Between campaign contributions to candidates and independent expenditures made to support or oppose them, $300M went into the U.S. Senate race and 36 Congressional races in the state. For the election cycle, the federal candidates on the general election ballot raised more than $200M and spent nearly as much. Another $100M was spent in the form of independent expenditures.
The U.S. Senate race between U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R) and Democratic rival M.J. Hegar accounted for about a third of all contributions and independent expenditures, including the primary elections.
The most recent campaign finance reporting period included all contributions received and expenditures made between October 15 and November 23. The state’s congressional candidates raised nearly $25M and spent more than $44M during that period.
Cornyn and Hegar accounted for about a third of those $25M in contributions, with Hegar out-raising the incumbent, $5.2M to $3.1M, and outspending him $11.6M to $6.1M. For the election cycle, Hegar narrowly out-raised Cornyn, $29.3M to $27.4M, excluding contributions to joint fundraising or other committees (but counting transfers from those committees to their respective campaigns). Cornyn outspent Hegar, $33.1M to $28.8M. Overall, candidates for U.S. Senate raised $60.8M, which is less than half of the $113.4M raised by former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke ($79.1M) and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz ($34.1M) in 2018.
Seven House seats drew at least $10M in contributions raised or credited to the candidates’ campaign committees ($1M+ raisers are in parentheses):
- $23.1M – CD2 (Crenshaw $18.9M, Ladjevardian $3.8M)
- $15.5M – CD22 (Wall $6.0M, Kulkarni $5.7M, Nehls $1.8M)
- $15.1M – CD21 (Davis $10.0M, Roy $5.0M)
- $14.2M – CD7 (Hunt $7.5M, Fletcher $6.3M)
- $10.5M – CD32 (Allred $5.6M, Collins $3.9M)
- $10.4M – CD24 (Valenzuela $4.9M, Van Duyne $3.3M, Olson $1.6M); and
- $10.0M – CD23 (Ortiz Jones $6.8M, Gonzales $2.7M).
There were just three in 2018.
These figures exclude nearly $100M in independent expenditures that poured into the state this election cycle, including during the primary elections. If those were added, then these are the 10 “most expensive” House races in Texas in 2020 (Amount of independent expenditures in parentheses):
- $27.9M – CD22 ($7.2M supporting Republicans, $5.2M supporting Democrats)
- $27.3M – CD21 ($8.9M supporting Roy, $3.3M supporting Davis)
- $23.6M – CD2 (<$1M)
- $21.5M – CD24 ($5.8M supporting Democrats, $5.3M supporting Republicans)
- $19.8M – CD7 ($4.2M supporting Republicans, $1.4M supporting Democrats)
- $15.6M – CD23 ($5.0M supporting Democrats, <$1M supporting Republicans)
- $11.6M – CD32 ($1.0M supporting Republicans, $0.2M supporting Allred)
- $10.0M – CD10 ($0.8M supporting Democrats, $0.4M supporting McCaul)
- $7.5M – CD12 ($3.8M supporting Republicans in the primery election)
- $7.2M – CD28 ($2.6M supporting Democrats in the primary election)
Nearly $39M of independent expenditures went into the U.S. Senate race, $27M of which supported Hegar or other Democrats. Another $12M either supported Cornyn or opposed a Democrat in the primary election.
The nearly $100M in independent expenditures this cycle is nearly double the $51M figure from the 2017-18 election cycle.
Federal candidates and officeholders will file year-end reports at the end of January, which will close out his election cycle.
©2020 Texas Election Source LLC
