Hegar raises $13.5M in bid to unseat Cornyn
WASHINGTON — Former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar has raised $13.5 million since emerging in July as the Democratic nominee to face U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and has $8 million to spend heading into the final weeks of the race.
It’s a sizable haul that puts her in a more competitive position against Cornyn, whose fundraising had dwarfed Hegar’s through much of the race. And polling shows Hegar needs it, as many voters say they’re still unfamiliar with her, even though she’s been campaigning since last spring.
Hegar’s campaign said the bulk of the money — $7million — came in September. Hegar raised $500,000 in 48 hours after she criticized Cornyn’s lack of a response to reports that President Donald Trump referred to members of the military as “suckers” and “losers.” And she received 200,000 online donations over the weekend following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
The two are set to debate Oct. 9 in what is so far the only meeting scheduled for the two, even asHegar has repeatedly called for more.
“While our momentum is growing, John Cornyn is cowering behind Mitch McConnell and refusingmy debate challenges,” Hegar tweeted. “Texans are fed up with the spinelessness. Let’s win this.”
Cornyn’s campaign has not announced how much he raised over the last three months. After the last fundraising quarter ended in June, Cornyn had more than $13 million on hand and Hegar had less than $1 million.
“MJ Hegar’s pockets are stuffed bywealthy people fromCalifornia and New York who are trying to buy Texas’ Senate seat,” said Krista Piferrer, a spokeswoman for Cornyn’s campaign. “Chuck Schumer’s liberal friends want to make him majority leader so they can stack the Supreme Court, defund the police, pass the Green New Deal, and mandate government-run health care.”
The $13.5 million Hegar raised is more than double what she brought in throughout the primary, when she was competing with nearly a dozen other Democrats. And though it’s a big influx of cash for her campaign, it’s far from the more than $38 million Democrat Beto O’Rourke raised in the same time period during his failed bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.
Public polling shows Cornyn’s lead over Hegar is in the single digits. The three-term incumbent has struggled to get his support out of the mid-40s formuch of the campaign, giving Democrats hope they might have a shot at winning a statewide race for the first time in decades.
But polls also show that Hegar has struggled to introduce herself to voters. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week — a particularly rough one for Hegar — found 50 percent of likely voters said they haven’t heard enough about her. That same poll, however, found 30 percent of likely voters said they haven’t heard enough about Cornyn, either.