Just as a modern army runs on gasoline, a modern political campaign runs on money. Several of the Senate candidates have been quite active in that regard, according to FEC documents for the 2009-2010 period:
Michael Williams has received a total of $743,458 in donations from 519 individuals. As noted previously, he also received significant support from the Senate Conservatives Fund, and was (if I’m scanning this correctly) the only non-2010 candidate to receive funding from them last year.
Roger Williams has received a whopping $1,643,928 in donations from 1335 individuals. Moreover, since Williams was the earliest candidate to announce, he raised $131,000 in the 2007-2008 election cycle, though $100,000 of that was a loan to himself, the rest from 18 individuals.
Elizabeth Ames Jones has raised $989,765 from 1051 individuals.
I don’t think State Senator Florence Shapiro has a high enough profile to win the Republican nomination, but that didn’t keep her from raising $525,285 for a Senate run. However, there seem to be almost as many refunds as donations listed in her filing, many for people who have multiple entries for the same amount on the same day. I can’t tell whether she refunded people because she decided not to run, or if it was just to offset a data glitch. (I sent off a question, but the address on her campaign website bounces.)
On the Democratic side, holy moly! John Sharp may have been invisible on the campaign trail, but he’s already got $3,994,490 in his war chest, having raised money from 722 individuals. However, over $3 million of that comes from a “Candidate Loan.” So Sharp hasn’t been lazy the last year, he’s been in “stealth mode.” But that still doesn’t explain why johnsharp.com redirects to Network Solutions…
Though he says he’s not running, Bill White has raised an even larger $6,015,014 for his Senate campaign from 4521 individuals. (As these are federal disclosure forms, my understanding is that none of White’s funding for his Governor’s race would be included here.) But it’s possible the bulk was raised before he switched to run for Governor.
I can’t find any Senate fundraising reports on any of the other likely serious candidates. (Democrat Chet Edwards shows up, but only for his unsuccessful attempt to hold onto his House seat.)
Keep in mind that these are very early figures, only go through 9/30/10 for most candidates, and several potential candidates haven’t started raising funds yet. I have little doubt that, should David Dewhurst jump into the race as expected, he would easily be able to amass somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million by year’s end.
We’re not even at the starting line yet, but contestants are already starting to mosey out to the track…
Tags: 2012 Election, Bill White, campaign contributions, Elections, Elizabeth Ames Jones, Florence Shapiro, John Sharp, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, Texas, Texas Senate Race
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 7:06 PM and is filed under Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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[…] But Elizabeth Ames Jones’ report is finally up, and it’s disasterous: $122,185. Raising less than one-quarter what the other major declared candidates have in the same period of time isn’t going to get the job done. Moreover, it’s a major step back from her previous 2010 fundraising total of $989,765. […]