Yeah, I know, I’m late to the game with this one. Once again, work interferes with blogging. So I’m sure that others have already broken down the campaign finance reports for Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst, and Tom Leppert but I’m going to do it anyway. Mostly because I like charts but also so that I can get a better idea of what is going on.

I did notice that Lawrence Person put up an early chart on the overall contributions. Thankfully, my version matches! How about them apples?

Obviously, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst came back to earth after that record setting start to his campaign. Of course, he still raised a whole lot more money than Ted Cruz did and a whole heckuva lot more than Tom Leppert. Leppert has struggled (if raising almost $400k is struggling) to expand his base of contributors beyond his North Texas stronghold. He is hoping to pick up some of the support that would have gone to Ted Cruz before his fairly recent campaign problems. As for Cruz, he has to be happy with the fundraising trend from last year and hopes that it will continue. You’ll notice that in actual fundraising for the cycle to date, he came out on top, barely eclipsing Lt. Gov. Dewhurst but crushing Mayor Leppert.

Much has been made of Dewhurst’s and Leppert’s ability to self-fund. It used to be that Republicans cheered for those who, like both of these men, raised themselves out of poverty and became wealthy. No more. No, now we scoff at them for using a portion of that self-made wealth to run for office. Ted Cruz has been especially vocal about this, criticizing both men. Recently, long-shot candidate Glenn Addison gave Cruz a taste of his own medicine by publishing pictures of Cruz’s former home, which looks to me to be very nice. Okay, so here is the picture on loans:

I noticed that most folks are saying that Dewhurst has loaned $4 million to the campaign and I suppose that technically, that is true. And I have to admit that I don’t know much about the way campaign financing is done. What I do know is that Dewhurst loaned his campaign $2 million on 9/30 (page 837), then paid it off four days later on 10/4 (page 825), then loaned the campaign another $2 million on 12/31 (page 838). So the net amount of his self-funding is $2 million but will we see another loan payoff a few days later on the next report? Not only does that lower his investment in the campaign, it skews the expenditures – Lawrence reported that Dewhurst had already spent $4.4 million when in reality he spent $2.4. Still a lot of money but it puts his campaign closer to the other guys and leaves Leppert as the clear leader in self-funding at $3.1 million. Speaking of expenditures:

You can see that both Leppert and Cruz ramped up the spending in Q4 but Dewhurst outspent both campaigns combined for that quarter. I suspect that much of that was getting his organization structured correctly and bringing in a few old hands to stabilize the crew. Cruz has kept a tight rein on spending – there were rumors that he asked his staff to delay their paychecks until the fourth quarter reporting period was over. I tried to get an answer on that from campaign manager John Drogin but received no response. After reviewing the reports, it looks more likely that he changed some of the staff’s pay periods to achieve the same effect. One of the reasons for some of the recent campaign missteps could be Ted’s own fatigue – the guy is everywhere and never stops to rest. Leppert did some targeted television in an effort to boost his name id and that can be expensive.

Now to Cash on Hand:

Leppert leads the field and, if Dewhurst did pay off his second loan early in the quarter, Cruz would be in second. Again, I have no idea how that works or why the Dewhurst campaign chose to do that, it just stood out. Everyone keeps saying that Dewhurst will spend whatever amount it takes, so I have to believe them and trust that at some point, he will “go large”. Until then, I get to speculate, which is the coolest thing about not being a real newspaper reporter.

Of course, there is cash on hand and then there is that pesky cash on hand that is available to spend. Some people give more than the $2,500 max for a federal election and that money can be used for a runoff or general election but not in the primary. The Cruz campaign has the biggest problem with this aspect of campaign finance. Their earlier reports were running about 2/3 primary, 1/3 other, so if we use that to look at primary campaign cash, you can easily see where he could get squeezed out:

That pie chart uses factors of 95{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} for Dewhurst, 92{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} for Leppert, and 68{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} for Cruz (factor x COH). You can use whatever factor you want, just remember to use one because it is a real problem. Of course, should Cruz make the runoff, he would have a head start. But with the primary moving to perhaps May 29 and the way his campaign is struggling, he is going to find rough seas ahead if he doesn’t right that ship. A lot of people think that moving the primary out helps him and logically, it should, but how many unforced errors can his team make before those Super PAC’s decide to put their money into other races? Just a thought.

And here is a table of the data:

Well, that’s all for now. Obviously, Craig James could enter into some of these equations but I haven’t met him so I really can’t say. I can tell you that he made a mistake in demanding that everyone release their tax returns. Turns out he’s a bit of a Scrooge, especially compared to Dewhurst and Leppert. More on that later – not that I care but he pushed that issue hard. For now, I bid thee farewell.