The filing deadline has passed, the primary lineups are set, and we have a new set of races and candidates to review. As was the case in the past two cycles, I’ll follow the contested primaries as well as the (fewer than before) November races of interest. I’ll drop the former once those contests are settled. The October 2021 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.
Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Robin Fulford – CD02
Van Taylor – CD03
Keith Self – CD03
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
Doc Shelby – CD03
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Mike McCaul – CD10
Linda Nuno – CD10
Mauro Garza – CD15
John Villarreal Rigney – CD15
Ruben Ramirez – CD15
Roberto Haddad – CD15
Eliza Alvarado – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Scott Sturm – CD21
Robert Lowry – CD21
Claudia Zapata – CD21
Ricardo Villarreal – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Jamie Kaye Jordan – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
Kathy Fragnoli – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessica Cisneros – CD28
Tannya Benavides – CD28
Ed Cabrera – CD28
Willie Vasquez Ng – CD28
Cassandra Garcia – CD28
Abel Mulugheta – CD30
Jane Hope Hamilton – CD30
Jessica Mason – CD30
Jasmine Crockett – CD30
Colin Allred – CD32
Vicente Gonzalez – CD34
Mayra Flores – CD34
Greg Casar – CD35
Eddie Rodriguez – CD35
Rebecca Viagran – CD35
Lloyd Doggett – CD37
Donna Imam – CD37
Wesley Hunt – CD38
Duncan Klussman – CD38
Diana Martinez Alexander – CD38
Centrell Reed – CD38
Dist Name Raised Spent Loans On Hand
============================================================
02 Crenshaw 10,302,932 7,639,567 0 4,516,080
02 Fulford 49,692 15,595 15,595 34,097
03 Taylor 1,857,852 652,058 503,192 1,228,292
03 Self 165,608 58,297 0 107,321
03 Srivastava 59,699 49,257 25,000 10,441
03 Shelby 0 0 0 0
07 Fletcher 2,414,235 485,311 0 1,990,020
10 McCaul 1,413,600 643,881 0 777,453
10 Nuno 0 0 0 0
15 Garza 504,584 162,893 663,201 387,578
15 V Rigney 151,025 26 151,000 150,999
15 Ramirez 108,280 34,054 12,250 74,225
15 Haddad 100,000 100,000 0 0
15 Alvarado 75,035 24,183 29,000 50,851
15 De la Cruz 1,539,153 921,051 13,000 625,607
21 Roy 1,240,412 651,863 0 1,052,131
21 Sturm 47,618 37,869 0 5,728
21 Lowry 39,725 36,227 27,325 3,497
21 Zapata 38,436 34,619 0 4,769
21 Villarreal 25,190 15,048 20,563 10,141
22 Nehls 670,482 322,270 5,726 367,417
22 Jordan 0 0 0 0
23 Gonzales 2,261,907 985,463 0 1,307,803
23 Lira 251,642 195,017 0 56,625
24 Van Duyne 2,035,203 731,839 0 1,371,774
24 Gay 208,661 165,886 0 42,774
24 Fragnoli 28,121 17,328 12,096 10,793
24 McDowell 11,183 5,632 0 5,550
28 Cuellar 1,853,133 1,056,272 0 2,347,334
28 Cisneros 812,072 320,983 0 494,058
28 Benavides 27,177 17,265 0 9,912
28 Cabrera 289,230 112,450 250,000 176,779
28 Ng 137,786 11,436 50,900 126,349
28 Garcia 85,601 2,742 0 82,858
30 Mulugheta 252,713 65,673 0 187,039
30 Hamilton 228,605 157,280 5,014 71,325
30 Mason 199,082 160,217 0 38,865
30 Crockett 101,281 21,094 0 80,186
32 Allred 2,213,564 621,340 0 1,751,646
34 Gonzalez 1,688,731 942,491 0 2,116,732
34 Flores 187,115 128,345 0 58,769
35 Casar 467,579 111,870 0 355,709
35 Rodriguez 251,472 31,134 0 220,338
35 Viagran 47,375 2,286 0 45,088
37 Doggett 635,901 360,138 0 5,476,237
37 Imam 210,983 110,414 0 100,518
38 Hunt 2,039,403 708,280 0 1,555,065
38 Klussman 17,865 385 7,000 17,479
38 Alexander 11,892 6,462 0 5,429
38 Reed 11,377 192 6,496 11,184
Some of these races have a lot of candidates, and in some of those cases I limited myself to people who raised a noticeable amount of money. Most but not all races have both Republicans and Democrats listed – the incumbent is listed first followed by other candidates from that party, if any. In the case of open seats like CDs 15 and 34, I listed the Democrats first since those are Democratic seats.
The two races that the DCCC has focused on as potential pickups are CDs 23 and 24. Leading candidates John Lira and Derrik Gay had raised respectable amounts so far, but if you look at the October reports you can see they didn’t add all that much to their totals. They spent more than they took in over the past three months, not terribly surprising given that they’re in contested races (Lira’s opponent didn’t report anything), but it means they’ll be starting way in the hole. If they don’t pick it up considerably in this quarter it won’t much matter anyway.
I’m a little surprised that State Rep. Jasmine Crockett hasn’t raised more in CD30, as she is the candidate endorsed by outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, but she was only an official candidate in that race for five weeks, so in that context she did pretty well. In the likely event of a runoff, we’ll see what her April report says. On the Republican side, I expected more from Keith Self, who was Collin County Judge and whose candidacy was fueled by the grievance of Rep. Van Taylor voting for the January 6 commission. I guess his buddy Ken Paxton is in no position to lend him a hand right now. Rebecca Viagran is the one San Antonio candidate in a district with two Austin heavyweights duking it out. You’d think that might be a good path to getting into a runoff, but her fundraising doesn’t reflect that.
Donna Imam had been running in CD31 as of the October report, but switched to the new CD37 when her old district became less hospitable. I expect she’ll join a long list of candidates who got their heads handed to them by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, but you don’t know till you try. All of the Dems in CD38 were late filers in the race, so they had less than three weeks to collect cash. If this were 2012, the eventual winner of that primary would struggle to raise more than about $50K over the entire year. This is not a race that Dems have any expectation of winning, but I’ll be interested to see if the nominee here can do better than their long-longshot counterparts from a decade ago. My theory is that after two exciting cycles and a fair amount of engagement and organization, there should be a higher base level of support for candidates like these. We’ll see how dumb that theory turns out to be.
I did not comment on the absurd fundraising total of Rep. Dan Crenshaw last time. I will do so this time: That’s a lot of money. Whatever else you might say about the guy, he’s a fundraising machine. Spends a lot of it, too – I don’t look at the report details, so I can’t say where it’s going. But anyone who can rake it in like that, you have to think he’s got his eye on a statewide run, maybe in 2024 if Ted Cruz makes good his threat to run for President again. He does have three primary opponents, who combined to raise less than $50K. He also occasionally says things that make the most rabid of Trump minions howl with rage, so the possibility exists that he could underperform against that collection of no-names. I would not expect it to amount to anything, but it might provide a bit of fodder for the pundits.
