Posts Tagged ‘Texas Senate Race’

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New Poll Shows Cruz and Dewhurst Neck and Neck

Monday, October 17th, 2011

The Cruz campaign alerted me to a new poll from the Azimuth Research Group that shows David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz neck and neck. In fact, they show Cruz leading, 32% to 31%, though they note that before rounding, the actual amount is less than 1%, and in any case within the +/-3% margin of error. Tom Leppert was third with 8%, Lela Pittenger as fourth with 5%, and Elizabeth Ames Jones edged out Glenn Addison for fifth, 4% to 3%.

While this is certainly good news for the Cruz campaign, a few caveats are in order:

  • Azimuth is a relatively new polling organization; in fact, I think they only started doing polling this year. Without a track record to for results in previous elections, there is no way to judge how effective their polling methodology is.
  • One of the polls they did earlier this year showed Ron Paul leading the Presidential race at 22%, substantially higher than any other polling company.
  • That, plus Pittenger coming in fourth, would suggest that the poll disproportionately samples people who are unusually active in politics, and thus not reflective of the actual makeup of Republican primary voters, which would boost Cruz in comparison to Dewhurst.
  • As such, I would take these results with several grains of salt until replicated by one of the more established polling services like Gallup or Zogby.

    • Still, even with those caveats, this is great news for Cruz five months out from the primary, as it shows a huge bump from the PPP poll of a month ago, which showed him at 12%. Even if you think the methodology overstates Cruz’s gain by 50%, that would still put him at 22%, a 10% increase in a single month. The poll was conducted 10/12-10/17, so it might show the effect of Cruz’s National Review cover appearance.

    Outlier or not, I can’t imagine anyone is happy with this result over at the Dewhurst campaign. With his money and name recognition, Dewhurst was supposed to be winning the race running away at this point. He’s not.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for October 14, 2011

    Friday, October 14th, 2011

    And still more Texas Senate Race news:

  • BattleSwarm Blog gets named by the Ted Cruz campaign as the blog of the week. Sweet! Though I do feel compelled to point out that I have not endorsed any Senate candidate, that I try to give all the candidates a fair shake, and report things as I seem them without fear or favor. That said, I think Cruz is a very strong, conservative candidate who has run a very smart, effective campaign.
  • Cruz appeared on Glen Beck’s radio show. Beck does not sound enamored of David Dewhurst.
  • Speaking of Dewhurst, he picked up the “Courageous Defender of Life” award by the Texas Alliance for Life at the organization’s Annual Benefit Dinner in Austin. Given movement conservative grumblings about Dewhurst, that’s a very nice pickup for him.
  • Politico notes that Dewhurst’s $2.6 million haul “is the biggest total of any GOP Senate candidate over a three-month period this cycle.”
  • Tom Leppert puts up an Anti-occupy Wall Street petition. (Caveat: Remember that The American Independent isn’t.)
  • The Hill reports on the China dust-up. “It shows that Dewhurst is taking Cruz’s challenge very seriously, and that the two do not fear going on the attack against one another.”
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones is keynoting the the DUG Eagle Ford Conference, which is not for owners of a particular model of car, but which is about developing unconventional gas. Again, while it’s good that she’s taking her day job as Railroad Commissioner seriously, these days Jones’ event schedule makes it look like she’s running for Secretary of Energy in a Perry Presidential administration more than she’s running for the U.S. Senate.
  • There will be another candidate forum in Tyler this Saturday, at the Ramada Inn Conference Center, 3310 Troup Highway, Tyler, TX 75701. In attendance will be Cruz, Leppert, Jones, Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, Lela Pettinger and Curt Cleaver. Lt. Gov. Chupacabra will once again be skipping the festivities.
  • That flyer is interesting for a number of reasons. Not only do they list and give one page bios for the attendees, but they also do they same for candidates they invited who aren’t attending. In fact, a lot (maybe all) Tea Party event have invited all the declared candidates, and I don’t know why Democratic longshots Sean Hubbard and Stanley Garza haven’t taken advantage of the offer, since their campaigns are generating zero buzz otherwise, and the forums would provide a chance for more exposure.
  • This Texas Tribune piece is a pretty standard brief roundup of the race, but it is notable in that it mentions Addison (and none of the other longshots) along with Cruz, Dewhurst, Leppert and Jones. Given Addison’s earlier complaints about being excluded from the Tribune’s June Senate candidate forum, I think he should rightly see this as an accomplishment.
  • Finally, signs of a Ricardo Sanchez campaign! He’ll be holding a “kickoff fundraiser” in Austin on Tuesday, October 18. Given that Sanchez first announced he was running on May 11, isn’t October a little late to be holding a kickoff fundraiser? What’s he been doing the past five months?
  • That flyer bears the name of Taylor Collective, who have done a lot of work for lefty causes and candidates, including Vermont’s Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Leppert Raises $640,000 in Q3, Tosses in Another $500,000 of His Own Money

    Friday, October 14th, 2011

    Tom Leppert’s campaign announced that it raised $640,000 in donations in Q3. In addition, it announced that Leppert, as he did in Q2, threw in another half million of his own money.

    Those are significant sums, and by no means disasterous, but it’s slightly less than the $750,000 in contributions he raised in Q2, which was, in turn, less than the $1 million in contributions and $1.6 million in self-funding he raised in Q1.

    So far Leppert has run a relatively smart and disciplined campaign, and currently has more cash on hand than Cruz, but he’s still in third place. He hasn’t generated the grassroots enthusiasm and buzz that Cruz has, and I’m reasonably sure he can’t self-fund at nearly the level David Dewhurst can. Though Leppert has positioned himself as a conservative (and issued many conservative position papers on a range of issues), he seems to draw more from Dewhurst’s establishment base in the business community, and the slight decrease in Q3 numbers may indicate that Dewhurst is already eating into those funding sources. Further, I see no signs that Leppert has successfully moved beyond his geographical base of support in the greater Dallas Metroplex.

    On the plus side, Leppert hasn’t seen quite the falloff in donations predicted by Cruz consultant Jason Johnson and he’s continued to attend the candidate forums (though he does not seem to be generating a lot of enthusiasm at them), which is more than you can say for Dewhurst. Also, no more skeletons have fallen out of his closet since the SEIU and ACORN revelations. That might change. (I might even shake a bone or two myself in coming weeks…)

    Obviously the Cruz campaign would like to see Leppert drop out to make it a clear one-on-one campaign against Dewhurst. However, while Leppert has not set the grass roots on fire, he has run a solid race, which is more than you can say for Elizabeth Ames Jones. If things continue on in the same vein, Leppert is well-positioned if one of the frontrunners stumbles or withdraws. After all, it’s politics, and stranger things have happened.

    However, right now Leppert is clearly in third place, and I expect Cruz’s new, National Review-boosted profile to result in a Q4 contribution increase sufficient to erase Leppert’s current self-funded edge in cash-on-hand.

    Leppert is hanging tough and running a competitive campaign, but in the end I don’t think that will be enough to get him into the runoff.

    (Edited to add: After I published, this I noticed that the Dallas Morning News link at the top had been updated to say that Elizabeth Ames Jones pulled in $235,000 for Q3. He doesn’t provide a link for this, and I can’t yet find confirmation on her website, Facebook page or Twitter feed. If true, I don’t see how Jones thinks she can compete with three candidates who all have ten times as much cash on hand as she does.)

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Sanchez Campaign Scrubs Mention of Tax Cuts From Their Website

    Friday, October 14th, 2011

    You may remember back in June, when I noticed that Ricardo Sanchez’s campaign website mentioned tax cuts as a means of creating jobs and improving the economy. Given that was so out of character for a Democrat, I thought I better get a screen shot to prove it was there:

    It’s in the third paragraph. Click to embiggen.

    It’s a good thing I did, as the Sanchez campaign has scrubbed the phrase “tax cuts” from the page. The old phrase was:

    The best approach to creating jobs in Texas is for us to provide tax cuts, incentives and increase financing support for small businesses.

    That same sentence today has excised the words “tax cuts”:

    The best approach to creating jobs in Texas is for us to provide incentives and increase financing support for small businesses.

    In fact, as far as I can tell, that’s the only change to that page.

    I have written the Sanchez campaign for an explanation of the change. I’ll let you know what they have to say if I ever receive a reply.

    Evidently tax cuts are so anathema to Democrats that even the hand-picked DNC candidate, running without serious primary opposition, running to be Senator from a very conservative state, and sure to be a heavy underdog in a general election in which Democratic control of the Senate will be up for grabs, is not allowed to mention them on his website.

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    Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections | 2 Comments »

    Senate Race Fundraising Numbers: A Historical Comparison

    Thursday, October 13th, 2011

    Here are are some impressive fundraising numbers: Through the end of Q3 on September 30, the odds-on senate favorite has raised $6,444,926.

    The challenger? A comparatively paltry $1,615,165.

    Given those numbers, it should be pretty easy to figure out who the eventual winner is going to be, right?

    Wrong.

    Those numbers are from 2009, the odds-on favorite was sitting Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and the underfunded challenger was then-Speaker of the state House of Representatives Marco Rubio. Of course, that’s Senator Marco Rubio now, since he ended up pantsing Crist so badly the latter dropped out of the Republican primary and ran as an independent …whereupon Rubio kicked his ass.

    What happened? The Tea Party happened and Rubio caught fire as a better (and more conservative) candidate. Also, this happened:

    After that, Rubio’s fortunes (and fundraising) climbed while Crist’s fell. That’s why this:


    Should throw a sense of deep unease into David Dewhurst’s campaign team.

    Of course, that’s not the only similarity between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio:

  • Both are the sons of Cuban exiles.
  • Both earned law degrees.
  • Both were involved with conservative Republican politics from an early age.
  • Both were Tea Party favorites.
  • Both have been endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint.
  • Both have been endorsed by George P. Bush.

    • I’m hardly the first one to make comparisons between Cruz and Rubio. (The Cruz campaign has not been shy about it either.)

    However, there are some differences that will make Cruz’s campaign against Dewhurst more difficult than Rubio’s was against Crist:

  • Dewhurst is more of a squish while Crist had gotten to be a full-blown RINO (no matter how hard others might make the comparison). None of Dewhurst’s disappointments compare to Crist embracing Obama-Pelosi-Reid’s budget-busting, pork-laden Stimulus.
  • Dewhurst is considerably wealthier than Crist ever was.
  • The Florida primary was much later, on August 24, whereas the Texas primary falls on March 6 in 2012.
  • Crist had been in politics since about 1986, whereas Dewhurst wasn’t elected Land Commissioner until 1998.
  • Rubio-Crist was pretty much a two man race, whereas Cruz must also contend with Tom Leppert (and, to a lesser degree, Elizabeth Ames Jones) as high-profile, well-funded candidates.
  • The Cuban-American community is not nearly as influential in Texas as Florida.
  • The chances of Dewhurst dropping out and running as an independent are, I think, pretty close to zero.

    • Still, at this point Dewhurst is running behind where Crist was during the same period, and Cruz is likewise running ahead of where Rubio was. Also, Texas is considerably more conservative than Florida.

    All this is a prelude to saying that Dewhurst’s and Cruz’s Q3 fundraising numbers are interesting, but hardly dispositive. There’s still a lot of race to be run.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Dewhurst Raises $2.64 Million, Throws in $2 Million in Self-Funding, Has $4 Million On Hand

    Thursday, October 13th, 2011

    Hot on the heels of Ted Cruz’s $1 million+ Q3 comes news that David Dewhurst raised $2.64 million in contributions. He also threw in $2 million of his own money, and has $4 million in cash on hand.

    That’s serious money, and having raised that much in essentially a month is impressive, no matter how you slice it. Still, Dewhurst was always seen as the “bank” in the race, and as someone who’s run successful, high profile statewide races before, it’s no surprise that his fundraising operation hit the ground running. A good portion of that $2.64 million is no doubt coming from Dewhurst supporters who were sitting on the sidelines waiting for him to get into the race, or business interests hoping to “back the winning horse.” It will be interesting to see if he can maintain that torrid pace in Q4.

    If there’s any cause for optimism among the Cruz campaign is that Dewhurst only put in $2 million of his own money in Q3, which means he still may be underestimating Cruz, as Dewhurst is purported to be so rich that he could easily give 10 times that much.

    I hope to provide some additional context to those fundraising totals in the next day or so…

    (Note: Totals corrected. When I first put this up, I said he raised $2.4 million, but that’s actually how much he raised over the last 31 days in the period.)

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

    Ted Cruz Raises $1 Million+ in Q3

    Thursday, October 13th, 2011

    It’s time for candidate’s Q3 fundraising totals to start trickling out, and the Ted Cruz campaign is first out of the gate with the news that he raised $1,057,953 in Q3 and has $2.4 million cash on-hand. This is in line with his Q1 and Q2 fundraising totals, and I would expect a huge bump in Q4 thanks to his cover appearance in National Review.

    Now we wait for the Q3 fundraising numbers for the other candidates. How much personal money will David Dewhurst sink into his own campaign? Will Tom Leppert continue to self-fund at his $1 million a quarter clip? Has Ricardo Sanchez been fundraising in Q3? Or doing anything at all?

    Stay tuned…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    In Which My Texas Senate and Fast and Furious Updates Converge

    Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

    Former Texas Solicitor General and current senate candidate Ted Cruz calls for a Special Counsel to investigate Fast and Furious. The text of his announcement:

    Today, I’m calling for the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate Justice Department corruption in the weapons-trafficking scheme, “Fast and Furious.” The facts require a serious investigation. We cannot trust the Attorney General to “investigate” himself. The grave nature of these allegations—and the appearance of multiple obfuscations and evasions—demand an investigation free of political second guessing from the Obama White House.

    The more we learn about Fast and Furious, the more disturbing the revelations are. The public has a right to know who knew what and when. Americans deserve an open, transparent investigation free of political spin. It is clear that this case has now reached a critical point where an impartial investigator is required.

    Attorney General Eric Holder has been far from forthcoming in this investigation. Questions about what Holder and his staff knew about the operation, and their repeatedly changing stories, warrant an outside review.

    Everyone has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but the continual stonewalling in this case has undermined the public trust. That trust can only be ensured by appointing a Special Counsel to review the case.

    As part of the Fast and Furious operation, more than 2,000 weapons were provided to Mexican drug cartels as part of a failed attempt to identify weapons smuggling networks. Many of those weapons have turned up at Mexican crime scenes. Two weapons were found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

    And then a link to an email for to join the call for the investigation (and, no doubt, provide a handy list of potential Cruz supporters).

    There may be a few national gun bloggers reading this who haven’t heard of Cruz, but that will no doubt change when the issue of National Review with him on the cover hits the stands. This is another example of Cruz getting a jump on his main rival, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, in addressing vital issues for movement conservatives.

    More Fast and Furious information here.

    More Texas Senate Race information here.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Elections, Guns, Obama Scandals, Texas | 5 Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for October 11, 2011

    Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
  • Ted Cruz got Lots of good press for his appearance at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit:

  • Cruz also picked up the endorsements of over 115 leaders of the Texas Federation of Republican Women.
  • David Dewhurst puts in an apperance in Austin.
  • He also toured the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Houston. I’m not sure that Ye Olde Political Photo-Op is the best use of a candidate’s time in the 21st century.
  • Tom Leppert appeared at Grayson County Republicans’ Fall Roundup in Sherman, which strikes me as a better use of a candidate’s time in advance of a primary.
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones delivered the keynote address at the National Energy Services Association meeting in Bastrop. Which is probably good use of her time as Railroad Commissioner, but not effective at campaigning. With Cruz and Leppert campaigning full-time (and Dewhurst getting there), it’s hard to treat Jones as a serious candidate when she seems to put more effort into her day job, especially since she was already trailing so badly in buzz and fundraising.
  • There will be a Senate Candidate forum in Tarrant County Tuesday night starting 6:15 PM at the Richland Hills United Methodist Church at 7301 Glenview Drive, Richland Hills, 76180. Attending will be Cruz, Leppert, Jones, Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, Curt Cleaver, and Lela Pittenger. Once again, Lt. Gov. Chupacabra will be nowhere to be seen.
  • And speaking of people avoiding the limelight, this week Ricardo Sanchez…did absolutely nothing. Nattional Journal says that his campaign has gotten of to “a slow start.” Actually, “slow” doesn’t really cover it. Try “glacial.” Is it really that hard to update your Facebook, Twitter and website on a regular basis?

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Cruz, Dewhurst Trade Punches

    Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

    I think it’s safe to say that Ted Cruz now has David Dewhurst’s attention.

    First came the Chupacabra ad, then news of the National Review cover. Then yesterday, the Cruz campaign noted that Dewhurst floated the idea of a wage tax (i.e., a thinly disguised income tax) back in 2005.

    Today the Dewhurst campaign stepped down from the Ivory Tower to punch back, calling attention to a story that Cruz, in his career as a private appellate lawyer, represented a Chinese firm in a patent dispute with an American firm, and to an interview with Laura Ingraham in which he expressed opposition to a Senate bill that seeks sanctions against China for currency manipulation. (A complete transcript of the Ingraham show appearance can be found here.)

    Here’s the exact language from Steven Cheung of Dewhurst for Texas:

    The day after Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka reported on Ted Cruz acting as legal counsel to a Chinese company accused of patent infringement against an American inventor, Cruz again showed his true colors by again defending China’s interests on the Laura Ingraham Show. To check out our latest video that has highlights, please click here.

    By standing on the same side as President Barack Obama, a fellow elitist, Harvard attorney with zero business experience, Cruz and Obama strongly oppose a bill that would curb China’s predatory trade and currency practices in a time when they are taking over ownership of the American economy.

    “It’s about holding China accountable for what China is doing that is completely without integrity and subverting the principles of free trade,” said Ingraham. Moments later, Ingraham correctly declared, “Obama’s with you on this bill!”

    At a time when millions of Americans are without jobs, why does Ted Cruz consistently put the needs of China before America?

    To my mind, this is fairly weak sauce by the Dewhurst campaign, and the tone is overreaching. Representing clients is what lawyers do, and it’s not like Cruz is working pro bono for convicted terrorists.

    And I happen to be on Cruz’s side on the China bill, as are (as far as I can tell) the vast majority of conservitive commentators and economists. Sure, China manilpulates it’s currency…but so do we, Europe, and just about everyone else. Protectionism is still loser economics, and starting a trade war in the midst of a recession is not a great idea.

    Whether these criticisms will play with Republican primary voters is another question. Tom Leppert’s been using the lawyer line of attack on Cruz without any notable effect for months now, but China bashing is seldom unpopular; it’s also, as far as I can tell, seldom an effective wedge issue, either.

    But it’s interesting to note that the gloves have finally come off for the Dewhurst campaign. I don’t think his soi distant Ivory Tower approach was going to tide him over until he could carpet-bomb the primary with big direct mail and ad buys. Despite Dewhurst’s status as presumptive frontrunner, Cruz continues to make noise and rack up conservative endorsements both locally and nationally.

    The Dewhurst campaign seems to have finally realized they have a fight on their hands.

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    Posted in Economics, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 6 Comments »

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