The race to succeed the retiring U.S. Rep. Pete Olson (R-Sugar Land) in CD22 is currently the fifth most expensive in the nation, according to a national analysis of campaign finance data. The 15 Republicans and 5 Democrats seeking the office have raised a collective $8.7M – $8.4M by the way we calculate contributions* – through March 31. Republican runoff candidate Kathaleen Wall contributed $4.4M to her campaign.
Eight congressional races in Texas have already topped $4M in combined contributions to all candidates:
- $8.4M – CD22 open (Kathaleen Wall $4.5M, Sri Kulkarni $1.5M)
- $8.0M – CD2 (U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw $6.6M, Sima Ladjevardian $1.1M)
- $6.0M – CD7 (U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher $3.4M, Wesley Hunt $2.2M)
- $5.3M – CD32 (U.S. Rep. Colin Allred $2.9M, Genevieve Collins $1.4M)
- $5.1M – CD21 (Wendy Davis $3.0M, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy $2.1M)
- $4.4M – CD23 open (Gina Ortiz Jones $3.3M)
- $4.3M – CD10 (U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul $1.9M, Pritesh Gandhi $1.0M)
- $4.1M – CD28 (U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar $2.1M, Jessica Cisneros $1.9M)
These totals do not include funds contributed to associated PACs (We count those when they are transferred to the campaign PAC.) or independent expenditures, which can climb into the millions.
The U.S. Senate race has drawn $21.5M in contributions, led by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) $13.1M and Democratic runoff candidate M.J. Hegar’s $4.8M.
CD7: The Republican-affiliated Congressional Leadership Fund pledged to purchase $3.1M in ads to support challenger Wesley Hunt against U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Houston).
CD17 open: Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) endorsed Renée Swann over former U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Dallas) for the Republican runoff.
* Our federal campaign finance numbers can differ from the ones reported to the FEC because of the different ways one can measure contributions. For example, we exclude loan proceeds, but those can still count as contributions for federal reporting purposes. To arrive at our contribution total, we take the net contributions figure (total contributions, excluding those loan proceeds, minus refunded contributions) and add any funds transferred from authorized committees. This calculation is similar to how state candidates’ contributions are calculated. We also add each campaign finance report’s totals together to arrive at a cumulative total. These vary from the cumulative totals in the campaign finance reports themselves for the reasons above and others.
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