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Into every story about cryptocurrency, some amount of absurdity is sure to follow.

Texas is investigating celebrities who had endorsed FTX, the now bankrupt cryptocurrency firm, for potentially violating state securities laws.

The Texas State Securities Board started looking into FTX’s operations last month over whether the exchange’s yield-bearing crypto accounts were providing residents with unregistered securities. Since the company’s collapse on Nov. 11, the board has significantly expanded its probe to examine the impact of this multibillion-dollar bankruptcy.

And promotions of FTX by celebrities such as the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Tom Brady are now part of this broadened investigation, as first reported by Bloomberg News and confirmed by The Texas Tribune.

It also comes amid a class-action lawsuit filed in Florida against Curry, Brady and other celebrities — mostly high-profile athletes — which alleges that FTX had used their endorsements as part of a scheme designed to take advantage of “unsophisticated investors.” It also names FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

“Anyone who renders investment advice in Texas typically needs to be registered and they typically have to truthfully disclose all known material facts,” said Joe Rotunda, the state board’s enforcement director. “In Texas, there is not a different system of justice or regulation for people who are celebrities.”

It’s currently unclear if any prominent Texan would be investigated, but Rotunda said his team is still compiling a list of relevant parties based on recent court filings by FTX’s current CEO John J. Ray III and the class-action lawsuit. In particular, it will be looking at what the promoters disclosed, how they were compensated and how their promotions were scripted and filmed.

“It’s important from a securities regulation standpoint, and from a bankruptcy standpoint, to determine the ways FTX was encouraging clients and Texans to use FTX and invest with FTX,” he said.

He added that his team will also have to consider how the relevant law applies in this situation, since it was established via a 1985 case involving an investment and financial newsletter being distributed via fax.

“That’s a far cry from social media and broadcast advertisements, let alone tokens and blockchains, right?” Rotunda said.

I mean, okay, that’s their job and I appreciate that they are not giving anyone a pass for being a celebrity. It’s just that I personally don’t expect a celebrity endorser to be an actual expert on the thing they’re being paid to endorse. Maybe they should have some level of knowledge, when we’re talking about a financial product, but as a general rule I just figure either they like the thing they’re shilling for or they like the money they’re getting for the shilling. I don’t need for Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman to be salsa connoisseurs in real life. It’s just an ad.

On the other hand, given the best known example we have of a prominent person being accused of violating state securities law (hint: his name rhymes with Pen Kaxton), it could be a decade or more before any of them find themselves answering to the charges in question. If I’m Tom Brady’s lawyer, I’m probably telling him to worry about other things over this one. He’s not in any near-term danger.

Endorsement watch: Starting out with Susan

Oct 4th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron kicks off endorsement season with a fulsome recommendation of Susan Hays for Ag Commissioner.

Susan Hays

Hays, 53, lives in Alpine, where she and her husband purchased land several years ago to grow hemp and hops. Her background is as an attorney and lobbyist, including her 2019 work helping craft the Texas law allowing any hemp product with less than 0.3 percent THC.

Like the Republican incumbent, Sid Miller, she has made medical marijuana legalization central to her campaign.

Hays said she’s taken a close look at other states’ cannabis policies and determined that the successful ones have a well-balanced “three-legged stool” of medicinal access, decriminalization and legalization, all working together to curb the black market and ensure people remain safe.

“You have to think of cannabis regulation holistically,” she told the editorial board, speaking of her frustration with Texas’ piecemeal approach and widely-varying regulations.

[…]

Hays promises to lead the department with integrity, and we think she presents Texans with a better shot at competent leadership than we ever had under Miller. If elected, she told us, her constituents “won’t have to worry if I’m off seeking pseudo medical treatment in another state or directing a staffer to commit unsavory acts for a quick buck.”

She vows to govern pragmatically, not politically, sticking to her duties as agriculture commissioner rather than partisan talking points: “That’s not just abortion and guns — it’s the freeze, it’s seeing the elected officials spend taxpayer dollars and money and media space on often made-up issues, issues based in fear, instead of actually governing,” Hays said.

She seeks to revitalize the State Office of Rural Health, a rural hospital program, and commit the department’s resources to improving rural health care, sorely needed in Texas. The agriculture department oversees the state’s school lunch program, and Hays seeks to make sure students — rural, suburban and urban — are getting healthy Texas food rather than processed food from elsewhere.

If you like a circus act that sucks up oxygen and taxpayer money, vote for Miller. If you want a serious candidate well qualified to run the Texas agriculture department fairly, efficiently, and honestly, we can’t recommend Hays highly enough.

If reading the words isn’t enough for you, listen to my interview with Susan Hays and hear her say these things herself. She’ll make a believer out of you. The Chron editorial necessarily gets into the case against Sid Miller, but they only have so much space for that. It’s so abundantly clear that Hays is the best choice, I don’t know what else to tell you.

On a side note, Beto O’Rourke had himself a pretty good weekend for endorsements, picking them up from the likes of Harry Styles, Willie Nelson, and thirty-five members of Uvalde shooting victims’ families. The ad now running that features the mother of one of the victims is just devastating. I saw it during a football game over the weekend, and it took my breath away. I’m not normally moved by ads, especially political ads – they’re just background noise to me, including the ones for candidates I like. This one was different. Wow.

Coulda Been Worse

Sep 11th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Are you ready for some attack ads?

A shadowy new group has purchased at least $6 million in TV ads ahead of the November election and is airing an ad that targets Gov. Greg Abbott as he runs for reelection.

The minute-long ad from Coulda Been Worse LLC, which started airing Friday, rattles off a list of major calamitous events that have happened on Abbott’s watch, like the Uvalde school shooting and 2021 power-grid collapse. As the narrator speaks, a picture slowly zooms out to show Abbott’s face.

“Any one of these — a terrible shame for Texas,” the narrator says at the end. “All of these — a horrific sign something big is terribly, terribly wrong.”

The spot ends with a clip of Abbott saying after the Uvalde massacre that it “could have been worse,” increasingly a rallying cry of Abbott’s critics. Abbott made the comment while praising the law enforcement response to the shooting, which has since been been widely criticized for taking well over an hour to confront the shooter. Abbott later said he was “misled” when he made the comment.

The advertising represents a significant escalation as Abbott fights for a third term against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. Abbott has led O’Rourke by mid-single digits in polls throughout the summer.

Here’s the ad, which I can’t find right now on YouTube in part because there’s a song called “Coulda Been Worse” and in part because there’s a ton of video clips of Abbott’s original “could have been worse” quote.

.
New — Here’s the TV ad that the mysterious new group Coulda Been Worse LLC is airing in Texas, targeting @GregAbbott_TX:

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) 6:15 AM – 9 September 2022

60-second ads always feel interminable to me, but I’m not sure how you cut this one down. I mostly encounter ads like this when I watch sports – the college and NFL football seasons are just rife with this stuff, especially in even-numbered years – so I’ll be interested to see how often I encounter it. What’s your reaction?

More on how abortion bans will be enforced

Jun 7th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

It’s all about the data.

The Supreme Court is shortly expected to issue its decision on a challenge to Roe v. Wade that will—if a leaked draft version of the opinion holds—end federal protection for abortion access across the US. If that happens, it will have far-reaching consequences for millions of people. One of those is that it could significantly increase the risk that anti-abortion activists will use surveillance and data collection to track and identify people seeking abortions, sending authorities information that could lead to criminal proceedings.

Opponents of abortion have been using methods like license plate tracking for decades. In front of many clinics around the US, it remains a daily reality.

[…]

“The biggest fear, I think, is that there are going to be states that not only ban abortion in short order, but start criminalizing pregnant people who are seeking abortion services even out of state,” says Nathan Wessler, the deputy project director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the ACLU.

Some states that protect abortion services might be able to limit what out-of-state law enforcement can do directly, he notes, but that “doesn’t mean that there won’t be anti-abortion vigilantes recording information [outside of clinics] and then sending it to aggressive prosecutors in abortion-banned states.”

There is evidence that anti-abortion activists are already keeping close track of legal abortion activity. In 2014, for example, a recording surfaced of a training session for Texas anti-abortion activists, led by Karen Garnett of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas. In it, Garnett explained how license plate tracking is used to keep tabs on both a clinic’s clients and its doctors.

“You track license plates … coming into any abortion facility. We have a very sophisticated spreadsheet. This way you can track whether or not a client comes back,” she said in the video.

We’ve discussed this before, and I said at the time that any real enforcement effort is going to involve a lot of invasive searches. License plate tracking is an old technique – as the story notes, it goes back to at least the 90s – but there are much more modern strategies as well.

A location data firm is selling information related to visits to clinics that provide abortions including Planned Parenthood facilities, showing where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterwards, according to sets of the data purchased by Motherboard.

[…]

How data collecting intersects with abortion rights, or the lack thereof, is likely to gather more attention in the wake of the draft. The country may also see an increase in vigilante activity or forms of surveillance and harassment against those seeking or providing abortions. With this aggregated location data available to anyone on the open market, customers could include anti-abortion vigilantes as well. Anti-abortion groups are already fairly adept at using novel technology for their goals. In 2016, an advertising CEO who worked with anti-abortion and Christian groups sent targeted advertisements to women sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics in an attempt to change their decision around getting an abortion. The sale of the location data raises questions around why companies are selling data based on abortion clinics specifically, and whether they should introduce more safeguards around the purchase of that information, if be selling it at all.

“It’s bonkers dangerous to have abortion clinics and then let someone buy the census tracks where people are coming from to visit that abortion clinic,” Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely tracks the data selling marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the data. “This is how you dox someone traveling across state lines for abortions—how you dox clinics providing this service.”

Read the rest and do a little googling yourself. It’s very possible to identify people who have visited abortion clinics from “anonymized” location data and census tracks, especially people who live in less populated places. Geofencing, which has been used in the past for targeted anti-abortion advertising, may be used by law enforcement agencies that are all in on the forced birth agenda. It’s scary stuff. And when you see it happen, don’t say you couldn’t have known.

More investment from Bloomberg

Oct 29th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

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Once again, better late than never.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is funding a last-minute ad blitz on behalf of Joe Biden in Texas and Ohio, providing a boost to the former vice president as polls and a flutter of late campaign activity continue to show that the Lone Star State might be in play.

A Bloomberg spokesperson told The Texas Tribune on Tuesday morning that the former mayor of New York City and Democratic presidential candidate will use his super PAC, Independence USA, to fund $15 million worth of statewide ads in both Texas and Ohio.

The ads begin running Wednesday and will go through Election Day, or Nov. 3. In Texas, the ads will focus on “[President Donald] Trump’s mismanagement of COVID-19 crisis,” according to a Bloomberg spokesperson. The commercials will run in both English and Spanish.

[…]

The Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed earlier reports from the New York Times that the former mayor asked his team to run a round of polls across multiple states and based its spending decisions on survey results. The team came away convinced that Texas and Ohio were prime pickup opportunities for Democrats, despite both going for Trump in 2016, and Bloomberg later gave “the go-ahead to invest additional money to support Joe Biden,” the spokesperson said.

Unlike the RRC race money, which came in late September, this really is a last-minute blitz. You may, quite reasonably, think that having this kind of money earlier would have been better, and as a matter of principle I agree. I think the intent here is specifically to go after the lower-propensity voters, the handful of undecideds, and the type of Trump voters who don’t actually like him but still think that on balance he’s better – or at least not as bad – as the alternatives. The first group can be targeted with a straightforward positive pro-Biden pro-Democrats GOTV message, while the latter group gets a bunch of anti-Trump messages blasted at them. The middle group will get some of each. Because these folks are likely to not have been as engaged in the election before now, targeting them a month ago would have been less effective. It’s the same theory and application that motivated that late spending on MJ Hegar, who will also likely benefit from the Bloomberg splurge, as she will need as many of the folks in that first group to support her as well. It makes sense, and if Bloomberg sees a sound data-based reason to do this, it’s pretty encouraging.

Morning Consult: Biden 48, Trump 47

Oct 23rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The overview is here and there are some words that I’ll include shortly, but for the headline we’ll need this picture:

I know it says “Tied” despite the “Biden 48, Trump 47” listing. My guess is that the exact numbers are something like 47.8 to 47.2, and they chose to call it a tie rather than overstate the situation after they rounded off to the nearest integer. Whatever the case, it seems clear this is a “tie” in which Biden actually has a tiny lead.

Morning Consult has done a number of these polls, in which Texas is one of the featured states, over the past couple of months. I’ve linked to two of them from the late July/early August period, in which Biden was leading by a point. As noted in yesterday’s post, this was the peak Biden polling period. With the exception of one oddball in July that had Trump up seven (best just to scroll through the 538 poll tracker for Texas), they’ve all been close. They don’t provide any specific data for their state polls, but you can see some of their subsample breakdowns for their national sample at the first link.

They also have this for the Senate race.

As early voting kicks into gear in several states and Election Day approaches in less than two weeks, contests that will decide which party controls the Senate in January are tightening across competitive states.

Democrats enter the final stretch of the campaign with leads in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and North Carolina, according to the latest Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking, while Democrat Jaime Harrison has taken a narrow lead over Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. In Texas, GOP Sen. John Cornyn still leads Democrat MJ Hegar, though the senior senator’s edge in the contest has been almost cut in half since earlier this month.

The surveys, conducted Oct. 11-20 among likely voters in each state, found a narrowing across the map compared with polling conducted Oct. 2-11, except for North Carolina. In the Tar Heel State, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D) maintained a lead of 6 percentage points over Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), 48 percent to 42 percent, in surveys conducted following the senator’s Oct. 2 COVID-19 diagnosis and after news broke of the Democratic challenger’s relationship with a woman who was not his wife.

In Texas, Hegar’s outreach to Black voters, independents and Democrats — fueled by a late surge in cash to her campaign — appears to be yielding results.

The latest survey found she’s narrowed Cornyn’s lead to 5 points, 46 percent to 41 percent, improving her own standing by 4 points while Cornyn’s support has gone virtually unchanged. The share of Black voters backing Hegar’s candidacy increased to 74 percent, up 6 points from earlier this month, while she improved her standing with independents by 5 points, to 40 percent.

They have the race at 46-41 for Cornyn right now, which is typical in that both candidates lag behind their party’s Presidential nominee, but Hegar is farther back than Cornyn is. On the subject of that late cash injection:

Part of the reason Cornyn’s wide cash-on-hand lead evaporated was due to how much he spent in the third quarter — $13.7 million, doubling Hegar’s expenditures. The overwhelming majority of Cornyn’s spending was on “media” or similarly labeled costs, indicating he may have been locking down TV time for the fall.

But with early voting underway in the Nov. 3 general election, Hegar has been consistently outspending Cornyn on TV, beating him for the past four weeks and outpacing him by more than 2-to-1 over the last two weeks, according to ad-tracking data reviewed by the Tribune. During the most recent week, Hegar’s campaign benefited from joint TV spending with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, while the Cornyn campaign’s TV buys have been boosted by the state Republican Party.

Third-party spending has also become a problem for Cornyn.

Last week, the top Democratic super PAC in Senate races, Senate Majority PAC, announced it was plunging into the contest with an $8.6 million TV ad buy against Cornyn. On Tuesday, another Democratic super PAC, Future Forward USA, suddenly went up on TV in the race and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission that it was dropping an estimated $3.9 million on the election for now.

Even more concerning to Cornyn is that the last-minute offensive appears to be part of a coordinated ambush. Recode reported Tuesday that a coalition of Democratic groups, including Senate Majority PAC and Future Forward, was plotting a $28 million infusion into the race for the last two weeks. About $10 million was expected to come from Senate Majority PAC, which announced its $8.6 million buy Thursday, while the rest was still being raised as of last week, according to Recode.

Future Forward is a relatively new super PAC that has been spending heavily in the presidential race as it reaches its end. The group’s top donors include some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players, such as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

As that Recode story notes, the idea behind this is some academic research that claims that late TV ads are the most effective way to move numbers in an election. I might feel a bit better about that if they had begun before millions of people had already voted, but what do I know? If you suddenly start seeing a bunch of pro-Hegar and/or anti-Cornyn ads, now you know why.

Anyway. We now have four polls this week that show either a tie or a one-point Biden lead, after several polls in September that had Trump up by more than one point. All I know for sure is that a lot of people are voting now. You should be too, if you haven’t already. The Texas Signal and the Chron have more.

There’s so much more money in Texas races

Oct 8th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Item one:

It’s the question that many, many people have raised — often as a joke — for years. But the combination of changing demographics, chaos among the state Republican ranks, and the ongoing struggles of President Donald Trump’s campaign have led some to re-examine this question. Among them are the Republicans behind the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, betting that this is the year — and they’re putting a $1 million chip on the table to start.

Tuesday, the Lincoln Project announced that they were launching a $1 million ad buy in the Lone Star State, chiefly targeting hundreds of thousands of suburban and rural Republican women and Hispanics, voters whom they believe can be persuaded to vote against Trump.

The current buy is digital only, geotargeted in areas around the state ranging from rural counties like Lubbock, urban neighborhoods in Austin, and the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.

“We can more easily and effectively target the specific group of individuals we are trying to target digitally than we can with TV,” Ryan Wiggins, the PAC’s senior adviser for communications, told Mediaite. Wiggins added that they were considering expanding to television and mail in the final weeks before the election, and this $1 million investment was just an initial buy, planned to cover a week’s worth of digital ad placements.

The ads will include some of the PAC’s previous videos, like the viral “Mourning in America,” as well as new Texas-specific content, including some that will be in Spanish.

Wiggins and others associated with the Lincoln Project were optimistic that not only would they be dropping more cash into Texas, but that they had a real chance to move the needle.

It’s a long story, so go give it a read. Whatever you think of the Lincoln Project, this looks like a good investment.

Item two:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign is set to spend millions of dollars on TV ads in Texas as polls continue to show a close race in the state.

The former vice president’s campaign announced earlier this year that it would make TV reservations this fall in Texas, and as of Tuesday, it had booked more than $6 million through Election Day, according to the media-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.

“This is historic. That shows you just how important Texas is to them and it shows that Texas is in play,” said Abhi Rahman, a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party. “It shows you their investment in Texas is real.” Rahman noted that Biden’s spending is the biggest investment from a Democratic presidential nominee in the last 25 years and is a drastic change from 2016, when then- nominee Hillary Clinton didn’t spend seriously in the state.

[…]

As speculation has swirled about the extent of Biden’s investment in the state, the Texas Democratic Party has been ramping up its advertising. On Tuesday, the party announced a digital, print and radio campaign aimed at Black voters in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and East Texas. The party described the size of the effort as “high six figure(s).”

We can certainly debate about the effectiveness of this approach versus others, the need to be engaged on a more consistent basis, and so forth. All I know is, we are not used to seeing this kind of investment.

Item three:

The Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee has raised over $3.6 million in just under three months, a massive cash infusion as the party pushes to take control of the lower chamber for the first time since 2002.

The $3.6 million haul, which came between July 1 and Sept. 24, is more than double the $1.6 million that the committee raised in the first six months of the year. That in itself was a committee record at the time, exceeding its total fundraising for the entire 2018 election cycle.

“Affordable healthcare, economic security, and a plan to deal with COVID-19 are on the ballot, and achieving those goals starts with flipping the Texas House,” the HDCC’s chairwoman, Rep. Celia Israel of Austin, said in an announcement of the committee’s latest fundraising that was first shared with The Texas Tribune. “That has been our mission from day one, and donors have responded in a big way.”

The HDCC said the $3.6 million came from 4,165 donors, 98% of whom donated online. Over three-quarters of contributions were less than $100, and roughly four out of five donations came from Texans.

[…]

Andrew Reagan, the committee’s executive director, said the money is going toward ensuring that battleground campaigns have “robustly funded paid communications,” including TV and digital ads, as well as direct mail. Some candidates are already running ads that are jointly funded by their campaigns and the HDCC.

The committee did not immediately disclose its cash-on-hand figure, but Reagan said it is “healthily in the seven figures.”

That’s in addition to some eye-popping numbers raised by various other candidates, including $13.5 million for MJ Hegar. The 30-day reports for state candidates is out now, I’ll be reviewing those in the coming days, and then of course I’ll have the Q3 Congressional reports. Remember when all this stuff was boring and perfunctory? Those days are gone.

And to be sure, some of that money is for the bad guys, as we see in Item four:

Outside money is flooding battleground Texas House races across the Houston area, helping Republican candidates erase fundraising advantages amassed by Democrats who are raking in money from individual donors outside Texas.

In all seven battleground districts around Houston, five of which are under GOP control, Democrats raised more cash than Republicans from early July through late September, the period covered by the latest round of campaign finance reports.

However, spending by political action committees and other groups favored Republicans by a more than 2-to-1 margin in those districts, helping three candidates — Republican Justin Ray, state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, and state Rep. Sam Harless, R-Spring — overcome their fundraising deficits.

[…]

During the 12-week period covered by the campaign finance reports filed earlier this week, the 14 candidates in Houston’s seven battleground House districts combined to raise nearly $4.7 million and spend almost $1.6 million. They collectively are heading into the stretch run of the 2020 election with about $2.4 million cash on hand, with millions more set to come from outside groups.

Two longtime political donor groups, Associated Republicans of Texas and tort reform advocacy group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, have particularly escalated their spending on House Republican candidates in 2020, combining to buy $276,000 worth of digital ads, direct mail, canvassing and other expenses to support Ray and another $272,000 on behalf of Davis.

Democrat Ann Johnson, an attorney who is challenging Davis, outpaced the incumbent in fundraising from individual donors. Committees and other groups spent about $525,000 backing Davis, however, helping her rack up more than $597,000 in contributions to Johnson’s roughly $481,000.

A similar dynamic played out last reporting period in the west Houston district where Ray, the former mayor of Jersey Village, is attempting to unseat state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston. Though Rosenthal raised more cash than Ray, the challenger benefited from a massive lead in spending from committees and other groups, giving him a 2-to-1 edge in overall contributions.

And in northwest Harris County, groups including the Republican State Leadership Committee, a group focused on legislatures around the country, and Leading Texas Forward, a PAC run by House Republican lawmakers, helped Harless make up a fundraising deficit to Democrat Natali Hurtado.

Best way to deal with all that money is beat the candidates it was supporting, so that it was all wasted. Feels really satisfying, too.

Castaneda on the air

Sep 29th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

More of this, please.

Chrysta Castañeda

Chrysta Castañeda, the Democratic candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, is investing in six figures worth of television ads in the Houston area starting Friday.

Castañeda is facing off against Republican Jim Wright, best known for his campaign’s glaring conflict of interest with his own company, DeWitt Recyclable Products, a company overseen by the same state agency he seeks to help guide.

The ad focuses on wasteful and illegal flaring from oil and gas companies and Castañeda’s promise to put a stop to it. It also mentions some of the violations issued by the Texas Railroad Commission to Wright’s company, and some of the lawsuits that Wright has found himself in.

“Many Texans don’t know a thing about the Railroad Commission, but for the countless Texans who work in the oil and gas industry, it’s probably the elected body with the biggest impact on their lives,” Castañeda said in a prepared statement. “Houston is synonymous with oil and gas, so it’s the ideal place to roll out our first TV ad.”

There’s a video of the ad embedded in the story. Most likely, if you encounter this it will be on a cable station, probably during a sporting event. (That’s when I see political ads the most, anyway.) Polling data has suggested that Castaneda can move the needle with targeted attacks on Wright, but it will take much more of this to have a measurable impact. I’m glad to see it, don’t get me wrong, I’d just like to multiply it by at least ten, so it could get out there beyond Houston. But it’s a start.

Is the GOP punting CD07?

Sep 24th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

That’s one possible interpretation of this, though probably not the most likely.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

The National Republican Congressional Committee has canceled about $2 million worth of advertising it had reserved for campaigning in the Houston television market, according to several Democratic and Republican sources tracking Houston media advertising who were not authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

The Houston region is home to several contested congressional elections, including the 7th Congressional District, which is represented by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a Democrat. Fletcher unseated Republican John Culberson in 2018, and she is one of two Democratic incumbents who Republicans have been targeting in Texas this year.

The $2 million was intended to cover advertising in the last two weeks of the election, according to the sources.

One source, a national Republican operative, said the money has been moved to the San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth media markets. The San Antonio market includes parts of Congressional District 23, where Republicans are trying to hold on to a seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes. The Dallas-Fort Worth market includes multiple districts that Democrats are trying to flip, and one district held by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, that Republicans are targeting.

[…]

There is other national GOP money coming to the region. A Republican leadership aligned group, the Congressional Leadership Fund, is expected to spend about $6.25 million in Houston between media advertising and a field operation. The group’s television ad campaign is set to begin on Sept. 23.

In the absence of any further evidence, it’s probably best to read this as the NRCC making a strategic decision, which was almost certainly affected by the knowledge that the CLF was still spending big bucks in the Houston area. I can imagine them pulling out of CD07 in favor of other districts, but not if that means that CD22 and CD02 and CD10 were also left on their own. I really don’t think there’s all that much to this story, at least based on what we know now, but if there are further pullbacks then we’ve got something. And it should be noted, that canceling an ad buy now doesn’t mean there can’t be a new ad buy made later, though the rates will likely be higher in that instance. We need more data, that’s the main takeaway here.

Hegar to get a boost

Aug 6th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

15 comments

Nice.

MJ Hegar

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced Tuesday that it will spend at least $1 million to help MJ Hegar in her challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

The DSCC said it will be the first time the committee has made a coordinated investment in a general election in Texas, and the money will go toward TV ads, polling and other campaign resources. The announcement comes after the DSCC commissioned a poll that found Cornyn and Hegar in a tight race.

“This race is a dead heat, and our increased investment reflects how MJ’s campaign and the increasingly competitive climate has put another offensive opportunity on the map,” DCCC Executive Director Scott Fairchild said in a statement to Politico, which first reported the news.

The DSCC called the spending a “seven-figure coordinated investment” but did not elaborate further. The Federal Election Commission has capped such spending — known as coordinated party expenditures — at $2,239,500 for the general election this cycle in Texas, and the DSCC already spent toward the limit supporting Hegar in her primary runoff.

[…]

The DSCC said its polling, conducted late last month, found Cornyn barely leading Hegar among likely voters, 43% to 42%, with 15% undecided. Public polling has painted a less rosy picture of the race for Hegar. A Morning Consult survey released Tuesday morning gave Cornyn a 6-point lead with likely voters, 44% to 38%, with 14% undecided. While the margin was wider than the one in the DSCC poll, it was nonetheless the smallest advantage Cornyn has registered so far in a public survey.

The DSCC investment is much-needed financial aid for Hegar, who entered the general election with a large cash-on-hand deficit against Cornyn. She had less than $1 million in reserves at the end of June, while Cornyn had $14.5 million. Cornyn did not have a competitive primary.

See here for more on that Morning Consult poll, and here for the Politico story. The DSCC has backed Hegar for months, so it’s good to see them stick with her. I don’t know a thing about this poll – this tweet from Hegar shows the first paragraph of the email she got about it – but as I’ve said before, the big thing to me is that Cornyn is more or less running even with Trump; he’s been ahead of Trump in a couple of polls, and behind him in some others, but usually within a point or two. If that remains the case, and if Biden wins Texas or comes close enough, that may be all that Hegar needs. Raising her name ID, mostly to prevent lower-information voters from wandering over to a third-party candidate, will help with that.

One more thing:

Another observation… the 1-point difference in the race is better than any polls between Beto v. Cruz. 1 Emerson poll had Cruz @ +3, which was the closest and the polling average was Cruz +7. This poll shows the 2020 race is even tighter and more winnable than 2018…

— Latino Decisions (@LatinoDecisions) 7:44 AM – 4 August 2020

Of course, Beto was also on his way to raising $80 million and becoming a national phenomenon, neither of which are likely to happen for Hegar. But she does have the Presidential race on her side, and a template to follow. Beto did eventually lead Cruz in a couple of polls later in the race, but overall he trailed by about five points. Which, as we know, he outperformed. Now it’s on Hegar to match that.

(PS – Another thing I don’t know is what the Presidential number was in this poll. You’d think if it showed Biden leading it might have been mentioned, but then given how frequently he’s been leading, maybe not. Maybe if this poll had Biden leading by, like, three or four, it might have been reported as “Hegar lags behind Biden”, as it was in that Morning Consult story, and if so the Hegar campaign may have been reluctant to release that, since this was supposed to be about them. And if Biden had trailed Trump, say by the same one point margin, that might have been the story as well. In other words, there’s more than one possible explanation for why we only got what we got. In any event, all this is baseless speculation – we just don’t know. I actually think it’s slightly more plausible that Biden led Trump by a couple of points in this poll than he trailed him by any amount, but I’m just guessing. Feel free to play along.)

8 Day finance reports: Mayor and Controller

Oct 30th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Erik Manning spreadsheet is here, the July reports from Mayoral candidates are here, the July reports from Controller candidates (which in this case was just Chris Brown) are here, and the 30 day reports for both Mayorals and Controllers are here. All of the reports that I have downloaded and inspected can be found in my Google folder, and any reports that were filed non-electronically can be found here. Finally, the Chron story about the 8 day reports is here.

I’m not going to run through the 8 day reports for all of the races and candidates, as I have done for July and 30 day reports. Too many candidates, not enough time, and honestly not that much of interest for most of these campaigns. Though I may check out a couple of the Council campaigns, just because I’m curious about them. Anyway, the first reports are mostly about raising money, but the 8 day is mostly about spending it – ads, canvassers, calls and texts (note to campaigns: I’ve already voted please stop texting me kthxbai), signs to post at EV locations, etc etc etc. Keep that in mind as we examine these reports.


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Turner       376,947  1,260,650        0     787,331
Buzbee             0  2,866,445        0   1,300,780
King          87,344    193,980  410,000     141,287
Boykins       20,250     38,308        0      29,969
Lovell        
Baker          1,500      2,000        0       3,419
Broze          4,472      1,560        0       2,955
Houjami        1,377        273        0          38


Brown         37,010    211,379   75,000     108,907
Sanchez      107,581     81,350        0      66,299

Sue Lovell did not have a report posted as of Tuesday. She was one of the last to post a 30 day report, so I’m guessing it will be there eventually. Some day, I hope a bright young political science student will embark on a study of why anyone would be donating to an obviously going-nowhere campaign like one of Baker/Broze/Houjami, in particular in the end days before the actual election, when there can be no doubt that to do so is to light that money on fire. Beyond the scope of this post, and this blog, but I’m putting it out there into the universe to see what I may get.

We’ve known all along that the Buzbee finance reports are weird since he’s not actually raising any money but just writing himself bigger and bigger checks, thus rendering the “Raised” and “On Hand” fields useless. The main thing we learn here is that he apparently hasn’t written any more checks since September 27. One reason why Mayor Turner may really really want to avoid a runoff with Buzbee is because he’s going to have to raise a bunch of money in a very short time frame to be able to compete with Buzbee on the air. The good news is that contribution limits are reset for runoffs, so any currently maxed-out donors can be tapped again, but it still takes time and effort. Or maybe it doesn’t matter that much – maybe it’s all about GOTV and running yet another attack ad will just turn everyone’s stomach and not actually affect anything.

On the Controller side, Orlando Sanchez raised quite a bit, no doubt making up for lost time due to his late entry into the race. Chris Brown has pressed his financial advantage, spending quite a bit in this period, but maintaining a financial edge afterwards. I was a bit surprised to see an attack ad by Brown on Sanchez during Monday Night Football, which was essentially a retelling of the financial dominatrix story, and oh yes I am very glad to have the opportunity to use the phrase “financial dominatrix” again. Brown had been running positive, accomplishments-and-biography ads before now. I don’t know if this is a sign that he’s worried, or just a pre-emptive strike, but either way it took me by surprise. I guess life doesn’t hand you that many chances to run that kind of ad, so you may as well go for the gusto when you can.

On the air in HD28

Oct 16th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The HD28 special may be the hottest race going right now.

Eliz Markowitz

The first TV ads are set to air in the special election to replace state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, as Democrats rev up their homestretch push to flip the seat.

On Tuesday, both a Democratic super PAC and one of the Republican candidates, Gary Gates, will begin cable advertising six days before early voting starts for the Nov. 5 contest. The super PAC, Forward Majority, will air a health care-themed spot in support of the sole Democratic candidate, Eliz Markowitz, who faces Gates and five other Republicans.

It is relatively uncommon for TV ads to air in a Texas House race — less common in a special election — but state and national Democrats are making a serious effort to put Zerwas’ seat in their column as they head toward 2020 with hopes of taking the House majority.

The 30-second commercial from Forward Majority touts Markowitz in contrast to Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, invoking the lawsuit led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton designed to strike down the entire law.

“In the state House election Nov. 5, only Democrat Eliz Markowitz has consistently supported making insurance companies cover preexisting conditions like cancer,” a narrator says. “Eliz Markowitz — looking out for Texas families, not insurance company profits.”

[…]

Forward Majority, which is focused on state legislative races ahead of the next round of redistricting, is spending six figures to run its ad on cable and digital platforms through the election. Gates’ ad buy is also going through Nov. 5, and his campaign is spending over $100,000 on it, according to records on file with the Federal Communications Commission.

This is not Forward Majority’s first foray into the Texas. The group spent $2.2 million on an array of state House races here in the final days before the 2018 election, when Democrats captured 12 seats in the chamber.

With less than a week until early voting starts, the effort to consolidate Democratic support behind Markowitz is in full swing. On Friday, she received the endorsement of EMILY’s List, the influential national group that helps elect Democratic women who support abortion rights. And on Tuesday, state party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa is set to hold a news conference in Richmond to formalize the party’s support for her, along with other party officials and local elected officials.

You can see the 30-day finance reports here. Anna Allred and Tricia Krenek have the funds to run their own ads if they want, so there could be more coming. Doesn’t make much sense for anyone to keep their powder dry – Markowitz wants a first-round knockout, and if there is a runoff only one of the Republicans is likely to make it. If it comes down to Markowitz versus any of those Rs in December, you can be sure there will be plenty more money pouring in. The Texas Signal has more.

Why is allowing ads on Metro buses so hard?

Apr 25th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

The Chron editorial board weighs in.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority should proceed cautiously as it considers lifting its ban on commercial advertising on buses, rail cars, stations and shelters. That prohibition has served Houston well over the years, working together with old efforts by the city and Texas Legislature to greatly reduce the billboards that were once so ubiquitous here.

Before the laws changed in the 1980s, Houston had more than 10,000 billboard pedestals displaying so-called off-premises advertisements. Thanks to tough laws preventing new structures from being added, that number is now fewer than 1,500.

If Metro changes its rules, the city could suddenly see hundreds of new, large-format billboards on buses rolling through our neighborhoods.

That doesn’t sound like progress to us.

[…]

Fortunately, plans to vote on this proposal have been delayed, as Houston Chronicle transportation writer Dug Begley reported Monday. The matter is being sent back to committee, and a vote isn’t expected until June.

We urge Metro to concentrate on three priorities between now and then:

Let the public be heard. No public hearings are required, other than the always-available public comment sessions at regular Metro board meetings. But the board should hold them anyway, choosing two or more times when riders and non-riders alike can show up to speak for or against the proposal. It’s that important.

Quantify the upside with as much precision as possible. So far, putting a finger on how much revenue can be expected has been difficult, but without a reliable figure any decision made will be made blind.

If the ads are allowed, dedicate the revenue to specific improvements that everyday riders can feel. For example, ads on the buses could be linked to specific increases to frequency or ads on shelters could be linked to building new ones. Dropping the new funds into general revenue to be spent willy-nilly shouldn’t be an option.

See here for the background. I mean, we’ve been talking about this for a decade. Even the US Senate moves faster than this. I’m fine with the three priorities, though honestly I have no idea what there is left to talk about. Let’s move forward and do what basically every other major city has been doing for many years.

We are still talking about Metro maybe allowing ads

Apr 22nd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

This is one of the longer ongoing story lines I’ve followed on this blog.

The red and blue stripes on Metro’s buses and trains soon could be joined by advertisements for Red Lobster and Blue Bell, a nod to the agency’s efforts to seek out new sources of revenue.

Transit officials are considering changes to Metropolitan Transit Authority policies that would allow advertising inside and outside buses and trains, at bus stops and stations, parking garages and perhaps even the station names.

“We’re making our way through it, forming a plan, and then we’ll go from there,” Metro CEO Tom Lambert said, acknowledging he expects staff to recommend paid ads on and in the agency’s buses and trains.

Transit officials initially were poised to approve some of the changes this month, but held back in favor of more discussion. Authority board members and observers said several matters would need to be resolved before any changes can be made, notably the need for clear rules of what Metro will and will not accept and how large ads can be.

“Part of my concern is not so much doing it, but when you mix a bunch of ads it looks awful,” Metro board member Jim Robinson said.

Metro Chairwoman Carrin Patman said officials plan to consider an ad policy as early as next month. If approved, agency staff can begin to solicit proposals from firms interested in overseeing the advertising — essentially selling the space — and then dividing the revenue between the company and Metro.

[…]

Metro does allow certain sponsorships and wraps its own buses and trains for internal marketing efforts. The changes under consideration would open up many avenues of for ads.

“Basically, inside and outside all our assets,” said Debbie Sechler, Metro’s executive vice-president for administration.

Ads could accompany the log-on if Metro offered Wi-Fi, or even the agency’s website, where many riders go for schedule and customer service information.

The goal, Sechler said, would be to use the revenue to improve the system, primarily in enhancements for riders.

Patman said officials are open to ads “in light of our need to look at all conceivable funding sources” as Metro looks to expand bus and rail offerings in city.

Because Metro excludes commercial advertising, companies have been reluctant to discuss how much revenue the system could expect, Sechler said. At a meeting Wednesday, she estimated all types of advertising could generate in excess of $10 million a year, though it is likely an advertising firm handling the marketing of Metro’s buses, trains and shelters would take a portion of that.

Metro’s yearly operating budget is around $700 million.

The decision board members face is whether the financial gain is worth whatever sacrifice could come with paid ads.

“My concern is the difference between what we bring in and what we are obligated to, that may not be enough to justify changing the look of our brand,” board member Lex Frieden said.

We’ve been talking about this since at least 2008, with the most recent mention I can find being in 2015. Previous attempts at this occurred in 2010 and 2012. We have definitely hashed this out, and we have always stopped short. My opinions, for what they are worth:

1. Basically nobody objects to ads inside buses and rail cars, so I have no idea why we aren’t already doing those.

2. People do have opinions about ads on the outside of buses and trains, and I’m fine with everyone who has an opinion getting some input on what the parameters will be for external ads – size, number, placement, what have you.

3. Metro should be very clear about what kind of ads it will allow and reject. There are always controversies whenever there are provocative ads being bought on buses and trains. Having clear and unambiguous standards will help buffer against some of that.

4. The amount of money Metro can make from ads is relatively small compared to its operating budget, but still millions of dollars a year. As the story notes, this can be used to pay for free-fare promotional days, and (my preference) it can be used towards the installation of bus shelters and the repair and improvement of sidewalks around bus stops. Imagine how much of this could have already been done if Metro had taken action to allow ads back in 2008, or 2010, or 2012, or even 2015.

5. In short, do it. Seriously, why are we still talking about this?

Two possible straws in the wind

Nov 6th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Ken Paxton seems a little nervous.

Best mugshot ever

Less than 36 hours before Election Day, the race for attorney general is showing signs of competition that have been absent in just about every other statewide contest.

Republican incumbent Ken Paxton, who was indicted more than three years ago on felony securities fraud charges, has been running a relatively quiet campaign with the comfortable advantage of a GOP incumbent in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide in more than two decades.

But now he is firing back at his Democratic challenger, Justin Nelson, with a new attack ad — the first one from Paxton that addresses the indictment — and getting a fresh influx of high-dollar campaign donations, signals that Republicans are not taking anything for granted in the race for Texas’ top lawyer.

Nelson, a prominent Austin attorney, has made Paxton’s legal troubles the basis of his campaign and the main focus of much of his advertising — posting billboards around the state featuring Paxton’s mugshot, commissioning a rolling billboard he calls the “Mugshot Mobile” and even sending campaign staffers dressed as Paxton in prisoner garb to frolic on the Capitol grounds in a Halloween stunt. Yet most consequentially, Nelson has spent significantly to air TV ads informing voters all over the state that their attorney general is under indictment.

The anti-Nelson push from Paxton’s campaign suggests that the Democrat’s jabs have been successful in getting something most other Democratic statewide candidates have been aching for: the GOP’s attention. Except for the blockbuster U.S. Senate battle between incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, Republican statewide officials have largely ignored their Democratic challengers, let alone gone negative on TV against them.

“Nelson has successfully raised the profile of the race to a level where Republicans began to be nervous that people who vote straight-ticket Republican may cross over in this race as they learn more about Ken Paxton,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. “While they’re still counting on it, they don’t have 100 percent confidence.”

Paxton also got a cash injection from Greg Abbott. As I said before, this may just be an abundance of caution on Paxton’s part. The official reason, asserted by the political scientists, is that Paxton doesn’t want to win by a wimpy single-digit score. And maybe that is all it is. But I feel pretty confident saying he wouldn’t be asking for handouts from Greg Abbott if he didn’t think he needed the help.

Meanwhile, there’s Democratic money coming in, too.

A Democratic super PAC focused on state legislative races has injected $2.2 million into a slew of Texas House contests in their closing days.

The group, Forward Majority, is using the money to help 32 Democratic candidates, many of them challengers in GOP-held districts who have not been able to match the financial backing of the incumbents. A large majority of the funds are going toward digital ads targeting the Republicans as beholden to big donors and corporate interests, with a couple of spots tailored to specific lawmakers.

“We are staging this late intervention because we believe there is a unique window of opportunity for first time candidates to take down several entrenched Republican incumbents on Tuesday,” said Ben Wexler-Waite, a spokesman for Forward Majority.

[…]

Forward Majority was launched last year by alumni of Barack Obama’s campaigns with the goal of retaking state legislatures across the country before the next round of redistricting in 2021. Texas is one of six states the group is targeting this cycle as part of a nearly $9 million push.

In Texas, Forward Majority began seriously spending in its targeted races just a couple weeks ago. Its latest filing with the Texas Ethics Commission, which covered Sept. 28 through Oct. 27, shows the group spent $1.1 million. The rest of the $2.2 million has come since then, Wexler-Waite said.

Forward Majority is not the only seven-figure force for Democrats in Texas House races this cycle. The House Democratic Campaign Committee has raised $1.1 million this cycle, fueled by six-figure donations from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The HDCC is currently waging an $800,000 digital ad campaign in the most competitive seats.

The list of races in which this PAC is spending money follows. It ranges from the ones that have been the focus of attention all along, to those that should have had more attention all along, to the stretch goals and the more speculative investments. I couldn’t tell you the last time we did something like this – pretty sure it wasn’t this redistricting cycle – so I’m just happy to see it happen. We’ll see how sound an investment this turns out to be.

When Ken Paxton attacks

Oct 27th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

He’s gotta be a little scared.

Best mugshot ever

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has started airing a statewide TV ad against his Democratic challenger, Justin Nelson, as Nelson presses to close the race with an emphasis on the indictment that has dogged the Republican incumbent for most of his first term.

Since last week, Nelson, an Austin lawyer, has been airing a TV commercial highlighting Paxton’s 2015 indictment on securities fraud charges, asking, “If Ken Paxton can’t follow the law, how can he enforce it?” Nelson has also put up billboards across the state plastered with Paxton’s mugshot.

In the new spot from Paxton, a narrator asserts Nelson is “running a negative campaign to hide his extreme liberal agenda,” portraying the Democrat as soft on illegal immigration. The half-minute commercial then contrasts Nelson with Paxton, who the narrator says “shut down the world’s largest human trafficking marketplace” — a reference to the attorney general’s role in shuttering the Dallas-based sex ads website Backpage.com.

The ad was seen airing this morning in major markets throughout the state, including Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

The anti-Nelson ad is notable for a number of reasons. Beyond U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in his blockbuster battle with Democrat Beto O’Rourke, most of Texas’ statewide officials have hardly acknowledged their Democratic opponents, let alone run TV ads against them. And Paxton has until now appeared to have kept his TV advertising positive, airing a spot touting his role in the Backpage.com investigation.

It could be an abundance of caution. Paxton believes he’s ahead, but not insurmountably so, and there’s no reason to take chances. It could be a belief that attacks must be answered, lest one look weak or lose initiative. And it could be that he’s genuinely worried. Paxton has refused to engage in any kind of political activity that isn’t all about himself or comfortably in the embrace of the Fox News wingnut universe. If he changes his tactics now, at this late date, there’s a reason for it.

On the air

Oct 22nd, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

You might be seeing some TV ads from Texas Democrats who aren’t Beto O’Rourke or Lizzie Fletcher. There’s Justin Nelson:

Justin Nelson

Attorney Justin Nelson, a candidate for attorney general, on Tuesday became the first — and likely only — Democrat running for state office to go on TV with a Texas-wide campaign ad.

Nelson’s 30-second spot now on air across Texas hammers incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton for his 2015 criminal indictment for securities fraud and a subsequent 2017 investigation into bribery and corruption that was closed after prosecutors decided not to pursue any charges against him. Paxton has yet to go to trial on three felony charges from the 2015 indictment.

Paxton, a Republican finishing his first term, released his own ad Monday. Paxton’s campaign spot features his office cracking down on human trafficking to make Texas safer. That includes helping shut down Backpage.com, a website that hosted prostitution-related ads. Paxton’s spokesman said the ad is on air, including in the Houston market.

I saw one of the Nelson ads during the last Astros’ game (sigh).

There’s Todd Litton.

Todd Litton

Democrat Todd Litton on Monday began airing the first TV ad of his campaign for Texas’ 2nd Congressional District, with a 30-second spot that seeks to draw a contrast between himself and Republican opponent Dan Crenshaw.

The ad, titled “No Joke,” begins with a scene in Litton’s kitchen, where he tells a “dad joke” to his kids.

“They sure keep me in check,” Litton says about his children. “But no one is keeping Congress in check. That’s no joke.”

He goes on to mention “my far right opponent, Dan Crenshaw,” whom Litton says “only makes matters worse.” He contends Crenshaw would “do away with Social Security, health care and a woman’s right to choose.”

“I’ll protect them,” Litton concludes. “And I’ll stand up to anyone and work with anyone to get things done.”

The ad represents a six-figure buy and will air on broadcast networks through Election Day, according to Litton’s campaign.

If you had told me a couple of months ago that one of the Congressional candidates would tell a dad joke in a TV ad, I’d have guessed it would be Todd Litton. And now there’s Sri Kulkarni.

Sri Kulkarni

Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni is continuing to put pressure on U.S. Rep. Pete Olson in what has fast become one of the most competitive races for Congress in Texas.

Kulkarni has launched a new television ad blasting Olson, a 5-term incumbent, as a “do-nothing Congressman.”

“What happened to Pete Olson?” a narrator says, noting that Olson had sponsored just three bills that passed in 10 years in office.

According to records with the Library of Congress, Olson two of those bills renamed post offices in Pearland and Sugar Land. Another bill awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the World War II pilots who made raids on Tokyo.

[…]

The ad comes at a time that new campaign finance reports show Kulkarni raised more money in the last three months for his campaign than Olson, and Kulkarni has more money going into the final weeks of the campaign.

In addition, national Democrats are promising more help for Kulkarni after his surprise showing. This week the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Kulkarni to their “Red to Blue” program, which provides organizational and fundraising support for campaigns.

“Sri has put together a strong people-powered campaign that makes this race competitive,” said DCCC chairman Ben Ray Lujan.

It’s almost like we live in a competitive political environment. Such exciting times. You can see Justin Nelson’s ad here, Todd Litton’s ad here, and Sri Kulkarni’s ad here.

On negative ads and name recognition

Sep 11th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

24 comments

I confess, I’m amused by this.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is going after Democrat Beto O’Rourke for cursing during some of his campaign speeches.

The Cruz campaign released a digital ad on social media that shows O’Rourke cursing at various campaign events over the last year.

“So he’s showing up across Texas sharing his wit, his wisdom and his character,” an unidentified narrator says as clips of O’Rourke cursing are bleeped out.

The ad closes by saying O’Rourke is “showing the #@%* up.”

That’s…bad? Doesn’t that imply that Ted Cruz isn’t “showing the #@%* up”? I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to make of that, but then it seems that Ted Cruz isn’t very good at negative ads. Maybe if he had some accomplishments he could tout or something like that. I’m just spitballing here. What does it say about an incumbent when all his first moves out of the gate are to attack his opponent rather than brag about his record?

It’s clear that it’s going to be all mud from here on out, not just from Cruz but also from the big money outside agitators that prop him up as well. All of which leads to a bit of musing from RG Ratcliffe on the state of the race.

The increased attention that O’Rourke’s growing celebrity is drawing has some Democratic stalwarts worried that O’Rourke has not built a campaign that has the ability to quickly trade jab for jab. This may be problematic because poll after poll—which show the race for Senate is close—suggests that a large number of voters still do not know O’Rourke. This low voter ID allows Cruz and his allies to help define his opponent leading into Election Day.

You might want to put in a mouth guard to prevent injury as you grind your teeth at the quotes from unnamed “Democratic operatives”, but never mind that for now. My first inclination in times like these is always to look to the data, so I went through all the recent polls to see what I could find about Beto O’Rourke’s favorability and name recognition. Here’s what I got:

UT/Trib, June 25 – 16% Neutral, 24% Don’t Know

Quinnipiac, July 31 – 43% “Haven’t heard enough”

PPP, August 1 – “O’Rourke’s name recognition has grown since January as well as his favorability. In January, only 39% of voters had an opinion of him, and his favorability was 20% while 19% had an unfavorable opinion of him. Now 57% have an opinion of him with 31% having a favorable and 26% having an unfavorable opinion.”

NBC News, August 22 – 36% Unsure/Never heard among RVs

ECPS, Aug 27 – 27% Neutral, 11% Never heard

Not all polls asked about Beto’s favorability (though they nearly always asked about Cruz’s, and nearly everyone has an opinion on him), and those that did were not consistent in their question wording or their categorizations. Still, even with the variability, it’s clear that a decent number of people don’t have a firm opinion about Beto O’Rourke, and thus we get the pearl-clutching.

And to be fair, it’s a very reasonable point to make. If you don’t already have an opinion about a candidate – maybe even if you do – that means your perception is up for grabs. If you’re a politician with plenty of money – and while O’Rourke has greatly outraised Cruz, he still has lots of dough and his buddies in the conservative PAC business have bottomless coffers – you can have an effect on that. Thus the old adage about defining yourself before your opponent does it for you.

That said, I think it’s also worth contemplating how much effect negative ads, even competent ones, may have this year, especially on a high-charisma candidate like Beto O’Rourke. For one thing, as we have recently observed, not all candidates are vulnerable to negative information about them. For another, people who dislike Ted Cruz (of which there are many) and are undecided about Beto O’Rourke may be less likely to believe or be swayed by an attack on O’Rourke by Cruz. Most of all, in a year where so many people are highly motivated to deliver a message to Donald Trump, negative ads just may not mean much to them.

I’m not saying that Cruz’s barrage can’t or won’t have an effect. It probably will, though at this point it’s impossible to say how much of an effect it may have. I am saying that this is a weird year, with unusual dynamics, and it’s worth thinking this sort of thing through. I do hope Beto has a strategy for weathering the attacks, even if that strategy is “keep on keeping on”. We’re sure to get a lot more polling data over the next two months, so whatever effect there is, I’m sure we’ll see it.

Beto’s ad strategy

Aug 19th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

Nothing wrong with a little low-tech outreach.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke

Over the last year, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has drawn national fanfare as a thoroughly modern, digital-first campaign. He regularly draws an audience of thousands to his Facebook page by livestreaming mundane moments on the campaign trail, and he has outpaced most every other campaign in the country with the millions he’s spent on digital advertising.

Yet the El Paso Democrat has been also waging a more under-the-radar effort via more old-school mediums. For the past few months, O’Rourke’s campaign has been running ads on local radio stations and in certain publications in an effort to court voters he may be less likely to reach online, part of a six-figure investment to supplement his already-robust presence online.

It has unfolded ahead of O’Rourke’s biggest foray into paid, non-digital media yet — a $1.3 million TV buy that is set to begin Wednesday across the state. But in some communities, it will not be the first time they have seen or heard O’Rourke advertising offline.

The radio ads, which have not been previously reported, have fallen into at least two categories: spots that advise listeners of an upcoming O’Rourke appearance in their area and a half-minute commercial in which he introduces himself as the candidate “running against Ted Cruz for the Senate because I believe in the people of Texas.”

[…]

Among the radio ads that O’Rourke has run to get out the word about his events have been in the Rio Grande Valley, where he has acknowledged he needs to do better after losing some counties there to a little-known opponent in the March primary. For example, back in May, O’Rourke ran minute-long radio ads on McAllen stations in the hours before he went block walking and held a town hall in the border city.

At least some of the radio and print ads appear to be aimed at black voters. The 30-second radio spot has aired on urban contemporary stations like KGGR in Dallas and KHVN in Fort Worth, and the print ads have shown up in African-American newspapers such as the Houston Defender and Dallas Examiner, touching on issues including jobs, education and health care.

You can listen to the radio spot and see a print ad at the link above. There’s a lot to like about this. It reaches out to voters who aren’t Internet users or regular TV watchers. It’s consistent with his visit-everywhere strategy. It addresses a weakness from the primary. The ads cross-promote his town halls and rallies, which are where the magic really happens for his campaign. The cost is low, so there’s no negative effect on the budget for larger ad expenditures. Knowing this is happening gives me an extra level of faith in his campaign. Well done.

The rising cost of losing

Jul 21st, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Womp womp.

The price of losing keeps going up for Republican Kathaleen Wall.

Four months after losing her campaign for Congress, the Houston Republican had to put yet another $150,000 of her own money into her campaign to pay for final expenses related to the race, newly released Federal Election Commission records show.

That pushed the total she spent on her failed campaign for the 2nd Congressional District to just under $6.2 million — the most self-funding any candidate in Texas has put into a campaign for a U.S. House seat since at least the year 2000 and the second highest amount any candidate for the House has spent nationwide this year.

Only Maryland Democrat David Trone has spent more of his own money to campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives this year. Trone, the co-founder of Total Wine & More, has so far spent just over $10.2 million on his campaign. He won his primary last month and faces Republican Amie Hoeber in November.

[…]

Wall’s final report to the FEC showed she needed the extra money for a variety expenses after losing her race, including for online advertising bills that were paid in April.

I know, it’s in poor taste to kick someone when they’re down. But good Lord, those Wall ads on TV were horrible, and you COULD NOT ESCAPE THEM. I’m getting twitchy just thinking about it. She deserves one last raspberry from those of us who had to survive them.

Voter registration deadline is Monday

Feb 1st, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Check your registration status.

Houston-area voters are registering to vote in record numbers just in time for the March 6 primaries, and the two major political parties are bracing for yet another wave of newcomers over the next few days.

With Monday’s voter registration deadline fast approaching, both major political parties say they are seeing a definite uptick in interest from people wanting to be ready for the nation’s first in the nation political primaries.

“We are seeing a spike in activity,” said Vlad Davidiuk, communications director for the Harris County Republican Party.

Harris County Democrats say they too are seeing a lot more interest than usual during a midterm election cycle for both the primary races on March 6 and the general election in November.

Already Harris County has nearly 2.3 million registered voters. Four years ago in 2014, the last time Texas had a midterm election cycle with the governor’s race being the top draw, Harris County had less than 2.1 million registered voters.

That last paragraph misstates the comparison. The “less than 2.1 million” figure – actually 2,044,361 – was for the November election. The truly comparable total is from the March primary, and that was 1,992,969. We’re more than 300,000 voters up on that amount. That in and of itself doesn’t mean anything, but I think it’s safe to say that turnout this March will be higher than that March, when 139K Republicans showed up for a bunch of contested statewide races and a paltry 53K Dems did the same for not much of excitement. I feel reasonably comfortable saying Dems will exceed that total. Beyond that, we’ll see.

You can check your status at the Harris County Tax Assessor, but it’s really only an issue if you’ve moved recently. The rest of you should have received your new voter registration card in the mail. I would definitely check if you haven’t received that.

Also, too, a reason to lean on your DVR over the next month:

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick may act like he’s not worried by his Republican primary challenger, but he is spending more than $1 million on TV ads in the Houston area between now and the March 6 election.

Some 975 ads are booked to run during the Olympics, morning shows, afternoon programming, and prime-time evening news hours, according to television station public inspection records filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

Spread among NBC affiliate KPRC-Channel 2, ABC affiliate KTRK-Channel 13, FOX affiliate KIRV-Channel 26 and KHOU-Channel 11, Patrick’s campaign is spending $1,049,640 on the TV ad spots that were scheduled to begin running this week through the election.

In technical terms, that is a metric crap-ton of advertising. You have been warned.

Clinton campaign to run ads in Texas

Oct 18th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

It’s come to this.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’ campaign is going on the air in solid-red Texas, a remarkable move by a Democratic presidential nominee as her Republican rival, Donald Trump, struggles across the country.

Clinton is launching a one-week ad buy in the Lone Star State that highlights the Dallas Morning News’ recent endorsement of the former secretary of state, according to a campaign aide. The 30-second commercial will air on TV in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, as well as online. Clinton’s campaign did not detail the size of the buy.

When the Dallas Morning News editorial board endorsed Clinton earlier this year, it was the board’s first endorsement of a Democratic presidential hopeful since before World War II. The Clinton spot notes the historical significance of the endorsement, going on to quote its criticism of Trump’s judgment and praise of Clinton’s bipartisan credentials.

“At this moment in time, for Texas and for America, Hillary for president,” a narrator concludes.

The ad buy comes as polls continue to show the presidential race in Texas closer than usual. A WFAA/SurveyUSA poll released Thursday found Trump leading by only 4 points, much less than Mitt Romney’s 16-point margin in 2012 and John McCain’s 12-point margin in 2008.

“The Dallas Morning News points out Trump’s values are out of step with Texas,” Garry Mauro, who chairs Clinton’s efforts in Texas, said in a statement on the ad buy. “As more and more Texans realize this — and turn to Hillary — the polls will get better and better.”

Here’s the ad:

Nice. Is it likely to have any effect on persuasion or turnout? Maybe a little bit at the margins, but who cares? The Chron goes into some detail.

Though Clinton still is a long shot in Texas, political analysts see it as a sign of her recent strength nationally and in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania and Florida.

“I don’t think it’s knowable at this point what a Texas ad buy would accomplish,” veteran Texas Democratic operative Harold Cook said. “But I will say this: If the Democrat is buying ad time in Texas in a presidential election, it ain’t a good year for the Republican.”

[…]

“I think they’re playing with house money right now,” said Craig Goodman, a political scientist at the University of Houston in Victoria, citing reports that the Clinton campaign is flush with cash compared to Trump, who has taken in less than half of the $373 million reported so far by the Democrat. “They’ve got excess resources.”

I’m just glad I lived long enough to see a Democratic Presidential candidate decide it was worthwhile to run some general election ads in Texas for Texas voters. Trail Blazers has more.

KHSPVA

Oct 15th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

That will be the new acronym for the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

After impassioned debate, the Houston school board voted 7-2 Thursday to accept a $7.5 million gift for the district’s renowned arts high school and to rename the campus after the donors in an unprecedented move.

The Kinder Foundation, run by billionaire couple Richard and Nancy Kinder, offered the donation in exchange for calling the campus the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. The money is supposed to help with rebuilding the school downtown, funding theater lighting and seats, a sound system, a specialized dance floor and more.

“We hope these joint and cooperative efforts preserve the long-term future of one of Houston’s most acclaimed and diverse schools and forges a new path through public/private partnership to support future HISD schools,” Rich Kinder said in a statement after the vote.

Board approval of the deal was in doubt just hours before the board meeting. Several trustees expressed frustration over the private negotiations that took place concerning the deal and questioned the fairness to other campuses in the Houston Independent School District. Board member Mike Lunceford, whose trustee district includes the arts school in its current Montrose-area location, had brought forward the proposal.

[…]

Houston school board member Rhonda Skillern-Jones, who said Monday that she was conflicted about the proposal, said Thursday that, although she thought the renaming policy needed to be strengthened, she believed the students at the arts school deserved the funding.

“I do not believe you deprive our high-performing schools of what they need to get to equity,” Skillern-Jones, who has a son attending the arts high school, said before voting with the majority to support the proposal.

Houston board member Jolanda Jones, who opposed the deal along with trustee Diana Davila, described the gift negotiations as “sneaky.”

“I find it offensive that people say if you don’t vote for this, that you don’t care about the kids. Actually I care about all the kids in HISD,” Jones said.

“It seems like HISD is like a pimp, and the schools are what they sell,” Jones added. “That was the nicest way I could think to say it.

Here’s an earlier story, from when the grant was announced, and a Chron editorial in favor of taking the cash. I’ve advocated selling ad space on school buses and school rooftops, as well as naming rights to stadiums, so I’m hardly in a position to turn my nose up at this. I’m fine with reviewing the board policy to ensure we get what we want and not what we don’t, and I absolutely want to see grants like this going to poorer and less prestigious schools, which need the money more, but neither of those concerns should have an effect on this, so I’m glad the Board voted to accept. Maybe someday when we finally fund our schools at an appropriate level this sort of thing won’t be needed, but until then, I say bring it on. The Press has more.

Checking in on Garcia v Green

Feb 12th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

An update on how the biggest primary fight in the county is going.

Rep. Gene Green

U.S. Congressman Gene Green has taken Texas’ 29th District Democratic primary to television, leveraging his substantial financial advantage over challenger Adrian Garcia to pour more than $240,000 into network and cable advertising over the next three weeks.

Green’s English- and Spanish-language ads focus on his involvement in the community, providing a contrast to Garcia’s more aggressive negative messaging about the incumbent.

Seeking to fend off his first primary challenge in two decades, Green is relying on his war chest and deep roots in the 77-percent Hispanic district that curls around eastern Houston from the near north side to the Hobby Airport area.

“Welcome to my office. To solve problems, you have to get out in the community,” Green says in an ad that is set to begin airing Wednesday on Comcast. “That’s how we turned a cantina into a thriving clinic expanding access to health care.”

Green has spent $141,000 on cable ads running in the North Houston, Baytown, Pasadena and Pearland areas, and another $100,000 on ads set to begin airing on KHOU-11 next week, records show. The campaign expects to spend a total of $350,000 on television advertising by the end of the week, including on Spanish-language channels.

Adrian Garcia

“Getting people’s attention is going to be hard,” Green consultant Robert Jara said, noting that the presidential race soon will hit Texas in full force. “We wanted to make sure we got things locked in before the presidential candidates started moving into Texas.”

[…]

Comcast and Federal Communications Commission files for major Houston-area channels had no record of advertising purchases by Garcia’s campaign.

Instead, Garcia, who was sitting on just $73,000 in his campaign account at the end of last year, has focused on free media, sending near-daily campaign announcements and news releases, many of which attack Green on issues ranging from gun safety to the environment.

“Benzene Gene is not for District 29,” read a Garcia press release emailed Tuesday afternoon.

For what it’s worth, I think both candidates have run the kind of race they’ve needed to run (yeah, there’s a third candidate, but he’s not done much of anything). Green has rolled out a bajillion endorsements, and now he’s hitting the airwaves to remind people that he’s good at his job and they’ve never had any complaints about him before now. Garcia has been busy attacking him on issues like marriage equality, gun control, and the environment, where Green’s record is not exactly in line with many primary-voting Democrats. He’s also made the pitch to be the first Latino member of Congress from the Houston area – this Trib story from a few days ago sums up that aspect of the race well – and has thrown in some economic inequality stuff as well. It’s all what I’d have done if he’d have asked for my opinion.

The identity politics stuff is interesting and necessarily dominates the discussion. It may work well in this race, though it will be hard to tell exactly by how much. I’m more intrigued by the issues arguments. A few years ago I had a conversation with the founder of a lefty 527 PAC, who wanted to pick my brains about finding someone to challenge Gene Green from the left. I told him that wouldn’t be easy, for all the reasons you’d expect – Green was well-liked, he performed very well in elections, all of the potential challengers you could think of were allied with him, etc – and also noted that CD29 wasn’t exactly a hotbed of liberal agitation. Green’s more conservative record, on the issues mentioned above and on other things, was in line with the district, I said. The question now is whether that’s still the case. Nationally, the Democratic base has shifted to the left – one need only look at the Presidential primary to see that. That doesn’t mean that said shift is uniform, or universal. CD29 is the kind of place where you might not see such a difference – it’s blue collar, working class, and heavily dependent on the oil patch for its jobs. Yet that’s part of what’s driving this race. Whether that will have any effect one way or the other on the outcome, and whether that effect will be part of the postmortem, is unclear to me. But it is happening, and we should keep an eye on it.

Red lights on the Green line

Nov 15th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Alas.

Light rail is up and running along Harrisburg on the city’s east side, but Metro’s construction continues to be a sore spot with area residents because it seems at every turn the work is taking longer than promised.

The latest delays come from sluggish work to move utilities and excavate for a planned overpass of freight railroad tracks along Harrisburg near Hughes. The overpass is needed to extend Green Line rail service from its current terminus at Altic to its future endpoint at the Magnolia Park Transit Center.

“There is no way to sugarcoat this. We are behind schedule and we are working to get back on schedule,” said Roberto Trevino, Metro’s executive vice president for planning, engineering and construction.

Construction can catch up, officials said, meaning the overpass remains on track to open in May 2016 as Metro and McCarthy Building Companies – the project’s general contractor – estimated in January. Much of the work occurs in the center of the new street, meaning it doesn’t cut off businesses but does make accessing their driveways trickier.

[…]

One of the first steps in the construction – moving utilities – got off to a slow start, Trevino said.

Moving overhead electrical utilities lagged at first, then crews started finding telecommunications and gas lines that weren’t listed on plans and city documents.

That stalls work as gas or phone company crews have to come out and assess the lines and see if they are functioning.

A potentially bigger pitfall comes from prior industrial uses along Harrisburg, Trevino said, specifically underground tanks used to store fuels that were not listed on many site plans and which proved more problematic than Metro thought.

“We are doing some proactive measures to make up as much time as we can,” Trevino said.

To accelerate construction, additional crews have descended on the job site, and McCarthy has plans to move from doing work for 10 hours six days a week, to seven days a week.

If it’s not one thing it’s another with this construction. I don’t think there’s much that could have been done differently based on what the story says, but boy will everyone be glad when this is over. I just hope they can still make the May deadline.

In tangential news, the Wednesday Metro board meeting was where the long-discussed idea of allowing ads on trains and buses was supposed to come up, but I haven’t seen any news item or press release indicating that it did. Anyone know what happened?

8 day finance reports: Controller candidates

Oct 29th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

How about a look at the 8 day finance reports for Controller candidates? I figure if you’re reading this blog you won’t look at me funny when I say things like that, so here we go:


Candidate    Raised      Spent      Loans   On Hand
===================================================
Brown        46,375    151,848     30,000    12,067
Frazer       58,953    146,767     32,500    38,072
Khan         44,965    351,902    215,000    32,986
Robinson      6,375          0          0     1,151

Candidate    Advertising     Print/Mail
=======================================
Brown             99,600         34,600
Frazer            76,500         53,000
Khan             307,500         24,000

A few comments:

– Neither Dwight Jefferson nor Jew Don Boney have 8 day reports, or for that matter 30 day reports. I have no idea why this is the case. Carroll Robinson’s 8 day report does not list a total for expenses, and it has no itemization of contributions or expenses; there’s basically nothing after the initial cover page.

– Bill Frazer had $16,450 in in-kind contributions listed as “pro-rata share of mailer”, from the C Club and Houston Realty Business Coalition. $69,215 of his expenses were from personal funds, including $50,250 for advertising, $7,490 for “GOTV mailout printing”, and $9,747 for postage.

– 22 off MJ Khan’s 44 contributors gave non-Houston addresses. I think I’ve seen his circa-2009 ad and Chris Brown’s “high school swim team” ad more than any Mayoral candidate’s ads except for maybe Costello. Khan also spent $825 on Facebook ads, because why not?

I have not had the time or energy to do the same scrutiny on Council reports, but this Chron story provides a few highlights.

1. At-large 1: Candidates competing to replace term-limited Stephen Costello, who is running for mayor, dropped nearly $299,00 during the past month. The biggest spender was Tom McCasland, former CEO of the Harris County Housing Authority, whose political action committee dropped nearly $155,000. Mike Knox, who has positioned himself as the conservative candidate, spent $57,000 and Lane Lewis, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, spent $44,000.

2. At-large 4: In another competitive at-large race, seven candidates combined spent $252,000. Amanda Edwards, a municipal finance lawyer, has significantly outpaced competitors in spending, dropping $208,000.

4. At-large 2: Incumbent David Robinson and four contenders spent a combined $147,000. Challenger Eric Dick, a lawyer and former mayoral candidate, shelled out the most, spending almost $75,000. Robinson spent more than $47,000.

Since they didn’t go into it, I will note that in At Large #3, CM Kubosh spent about $28K, while Doug Peterson and John LaRue combined to spend about $12K; in At Large #5, CM Christie spent $60K, while Philippe Nassif spent $13K. I know I’ve received some mail from Amanda Edwards (and also received a mailer yesterday from Chris Brown), as well as two robocalls from Eric Dick and – this is the strangest thing I’ve experienced this campaign – a robocall from “former Houston Rocket Robert Reid on behalf of [his] good friend Griff Griffin”. Who knew Griff even did campaigning? Not that this appeared anywhere on his finance report, as either an expense or an in-kind donation, of course. Let’s not go overboard, you know. Anyway, if you look at the 2015 Election page, you will see that as with the Controllers, several At Large candidates have not filed 8 day reports. James Partsch-Galvan and Joe McElligott have filed no reports; Moe Rivera and Jonathan Hansen have not filed 30 Day or 8 Day reports; Jenifer Pool filed an 8 day but not a 30 day; and Larry Blackmon and Brad Batteau filed 30 day reports but not 8 day reports. It’s possible some of these may turn up later, so I’ll keep looking for them. I’m working on the district reports as well and will list them as I can.

8 day finance reports: Mayoral candidates

Oct 28th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Here’s the story:

Adrian Garcia outspent his chief rivals in the Houston mayor’s race over the last month, hoping to hold what polls suggest is his slipping grip on a spot in the likely December runoff.

The final round of campaign finance filings before the Nov. 3 election, covering the period from late September through last Saturday, showed Garcia’s $1.1 million outlay made up a third of all six top campaigns’ spending for the period.

About $860,000 of the former Harris County sheriff’s expenditures were for advertising, double that of what some polls show is his closest rival, former mayor of Kemah Bill King.

[…]

City Councilman Steve Costello, who has been a strong fundraiser but trails Garcia and King in most polls, posted the second-highest outlay for the period, at $732,000. Of that, he spent $652,000 on advertising, and was helped by another $251,000 in ad spending by a political action committee organized to support him, Houstonians for the Future.

King spent $572,700 in the period, about $429,000 of it on advertising. He stopped running TV ads in the middle of last week but was to resume them on Tuesday, campaign spokesman Jim McGrath said. That gap is not concerning, McGrath said, pointing to consistent radio buys, key endorsements and strong early turnout from conservative areas.

“We like where we are,” McGrath said. “We could spend a good chunk of money on broadcast, but it’s all about getting the most bang for your buck. We like cable.”

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, who remains the presumed frontrunner, raised nearly $400,000 in the period, spent the third-highest amount at $626,000 and entered this week with $285,000 on hand – roughly the same amount as Garcia and Costello. King entered the week with $123,350 banked.

Former Congressman Chris Bell, who has lagged in fundraising, spent $106,000 in the period and entered the final week with $60,500 on hand. Former City Attorney Ben Hall, who loaned his campaign $850,000 earlier in the year, continued to post low fundraising totals and spent $134,000 in the period, leaving himself nearly $694,000 on hand.

Eight day reports for Mayoral candidates and some others (still working on it) are on my 2015 Election page. Here’s my breakdown of the reports:


Candidate    Raised      Spent      Loans   On Hand
===================================================
Bell         96,167    106,155          0    60,564
Costello    294,033    731,861     90,000   278,987
Garcia      440,941  1,079,308          0   278,434
Hall         69,260    134,142    850,000   693,755
King        317,919    572,737    650,000   123,349
McVey         4,800     87,216  1,075,000   954,729
Turner      394,323    626,106          0   285,648

Candidate    Advertising     Print/Mail
=======================================
Bell               3,600         30,620
Costello         631,000         20,300
Garcia           860,000              0
Hall             137,500          1,750
King             430,000         15,000
McVey              2,750         10,262
Turner           160,000         60,000

“Advertising” and “printing” can be vague categories, and some reports are more organized and sensible than others. These are add-them-in-my-head totals, and I’m pretty good at addition, but don’t make any bar bets based on them because I may not have always been consistent in how I categorized things. A few comments:

– Chris Bell mentioned in the interview I did with him that he was a regular user of Uber, and his finance report bears that out.

– Steve Costello had some polling expenses in there, and was the only candidate who listed an expense for phone calls. He classified that as “advertising” on the report, but I didn’t include it in my total. The report for that “Houstonians For The Future” PAC is here.

– Remember how Adrian Garcia had fairly low expenses for consultants and staff in his July report because of his later entry into the race? He made up for that in this report, in addition to the buttload he spent on ads. He was the only one who didn’t have any obvious expenses for mailers that I could see.

– How is it that Ben Hall listed $134K in expenses yet I show him as having $137,500 in ads? He had $25,000 in in-kind donations listed as “Television/Univision”, plus $9,000 in one in-kind donation for “commercials”. Of the rest, there was a single $100,000 expense for “Media”, whatever that means, and a few bits and pieces besides. His “print/mail” total is all in-kind contributions for mail ballots. I feel like these in-kind contributions are somehow un-kosher, but I can’t say for sure.

– Unlike Hall and his monolithic “Media” expense, Bill King itemized all of his media buys, which were multiple ones for the local TV stations and some radio. He also did a fair amount of online advertising – he had several $500 expenses to Google for that, plus a couple other line items. A few other candidates had online ad buys as well.

– Marty McVey bought some Facebook ads, and had one mailer. I don’t know why you loan yourself a million bucks then don’t spend it, but whatever. Most of his expenses for consultants and other campaign services were listed under “Unpaid Incurred Obligations”.

– Sylvester Turner had less advertising expenditures than the fighting-for-second-place candidates, but he also had over $145K listed for “get out the vote” services. He also spent some money on polling.

With all that, I’ve still mostly seen Costello ads – they tend to run on cable, during sporting events – with a handful of Turners and Garcias thrown in. I’ve not yet seen a King ad, nor a Hall ad if one exists. It’s times like these that I’m glad to listen to non-commercial radio – satellite, HD radio, and college station KACC. I will try to summarize the other citywide race 8 day reports in the next day or two.

8 day finance reports: Pro- and anti-HERO

Oct 27th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

First, from the inbox:

Houston Unites has raised nearly $3 million in support of Proposition 1 from late August through last Saturday, according to the campaign’s finance report submitted to the city today. Almost 75 percent of all donors were from Houston.

“Compared to the handful of wealthy opponents funding the rollback of needed protections for African-Americans, Latinos, women and veterans, we have put together a massive, diverse grassroots coalition backing Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance,” said Richard Carlbom, campaign manager of Houston Unites. “We anticipate this to be the closest of races, so these final days are critical for HERO supporters to keep investing in the campaign.”

Highlights of the finance report include:

More than 85 percent of the total donors to Houston Unites were from Texas.

More than 1,100 of the 1,500 total donors were from Houston.

Total raised was $2,971,491.

More than $100,000 was raised online from more than 1,000 donors.

Here’s their report. Here also are the reports for the Human Rights Campaign for HERO PAC, the Business Coalition for Prop 1 PAC, and the anti-HERO Campaign for Houston PAC. In case you’re wondering, the name Bob McNair does not appear anywhere in that report. I assume this is because he had merely pledged to give $10K before having his mind changed, so with no money actually changing hands there’s nothing to report. Those of you who are more in tune with the legal requirements, please correct me if I’m wrong on that. There’s also the No On Prop 1 PAC, but they had not reported as of yesterday, so the antis do have more than this, we just don’t have all the details yet.

I did not scan through the Houston Unites report last night – I may do so later, and we have their summary, so we’ll go with that for now. The Business Coalition has four donors – cash donations from Bret Scholtes ($500) and Haynes & Boone LLP ($5,000), and pledges from the Greater Houston Partnership ($71,760) and United Airlines ($10,000). They spent all their money on print ads – $77,500 in the Chronicle, $9,760 in the Houston Business Journal – which may sound weird until you remember that the average age of a Houston voter in this election is expected to be about 69. Newspaper print ads seems like a reasonable way to reach that demographic.

As for the Campaign for Houston, they listed 45 contributions, for a total of $62,495 raised. Forty-one came from individual donors, 21 of whom were non-Houston residents (one Houston person gave twice), with two familiar names: Andrew (son of Phyllis) Schlafly, and former HCC Trustee Yolanda Flores (no middle name given, but the ZIP code points to her). One donor listed in this group rather than the “corporations or labor unions” line item on the subtotals cover sheet page 3, was TriStar Freight, which gave $2,500. Don’t ask me why they did that, I couldn’t tell you. What I can tell you is the names of the three corporate donors:


Contributor Name             Amount
===================================
Trinity Equity Partners LLP  50,000
Texas Outhouse Inc            5,000
The Education Valet Inc         250

I shit you not (sorry not sorry) about that middle one. They list $88,195 in expenses, of which a bit less than $45K is for media buys. They’re running that disgusting bathroom ad during the evening news, or at least they did last night on KPRC at 6. I have no idea how many of those spots that kind of money can buy. This Chron story documents the ad wars; I can confirm that the pro-HERO folks have mail going out as well, one of which landed in my box yesterday. Campaign for Houston also lists a $50K outstanding loan, which isn’t detailed on this form but is presumably the same Hotze loan from their 30 day report.

Other 8 day reports are coming in as well – you can find them here and by searching here. I’ll do my best to update the Election 2015 page as we go this week.

Metro once again considers advertising

Oct 22nd, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

And I once again say go for it.

Thursday, Metropolitan Transit Authority board members will consider researching options for putting ads inside buses and trains, as well as text-based ads for those who use the system’s next-bus texting service. Metro board member Diann Lewter said the discussion is preliminary, but she and others want to gauge their options.

Lewter said advertising on the buses’ exteriors would not be considered. Previously, the notion of draping buses in ads rankled some, especially Scenic Houston, the group responsible for curtailing billboards in the city.

Metro uses the space above seats on many buses for promotional messages now, but it could sell some of the space to advertisers.

“We want to know what the market for that is, if there’s a market,” Lewter said.

[…]

Board members stressed they were proceeding with caution. Any policy would have to include strict provisions to avoid less-than-desirable ads without infringing on free speech rights. Massage parlors, for example, could pose a challenge, board member Jim Robinson said. Officials would also consider how much revenue ads might generate.

The complications are slightly less onerous for the agency’s next-bus texting system. The service, which allows riders to text Metro and receive a reply with information on when the next bus arrives, was contracted to a vendor. Part of that agreement allowed Metro to add advertisements, pending board approval, which would enable the vendor to recoup some of the money.

The plan isn’t for Metro to start spamming people, transit agency CEO Tom Lambert said. Instead, the ads would likely accompany the bus arrival information.

The last time this came up was almost three years ago, so no one can accuse Metro of recklessly charging ahead on this. As you know, I’m a longtime advocate of Metro selling ad space, so I’m hoping that this is finally the time when the move forward on it. The amount of money at stake isn’t huge – the figure cited in the Chron story from 2012 in the quoted section above was $10 million per year in an annual budget of $300 million – but it ain’t nothing, either. I bet that kind of extra revenue could help speed up the process of installing bus shelters, and maybe pay to make an existing bus line or two higher frequency. Who knows? All I know is that I’ve considered this to be a worthwhile idea for years now, and I hope this is the moment when Metro finally takes it.

30 day finance reports, citywide races

Oct 15th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Here’s a brief summary of the 30 Day campaign finance reports that I’ve been able to find, some of which are on this page and some of which are findable via the normal campaign finance report website, and all of which are collected on my Election 2015 page. First up, the Mayoral candidates:


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Bell          126,563   240,035        0     91,901
Costello      266,845   871,109   90,000    696,539
Garcia        584,916 1,060,457        0    831,284
Hall           57,859   111,417  850,000    758,618
King          284,031   626,621  650,000    322,474
McVey
Turner        526,516 1,265,239        0    507,099

Ferreira
Lane           11,105    14,467    9,000      5,457
Munoz
Nguyen            150         0    5,000        150
Smith
Steffes

I’ve separated the “real” candidates from the “minor” candidates. Marty McVey did file a 30-day report but the totals on cover sheet page 2 are wrong; the Chron’s Rebecca Elliott did the pencil work to tot things up if you’re interested. Neither Sylvester Turner nor Adrian Garcia slowed down after their torrid initial pace, thought both Steve Costello and Bill King weren’t as prolific. On the spending side, I’ve seen plenty of Costello ads on my TV lately, as well as a handful of Turner ads; Turner has been all over my Internet, but all of the “real” candidates minus Hall have had multiple sponsored Facebook posts on my feed. I keep wondering when I’m going to see an Adrian Garcia ad on the tube.

The Controllers:


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Boney
Brown          42,820   181,923        0    106,165
Frazer         58,375    80,377   32,500     58,293
Jefferson
Khan           84,950     5,495    5,100     81,290
Robinson       14,050    17,556        0      1,527

No report as yet from Jew Don Boney or Dwight Jefferson. That’s a pretty decent haul for MJ Khan given how late he entered the race. He also had an ad running during the fourth quarter of the Monday Night Football game between the Steelers and Chargers. I’m about 99% certain it was a rerun of one of his Controller ads from 2009. I’ve seen several Chris Brown ads on TV, but nothing from anyone else. Brown, Bill Frazer, and Carroll Robinson have been in my Facebook feeds.

At Large races:


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Griffin         1,000     1,600        0        895
Knox           22,940    11,370        0      9,349
Lewis          40,164    64,479      100     48,803
McCasland      60,978    33,222        0    112,443
Oliver          9,400     7,840        0     25,230
PartschGalvan
Pool
Provost         1,956     6,841        0        543

Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Burks           2,525     1,906        0        618
Davis           7,000       662        0      7,000
Dick                0   103,772        0          0
Rivera
Robinson       27,596    40,188        0    121,348


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Kubosh         39,025    46,255   25,000     41,306
LaRue          13,250     4,524        0      8,725
McElligott
Peterson       10,225     9,886        0      2,271


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Blackmon       27,285    34,500        0          0
Edwards       131,417    61,327        0    191,445
Hansen
Morales        17,495    30,042    2,200      3,786
Murphy            670     5,125   14,045        167
Robinson       29,050    25,923   15,040     35,886
Thompson            0     1,850        0          0


Candidate      Raised     Spent    Loans    On Hand
===================================================
Batteau             0         0        0          0
Christie       33,202    50,153        0     84,899
Moses             550     1,418        0          0
Nassif         29,690    27,558        0     14,368
Tahir

Candidates with blanks next to their names had no reports I could find. I’ve given some details in the posts about the At Large #4 and At Large #1 races, and Greg covered some of this ground last week. I like to think of campaign finance reports as being one part about who people want to see win, and one part about who (some other) people think actually will win. To whatever extent that holds true, you can see who the betting favorites are. It’s not destiny, of course – as I said, it’s more like Vegas – but it does tell you something. What are your guesses for these races? Leave a comment and let us know.

Get ready for the TV ads to begin

Sep 25th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Keep that DVR remote handy, because you’re going to have to start fast-forwarding through Mayoral campaign ads on TV soon.

After nearly topping the July fundraising that put this year’s mayor’s race on track to be the most expensive in recent city history, City Councilman Stephen Costello led the pack to the TV airwaves in late August.

His debut ad focused on three broad policy priorities: infrastructure, public safety and city finances.

Thus far, Costello has spent more on broadcast than any candidate in the race – about $625,000 across KTRK (Channel 13), KHOU (Channel 11), KPRC (Channel 2,) KRIV (Channel 26) and KIAH (Channel 39), according to his campaign – with ads scheduled in two waves through Nov. 2. He also has been advertising on cable since July.

“We saw the opportunity now to break out early, and thanks to successful fundraising and low overhead, we’re in a position to go back up and go back up strong,” Campaign Manager Ward Curtin said.

Meanwhile, presumptive frontrunners Sylvester Turner and Adrian Garcia, who closed out the first half of the year with more than $1 million in the bank apiece, have invested about $450,000 each in broadcast TV.

A Turner ad began airing this week on the same five Houston-area channels as Costello and briefly introduces the candidate and his policy initiatives: job training, a living wage, community policing, school partnerships and filling potholes.

According to his campaign, Turner also will begin advertising on cable on Oct. 12, having spent $75,000.

Garcia has opted for a more concentrated approach, with his ads slated to run only in the final three and a half weeks before the Nov. 2 election. They will air on six Houston-area channels, including Univision and Telemundo, beginning October 10, according to Campaign Manager Mary Bell.

“The Garcia campaign is communicating to all voters, including predominantly Spanish speaking voters, and paid communication is a part of that,” Bell said, adding, “we’re not finished buying.”

[…]

Federal Communications Commission records show [Bill] King has spent nearly $20,000 for time on KHOU next week, though campaign spokesman Chris Begala said King also will be going up on three other channels.

“Our intention is to stay up on broadcast until Election Day, but it would not be a deal-killer to be off a day or three,” Begala said in an email. “We are engaged in an aggressive mail program, social media, cable and radio buy.”

King has spent nearly $300,000 on cable, beginning in May, according to his campaign.

Chris Bell also has made a nominal foray onto television, spending nearly $25,000 to run a 30-second introductory spot this week on KTRK, KHOU, KPRC and KIAH, according to his campaign.

Greg goes into much more detail on this than I could, so let me direct you to him for an in-depth analysis. For what it’s worth, so far I’ve seen a few Costello ads and maybe on Bill King ad. I’ll just add that no candidates should overestimate their name ID. Adrian Garcia, by virtue of being elected countywide twice during Presidential years is the only candidate on this ballot that can feel reasonably secure that the voters know who he is. Everyone else from the Mayorals on down needs to assume they need to introduce themselves. An awful lot of people are just now starting to pay attention, and early voting starts in three weeks. Let’s see who does what with the opportunity they have.

Same sex marriage ads on your TV

Jan 6th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

On school districts selling stadium naming rights

Sep 27th, 2014

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Raise your hand if this surprises you.

When Bert Brocker wanted to advertise his auto business on the entrances of New Caney ISD’s new football stadium recently, the district offered another, bigger possibility: Naming rights to the entire $20 million, 8,000-seat facility.

Brocker, who runs the Texan GMC and Texan Dodge auto dealerships in Humble, said the new complex was right in his market, so he jumped at the opportunity.

“It was for me almost a no-brainer,” Brocker said.

For $60,000 per year for five years, Brocker bought the rights – and New Caney’s facility was named Texan Drive Stadium, part of a larger partnership between the business and the school district that also includes live streaming of athletic events and sponsoring sports camps.

The New Caney district has joined the growing ranks of Houston-area school districts to sell the naming rights for its sports facilities, allowing them to be used to promote private businesses. The practice has stirred debate in recent years over the role and effect of advertising in education.

Conroe ISD sold the naming rights to its stadium in 2007, and Humble ISD has done so for its field, entryways and suite.

While some criticize selling naming rights or advertising in school facilities as detrimental to a child’s education, experts and industry officials say the practice has grown in recent years, as schools explore different methods for raising money and businesses recognize the value of publicizing their brand in public schools.

“It’s a win-win opportunity for Texan and for us,” said Brent Sipe, athletic director for New Caney, located about 20 miles east of The Woodlands.

[…]

Faith Boninger, a research associate at the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center, which has been researching advertising and commercialism in education for more than a decade, said selling naming rights to a stadium and other advertising initiatives like New Caney’s can promote a sense of materialism and commercialism in schools.

“We like to think of school as being separated from that, kind of protected from that, a place where students can entertain options for themselves that are other than the consumerist perspective,” Boninger said.

In some cases, Boninger said, advertisements can harm a child’s psychological and physical well-being. For example, an advertisement or sponsorship from a company that sells cosmetics might create self-esteem issues for some students, or a fast-food company ad could promote unhealthy eating habits.

The center has been looking for ways to quantify and assess the magnitude of such effects.

I feel the same way about this as I do about advertising on school buses and rooftops: In an ideal world this wouldn’t happen, but given today’s realities I can’t think of a good reason to deny schools or school districts this kind of easy money. When the Legislature truly funds our schools in an adequate and equitable manner, then we can talk. Beyond that, the only surprise here to me is that this hasn’t been going on longer.

Perry’s No Jobs Tour continues

Mar 17th, 2014

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

TrailBlazers takes the bait.

Corndog manufacturing is a growth industry

Rick Perry is on the road again. But then, he’s rarely off it these days.

This weekend, he’s in Western Kentucky at Murray State University to headline a Republican Party fundraiser.

Then, it’s off to California to talk to their businesses about uprooting and moving en mass to the Lone Star State.

The three-day trip to California is being paid for by Americans for Economic Freedom, a group Perry and his supporters helped establish. It emphasizes some of Perry’s fundamental tenets about helping create job growth, including low-taxes, low-wages and lawsuit limits.

The reported $300,000 radio and TV ad buy for the trip features Perry. It brags about 50 California companies moving to Texas over the past year or so and how Texas has surpassed Silicon Valley as the top exporter of tech products.

I’ve talked before about how the most notable thing about Rick Perry’s job stealing tours is how he never actually manages to steal any jobs while on them. This ad running in California – “running” is almost certainly an overstatement; given how it takes roughly a million dollars a week to run an effective TV advertising campaign for a statewide candidate in Texas, one can guess how many Californian eyeballs will actually view this latest piece of performance art from our Governor – may brag about “50 California companies moving to Texas over the past year or so”, yet Governor Perry’s press releases in that time frame makes no mention of any such relocations. You’d think if these company moves are worth bragging about in a TV ad, they’d have been worth mentioning in a press release or two. Maybe someone should ask him for the specifics. They might also ask about how miraculous things really are here. Or maybe we should all remember that the real point of all this is Rick Perry touting the virtues of Rick Perry. By that metric, it remains a success.

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