Comparing the reports

Just out of curiosity, I thought I’d see how Bill White did with his fundraising compared to the last two Democratic candidates for Governor. Here’s what it looks like:

Bill White

Totals From Report For William H. White
Filed on: July 15 2010
Covering the Period February 21, 2010 Through June 30, 2010

Total Unitemized Contributions: $55.00
Total Political Contributions: $7,447,799.33
Total Unitemized Expenditures: $0.00
Total Expenditures: $3,276,436.29
Total Unitemized Pledges (Schedule B1 or B2) $0.00
Total Contributions Maintained As Of The Last Day Of The Reporting Period $9,045,425.60
Total Principal Amount Of All Outstanding Loans As Of The Last Day of the Reporting Period $0.00
Total Unitemized Loans: $0.00

Chris Bell

Totals From Report For R. Christopher Bell
Filed on: July 14 2006
Covering the Period February 26, 2006 Through June 30, 2006

Total Unitemized Contributions: $18,282.77
Total Political Contributions: $1,312,467.89
Total Unitemized Expenditures: $7,275.23
Total Expenditures: $533,999.70
Total Unitemized Pledges (Schedule B1 or B2) $0.00
Total Contributions Maintained As Of The Last Day Of The Reporting Period $654,501.62
Total Principal Amount Of All Outstanding Loans As Of The Last Day of the Reporting Period $0.00
Total Unitemized Loans: $0.00

Tony Sanchez

Totals From Report For Tony Sanchez for Governor, Inc.
Filed on: July 15 2002
Covering the Period March 03, 2002 Through June 30, 2002

Total Unitemized Contributions: $187.25
Total Political Contributions: $8,666,412.70
Total Unitemized Expenditures: $0.00
Total Expenditures: $12,486,908.86
Total Unitemized Pledges (Schedule B1 or B2) $0.00
Total Contributions Maintained As Of The Last Day Of The Reporting Period $0.00
Total Principal Amount Of All Outstanding Loans As Of The Last Day of the Reporting Period $17,761,662.81
Total Unitemized Loans: $0.00

The main thing to note about Sanchez is that much of his money came from himself. Take a look at his list of individual contributors, and you see that at least $6 million of that Total Political Contributions amount came from his family interests. (I say “at least” because I just scanned it, zeroing in on the Sanchez name, rather than going line by line. What I saw was two donations, one for one million and one for five million, from Sanchez Spousal Trust.) Moreover, by my count there were 1147 total contributions listed for Sanchez during this period; the total number of contributors is less than that, as some gave more than once. That’s less than one-tenth of the number of new contributors that White’s campaign claimed – 11,700 – which is the number that really stands out to me. Sanchez of course spent a lot more money than White will ultimately raise, but there is a difference between raising it and spending it. The former is evidence of how broad a candidate’s appeal is, and on that score we haven’t seen anything like Bill White since at least the days of Ann Richards.

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