Senate candidate O’Rourke rakes in $1.7M, lags Cruz

El Paso Democrat has $2.8 million cash on hand at end of September

WASHINGTON — Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, garnering national attention in his long-shot campaign to oust conservative icon Ted Cruz from the Senate, pulled in $1.7 million in the three-month period ending Sept. 30, according to a campaign spokeswoman.

Cruz hauled in $2 million during the same period, stretching his lead in the money chase.

O’Rourke’s figure is a little off the pace of the El Paso Democrat’s first quarter as a U.S. Senate candidate, when he raised $2.1 million, besting Cruz’s $1.6 million haul for the same period.

Cruz still went into the summer period with a significant money advantage with $5.7 million cash on hand. He closed the month of September with $6.38 million in the bank, according to a campaign spokeswoman.

O’Rouke’s campaign reported $2.8 million in cash on hand at the end of September, less than half of Cruz’s total.

Cruz primary challenger Stefano de Stefano, a Republican energy lawyer in Houston, said Tuesday that his campaign will report “several hundred thousand” for the last quarter.

Reports for the 2017 third quarter are due Oct. 15 to the Federal Election Commission.

O’Rourke, a three-term congressman, has sworn off money from political action committees or corporations but has benefited from a national following on the left eager to defeat Cruz and elect the first Democrat to statewide office in Texas since 1994.