Big money is pouring into competitive races for Texas House seats. Democrats are trying to flip nine districts — and retain what they have — in order to win control of the chamber and end the Republican lock on Texas state government. KERA’s Justin Martin talked to politics reporter Bret Jaspers about the latest fundraising reports.
Justin Martin: So how much money are we talking about?
Bret Jaspers: Altogether, candidates in both parties have collectively raised millions of dollars. These candidates recently had to submit fundraising totals from July 1 through Sept. 24.
I looked at a dozen of the most competitive races in North Texas. I saw candidates pulling in $200,000 all the way up to $700,000.
Martin: Is this a lot more than the last election?
Jaspers: Yeah, a lot more. If we look at the state as a whole, Republican House candidates are pulling in about double what they did in 2018. Democrats are getting about three times what they raised in 2018. Republicans are still in the lead in terms of total money across all House candidates in the state, but not by much.
Martin: What other trends are you seeing in the recent fundraising reports?
Jaspers: There’s this really interesting website that displays the fundraising numbers with charts and graphs and it’s very detailed: christackettnow.com. This progressive guy, Chris Tackett, runs it. I cross-checked his analysis myself for the North Texas candidates using the reports they filed with the state. What we both saw was a difference in the number of donors who are giving to Republican House campaigns versus Democratic House campaigns.
“Between 200 and 400 for most of the competitive districts is what’s going to the Republican,” Tackett said. “And you’ll see the Democrats from 1,500; 2,000 and upwards of 13,000 individual contributors to these campaigns.”
Martin: What does that mean for the amount of money? Looking here in North Texas, which party’s state House candidates are raising more money in total?
Jaspers: Well, sometimes the Republican candidate raised more, sometimes the Democrat. But the clear trend is that Republicans are seeing fewer donors than Democrats give larger amounts of money and the Democrats are seeing some big donors, yes, but also lots and lots of these very small donations: $3, $5.
We’re used to presidential candidates raising a lot from people on the internet but the races for Texas House have gotten so much attention that candidates have been able to draw on a really large national pool of small dollar Democratic donors.
Martin: And are these contributions coming from inside Texas or from other states?
Jaspers: They’re coming from both inside and outside the state. Looking at the two parties, Tackett found that a lot of Texans are also giving small donations to Democrats in state House races.
“Even the ones who are seeing significant numbers coming from out of state are still seeing donor counts well above what the Republicans are pulling inside Texas,” Tackett said.
Let me give you an example. Jeff Leach (HD67), a Republican House member from Plano, in this last period he pulled in about $390,000 from in-state donations, according to Tackett’s site. But the number of people or entities who came up with that money was only 194.
Meanwhile his Democratic opponent, Lorenzo Sanchez, took in about $400,000 from inside the state, but his donor base was much larger. That $400,000 came from 1,730 Texas residents or groups.
Martin: What about the ultra-conservative group Empower Texans? They’ve been known for giving a lot of money to some Republican candidates in the past. What about now?
Jaspers: Their activity has been more muted since the July runoff elections, where they had mixed results.
Since then, the Empower Texans PAC gave $22,675 to Tony Tinderholt (HD94). He’s a Republican incumbent who’s district covers the southwest chunk of Arlington. Tinderholt also got $150,000 from Tim Dunn, an oil and gas executive who’s one of the backers of Empower Texans.
Dunn also gave $150,000 to Republican Jeff Cason. He’s running for an open seat (HD 92) that covers Bedford and Euless.
So their footprint in the current House general election seems to be just a couple of races.
Transcript was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org and Justin Martin at Jmartin@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers, and Justin
@MisterJMart.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gifttoday. Thank you.
