Off the Kuff Rotating Header Image

Ali Khorasani

January 2018 campaign finance reports: Congress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dori Fenenbock – CD16
Veronica Escobar – CD16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dayna Steele – CD36
Jonathan Powell – CD36


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interview with Ali Khorasani

Ali Khorasani

It’s day two of CD02, the soon-to-be-former district of Rep. Ted Poe. Today’s candidate, Ali Khorasani represents a couple of themes we have seen in this year’s crop of contenders: He’s under 40, and he’s a scientist. A graduate of St. Edwards University, he has a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s degree in Chemistry, and currently works as a Field Service Engineer for chemical analysis instruments. He’s also an Eagle Scout and was a part of President Obama’s Interfaith Challenge while in college. Here’s the interview:

You can see all of my Congressional interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2018 Congressional Election page.

Two upcoming candidate forums

Mark your calendars, Part I, for the CD2 Democratic Primary Candidate Forum.

CD2 Democratic Primary Candidate Forum
Hosted by Humble Area Democrats, Kingwood Area Democrats, Spring Democratic Club, and Democracy for Houston

Tuesday, January 23 at 6 PM – 9 PM
Teamsters Local Union No. 988
4303 N Sam Houston Pkwy E, Houston, Texas 77032 (Map)

The Democratic Primary candidates, running for U.S. House Representative District 2, will participate in this moderated Forum to express their stances on important issues affecting constituents in Texas’ Congressional District 2.

Candidates (as they will appear on the ballot) are:

H.P. Parvizian, Ali A. Khorasani, Silky Malik, J. Darnell Jones, Todd Litton

The event begins with a Meet & Greet (6:00 pm – 6:45 pm)
The Forum will begin at 7 pm.
(Attendees will be offered an opportunity to submit questions, which will be answered, as time allows, at the end of the program.)

Come meet your candidates and discover where they stand on issues of importance to you. Visit representatives from each of our partners in this event to learn how you can get more involved.

Co-Hosts of this Forum are:

Humble Area Democrats
Kingwood Area Democrats
Spring Democratic Club
Democracy for Houston

Joining us to put this event together:

The Harris County Democratic Party
Indivisible TX-02 – Northeast

I’m publishing interviews of CD02 candidates beginning today, so you can get to know them before you go see them for yourself. We’ve all got a lot of important decisions to make this season, so we all need to do our due diligence.

And Part II:

See here for event details, and here for a map to the location. I’m not interviewing in any of these races at this time, though I may get to CD22 for the runoff, so you’re on your own. Get out there and meet some candidates.

October campaign finance reports: Congress

Here are the Q2 fundraising reports for Texas Democratic Congressional candidates. I’ll sum up the data below, but here’s the Trib with some highlights.

After Democratic challengers outraised four Texas Republicans in Congress earlier this year, some Republicans recaptured fundraising momentum in the third quarter – but not all of them.

Campaign finance reports for federal candidates covering July through September were due on Saturday. The reports show signs of of Democratic enthusiasm continuing, though U.S. Reps. Pete Sessions of Dallas and Will Hurd of Helotes, both Republicans, posted strong third quarters.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, barely outpaced his challenger, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, and two GOP congressmen saw Democratic challengers raise more money.

Hurricane Harvey may have depressed fundraising overall, with many incumbents and challengers posting lukewarm quarterly hauls.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate and certainly not tasteful to raise money from people who’ve been devastated and lost everything,” said U.S. Rep. John Culberson, a Houston Republican who was outraised by two of his Democratic challengers.

Democratic numbers were also smaller, suggesting candidates who announced earlier this year picked off the low-hanging donors in their previous campaign reports. And candidates who entered races only recently had less time to raise money.

But also, there was a larger dynamic at work. Ali Lapp is the operative who oversees the super PAC that supports Democratic House candidates, said donors are holding back from challengers because of the crowded nature of the Democratic primaries.

“With so many good Democratic candidates running in primaries, it’s no surprise that many Democratic donors are waiting to give direct candidate donations until after the field shakes out a bit, or even until after the primary is concluded,” she said.

The Chron focuses in on CD07, which has the largest field and the most money raised so far. We’ve seen the aforementioned dynamic in other races, where some people and groups want to wait and see who the frontrunners or runoff participants are before jumping in. The danger is that the candidate or candidates you like may not then make it into the runoff, but that’s a bit esoteric right now. The fact remains that we haven’t had this level of activity in Democratic Congressional primaries since Dems were the dominant party in the state. That’s pretty cool.

So without further ado, here are links to forms of interest and a summary of who did what:

Todd Litton – CD02
Ali Khorasani – CD02

Jana Sanchez – CD06

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

Dori Fenenbock – CD16
Veronica Escobar – CD16

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

Jay Hulings – CD23
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23

Christopher Perri – CD25
Chetan Panda – CD25

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

Ed Meier – CD32
Colin Allred – CD32
Lillian Salerno – CD32

Dayna Steele – CD36
Jonathan Powell – CD36


Dist  Name             Raised    Spent    Loans   On Hand
=========================================================
02    Litton          256,222   26,250        0   229,872
02    Khorasani         8,904    8,555        0       348

06    Sanchez          75,113   56,169        0    16,439

07    Triantaphyllis  668,300  132,792        0   535,507
07    Fletcher        550,833  147,634        0   403,198
07    Moser           401,675  129,689        0   271,986
07    Westin          252,085   95,046   10,365   167,393
07    Cargas           46,752   43,091        0    10,078
07    Butler           28,685   25,352        0     3,332

16    Fenenbock       499,262  193,800  100,000   405,462
16    Escobar         332,836   35,780        0   297,056

21    Kopser          417,669  198,249        0   219,419
21    Crowe            69,443   45,068        0    24,375
21    McFadden         49,614   29,923        0    19,690

23    Hulings         200,207   10,752        0   189,455
23    Ortiz Jones     103,920   30,238        0    73,681

25    Perri            61,868   42,603    7,140    26,405
25    Panda            59,853   42,200        0    17,652

31    Hegar            93,459   39,789        0    53,670
31    Lester           52,569   33,061        0    19,507
31    Mann             21,052    8,764        0         0

32    Meier           585,951  147,537        0   438,414
32    Allred          242,444  180,791   25,000    86,653
32    Salerno         150,608   30,870        0   119,737

36    Steele          105,023   62,699    1,231    43,555
36    Powell           50,653   20,817   10,000    39,789

Notes:

– Unlike other campaign finance reports, the FEC reports are cumulative, which is to say that the numbers you see for Raised and Spent are the totals for the entire cycle. For all the other races we look at, these numbers represent what was raised and spent in the specific period. It’s useful to have these totals, but you have to compare to the previous quarter if you want to know how much a given candidate raised or spent in that quarter.

– There are eight candidates in this summary who were not in the Q2 roundup – Khorasani, Escobar, Hulings, Ortiz Jones, Panda, Hegar, Lester, and Salerno. Christopher Perri filed for CD21 last quarter but is shown in CD25 this quarter. Not sure if one or the other is an error – he wasn’t listed as a candidate in a recent story about CD25 – but do note that Congressional candidates are only required to live in the state, not in a particular district. Debra Kerner had been listed in CD07 before but she has since ended her candidacy.

– Not all candidates in all races are listed. I pick ’em as I see fit.

– It’s really hard to say how much of an effect Harvey may have had on fundraising. As the Trib story notes, it may be that many candidates have largely tapped their easiest sources, and it may be that some donors are keeping their powder dry. We may get some idea when we see the Q4 numbers in January. In the meantime, remember that there’s a long way to go.

– One candidate who does appear to have had a change of fortune, and not for the best, is Colin Allred in CD32. No idea why, again we’ll want to see what the next report looks like.

– Still no candidates of interest in CDs 10, 22, or 24. Sure would be nice to either have someone with juice file, or for someone who is already running to step it up.