White, buoyed by big endorsements, lends his run $1M
Democratic governor hopeful moves to seize front-runner position.
Houston businessman Andrew White, endorsed this weekend for the Democratic nomination for governor by the state’s two biggest newspapers, announced Monday that he has loaned his campaign $1 million.
The commitment, which would enable him to herald his endorsements in mailers, digital media and limited cable advertising, is a shot across the bow at Lupe Valdez, who, because of her readily identifiable Hispanic name and 13 years as sheriff in Dallas County (she stepped down at the end of December to run for governor), was considered the front-runner in the March 6 primary against White and seven lesser-known candidates.
“White has now signaled that if Valdez thought that with the support of most of the Democratic establishment this was going to be a cakewalk, that is not at all going to be the case,” Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said.
White’s campaign also reported $138,632 in contributions during the first three weeks of January in its fundraising statement due Monday.
White, the son of the late Democratic Gov. Mark White, raised $219,000, including $40,000 in loans in his first fundraising report, for the last quarter of 2017, a period during which Val-
dez raised $51,000. Her campaign said it was still work- ing on final numbers for the new report Monday evening.
“I come from humble beginnings as one of eight children born to migrant farm workers. I then spent my career in service to the people of Texas,” Valdez said in a statement issued by her campaign. “I’m not wealthy but I have a lot to be thankful for — including the grassroots support that’s powering my campaign and this movement. I’m not worried about Andrew White’s $1 million campaign loan because Texan Democrats can’t be bought, and we’ll prove that on election day.”
Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott raised nearly $1.1 million between Jan. 1 and Jan. 25, spent $891,000 and had $43.3 million in cash on hand for his re-election campaign.
“Democrats will need a war chest to beat Gov. Abbott in the fall,” White said in a statement.
“We’ve started building one today.”
But Jones said White’s infu- sion of a million dollars suggests he plans to spend that much before the primary, while replenishing his trea- sury, and, to the extent pos- sible, paying himself back in the coming weeks.
If no candidate wins at least half the votes, the two top finishers will compete in a May 22 primary.
The weekend endorse- ments of White by The Dallas Morning News and the Hous- ton Chronicle, as well as by the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, which chose White over Valdez, a groundbreak
ing lesbian sheriff, were espe- cially significant because in each case, Valdez was described as being unprepared to be governor.
“We had high hopes for former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, the only candidate who’s held elective office, having been elected in 2004 and re-elected four times since, and someone we’ve supported locally at various times,” the Morning News wrote. “We were disappointed by her gross unfamiliarity with state issues, however, particularly an almost incoherent attempt to discuss state financing.”
“At one point, Valdez, 70, volunteered that she didn’t know whether the state was spending $8 million or $8 bil- lion on border control. (It’s closer to $800 million.)” the endorsement continued. “On college tuition, she first suggested the Legislature ‘and stakeholders’ should set tui- tion rates, but then contra
dicted herself, and she later said the state should move to reduce local property tax rates, apparently unaware of those set by local juris- dictions.”
The Chronicle’s only men- tion of Valdez in its endorse- ment editorial was that she “stumbled over flooding questions.”
Mike Webb, president of the Houston GLBT Politi- cal Caucus, said the screen- ing committee and the gen- eral membership, “felt that White would do a better job in fighting back against (the actions) targeted against the LGBT community now by the current governor, and quite frankly, Valdez did not reas- sure us that she would be able to, or even had knowl-
edge of the position of the office, to do so.”
Valdez, in a statement responding to the newspaper endorsements for White,
said that “while we’re disap- pointed we can’t win them
all, I’m proud to have the support of progressive clubs across the state, Stonewall Democrat chapters in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, the Texas AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, the Tejano Dem- ocrats, and others that’ll be rolling out shortly.”
Valdez has been slow to hire campaign staffers, but campaign aide Kiefer Odell said Monday that “the cam
paign had rounded out our consulting team with mail, media and fundraising consultants and a pollster” and was “interviewing for the right fit” with a campaign manager. Democratic pundit Harold
Cook of Austin said that neither Valdez nor White had lit a fire under Democratic voters so far, and while challenging Abbott seems a hopeless undertaking, “if you can’t put up what passes for a credible candidate for governor you really can’t call yourself a political party, so I’m awfully glad we’ve got people running for governor.”