Eric Holguin

30 Day 2020 campaign finance reports: State races, part 3

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Moving on to the 30-day campaign finance reports for the hot State Rep races outside the Houston area. As noted, a lot of candidates have been reporting big hauls, as has the HDCC, the fundraising committee for State House Democrats. As you know, I have split these into four parts. Part one, with statewide, SBOE, and State Senate, is here. Part two, with State House races from the Houston area, is here. Part three is this post, and part four will be for Democratic incumbents that may be targeted. I’m not going to be doing every race of course, just the ones of interest. I did not do the January reports for these races as there were just too damn many of them, but the July reports for these candidates are here.

Janet Dudding, HD14
John Raney, HD14

Eric Holguin, HD32
Todd Hunter, HD32

Keke Williams, HD54
Brad Buckley, HD54

Angela Brewer, HD64
Lynn Stucky, HD64

Sharon Hirsch, HD66
Matt Shaheen, HD66

Lorenzo Sanchez, HD67
Jeff Leach, HD67

John Gibson, HD84
John Frullo, HD84

Ray Ash, HD89
Candy Noble, HD89

Jeff Whitfield, HD92
Jeff Cason, HD92

Lydia Bean, HD93
Matt Krause, HD93

Alisa Simmons, HD94
Tony Tinderholt, HD94

Joe Drago, HD96
David Cook, HD96

Elizabeth Beck, HD97
Craig Goldman, HD97

Jennifer Skidonenko, HD106
Jared Patterson, HD106

Joanna Cattanach, HD108
Morgan Meyer, HD108

Brandy Chambers, HD112
Angie Chen Button, HD112

Celina Montoya, HD121
Steve Allison, HD121


Dist  Candidate        Raised     Spent       Loan     On Hand
==============================================================
HD14   Dudding         42,842    32,648        782      26,806
HD14   Raney           97,966    54,748          0     151,707

HD32   Holguin         55,568    41,276          0      14,292
HD32   Hunter         121,555   367,428          0   1,889,407

HD54   Williams       336,235   132,484          0     164,094
HD54   Buckley        435,989    20,313     30,300     303,905

HD64   Brewer         361,767    46,208          0     274,953
HD64   Stucky         323,609    79,398          0     255,623

HD66   Hirsch         419,159   150,523          0     324,489
HD66   Shaheen        253,546    41,857    122,000     302,131

HD67   Sanchez        692,854   206,865          0     233,734
HD67   Leach          531,541   111,167          0     485,813

HD84   Gibson          12,339     8,486          0       8,419
HD84   Frullo          34,525    11,045          0     352,123

HD89   Ash              4,763     3,112     10,419       1,375
HD89   Noble           41,690     9,648    130,000     151,748

HD92   Whitfield      362,947   222,294     19,700     236,445
HD92   Cason          219,158   241,377      5,000       1,305

HD93   Bean           219,347    63,322          0     198,808
HD93   Krause         194,110   244,470          0     516,077

HD94   Simmons        184,169   103,134          0      76,662
HD94   Tinderholt     304,348   251,650          0      48,878

HD96   Drago          321,421   146,177          0     201,787
HD96   Cook           409,945   100,664          0     370,913

HD97   Beck           501,011   280,456          0     263,172
HD97   Goldman        196,361   424,645          0     636,186

HD106  Skidonenko      53,210    50,246      1,635      15,862
HD106  Patterson       47,529    23,342          0     118,921

HD108  Cattanach      463,416   174,579          0     334,465
HD108  Meyer          565,760   183,019          0     647,878

HD112  Chambers       533,343   319,804          0     216,982
HD112  Button         512,117    83,976          0     953,840

HD121  Montoya        442,962   120,219          0     325,985
HD121  Allison        494,527   123,631    235,000     222,336

The difference between the races that are being seriously contested as a part of the State House takeover effort and those than are not is pretty clear. I would have liked to see more of an investment in Janet Dudding and Eric Holguin and Jennifer Skidonenko, but that’s not the direction that was taken. I admit they’re longer shots than the others, and they’ve done all right by themselves. We’ll see if we look at any of them as missed opportunities. As for John Gibson and Ray Ash, I’m probably the only person outside their immediate circle that has tracked them this closely. I see those districts, or at least those parts of the state, as future opportunities. May as well place the marker now.

As noted before, there’s a lot of in kind contributions on these reports, which tend to be campaign activity financed by the respective parties’ legislative PACs, Associated Republicans of Texas and the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC). In some cases, like with Brad Buckley in HD54, this activity is most if not all of what is happening. One presumes Buckley would have spent more than $20K on his own re-election if that hadn’t been covered by the ART. You really have to look at the individual reports to get a feel for who’s being bolstered the most and who’s mostly pulling their own weight.

On that latter point, some of the decisions that I presume the committees are making are fascinating. Craig Goldman and Matt Krause were both sitting on a bunch of cash in July, so it makes sense that they were mostly doing their own spending. Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button were also loaded as of July, and yet both had over $200K spent on them. Maybe that represents a desire to keep at least one Republican State Rep in Dallas County, I don’t know. Like I said, these decisions are fascinating, and as someone viewing them from the outside, all I can do is speculate.

On the other side of that coin, Tony Tinderholt (running for re-election) and Jeff Cason (defending an open seat) had to spend themselves down to paltry levels, for reasons not fully clear to me. I get that even for state Republicans, the money isn’t infinite, but you’d think that you wouldn’t want to leave guys like that so exposed as we’re getting down to the wire. I’m open to suggestions as to what’s up with that.

Kudos to Lorenzo Sanchez, Elizabeth Beck, and Brandy Chambers for really hitting it out of the park, with Celina Montoya, Joanna Cattanach, and Sharon Hirsch right behind them. All of the Dem challengers are at least within parity of the Republicans, and that’s about all you can ask.

I don’t know how seriously to take this, but there was some polling of competitive districts, reported by Reform Austin, which includes a number of these candidates. Make of it as you will.

One more of these to come, looking at the targeted Dem legislators. I’ll have the Congressional finance reports next week. Let me know what you think.

July 2020 campaign finance reports: State races, part 3

Aug 9th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

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Here I continue with a look at the State Rep races outside the Houston area where Dems are competing to flip seats. I did not look at the districts the Dems are defending, but I may return to that at a later date. Part One of my look at the July reports for state races is here, and Part 2 (the Houston-area State Rep districts) is here.

Janet Dudding, HD14
John Raney, HD14

Eric Holguin, HD32
Todd Hunter, HD32

Keke Williams, HD54
Brad Buckley, HD54

Angela Brewer, HD64
Lynn Stucky, HD64

Sharon Hirsch, HD66
Matt Shaheen, HD66

Lorenzo Sanchez, HD67
Jeff Leach, HD67

John Gibson, HD84
John Frullo, HD84

Ray Ash, HD89
Candy Noble, HD89

Jeff Whitfield, HD92
Jeff Cason, HD92

Lydia Bean, HD93
Matt Krause, HD93

Alisa Simmons, HD94
Tony Tinderholt, HD94

Joe Drago, HD96
David Cook, HD96

Elizabeth Beck, HD97
Craig Goldman, HD97

Jennifer Skidonenko, HD106
Jared Patterson, HD106

Joanna Cattanach, HD108
Morgan Meyer, HD108

Brandy Chambers, HD112
Angie Chen Button, HD112

Celina Montoya, HD121
Steve Allison, HD121


Dist  Candidate        Raised     Spent       Loan     On Hand
==============================================================
HD14   Dudding         30,064     5,975        782      24,482
HD14   Raney           40,550    13,736          0     123,179

HD32   Holguin         51,216    26,981          0      18,942
HD32   Hunter          43,750   293,821          0   2,125,012

HD54   Williams        66,107    16,840          0      26,165
HD54   Buckley         33,045    30,313     30,300      77,729

HD64   Brewer          55,651    14,009          0      40,548
HD64   Stucky          66,575    42,411          0     199,065

HD66   Hirsch         218,639    27,130          0     171,691
HD66   Shaheen         45,965    48,563    122,000     204,862

HD67   Sanchez         71,556    52,034     28,610       3,008
HD67   Leach          141,823   137,712          0     412,306

HD84   Gibson           4,310     2,738          0       4,533
HD84   Frullo          16,500    40,925          0     331,505

HD89   Ash                790       137     10,376         411
HD89   Noble           17,720     5,260    130,000     116,812

HD92   Whitfield      201,313    73,782     19,700     187,824
HD92   Cason           81,255    65,061      5,000      50,591

HD93   Bean           118,475    57,827          0     107,277
HD93   Krause         127,704    41,027          0     589,727

HD94   Simmons         62,265    28,203      1,090      38,466
HD94   Tinderholt      15,850    25,503          0      71,180

HD96   Drago          132,090    21,992          0     109,105
HD96   Cook            54,550    84,214          0     288,908

HD97   Beck           163,004    44,177          0     162,996
HD97   Goldman        292,777    85,870          0     866,662

HD106  Skidonenko      51,268    21,076      5,000      31,675
HD106  Patterson       79,575   125,850          0      91,055

HD108  Cattanach      181,290    65,495          0     122,179
HD108  Meyer          247,710   107,924          0     517,790

HD112  Chambers       168,585    61,104          0     157,394
HD112  Button          77,555    76,281          0     756,758

HD121  Montoya         90,861    13,313          0      61,233
HD121  Allison         73,190    94,274    235,000     113,077

As before, remember that those who were unopposed in March are reporting for the entire six month period of January 1 through June 30, those who won a contested March primary are reporting from February 23 through June 30, and those who had to win a primary runoff are reporting from February 23 through July 6. Check the individual reports if you’re not sure, and bear in mind that the presence or absence of a competitive race in this timeframe may have an effect on the numbers here.

While we saw a couple of Houston-area challengers raising serous money, we see quite a few more here. Several of them – Sharon Hirsch, Lydia Bean, Joanna Cattanach, Brandy Chambers, and Celina Montoya – are all repeat candidates, with Hirsch (who lost 50.3 to 49.7), Cattanach (50.1 to 49.9) and Chambers (51.0 to 49.0) being among the closest losses from 2018. The cash-on-hand situation is against them, though less so for Hirsch and Montoya than the others, but they will all have the resources they will need to compete. Overall, you really have to hand it to the Metroplex contenders, in Dallas and Tarrant and Collin and Denton, who really showed up in the first half of this year. If we do take back the House, this is where the bulk of it will happen.

We talked about the incumbency advantage in the last post, and wow does that vary from incumbent to incumbent. You have Todd Hunter, in a class by himself, with more typical results from the likes of Craig Goldman, Angie Chen Button, Morgan Meyer, Matt Krause, and Jeff Leach. Jared Patterson and Brad Buckley are first-termers, so you can cut them some slack; Candy Noble and Steve Allison are also first-termers, who have perhaps been a bit more diligent about the homework. Jeff Cason is defending an open seat. David Cook, also defending an open seat, is the honor roll recipient among the non-incumbent Republicans. These folks are all within the range of what one might expect, though I’d also expect Cason to step it up a notch if I were on that team.

And then there are the incumbents that make you go “Hmmm”. John Raney isn’t used to having competitive elections, but he’s been in the House since a 2011 special election, and you’d think he’d have a few bucks lying around just because. Tony Tinderholt has been targeted in November before, and as such his $15K raised in the period is just baffling. (Yes, I know, he is recovering from coronavirus, but as far as I can tell that was all in July, after this reporting period.) Now I feel like I really do need to check the targeted Dem incumbents, just to see if there are any equivalents to these guys in there.

As before, I suspect the 30-day reports will tell a much more revealing story. If you think there’s anything I’ve missed, let me know.

After-deadline filing review: The Lege

Dec 20th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Now we come to the State House, which is where most of the action will be in 2020. In 2018, much of the energy and focus was on Congressional races, to the point where some hand-wringing articles were written about the lack of focus and resources on the legislative races. Dems managed to win 12 seats anyway, and by now we all know of the goal of winning nine more to take the majority. Both parties, and a lot of big-money groups, are locked in on this. That’s where we are as we enter the primary season.

So with all that, see here, here, and here for previous entries. The top target list, or at least my version of it, is here. As before, I will skip over the Houston-area races and focus on the ones I haven’t been talking about. Finally, one correction to that post on Houston-area races: I have been informed, and a look at the SOS candidate info page confirms, the two would-be primary challengers to Rep. Hubert Vo in HD149 have been disqualified.

The top targets: I will start with the districts that Beto carried, then move to the next tier.

HD64 – Angela Brewer, adjunct professor of communication studies at UNT and Collin College. You can see a short video of her talking to a local journo here. This district is in Denton County, where HD65 flipped in 2018.

HD66 – Sharon Hirsch, a retired Plano ISD employee who came agonizingly close to winning in 2018 (she lost by less than 400 votes, 0.6 percentage points), will try again. Physician Aimee Garza Lopez is also running to take on lousy incumbent Matt Shaheen.

HD67 – Four candidates are running (a fifth withdrew) in a Collin County district that Beto carried by five and a half points (incumbent Jeff Leach held on by 2.2 points). Attorney Tom Adair, attorney and El Salvador native who fled its civil war in the 80s Rocio Gosewehr Hernandez, former teacher and legislative director Anthony Lo, and real estate agent Lorenzo Sanchez are your options.

HD108 – Another heartbreaking loss, as 2018 candidate Joanna Cattanach fell short by 220 votes, 0.2 percentage points. This was the most Republican district in Dallas County – in some sense, still one of the two most Republican districts, since there are only two left held by Republicans – and yet Beto took 57.2% here in 2018. Cattanach, a teacher, is running again, and she has company, from Tom Ervin and Shawn Terry, both businessmen.

HD121 – I feel like this district, which used to be held by Joe Straus, is a bit of an illusion. It looks less red than it is. Beto won it, but only with 49.7%, while new Rep. Steve Allison (who beat a wingnut in the 2018 GOP primary) took it by eight and a half points. I feel confident the Democratic Presidential candidate will carry it, and it may be Dem in some county races downballot, but much like HD134 has done I expect it to stick with its moderate Republican State Rep. Yeah, I know, I’m a buzzkill. Anyway, 2018 candidate Celina Montoya, founder of an educational non-profit, is back, and she’s joined by consultant and Moms Demand Action state leader Becca DeFelice and Jack Guerra, listed on the SOS page as a “small business owner”.

HD96 – We’re now in the districts Beto didn’t carry, though he only missed this one by 91 votes. I’ll be doing these in decreasing order of Beto’s performance. HD96 is one of five – count ’em five – target districts in Tarrant County, mostly thanks to Beto’s performance in 2018. This is now an open seat thanks to a last-minute decision not to file by Bill Zedler, one of the main anti-vaxxers in the Lege. Attorney Joe Drago has the task of flipping this one.

HD54 – Most of the pickup opportunities for Dems are in the urban and big suburban counties, where you would expect them to be. HD54 is one of three that are not. It’s in Central Texas, split between Bell (blue) and Lampasas (red) counties, it’s been a low-key swing district for some time, and Beto got 49.0% there in 2018. Likeithia “Keke” Williams is listed as the candidate – SD24 candidate Clayton Tucker had originally filed for HD54 but switched to the Senate race following her filing. I can’t find any online presence for her – Tucker mentions she’s a veteran, so we know that much – but I sure hope she gets the support she needs to run a serious campaign, because this is a winnable seat.

HD97 – Get ready for a lot of Tarrant County, with one of the other non-traditional targets thrown in. HD97 (Beto 48.6%) was blue for five minutes in 2008, after Dan Barrett won a special election to fill out Anna Mowrey’s term, then lost that November when Republican turnout returned to normal levels. It’s not been on the radar since, and incumbent Craig Goldman won by nine points last year. No one ever said this would be easy. Attorney and veteran Elizabeth Beck and Dan Willis, listed on the SOS page as an eye doctor, fight it out in March to take their shot in November.

HD14 – The second on the three “wait, where is that district again?” seats (it’s in Brazos County, for the record), HD14 put itself on the list by having Beto (48.4%) improve on Hillary Clinton’s performance (38.1%) by over ten points. Was that a fluke, either in 2016 or in 2018? I have no idea, but any district where Beto can get 48.4% is a district where we need to compete. Certified public accountant Janet Dudding and Raza Rahman, a senior at Texas A&M, have the honors of trying to do that competing.

HD92 – This is – or, thankfully and more accurately, was – Jonathan Stickland’s district. Need I say more? The air is fresher already. Steve Riddell, who lost by less than two points to Stickland in this 48.3% Beto district, and attorney and Air Force veteran Jeff Whitfield, are in it.

HD93 – Staying in Tarrant County, we have yet another anti-vaxxer’s district, this one belonging to Matt Krause. What’s in the water out there, y’all? It’s Beto at 48.2%, and Lydia Bean, sociology professor and non-profit founder and 2018 Dem candidate in the district, is back.

HD94 – Tarrant County has punched way above its weight in the Idiot Legislators department lately, thanks to a cluster of loudmouth anti-vaxxers. That group contains HD94 incumbent Tony Tinderholt, who entered the Lege by knocking out a leading pro-public education Republican incumbent, and who is a dangerous lunatic for other reasons. Tarrant County will be less toxic next session with Jonathan Stickland and Bill Zedler retiring, and taking out Tony Tinderholt would also help. Alisa Simmons, who does not have a campaign presence yet, has that task.

HD32 is a weird district. Located in Nueces County, it was a swing seat in the previous decade, finally flipped by then-rising star Juan Garcia in 2008, when Dems held a total of 74 seats. Todd Hunter, who had represented it in earlier years, won it back in 2010 and hasn’t faced a Democratic opponent since. With Beto taking 47.0% there, it’s again in the mix. Eric Holguin, the Democratic candidate in CD27 in 2018, is running in HD32 this cycle.

HD106 – We’re now very much into “stretch” territory, as the last four districts are all under 45% for Beto; this one, which was rehomed from Dallas to Denton County in the 2011 redistricting, scored at 44.2% for Beto and was won by first-term incumbent Jared Patterson with 58.3%. But if 2018 taught us anything, it’s that things can move in a hurry, so I don’t want to overlook potential possibilities, even if they’re more likely to be of interest in the longer term. Jennifer Skidonenko, who identifies herself as a mother and grassroots activist and who is clearly motivated by gun violence, is the candidate.

HD89 – This is the district that used to be held by Jodie Laubenberg. Remember Jodie Laubenberg? She was the author of HB2, the omnibus anti-abortion bill that Wendy Davis filibustered and the Supreme Court eventually rejected. Have I elevated your blood pressure just a little? Good. Laubenberg went off to do whatever horrible things people like her do after they leave the Lege, and Candy Noble is her replacement in this Beto 43.5% district. Sugar Ray Ash, the 2018 Dem nominee who is a veteran, former postal worker, tax attorney, DMN endorsed, and all around interesting guy, is back for another shot, and he has company in the person of Jon Cocks, whose website is from a prior race for Mayor of Fairview.

HD122 – The most Republican district in Bexar County, held by Greg Abbott frenemy Lyle Larson, Beto got 43.4% here, while Larson himself was getting almost 62 percent. Claire Barnett is a consultant for adult education programs and was the Democratic nominee here in 2018. She’s making another run in 2020.

HD84 – Last but not least, this is in some ways my favorite district on the list because it’s where you might least expect it – HD84 is in Lubbock County. Calling it a swing district is certainly a stretch – Beto got 43.1% in 2018, a big improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 34.8% in 2016, and incumbent John Frullo won by 20 points. But the direction is encouraging, and we’ve known since the 2011 redistricting cycle that one could build a Dem-leaning district in Lubbock if one were so inclined. If nothing else, keep that in mind as a thing to work for in the 2021 session. John Gibson, attorney and the Chair of the Lubbock County Democratic Party, announced his candidacy on Monday, deadline day, which made me happy because I’d been afraid we were skipping that race. I’m so glad we’re not.

I’ve still got judicial candidates and maybe a look at Fort Bend County candidates to look at. Stay tuned.

Trib overview of State House races

Dec 19th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Let’s get the 2020 State House conversation started.

For the first time in years, Republicans and Democrats are acknowledging that the GOP could lose its grip on the Texas House — a turning point that would mark the state’s biggest political shakeup since the chamber last flipped nearly two decades ago.

With the 2020 ballot all but set, both parties are readying their candidates for the 150 state House races, with roughly 30 seats seen as competitive.

As recently as 2017, House Republicans relished in a 95-member majority. But now, Democrats, bolstered by their 12-seat pick-up last year, are effectively only nine away from gaining control of the chamber — and having a larger say in the 2021 redistricting process.

Such a prospect has prompted newfound attention — and, in some cases, alarm — in a state that’s long been considered far out of reach for Democrats. And it’s created an awareness among Republicans, who have comfortably controlled virtually every lever of state government in Texas, that an updated — if not entirely new — playbook is needed.

Democrats still have their work cut out for them. The last time they controlled the House was 2001. In addition to holding onto the 12 seats the party flipped last year, Democrats would need to pick up the additional nine — and this cycle, the GOP says it’s more prepared for the threat than it was in 2018.

[…]

The battlefield for the House is large. In addition to the 12 seats that Republicans are trying to reclaim from the 2018 midterm election, Democrats are targeting 22 Republican-held seats where Beto O’Rourke, the 2018 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, won or lost by single digits. In 17 of those seats, the Republican incumbents won by fewer than 10 percentage points. Of those 17 seats, there are nine where both O’Rourke won and the incumbent won by single digits — those could be considered Democrats’ highest priorities.

Both parties are again calling North Texas ground zero for several of the House races considered to be in play by both parties, with the Austin and Houston areas also featuring clusters of competitive seats.

Even before the 2020 elections, Democrats have a chance to pick up a seat in the late January special election runoff to fill the seat of former Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond. Democrats were already targeting him before he resigned this fall to take a job with the University of Texas System.

Democrat targets have even grown to include once-unthinkable places like House District 32, where state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, is facing his first challenger from either party since O’Rourke came within 5 points of winning the district.

The Democrat now running against Hunter, Eric Holguin, said the district has become more young and more diverse since the lines were drawn in 2011 — and last year brought into focus Democrats’ path to victory.

“In 2018, we were seeing such a seismic shift in our political landscape due to [President Donald] Trump already having been in office a couple years,” said Holguin, who ran for Congress last cycle in the area. “Now that we saw the results of what happened in 2018, we could build off from there. We know where the new bar is set at more locally, and we could take it from there instead of not knowing what would happen post-Trump being elected.”

The embedded chart is from the story, and it includes most of the districts I’ve identified as opportunities. Dems are targeting more than the group pictured, but the ones in that map are the most likely to flip. I’ve got my look at who filed for what in the State House in the works, so go have a look at the Trib story as your warmup.

There sure was a lot of money spent on Congressional races in Texas

Feb 3rd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

If we’re lucky, it will be the start of a trend.

Never has Texas seen as much money spent on Congressional campaigns as it did in 2018.

New campaign finance data shows that the state didn’t just beat its old campaign spending records for Congress, it obliterated them. More than $97 million was poured into the November general election in 2018 for the U.S. House. The previous spending record was in 2004 when just under $60 million was spent by candidates running for Congress in Texas.

The record spending for the state’s 36 House seats was spurred by Texas suddenly having a half dozen competitive races that became a key part of the national battle for the control of Congress. Three of those races accounted for nearly one-third of all the spending.

[…]

Overall, the 36 Congressional districts averaged more than $2.6 million spent per contest.

That spending doesn’t count candidates who lost in the primaries like Republican Kathaleen Wall, who spent $6.2 million of mostly her own money in a failed attempt to win the 2nd Congressional District primary in Houston. Despite not making it to the general election, Wall still ended up spending more money on her race than any House candidate in Texas. Republican Dan Crenshaw, a retired Navy SEAL won the 2nd Congressional District primary and defeated Democrat Todd Litton in November. Crenshaw spent almost $1.7 million on his campaign.

The 2004 election was the one following the Tom DeLay re-redistricting of 2003, so that money was being spent in the five Democratic-held districts where Republican challengers were seeking to oust the Dem incumbents with the help of the new, friendly map. In other words, the same basic dynamic of multiple competitive races, which led to a crap-ton of money being raised. I know people have a lot of negative opinions – for good reasons! – about money in politics, but the fact remains that money gets spent when there are competitive elections. When there are no competitive elections, much less money gets spent. All things being equal, I’d rather have the competitive elections.

Here’s the FEC summary page for Texas Democratic Congressional campaigns from 2017-18, and here’s the last roundup of reports I did, at the end of Q3. The three biggest-money races were the ones you’d expect – CDs 07, 23, and 32 – but as we know there were four other Dem candidates who raised over a million bucks for the cycle, and a lot more big-money primaries, of which CD07 was definitely one.

To me, the big under-reported story is in how much money was raised by candidates in “non-competitive” races. Dayne Steele, God bless her, raised over $800K. Julie Oliver, who was actually in a reasonably competitive race that no one paid attention to, raised over $500K. Candidates Vanessa Adia (CD12), Adrienne Bell (CD14), Linsey Fagan (CD26), and Eric Holguin (CD27), none of whom cracked forty percent, combined to raise over $500K. The candidates in the highest profile races brought in staggering amounts of money – and note that we haven’t even mentioned the candidates whose name rhymes with “Schmeto” – but I cannot overstate how mind-bogglingly impressive what these candidates did is. They deserve more credit for helping to generate and sustain the enthusiasm that led to the massive turnout and major downballot Democratic wins than they will ever receive. We should be so lucky as to have a repeat of this performance in 2020.

October 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

Oct 23rd, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

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
============================================================
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.

July 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

Jul 18th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

So we know that Texas Democratic Congressional challengers really crushed it in Q2, and that’s on top of three strong quarters before that. How good was it? Let’s quantify. 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, and here’s the FEC summary page for Democratic Congressional candidates in Texas.


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Litton          843,045    435,370        0    407,674
03    Burch           153,559    160,632   23,149     19,109
06    Sanchez         358,960    291,187        0     67,772
07    Fletcher      2,321,869  1,524,807    7,531    797,077
08    David            25,044     21,831        0      2,708
10    Siegel          171,955    130,827    5,000     46,852
12    Adia            106,715     55,874        0     50,696
14    Bell            105,067     98,931        0      6,135
17    Kennedy
21    Kopser        1,594,724  1,230,359   25,000    364,365
22    Kulkarni        405,169    359,246    8,000     89,434
23    Ortiz Jones   2,256,366  1,105,515        0  1,150,851
24    McDowell         61,324     33,351        0     28,091
25    Oliver          199,047    124,044    3,125     78,145
26    Fagan            94,235     67,627        0     26,707
27    Holguin          93,570     83,112        0     10,458
31    Hegar         1,618,359    746,072        0    867,266
32    Allred        1,916,601    973,962   44,978    942,638
36    Steele          516,859    342,527        0    174,301

I added a few other candidates, in part to show that in even the lowest-profile races in deep red districts, Dems are raising unprecedented amounts of money. Rick Kennedy’s report had not updated as of yesterday (there’s always one that’s pokier than the others), but we’ll charge ahead anyhow.

Let me note up front that quite a few of these candidates were in primary runoffs, and that would be the reason why their total amount spent are so high, which makes their cash on hand lower than it might have been otherwise. The raised amounts that I list for some of these candidates is lower than what you’ll see on the FEC summary page because I generally subtract out loan amounts; in those cases, I go with the Total Contributions amount on the individual’s page. Unless there are also transfers in from other committees, as is the case for some candidates (Kopser and Ortiz Jones, for instance), in which case I revert to the topline Total Receipts number. It’s a little tricky and not as consistent as I’d like, but it’s close enough.

The sheer amount raised just by challengers – nearly $13 million so far – is just staggering. I’ve got another post in the works to put some context on that, but suffice it to say that we have never seen anything remotely like this. I’ve mentioned several times how impressive I find Dayna Steele’s numbers (and I’m not the only one), so let me also show a little love for Vanessa Adia and Linsey Fagan, both of whom are running in districts about as red as CD36, and Julie Oliver, whose CD25 is closer to 60-40 but like so many others has not had a serious challenge since it was configured in 2011. Especially for the districts they’re in, those totals are amazing. Well done, y’all.

What all this money means, especially spread out over all these candidates, is that there can and hopefully will be a real effort all over the state to reach out to people who may have never heard from a Democratic campaign and remind them they have a reason to vote and a local candidate to vote for. It’s a great way to complement Beto’s campaign, and given that none of our other statewide candidates have two dimes to rub together, it’s very necessary. Our hope, for this year and going forward, is predicated on boosting turnout. We have the motivation and we have the resources. It’s been quite awhile since the last time those things were true.

I’m just getting started on collective finance report information. I’ll have a full survey of the results of interest in the coming weeks. Let me know what you think.

Cloud wins in CD27

Jul 1st, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

10 comments

No runoff needed.

Blake Farenthold

Republican Michael Cloud appears likely to win the special election to fill former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold’s seat, which would spare the GOP a runoff in the 27th District.

With 89 percent of precincts reporting, Cloud was leading Democrat Eric Holguin 54 percent to 32 percent, according to unofficial returns from the Texas secretary of state’s office. Cloud, a former chairman of the Victory County GOP, needs to finish above 50 percent in the nine-way race to avert a runoff later this summer.

The special election will determine who finishes Farenthold’s term, which ends in January. Both Cloud and Holguin are their party’s nominees in November for the full term that starts after that. The seven other candidates in the special election are Democrats Raul “Roy” Barrera and Mike Westergren, Republicans Bech Bruun and Marty Perez, independent candidates Judith Cutwright and Chris Suprun, and Libertarian Daniel Tinus.

Here are the election night returns. Farenthold won by a 61.7 to 38.3 margin in 2016. The three Dems in the special were at 39.6% as of when I drafted this. Like the HD13 special election, this one had little attention paid to it, so it’s hard to draw conclusions about the turnout. That said, Farenthold won 63.6 to 33.7 in 2014 (there was a Libertarian candidate that year), so Dems are at least a few points ahead of that. The upcoming SD19 election may tell us something more interesting, we’ll see. Congratulations to Rep.-elect Cloud, who will get a seniority advantage over the rest of the class of 2018 if he wins (as he will be favored to do) in 2018. Please be less embarrassing than your predecessor, that’s all I ask.

The CD27 special election is almost upon us

Jun 28th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

It’s on Saturday, to be specific.

Blake Farenthold

Voters in the 27th Congressional District are preparing to go to the polls for a third time this year on Saturday for a sleepy special election in which both parties are working to rally their fatigued troops behind a single candidate in the nine-person field to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi.

Farenthold abruptly resigned in April amid the fallout from sexual harassment allegations and an ethics investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He had announced four months earlier that he wouldn’t run for re-election, creating an open race to succeed him.

Saturday’s election is to determine who completes Farenthold’s current term, which ends in January, and it’s separate from the November election, the winner of which will take over the seat for a full two-year term after that.

Despite nine candidates on the ballot, Republicans are hoping their general election nominee, Michael Cloud, can win outright Saturday and avoid a runoff that would keep the seat empty for at least two more months and leave the counties with the bill for yet another election this year. Democrats, meanwhile, believe the crowded race provides an opening for their consensus candidate — Eric Holguin, also his party’s pick for the fall — to advance to a second round.

Even if Holguin makes the runoff, few are predicting the solidly red district could flip. Still, Democrats view it as an opportunity to at least build some momentum in the run-up to the November elections, and Republicans acknowledge there is an inescapable element of uncertainty in the low-turnout environment.

“I think the odds are highly favorable of [Cloud] winning the special election at least in a runoff, but the turnout’s so low, anything can happen,” said Michael Bergsma, the Republican Party chairman in Nueces County.

See here for the background. There’s more to the story, but that’s the main idea. With nine candidates it should be difficult to win a clean majority, especially since one of the lower-tier Republicans is actually spending money for the right to be a slightly longer-tenured Shelley Sekula Gibba, but it’s at least possible. Dems would love to get Eric Holguin into a runoff, and of course we’ll all be watching to see what the relative levels of turnout look like. Dems have generally overperformed by about thirteen points on average in special elections over the past year and a half, though there’s a wide range of outcomes. I’ll have the result from this one on Sunday.

And on a side note:

Texas officials are fuming over the tab for the upcoming special election to replace former Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold.

The cost of the June 30 election to replace Farenthold, who resigned in April amid reports he had used $84,000 in taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit, is expected to be at least $157,000 — and many of the 13 largely rural counties holding the election say they can’t afford their share of the bill.

Worse, they argue, the special election is a pointless and needlessly costly exercise since the contest is likely to go to a September runoff — meaning the eventual winner will likely serve in Washington for less than 90 days.

“We’re all not happy,” said Wharton County Elections Administrator Cynthia Richter. “It is what it is, it’s just crazy.”

After announcing the special election date, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wrote the millionaire former congressman to request that Farenthold pay for the special election costs himself. Farenthold had originally said he would pay back the $84,000 he used to settle the harassment claim; the governor asked that he apply that money to the local counties to cover the costs of the special election.

Farenthold’s response? No.

“In my opinion, as well as many other county officials I have heard from, a special election was not warranted and should not have been called,” wrote Farenthold in a letter addressed to Abbott. “However, that was your decision based upon the advice you were given. Since I didn’t call it and don’t think it’s necessary, I shouldn’t be asked to pay for it.”

[…]

County officials say expenses associated with a special election are forcing them to reach into their contingency funds — accounts set up to cover government emergencies — or significantly downsize their operations.

“We have done everything we can to introduce cost-saving methods,” said Bastrop County Elections Administrator Bridgette Escobedo, whose county is expected to shell out $12,000 in special election expenses. “We’ve consolidated locations, reduced election workers; we’re running minimum crews for no overtime; we’re all paper and ordered minimum ballots.”

The counties aren’t alone in their frustration. The governor points his finger directly at Farenthold.

We’ve seen this before. I sympathize with the counties, who have no control over this stuff, but I supported the decision to have this election now rather than in November, and I stand by that. That said, the Governor has some discretionary funds at his disposal, in which $157K would make only a tiny dent, so it seems to me he could help these counties cover the cost of the choice he made if he wanted to. (I could be wrong about this, in the sense that I don’t know how “discretionary” these funds are. He may not be allowed to tap into them for this purpose.) He could also support an item in the next budget to make the state shoulder the cost of special elections like this. Sending an invoice to Farenthold makes for a good show. Doing something effective makes for good government. I’m just saying.

The June elections

Jun 15th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

You may not realize this, but there are multiple elections going on right now around Texas. I’m aware of three:

1. The Klein ISD Tax Ratification Election:

Our shared vision in Klein ISD is that every student enters with a promise and exits with a purpose. In order to make our vision a reality for EVERY student, we need resources. We believe it’s important that every member of the Klein community understands how our schools are funded by the State and local taxpayers. For example, you might be surprised to know that as your home value grows causing you to pay higher school taxes, the State decreases their share of funding.

The above videos explain the current school funding system and the impact it has on the Klein ISD budget. It also explains steps the district has taken over the years to maintain the current educational programs.

See here and here for some news coverage about this election. I only know about it because Klein ISD is in Harris County, up near the Woodlands, and I’ve been getting the daily early vote totals for it. The EV period for this is over and the election itself is tomorrow, the 16th. You can find your polling place here if that applies to you. I’ve no idea why this is being held now as opposed to the May uniform election date, but you can learn more about TREs and why school boards need to have them here and here.

2. The Pearland City Council runoff:

After neither candidate garnered more than 50 percent of the vote as polls closed Saturday, Adrian Hernandez and Dalia Kasseb will face each other in a runoff next month to decide who will be the next Position 4 council member.

“I’m overwhelmed by the amount of support. … I’m excited to keep going,” Hernandez said. “It’s no different today than it was yesterday or how it will be tomorrow. I’ve been serving the city and I’ll keep doing that. I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing.”

It’s a familiar result for Kasseb, who faced six candidates in 2017 for a council position before ultimately losing to Woody Owens in a runoff for Position 7.

“I am buoyed to know I can count on growing support from the community,” Kasseb said. “We will continue the fight to become that voice for all on city council and be the solution to the challenges we face in our rapidly growing community.”

In early vote totals, Hernandez had a winning margin of votes, but as Election Day ballots were counted, both Kasseb and G. Sonny Atkins picked away at his lead.

“She’s a formidable opponent,” Hernandez said. “We’re going to look to those people we have not reached yet and fill in those gaps.”

Pearland City Council has staggered three-year terms, so they have elections for a subset of their members every year. Mike Snyder had a decent overview of this a couple of weeks ago. Like the Klein ISD TRE, this one will happen on Saturday, as early voting ended on Tuesday. Voting location information is here and a map is here. At least the runoff this year seems to be a lot less ugly than last year’s was.

3. The special election in CD27.

Twice.

That’s the number of times candidates for Texas’ 27th Congressional District have already had their names on a ballot. For months they’ve traveled the district, shaken hands, and gone to meet and greets. They’ll need to get used to that campaign trail.

That’s because even when the top two contenders to fill the seat — Republican Michael Cloud and Democrat Eric Holguin — arose, the battle on the ballot was still far from over.

Voters will next cast their ballots in the June 30 special election. There could be two more elections after that as well. At the very least there’s one more in November.

[…]

The winner will be in office for less than a year.

That time could be cut down even more if one of the nine candidates on the ballot does not get more than half of the votes. If that happens, a runoff would follow.

When voters head to the polls they’ll see nine names on the ballot — Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents alike.

Three of those names should be familiar to voters: Holguin, Cloud and Raul “Roy” Barrera. Win or lose in the special election Holguin, a Democrat, and Cloud, a Republican, will face off again in the November general election.

On the last election night, Holguin said the primary runoff election’s outcome would play a “huge role” going into June.

“It shows who the top two candidates are,” he said. “I know there are nine candidates, but we are the ones that are going to be going face to face in November. So we’re the ones that people are going to be paying attention to and really focusing on.”

Last month, Bech Bruun, who lost to Cloud in May, endorsed the former Victoria GOP chair, asking people to vote for him in both June and November. Bruun’s name still will appear on the June ballot.

Bruun said a large part of the endorsement was so hopefully his supporters would switch to Cloud and a runoff would be avoided.

The Corpus Christi Caller also endorsed Cloud for the special election, though they reserved the right to change their mind for November. TDP Chair Gilberto Hinojosa endorsed Eric Holguin, as the only chance Dems have is in a low-turnout context with the bulk of Dem votes going to Holguin. I don’t care for his odds, but we’ll see if the trend of Dems cutting into Republican margins from 2016 holds here. Early voting for this one started on Wednesday, with E-Day on June 30. Oh, and just so we’re clear, Blake Farenthold is still a leech.

But wait! I hear you cry. Wasn’t there also supposed to be a runoff in the special election for HD13? Yes there was, and no there won’t be.

Following a March 6 Primary Election, May 5 Special Election and a May 22 Primary Runoff Election, former Grimes County Judge Ben Leman will take the oath of office Thursday, May 31, as the new Texas State Representative of District 13.

According to the Texas Secretary of State office, Leman was considered duly elected to fill the vacated seat for the remainder of the current term following the withdrawal of opponent Jill Wolfskill from the runoff special election that was set to occur in late summer. Wolfskill made a formal concession from the race May 23 via her Facebook page and submitted a “signed, notarized withdrawal to the office of the Secretary of State” to announce her decision.

“I want to say a big thank you to my family, friends, supporters, and volunteers on the Jill Wolfskill campaign these past four months,” said Wolfskill. “Running this race in has been a great honor and I am so blessed by the amazing support I received, and by the people I’ve had the opportunity to meet throughout this district.”

Wolfskill and Leman had both previously made public comments regarding the concession of the candidate who received the least number of votes in the May 22 Primary Runoff Election to prevent unnecessary financial burdens to the seven counties in House District 13. Leman took the majority of the 14,602 votes with 57.33 percent, while Wolfskill had 43.03 percent.

Leman still has to win the November election against Cecil Webster, but if he does he will have a head start in seniority over his fellow members of the class of 2018. And the good news is we should get the entire month of July off from elections.

2018 primary runoff results: Congress and Legislature

May 23rd, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

All results are here. I began drafting this around 9:30 when there were still a bunch of precincts out, but with the exception of the tossup in CD25, all of the Congressional races were pretty clear by then:

CD03: Lorie Burch
CD06: Jana Sanchez
CD07: Lizzie Fletcher
CD10: Mike Siegel
CD21: Joseph Kopser
CD22: Sri Kulkarni
CD23: Gina Ortiz Jones
CD27: Eric Holguin
CD31: MJ Hegar
CD32: Colin Allred

At the time I started writing this, Julie Oliver led in CD25 by 70 votes out of almost 18,000 cast and about three quarters of precincts reporting. Later on, she had pulled out to a five point lead, so add her to the winners’ list as well.

On the legislative side, Rita Lucido was leading in SD17, Sheryl Cole had a modest lead in HD46 with most precincts reporting, Carl Sherman had a much bigger lead in HD109, and longtime Rep. Rene Oliveira had been shown the door.

As for the Republicans, Dan Crenshaw won big in CD02, Lance Gooden won in CD05, so no more Republican women in Congress, Chip Roy and Michael Cloud led in CDs 21 and 27, respectively. The wingnuts in HDs 08 and 121 lost, and incumbent Rep. Scott Cosper lost.

Congratulations to all the winners. I’ll have some more coherent thoughts on all these races in the next day or so.

Runoff races, part 1: Congress

May 13th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I looked at most of these races after the filing deadline here and here. Here’s a reminder about who’s still in.

Lorie Burch

CD03

Lorie Burch – Finance report
Sam Johnson – Finance report

First round: Burch 49.61%, Johnson 28.68%

Burch was above fifty percent for most of the evening on March 6, but eventually fell less than 250 votes short of the mark. She was endorsed by the DMN for the primary. This North Texas Gazette story has a bit about these candidates, as well as those in the CD06 and CD32 runoffs.

CD06

Jana Lynne Sanchez – Finance report
Ruby Faye Woolridge – Finance report

First round: Woolridge 36.95%, Sanchez 36.90%

It doesn’t get much closer than this – fifteen votes separated Woolridge and Sanchez in March. Woolridge is a rare candidate in these races that has run for Congress before – she was the Dem nominee in 2016. She has the endorsements of the DMN and the Star-Telegram, though I can’t find the link for the latter. Sanchez has been the stronger fundraiser. Here’s a KERA overview and a Guardian story about female Congressional candidates that focuses on this race and on CD07.

CD07

Lizzie Fletcher – Finance report
Laura Moser – Finance report

First round: Fletcher 29.36%, Moser 24.34%

I feel like you’re probably familiar with this race, so let’s move on.

CD10

Mike Siegel – Finance report
Tawana Cadien – Finance report

First round: Siegel 40.00%, Cadien 17.96%

Cadien is another repeat candidate; this is her fourth go-round. She emphasized that she’s been there all along, when no one paid any attention to CD10, in this AusChron story. She doesn’t appear to have done any fundraising. Siegel has the Chron endorsement and picked up the HGLBT Political Caucus endorsement for the runoff.

CD21

Mary Wilson – Finance report
Joseph Kopser – Finance report

First round: Wilson 30.90%, Kopser 29.03%

The CD21 primary was the original “establishment/centrist versus outsider/lefty” primary, though the role of the latter was initially played by Derrick Crowe. Mary Wilson kind of came out of nowhere – if you want to posit that she benefited by being the only woman in the four-candidate race, I won’t stop you – and has been receiving some catch-up media coverage since. The Statesman did profiles of both candidates – Wilson here, Kopser here – and Texas Public Radio has more.

CD22

Sri Kulkarni – Finance report
Letitia Plummer – Finance report

First round: Kulkarni 31.85%, Plummer 24.29%

My interview with Kulkarni is here and with Plummer is here. I referenced the news stories I could find about them in those posts, and there ain’t much since then. Kulkarni got the Chron endorsement in March.

Gina Ortiz Jones

CD23

Gina Ortiz Jones – Finance report
Rick Trevino – Finance report

First round: Ortiz Jones 41.56%, Trevino 17.38%

Like CD21, this runoff has an “establishment/outsider lefty” narrative, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way. It started out as a battle between establishment factions, but that crashed to earth in March when the Castro-backed Jay Hulings came in fourth. I said my piece about this one a couple of days ago, so let me just add that Gina Ortiz Jones has the potential to be a star if she can win and win again in 2020. She’s already probably the most-covered candidate (non-Beto division) in the state, and her combination of youth, background, and willingness to speak bluntly is a good recipe for continued attention from the national press. If she wins and can get re-elected, I don’t think it would be crazy to imagine her getting touted as a statewide candidate in the near future, perhaps in 2022 for Governor or 2024 for Senate if Beto can’t knock off Cruz.

CD25

Chris Perri – Finance report
Julie Oliver – Finance report

First round: Perri 32.79%, Oliver 26.44%

I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to this race, as CD25 is a notch or two down on the competitiveness list. It’s not out of the question that this could be competitive in November, but if it is Democrats are having a very, very good day. The AusChron and the Statesman have a couple of good recent profiles of this race the the two remaining candidates, both of whom look perfectly acceptable. According to Ed Sills’ email newsletter, Julie Oliver recently joined Laura Moser and Mike Siegel in having their campaigns get unionized, a trend that I approve of. Whoever wins, I hope he or she puts up a good fight against empty-suit-with-Rick-Perry-class-hair Roger Williams.

CD27

Roy Barrera – Finance report
Eric Holguin – Finance report

First round: Barrera 41.23%, Holguin 23.30%

I had some hope in this one early on, but that pretty much dissipated when Ducky Boy Farenthold was able to slink off into the sunset. With boring generic Republicans in the running for the nomination, this is a boring generic race in which the Rs are heavily favored. I don’t have much expectation for the special election in August, as the multiple Democratic candidates on the ballot will likely split the vote enough to produce an all-R runoff. There are plenty of other races out there to get invested in.

CD31

MJ Hegar – Finance report
Christine Eady Mann – Finance report

First round: Hegar 44.93%, Mann 33.51%

Hegar is the high-profile candidate in this race, and she has been the much stronger fundraiser. She’s got a great story as a Purple Heart recipient and advocate for women who’s published a book on her experiences and gets invited to participate in things like the Texas Monthly Women’s Voices Project, but Mann was in the race earlier and picked a pretty good year to run for Congress as a doctor. Like Gina Ortiz Jones, I think Hegar has star potential, but her road to Congress is a lot rougher. The AusChron and Killeen Daily Herald have brief overviews of this race.

CD32

Colin Allred – Finance report
Lillian Salerno – Finance report

First round: Allred 38.43%, Salerno 18.35%

Another runoff where the script deviated from what we might have originally expected. Ed Meier, an Obama administration alum and the top fundraiser going into March, fell short as Allred ran well ahead of everyone else in the field. I have to think he has the edge just by the numbers, but Salerno has been no slouch at fundraising, and female candidates as a group did very well in March, so don’t go counting chickens yet. The Dallas Observer did some good Q&As with these candidates before the primary – here’s Allred, here’s Salerno – and there are more recent Q&As from the UTD Mercury with Allred and the Preston Hollow People with Salerno. The DMN, which endorsed Allred, has a runoff overview here. And my favorite news bite on this race: A Marijuana Super PAC Is Targeting Pete Sessions. Smoke ’em if you got ’em, y’all.

I’ll round up the legislative runoffs tomorrow.

Nine for CD27

Apr 29th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

And they’re off.

Blake Farenthold

Nine candidates have filed for the June 30 special election to finish former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold’s term, according to the secretary of state’s office. The deadline was 5 p.m. Friday.

As expected, the group includes the four candidates who are currently in the May 22 runoffs for the November election: Democrats Raul “Roy” Barrera and Eric Holguin, as well as Republicans Bech Bruun and Michael Cloud. The other five candidates who filed for the special election are Democrat Mike Westergren, Republican Marty Perez, independent Judith Cutright, Libertarian Daniel Tinus and independent Christopher Suprun.

Of the five candidates who are not also in the runoffs, Suprun, who is from Dallas, is perhaps best known — he refused to vote for Donald Trump at Texas’ Electoral College meeting following the 2016 presidential election. Westergren, meanwhile, is a Corpus Christi lawyer who unsuccessfully ran for Texas Supreme Court in 2016.

[…]

Before the June 30 special election to finish Farenthold’s term, voters in the district will primary runoffs will take place on May 22 to determine Democratic and Republican nominees for the seat in the fall. The winner of that contest will serve a full term beginning in January 2019.

See here for the background. Let’s be clear that only the candidates who are in the primary runoffs have a chance to hold this seat beyond the end of this year, if he or she wins both their runoff and then again in November. The others can aspire to be little more than a slightly extended version of Shelley Sekula Gibbs. Which isn’t nothing, but isn’t more than that. My guess is that any involvement from national Democrats would occur in the runoff for this race, assuming one of the three Dems that filed makes it that far. We’ll see how it goes.

Special election set in CD27

Apr 25th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Here we go.

Blake Farenthold

Gov. Greg Abbott has called a June 30 special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi.

The candidate filing deadline is Friday, and early voting will run from June 13-26, according to the governor’s proclamation.

[…]

Democratic and Republican runoffs are currently underway in the race to represent the district for a full term starting in January 2019. Raul “Roy” Barrera and Eric Holguin are running for the Democratic nomination, while Bech Bruun and Michael Cloud are competing for the Republican nod. The runoffs are May 22.

See here for the background, and here for the governor’s press release. Yes, that really is this Friday, as in two days from today, for the filing deadline. My guess is that the four candidates currently in the primary runoffs will file for this, with maybe a stray or two joining in. I would also guess that unless the loser of the Democratic primary runoff subsequently drops out, there won’t be much national attention paid to this race, not because it’s less winnable than the other special elections but because there won’t be a single candidate to focus on.

Anyway. Prior to this, Abbott had gotten an okey dokey from Ken Paxton to issue this proclamation in the first place.

Gov. Greg Abbott got the go-ahead Monday from Attorney General Ken Paxton to suspend state law so the governor can call a special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, as soon as possible.

Responding to a request from Abbott submitted Thursday, Paxton issued a nonbinding opinion saying a court would agree Abbott could set aside the election rules under a part of Texas law that lets the governor suspend certain statutes if they interfere with disaster recovery. Abbott said last week he wanted Farenthold’s former constituents to have new representation “as quickly as possible” because the Coastal Bend-area’s Congressional District 27 is still reeling from Hurricane Harvey.

“If the Governor determines the situation in Congressional District 27 constitutes an emergency warranting a special election before November 6, 2018, a court would likely conclude that section 41.0011 of the Election Code authorizes calling an expedited special election to fill the vacancy in that district,” Paxton wrote.

Paxton’s nonbinding opinion paves the way for Abbott to work around state and federal laws that he said are in conflict and make it “practically impossible to hold an emergency special election … before the end of September.” The governor’s office did not immediately say what he planned to do in light of Paxton’s opinion.

I was going to post that yesterday, but there were too many other things, and I figured I’d be okay waiting another day. Life comes at you fast, obviously. I suppose someone could file a lawsuit if they objected to this – maybe an overseas voter who might not have enough time to participate? I dunno – but speaking as a non-lawyer, this seems like the right call. The public interest is served by having the election sooner rather than later. The Chron has more.

Filing roundup: Other Congressional races, part 1

Dec 27th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

We already knew this, but just a reminder there’s at least one Democratic candidate in all 36 Congressional districts in Texas.

In deep-red Texas, Republicans will have to fight for every congressional seat in next year’s midterm elections. For the first time in 25 years, Democrats are running in all of Texas’ 36 congressional districts, according to documents filed with the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Mark Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, says those filings set a record for the number of Democratic challengers in an era of Republican dominance, and are a departure from 2016 – when eight Republican-held congressional seats went uncontested by Democrats.

“We are seeing a groundswell of unusually high support and mobilization among progressive Democrats who are really angered by the Trump administration,” Jones said.

[…]

“Outside of CD 23, held by Will Hurd, all of the Republican-held districts today, more likely than not, will stay Republican-held districts,” Jones said. “But they are not locks, and certainly we can’t consider them to be sure-things.”

Jones says it will take a perfect storm for Texas Democrats to make significant gains in Congress. He says Trump’s approval ratings will have to continue to decline, Democrats will have to continue to out-fundraise their Republican opponents, and Republican candidates will have to make a lot of mistakes.

We can and will discuss the prospects for winning various races as we go. For now, let’s talk about who the Democratic contenders are. I’ve put together another spreadsheet based on the SOS filings page for convenient reference. Some of these folks I’ve talked about a lot, others are new to me. I’m going to concentrate on the districts where Dems have a non-trivial chance of winning, on the races I haven’t previously covered in another filing roundup. Turns out there’s a lot of these candidates, so I’m splitting this into two posts, one for the top tier races and one for the ones a notch or two below that. We’ll begin with the latter group.

Lorie Burch

CD03

This district is in Collin County, and it is being vacated by longtime Rep. Sam Johnson. State Sen. Van Taylor is a leading contender for the Republican nomination. Decision Desk in November gave Democrats a 30% chance of taking it, with an expected performance of 46.9%.

Adam Bell
Lorie Burch
Medrick Yhap
Sam Johnson

Yes, there is a Democratic candidate named Sam Johnson who is running to succeed the retiring Republican Congressman Sam Johnson. He’s not afraid to make the obvious jokes about it, for which he has my respect. This Sam Johnson is an attorney and UT graduate who lives in Plano. Adam Bell was the candidate against the incumbent Sam Johnson in 2016. He doesn’t have much in the way of biographical information on his webpage, but he identifies himself as a small business owner. Lorie Burch is also an attorney in Plano, and I’m pleased to note a fellow graduate of my alma mater, Trinity University (we did not overlap and as far as I know I’ve never met her). She recently served on the Lambda Legal Leadership Committee, and as her bio notes, in her senior year at Trinity she interned for Judge Orlando Garcia, who issued the ruling that threw out Texas’ anti-same sex marriage law. Medrick Yhap doesn’t have a campaign Facebook page that I can find, and the only biographical information I discovered was that he works for a software company.

CD17

This is the district that former Rep. Chet Edwards once served. He hung on after the DeLay re-redistricting in 2004, then won two more terms before being wiped out in 2010. The district is more rural than anything else, so unlike the others on this list it hasn’t really trended blue. It’s on the far outer edges of competitiveness, and if it really is in play next fall then the question is not “will Dems take the House” but “how large will the Dem majority be”.

Rick Kennedy
Dale Mantey

Rick Kennedy is a software developer. Dale Mantey is working on a doctorate at the UT School of Public Health. Decision Desk put the odds in November at 5.7% for a pickup. I wish them both well.

Todd Allen

CD24

Former State Rep. Kenny Marchant has held this district since it was drawn, apparently with him in mind, in the 2003 DeLay re-redistricting. Longtime Democrat Martin Frost had been the incumbent here, but he chose to run in CD32 against Pete Sessions in 2004, coming up short in that race. The closest race Marchant has had was a 17-point win in 2016, as CD24 was one of several districts to see its Democratic performance increase from 2012 to 2016. Decision Desk projected 46.7% Democratic performance and a 24.9% chance of flipping in November.

Todd Allen
Jan McDowell
John Biggan
Josh Imhoff

Todd Allen is a high school government teacher and former football coach who like Lorie Burch is a Trinity University graduate. My cup runneth over here. Jan McDowell is a CPA with a degree in journalism; she was the Democratic candidate for CD24 in 2016. John Biggan is an Eagle Scout and slef-described “brain scientist”, with a doctorate from UT-Arlington. I could not find any web presence for Josh Imhoff’s campaign.

Chris Perri

CD25

CD25 is the district Rep. Lloyd Doggett moved into in 2004 post-DeLay; he had previously been in CD10. He then moved again to CD35 in 2012 as the Republicans tried and failed again to draw him out of a district he could win. Car salesman and former Secretary of State Roger Williams, who has Rick Perry-class hair, became the incumbent in this district that year. He has won by at least 20 points each time, with Decision Desk pegging the district at a 43.9% Democratic level and an 11.0% chance of turning over. I blogged about three of the five Democratic candidates in October.

Chetan Panda
Chris Perri
Julie Oliver
Kathi Thomas
West Hansen

Chetan Panda is a first generation American who grew up in Austin. He has a degree from the London School of Economics and was working as a retirement fund manager at a mutual fund before stepping down to run for Congress. Chris Perri is a defense attorney who serves as supervising attorney for UT Law’s pro bono Texas Expunction Project, which helps people clear wrongful arrests from their backgrounds. Julie Oliver describes herself as a healthcare advocate, tax policy expert, and community volunteer who serves on the board of Central Health in Austin. Kathi Thomas was the Democratic candidate for CD25 in 2016, and also ran for State Senate in 2006. She’s a small businesswoman, an education activist, a Democratic precinct chair, and a band geek, which is also something I respect. West Hansen is a psychologist whose great-grandparents settled in Texas in the 1800s.

CD27

Bye-bye, Blake. Smokey Joe Barton had a more sudden demise, but outgoing incumbent (*) Blake Farenthold had a pretty spectacular – and well-deserved – fall. Alas, unlike Smokey Joe’s departure in CD06, the odds of a Democratic takeover here are not improved much, and weren’t that good to begin with. Decision Desk puts the odds of flipping at 4.5%, the lowest of all the districts I’m looking at. But we’re thinking positive, right?

Eric Holguin
Raul “Roy” Barrera
Ronnie McDonald

Eric Holguin cites a family history of service and past experience with the New York City Comptroller and in an unnamed Congresswoman’s office, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing at the time of his candidacy. Roy Barrera was the Democratic candidate against Farenthold in 2016 – that’s his 2016 campaign Facebook page above, I couldn’t find a current version. Ronnie McDonald served as Bastrop County Judge for 14 years, and more recently worked with the directors of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas A&M Forest Service. He ran for CD27 in 2012 but did not win the primary.

MJ Hegar

CD31

Hey, a race where we have a specific poll result. A six-point lead by Rep. John Carter over one of his opponents isn’t much, though it is better than the situation some of his colleagues are in. This one has 11.3% odds of changing sides, with 44.0% Dem performance. It’s another mostly-suburban battleground, with most of the district in Williamson County. If there really is something to the well-educated suburbs getting turned off by Trump and Trumpish followers, this like several other districts listed here is the kind of place where we should see evidence of it.

Christine Eady Mann
Kent Lester
Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar
Mike Clark

All four of these candidates have been running since at least July, so it’s a pretty stable field. Christine Eady Mann is a family practice physician who has had some experience in local politics, including a successful campaign to pass an indoor smoking ban in Round Rock and serving as the volunteer coordinator for a Georgetown City Council member’s re-election. Kent Lester is a West Point graduate and 20-year Army veteran who has also been an educator. MJ Hegar is an Air Force officer and Purple Heart recipient who led a 2012 lawsuit against the Defense Department over its now-repealed policy excluding women from ground combat positions and wrote a book about her experiences in the military that is being made into a movie. Mike Clark has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with a background in Geology and Geospatial technology and is currently employed in the technology sector.

So that’s a lot of districts and a lot of candidates, and we haven’t covered some of the most competitive November races, which I’ll get to next week. I strongly encourage everyone to get to know who is running to represent them in Congress and make an informed choice in March. I’ll have more tomorrow.

Farenthold draws a crowd of opponents

Dec 9th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Bring ’em on.

Rep. Blake Farenthold

Bech Bruun, chairman of the Texas Water Development Board, resigned Thursday from that position ahead of an anticipated bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi.

“Serving as the Chairman of the Texas Water Development Board has been the privilege of a lifetime,” Bruun wrote in a letter dated Dec. 7 to Gov. Greg Abbott obtained by The Texas Tribune. “Recent events, namely the impacts of Hurricane Harvey, have led my family and me to the belief that the time has come for me to focus my passion for public service closer to home.”

Bruun is expected to file to run as a Republican for Texas’ 27th Congressional District as early as Friday.

[…]

For months, Bruun has received encouragement from within the congressional district to challenge Farenthold, and his expected entrance into the race comes days before the 2018 filing deadline. Michael Cloud, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee and former chairman of the Victoria County GOP, launched a bid in October for the seat. Three lesser-known Republicans, Christopher Mapp, Jerry Hall and Eddie Gassman, have also lined up for potential campaigns.

On the Democratic side, at least two Democrats have so far filed to run for the seat.

These recent events also probably had an effect on his decision. And there’s more where that came from.

Members of the U.S. House Ethics Committee unanimously voted Thursday to establish a subcommittee to investigate allegations that U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Corpus Christi Republican, sexually harassed a subordinate several years ago.

[…]

“Over the last two weeks, more information has been disclosed about the nature of the settlement between the parties. In addition, both Representative Farenthold and the Complainant have publicly expressed an interest in increased transparency in this matter,” a committee news release stated. “In light of these developments, the Committee has determined that it is appropriate to establish an Investigative Subcommittee to continue its investigation.”

“The Committee notes that the mere fact of establishing an Investigative Subcommittee does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.”

But wait, as the commercials used to say, that’s not all. There’s still more:

Embattled Texas Republican Blake Farenthold, under fire in an ongoing sexual harassment probe, said Friday that he and his entire congressional staff underwent sensitivity and sexual harassment training last year after two female staffers complained of gender discrimination and “sexualized commentary” in his Capitol Hill office.

The women’s complaints in 2016 followed that of former spokeswoman Lauren Greene, who had recently settled a federal lawsuit that accused Farenthold of sexual harassment and of firing her in retaliation for her complaint.

The new revelations, which Farenthold acknowledged to the Chronicle on Friday, bring to at least three the number of women who have complained of either sexual harassment, gender discrimination, or a hostile work environment in his office.

It’s never just one woman these guys harass. There’s always more. That aforementioned former subordinate will be giving testimony to the committee. We’ll see how that goes. Since that story was published on Thursday a third Democratic candidates has filed. The three Dem candidates in CD27 are Roy Barrera, who was Farenthold’s opponent in 2016, former Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald, who ran for CD27 in 2012 but didn’t make it out of the primary, and first-time candidate Eric Holguin. Anyone want to lay odds on whether Farenthold makes it to November?

Eric Holguin

30 Day 2020 campaign finance reports: State races, part 3

July 2020 campaign finance reports: State races, part 3

After-deadline filing review: The Lege

Trib overview of State House races

There sure was a lot of money spent on Congressional races in Texas

October 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

July 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

Cloud wins in CD27

The CD27 special election is almost upon us

The June elections

2018 primary runoff results: Congress and Legislature

Runoff races, part 1: Congress

Nine for CD27

Special election set in CD27

Filing roundup: Other Congressional races, part 1

Farenthold draws a crowd of opponents

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