Gov. Greg Abbott has $29M in re-election cash,
No word yet from Democrat rival Valdez, who had $115K in May.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign raised $10.9 million and spent $22 million between Feb. 25 and June 30, and it had $28.9 million in cash on hand, according to its filing Monday with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Abbott’s expenditures include $16.1 million for TV time across the state for a fall ad campaign.
“This is the first wave of advertising we have bought,” campaign spokesman John Wittman said. “As they say in Texas, this is a good start.”
There was no report as of midafternoon Monday from the campaign of Abbott’s Democratic rival, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, on the Texas Ethics Commission site. The reports were due at midnight Monday. Valdez’s campaign had reported $115,000 cash on hand as of May 12.
According to the Abbott campaign, the governor received a donation from each of Texas’ 254 counties. Forty-two percent of this period’s contributors are new to the campaign, and 84 percent of all donors are from Texas. The campaign said that since June 1, 2015, it had received more than 116,000 contributions, and that 93 percent of those contributions came from Texans.
“As our campaign enters the final months, we will be working hard to not just ensure victory for Gov. Abbott this fall, but help Republicans up and down the ballot,” Texans for Greg Abbott campaign manager John Jackson said. “Gov. Abbott’s vision of creating a brighter future for all Texans has become reality over the past 3½ years, and he is just getting started.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, meanwhile, has 233 times as much cash on hand as his Democratic rival, Mike Collier, heading into the fall campaign.
Texans for Dan Patrick planned to report that it has raised almost $4.5 million between Feb. 25 and
Campaigns June 30 and has nearly $14 million in the bank.
The report was to be filed by Monday’s deadline with the Texas Ethics Commission.
“People know Dan is a principled conservative leader who does the right thing and doesn’t back down,” said Allen Blakemore, Patrick’s chief strategist. “They like him, they trust him, and they want to see him re-elected.”
Collier will report raising $265,000 in the same period, with $60,000 in the bank.
Despite the huge fundraising gap, the Collier campaign said it had experienced a surge in contributions at the very end of the reporting period after a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll showed Collier within 6 points of Patrick, and Breitbart News reported that results of a Gravis Poll had Collier within 2 points of Patrick.
“My race is essentially tied, even though Dan Patrick spent (more than $10 million) in the Republican primary,” Collier said. “We are running a substantive campaign, exciting grassroots support, focusing on issues that matter, like public education, health care and property tax reform, while deploying state-of-the-art campaign technology. It’s clearly working.
“I have no doubt I can raise the money to compete and win in November,” Collier said.