Texas Dems lag in money race for state office

For seven GOP statewide nonjudicial candidates, a 34-to-1 cash advantage.

The newly released state and federal campaign finance reports bore some good news for Texas Democrats. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, continued to outraise U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Seven Democratic congressional candidates raised more money in the last quarter in Republican-held districts than their GOP opponents.

But the fundraising numbers for statewide races for Texas office, where Democrats last won an election in 1994, were not so good.

As of June 30, the seven Republican statewide nonjudicial candidates — governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner — had, among them, $57.5 million ready to spend on the 2018 campaign. Their Democratic rivals collectively had $1.7 million in bank. That’s a 34-to-1 money advantage for Republicans in an already red state.

Without Austin attorney Justin Nelson, who has raised more than $750,000 since January in his campaign to defeat Attorney General Ken Paxton, and who has $1.1 million in the bank — still a fraction of Paxton’s $7.3 million war chest — the Democratic disadvantage would be even more lopsided.

The mostly bleak numbers for Democrats come even as some recent polls seemed encouraging.

A June University of Texas/ Texas Tribune poll had Nelson trailing Paxton by only 1 percentage point. A recent Gravis Poll, published by conservative Breitbart News, had Mike Collier

within 2 points of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

But Patrick has nearly $14 million in the bank to Collier’s $61,000. Kerry McKennon, the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor, had more than $97,000 in cash on hand.

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project, which conducts the UT/Texas Tribune survey, said the poll was based on all registered voters, not likely voters, and in Texas, likely voters are more likely to be Republican.

And Henson said, “When you look at the significant gap in financial resources between Democrats and Republicans in Texas, it does underline why you should approach very early poll numbers with caution. The conditions of the election will change a lot.”

Henson noted that Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign had already paid for $16.1 million in TV time for a fall media push, intended to boost not just Abbott, but “Republicans up and down the ballot,” in the words of Abbott campaign manager John Jackson.

O’Rourke’s challenge

Abbott’s re-election campaign reported raising $13.6 million this year and had $28.9 million in cash on hand, even after committing the $16.1 million for TV advertising.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez, meanwhile, raised just $659,002 this year and had $222,050 in cash on hand.

In a statement Tuesday, Valdez dismissed the imbalance. “This race is about creating opportunities, not courting big donors and answering to special interests,” Valdez said. “This election will not be bought. It’s going to be fought by folks knocking on doors and making calls. We may not have tens of millions, but we’ve gained ground in the polls over the last two months and our message continues to reso- nate with everyday Texans.”

But money matters, espe- cially in a state the size of Texas, and Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said O’Rourke’s challenge is compounded by the dearth of funding for most of his party’s other statewide candidates.

“The problem for Beto is he’s doing all of this on his own,” Jones said. “Cruz doesn’t need to do any mobi- lization and targeting. Greg Abbott’s doing it all for him, indirectly, because Abbott’s going to be targeting, mobilizing and incentivizing people to turn out to vote Republi- can. Abbott’s going to make sure Republicans show up to vote, and once they show up to vote, they are going to overwhelmingly choose Cruz over O’Rourke.”

But O’Rourke has proved a resourceful candidate, will be well-funded, and will get lots of attention and media coverage.

On the other hand, Jones said, “Nobody knows who Justin Nelson and Mike Collier are. Only about twothirds of Texans know who Beto O’Rourke is.”

The predictable result, Jones said, is “most people are going to vote straight- ticket Republican or choose Republican in these state- wide races.”

Trump referendum?

But Ed Espinoza of Austin, who, as executive director of Progress Texas, is closely involved in promoting the Democratic agenda and Democratic electoral fortunes in Texas, said this year will be different because every election this fall, for federal and state office, will be a referendum on Trump that will turn out an energized Democratic base and break the Republican lock on Texas.

“This election is about one candidate and one candidate only, and that is Donald Trump,” Espinoza said. “Are you with him or are you against him?” Espinoza said if he were the coach delivering a locker room talk to the party’s statewide candidates this week, he would tell them, “Don’t be afraid of the money — they can’t do as much with it as you think they can.”

Because of Trump, Espinoza said this is also a rare election in Texas in which it is better to identify as a Democrat than as an individual.

“Play as a team; you’re stronger as a team than you are as individuals,” Espinoza said he would counsel the candidates.

The important thing, he would tell them, is to keep the crowd — the base — engaged in the game, and if that happens, other, maybe even bigger donors will see what’s happening and chip in.

“The money will come, but it will come late,” Espinoza said.