I just got back from a business trip abroad, so it’s taking me a little time to get back up to speed. One thing I did want to note was David Jennings of Big Jolly Politics taking a couple of my senate race posts and running with them.
First, he took a look at that donation chart I did, and then produced several additional interesting charts. He also dug deeper into Dewhurst’s 800+ page Q4 report and noticed something that I didn’t, namely that Dewhurst loaned his campaign $2 million, then the campaign paid off the loan four days later, then loaned his campaign another $2 million on December 31. Which means he spent $2.4 million, not $4.4 million, in Q4. Why he did that I couldn’t tell you, unless there’s some sort of campaign finance reason, or he wants to make it look like he put more money into his campaign than he actually did.
I do, however, have differences with Jennings on interpreting the data. When he says “Much has been made of Dewhurst’s and Leppert’s ability to self-fund,” that’s like saying “Much has been made of Wolfgang Mozart and Antonio Salieri’s composing ability.” Tom Leppert has a net worth of $12 million, David Dewhurst has a net worth of $225 million. Leppert simply can’t self fund to the extent that Dewhurst can, which is probably a big reason why Leppert went from throwing in $1 million in self-funding in both Q1 and Q2 to only half that in Q3 and Q4.
Likewise, his contention that Leppert has slipped into second place relies on taking that internal Dewhurst poll as gospel, which (as I’ve argued time and time again) we can’t do due not only to its provenience, but also the opaque nature of its methodology. And his list of Cruz “stumbles” is mostly much ado about nothing, as I don’t see anything on his list that would cause Republican voters to change their vote.
Still, they’re interesting posts on the race, even if I disagree with some of the conclusions.
Tags: 2012 Election, Big Jolly Politics, David Dewhurst, David Jennings, Elections, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
[…] Dewhurst poll shows Dewhurst at 50%. You know, the same poll that had Dewhurst winning outright and Leppert coming in second earlier in the race. If anything, the mere 50% makes me more inclined to believe Cruz has pulled […]