malik – CD02
J. Darnell Jones – CD02

Adam Bell – CD03
Lori Burch – CD03
Medrick Yhap – CD03

Jana Sanchez – CD06
Ruby Faye Wooldridge – CD06
John Duncan – CD06
Levii Shocklee – CD06
Justin Snider – CD06

Alex Triantaphyllis – CD07
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Laura Moser – CD07
Jason Westin – CD07
James Cargas – CD07
Joshua Butler – CD07

Mike Siegel – CD10
Tami Walker – CD10
Richie DeGrow – CD10
Tawana Cadien – CD10

Dori Fenenbock – CD16
Veronica Escobar – CD16

Joseph Kopser – CD21
Derrick Crowe – CD21
Elliott McFadden – CD21

Letitia Plummer – CD22
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Mark Gibson – CD22

Jay Hulings – CD23
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Judy Canales – CD23
Rick Trevino – CD23

John Biggan – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Todd Allen – CD24

Christopher Perri – CD25
Chetan Panda – CD25
Kathi Thomas – CD25
Julie Oliver – CD25
West Hansen – CD25

MJ Hegar – CD31
Richard Lester – CD31
Christine Mann – CD31
Mike Clark – CD31

Ed Meier – CD32
Colin Allred – CD32
Lillian Salerno – CD32
George Rodriguez – CD32
Brett Shipp – CD32
Dani Pellett – CD32

Dayna Steele – CD36
Jonathan Powell – CD36


Dist  Name             Raised    Spent    Loans   On Hand
=========================================================
02    Litton          362,364   77,577        0   284,786
02    Khorasani        12,674   11,849        0       825
02    Malik            14,464   12,803        0     1,660
02    Jones            10,802      160        0    10,642

03    Bell             24,313   23,066  175,000   180,247
03    Burch            66,082   43,993      649    22,994
03    Yhap              1,350    6,384    6,700     1,665

06    Sanchez         137,832   94,452        0    43,379
06    Woolridge        75,121   62,104   17,000    37,139
06    Duncan           21,143   15,377        0     5,765
06    Shocklee          4,721    8,401    3,707        26
06    Snider           11,312    6,891        0     5,605

07    Triantaphyllis  927,023  293,314        0   633,709
07    Fletcher        751,352  319,190        0   437,366
07    Moser           616,643  287,151        0   329,491
07    Westin          389,941  140,286   10,365   249,655
07    Cargas           63,123   57,272        0    12,268
07    Butler           41,474   37,542        0     3,932

10    Siegel           22,731   14,971    5,000    12,760
10    Walker           14,864   18,424   20,000    16,440
10    DeGrow            6,061    5,944        0       117
10    Cadien              500       48   31,243       209

16    Fenenbock       563,853  412,726  300,000   451,126
16    Escobar         619,490  217,886        0   401,604

21    Kopser          678,527  341,189        0   337,337
21    Crowe           120,406  100,067        0    20,339
21    McFadden         70,944   58,107   15,000    30,997

22    Plummer          69,346   51,550    2,350    17,796
22    Kulkarni         41,102    8,598      244    32,504
22    Gibson            5,895    9,034    6,645     4,006

23    Hulings         410,257  128,831        0   281,425
23    Ortiz Jones     316,972  147,508        0   169,463
23    Canales          17,085   20,113   10,000     6,972
23    Trevino          12,337   17,000    3,285     2,776

24    Biggan           41,269   22,113        0    19,156
24    McDowell         19,686   13,955        0     5,849
24    Allen            10,924    8,652        0     2,272

25    Perri            85,637   61,387   16,890    41,279
25    Panda            99,336   79,253        0    16,942
25    Thomas           31,201   27,038    3,082     3,478
25    Oliver           18,796   10,297    3,125    11,624
25    Hansen            5,600    4,472   11,477     9,223

31    Hegar           194,859  114,007        0    80,852
31    Lester          106,682   58,698  100,000   148,149
31    Mann             30,751   26,192        0     4,294
31    Clark            10,926    6,584    6,300     5,423

32    Meier           803,738  303,369        0   500,369
32    Allred          404,660  302,406   44,978   127,638
32    Salerno         312,062  155,035        0   157,026
32    Rodriguez        92,034   68,791        0    23,273
32    Shipp            46,969   29,778    9,000    26,191
32    Pellett          15,976   14,220        0     1,816

36    Steele          155,265   97,258        0    58,006
36    Powell           58,920   37,402   20,000    41,896

Here’s a Trib roundup of reports, which includes Republicans. I only looked at the Dems, and there were a few candidates who didn’t have any to see as of Saturday, so those folks are not represented above. Here are a few thoughts:

– Damn, this is a lot of money being raised. As I observed before, in 2016 there was only one Democratic non-incumbent who raised as much as $100K over the course of the cycle. With nearly a year to go in this cycle, eighteen candidates have topped that mark, with four others above $70K. Republicans are still going to lead the money race in most districts, but there’s no reason why any Democratic candidate must be outclassed.

– There’s about to be a lot of money spent, too. All four of the top raisers in CD07 are or are about to be airing TV ads, and they have been sending mail, too. We’ll see the scope of this in the next report, for which the deadline is March 31, after the primary is over.

– While there’s a lot of money in the Republican primary for CD02 – Kathaleen Wall has given her campaign some $2.7 million – Todd Litton has raised more from actual donors than any of them.

– In my previous update, I noted that Gina Ortiz Jones hadn’t had much time to do any fundraising. She had a pretty good Q4, though that was effectively even with Jay Hulings. She did demonstrate she has the chops, which was what mattered.

– For all the money that has been raised overall, I feel like Dems are not maximizing their potential as yet. We could use more resources in CDs 03, 06, 10, 22, and 24. Sure, most of these races are longer shots, but the point is that if this is a strong year for Dems, the margin between winning and losing in a district like those could be whether or not the challenger has enough resources to put up a real fight. There are going to be a number of people who wake up on March 7 as former candidates and who will still have six figures in the bank. I would strongly encourage these people to redirect some of their campaign cash to the nominees in other districts. Trickling some of it down to the state races would not be a bad idea, either.

– Do you live in one of these districts? If so, have you seen or heard from a campaign? Leave a comment and let me know.

I’m working on similar posts for the other race types. There’s a lot to go through but I’ll get there. John Coby has more.

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