Off the Kuff Rotating Header Image

Brad Buckley

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

Oct 15th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

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

Janet Dudding, HD14
John Raney, HD14

Eric Holguin, HD32
Todd Hunter, HD32

Keke Williams, HD54
Brad Buckley, HD54

Angela Brewer, HD64
Lynn Stucky, HD64

Sharon Hirsch, HD66
Matt Shaheen, HD66

Lorenzo Sanchez, HD67
Jeff Leach, HD67

John Gibson, HD84
John Frullo, HD84

Ray Ash, HD89
Candy Noble, HD89

Jeff Whitfield, HD92
Jeff Cason, HD92

Lydia Bean, HD93
Matt Krause, HD93

Alisa Simmons, HD94
Tony Tinderholt, HD94

Joe Drago, HD96
David Cook, HD96

Elizabeth Beck, HD97
Craig Goldman, HD97

Jennifer Skidonenko, HD106
Jared Patterson, HD106

Joanna Cattanach, HD108
Morgan Meyer, HD108

Brandy Chambers, HD112
Angie Chen Button, HD112

Celina Montoya, HD121
Steve Allison, HD121


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 2020 campaign finance reports: State races, part 3

Aug 9th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

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

Janet Dudding, HD14
John Raney, HD14

Eric Holguin, HD32
Todd Hunter, HD32

Keke Williams, HD54
Brad Buckley, HD54

Angela Brewer, HD64
Lynn Stucky, HD64

Sharon Hirsch, HD66
Matt Shaheen, HD66

Lorenzo Sanchez, HD67
Jeff Leach, HD67

John Gibson, HD84
John Frullo, HD84

Ray Ash, HD89
Candy Noble, HD89

Jeff Whitfield, HD92
Jeff Cason, HD92

Lydia Bean, HD93
Matt Krause, HD93

Alisa Simmons, HD94
Tony Tinderholt, HD94

Joe Drago, HD96
David Cook, HD96

Elizabeth Beck, HD97
Craig Goldman, HD97

Jennifer Skidonenko, HD106
Jared Patterson, HD106

Joanna Cattanach, HD108
Morgan Meyer, HD108

Brandy Chambers, HD112
Angie Chen Button, HD112

Celina Montoya, HD121
Steve Allison, HD121


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Precinct analysis: 2018 State House

Mar 26th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
11 comments

Beto O’Rourke won 76 State House districts. Out of 150. Which is a majority.

Let me say that again so it can fully sink in.

BETO O’ROURKE WON 76 STATE HOUSE DISTRICTS.

Remember that after the 2016 election, Democrats held 55 State House Districts. They picked up 12 seats last year, thanks in large part to the surge that Beto brought out. But there were nine other districts that Beto carried where the Dem candidate fell short. Let’s start our review of the State Rep districts by looking at those nine.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD26   47.6%   50.5%   43.4%   47.8%   48.9%   48.5%   44.9%
HD64   44.5%   49.8%   43.9%   46.8%   47.4%   46.5%   44.0%
HD66   49.7%   52.5%   44.1%   49.2%   50.4%   48.8%   45.7%
HD67   48.8%   52.3%   44.5%   49.2%   50.4%   48.8%   45.7%
HD108  49.9%   57.2%   46.0%   52.7%   54.2%   51.9%   46.5%
HD112  49.0%   54.4%   47.5%   51.4%   52.5%   51.7%   48.7%
HD121  44.7%   49.7%   42.0%   46.9%   48.4%   47.7%   42.4%
HD134  46.8%   60.3%   50.4%   57.9%   59.1%   57.5%   48.6%
HD138  49.9%   52.7%   46.6%   50.6%   51.5%   51.1%   47.5%

Some heartbreakingly close losses, some races where the Republican winner probably never felt imperiled, and some in between. I don’t expect HD121 (Joe Straus’ former district) to be in play next year, but the shift in HD134 is so dramatic it’s hard to see it as anything but a Democratic district that just needs a good Dem to show up and take it. 2012 candidate Ann Johnson has declared her entry into the race (I am aware of one other person who was looking at it, though I do not know what the status of that person’s intent is now), so we have that taken care of. I won’t be surprised to see other candidates start to pop up for the other districts.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD45   51.6%   55.1%   47.9%   51.8%   52.6%   52.2%   49.3%
HD47   52.4%   54.9%   46.7%   51.7%   52.9%   51.6%   48.4%
HD52   51.7%   55.7%   48.0%   52.0%   53.3%   52.2%   49.3%
HD65   51.2%   54.1%   46.6%   50.8%   51.8%   50.6%   47.6%
HD102  52.9%   58.5%   50.1%   55.5%   56.7%   55.1%   51.3%
HD105  54.7%   58.7%   52.5%   55.5%   56.8%   56.1%   53.7%
HD113  53.5%   55.5%   49.4%   53.1%   53.9%   53.4%   51.4%
HD114  55.6%   57.1%   47.2%   54.1%   55.5%   53.4%   48.4%
HD115  56.8%   58.2%   49.9%   54.8%   56.1%   55.5%   51.2%
HD132  49.3%   51.4%   46.3%   49.5%   50.2%   50.0%   47.6%
HD135  50.8%   52.9%   47.3%   50.8%   51.6%   51.5%   48.8%
HD136  53.4%   58.1%   49.9%   54.2%   55.5%   54.2%   51.3%

These are the 12 seats that Dems flipped. I’m sure Republicans will focus on taking them back, but some will be easier than others. Honestly, barring anything unexpected, I’d make these all lean Dem at worst in 2020. Demography and the Trump factor were big factors in putting these seats in play, and that will be the case next year as well.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD14   43.6%   48.4%   40.9%   45.3%   45.0%   44.5%   41.1%
HD23   41.4%   44.0%   39.6%   42.7%   43.5%   43.3%   41.1%
HD28   45.8%   48.1%   41.8%   45.7%   46.5%   46.4%   43.2%
HD29      NA   47.0%   41.2%   44.9%   45.7%   45.9%   42.9%
HD32      NA   47.0%   38.9%   44.9%   45.2%   45.9%   42.2%
HD43   38.9%   44.1%   37.4%   43.4%   43.3%   43.9%   42.3%
HD54   46.2%   49.0%   43.8%   46.5%   47.0%   46.8%   45.0%
HD84   39.8%   43.1%   37.4%   41.5%   41.2%   39.8%   37.7%
HD85   43.5%   44.7%   39.8%   43.2%   44.1%   44.1%   41.6%
HD89   40.5%   43.5%   37.1%   41.1%   41.7%   40.5%   38.0%
HD92   47.4%   48.3%   41.9%   45.6%   46.5%   45.8%   43.1%
HD93   46.1%   48.2%   42.1%   45.6%   46.3%   45.5%   42.9%
HD94   43.9%   47.9%   41.1%   44.9%   46.0%   45.1%   42.2%
HD96   47.2%   49.5%   43.9%   47.6%   48.1%   47.6%   45.3%
HD97   44.9%   48.6%   41.3%   45.7%   46.5%   45.4%   42.4%
HD106  41.7%   44.2%   37.1%   41.3%   42.0%   41.0%   38.1%
HD122  38.1%   43.4%   36.1%   40.5%   41.9%   41.2%   36.7%
HD126  45.2%   47.8%   42.5%   46.1%   46.7%   46.3%   43.5%
HD129  41.8%   45.2%   39.1%   43.4%   44.3%   44.2%   40.0%
HD133  41.9%   45.0%   36.6%   43.4%   44.2%   42.8%   36.3%

Here are the generally competitive districts, where Dems can look to make further inroads into the Republican majority. Well, mostly – HD23 in Galveston, formerly held by Craig Eiland, and HD43 in South Texas, held by Rep. JM Lozano, are going in the wrong direction. I wouldn’t say that Dems should give up on them, but they should not be a top priority. There are much better opportunities available.

To say the least, HD14 in Brazos County is a big surprise. Hillary Clinton got 38.1% of the vote there in 2016, but Beto came within 1100 votes of carrying it. It needs to be on the board. Rep. Todd Hunter in HD32 hasn’t had an opponent since he flipped the seat in 2010. That needs to change. HD54 is Jimmy Don Aycock’s former district, won by Rep. Brad Buckley last year. It’s been at least a light shade of purple all decade, but it’s non-traditional turf for Dems, who never felt much need to go after Aycock anyway. It’s split between Bell and Lampasas counties, and will need a big win in Bell to overcome the strong R lean of Lampasas. HD84 in Lubbock isn’t really a swing district, but Beto improved enough on Hillary’s performance there (34.8% in 2016) to put it on the horizon. The Dem who won the primary in HD29 wound up dropping out; we obviously can’t have that happen again. All of the HDs in the 90s are in Tarrant County, and they include some of the biggest anti-vaxxers in the House – Stickland (HD92), Krause (HD93), and Zedler (HD96). You want to strike a blow against measles in Texas, work for a strong Democratic performance in Tarrant County next year.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD31  100.0%   54.5%   47.3%   53.6%   54.5%   54.3%   53.7%
HD34   61.1%   54.6%   46.5%   53.5%   53.6%   54.8%   52.2%
HD74  100.0%   55.9%   50.4%   53.9%   54.1%   55.0%   53.3%
HD117  57.4%   58.3%   50.7%   54.3%   56.3%   55.9%   53.4%

These are Dem-held districts, and they represent the best opportunities Republicans have outside of the districts they lost last year to win seats back. HD117 went red in 2014 before being won back in 2016, so at least in low-turnout situations these districts could be in danger. Maybe the 2018 numbers just mean that Greg Abbott with a kazillion dollars can do decently well in traditionally Democratic areas against a weak opponent, but this was the best Dem year in a long time, and if this is how they look in a year like that, you can imagine the possibilities. If nothing else, look for the Republicans to use the 2021 redistricting to try to squeeze Dem incumbents like these four.