Republicans raise $1 million targeting South Texas House races as Democrats invest elsewhere

Campaign signs stand across the street from the Sharyland Bannworth Gym in Mission on Election Day 2022. (Credit: Azul Sordo/The Texas Tribune)

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Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican political groups are pouring money into three Democrat-controlled state House districts in South Texas, giving the GOP a financial edge and raising the prospect that the party could widen its majority in the lower chamber.

Between early July and late September, the period covered by campaign finance reports released this week, Republicans massively outraised their Democratic opponents in the races to succeed retiring state Reps. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, and Tracy King, D-Uvalde. And in House District 74, a sprawling border district that runs from El Paso to Eagle Pass, Democratic state Rep. Eddie Morales was outraised by GOP nominee Robert Garza, a former Del Rio mayor — though Morales, an Eagle Pass attorney, headed into the final stretch with significantly more cash on hand.

Across the three districts, Republican candidates raked in more than $1 million, dwarfing the $243,000 reported by their Democratic foes. Taken together, the fundraising suggests Republicans see an opening to make modest gains this fall across a House landscape where few seats are in play.

The lack of competition is by design: Republicans redrew the state’s political maps in 2021 to shore up incumbent districts where GOP support had eroded. Republicans control 86 of 150 seats in the Texas House. And while they face little danger of losing their majority, any gains in South Texas could offset losses elsewhere in the state — and help the GOP continue its push to make inroads in the historically Democratic region.

Democrats are going on offense themselves in several House districts across Texas, viewing a chance to flip a handful of GOP-controlled seats that Democrat Joe Biden would have carried over Republican Donald Trump in 2020 if the new boundaries had been in place then, according to Texas Legislative Council data. In most of those districts, too, Abbott and top GOP groups helped their targeted incumbents largely keep pace with a barrage of Democratic fundraising in the latest reporting period — with some exceptions.

Democrats could also see a boost up and down the ballot from a new political group called Texas Majority PAC, which is funneling millions of dollars into voter turnout efforts and building Democrats’ long-neglected local party infrastructure. The group, run by alumni of Beto O’Rourke’s 2022 Democratic gubernatorial campaign, reported a massive $4.4 million fundraising haul in the latest period, with $2.1 million coming from Democratic megadonor George Soros and another $2.2 million from a national Democratic group called American Bridge 21st Century.

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The PAC donated more than $3 million to county Democratic parties in major urban areas and South Texas, to push turnout for races up and down the ballot.

Though Democrats face a bleak financial picture in competitive South Texas House races, they are buoyed by a built-in partisan advantage in at least two of the districts Republicans are targeting.

Morales, a two-term incumbent, won reelection last cycle by a comfortable 11 points, even as O’Rourke carried the district over Abbott by less than a point. Biden would have carried the seat by 5 points in 2020.

Herrero’s seat — which covers part of Corpus Christi and spreads west — would have gone to Biden by 10 points in 2020. Herrero was most recently reelected by a 15-point margin, running well ahead of O’Rourke’s 5-point edge over Abbott. Replacing Herrero on the ballot is Democrat Solomon Ortiz, Jr., who represented Corpus Christi in the House from 2006 to 2011. He faces Republican Denise Villalobos, who outraised Ortiz, Jr., nearly four to one in the latest reporting period.

Democrats have been far less bullish on King’s seat, long acknowledging it would be among their toughest districts to hold. King is a longtime incumbent and among the House’s moderate Democratic faction, giving him staying power in his district, which runs from Laredo to just south of San Antonio. But the district’s new boundaries give Republicans a decided edge: Trump would have won the seat by about 4 points in 2020, and Abbott carried it by 6 points in 2022.

In the latest reports, GOP nominee Don McLaughlin, Jr., a former Uvalde mayor, raised $432,000, more than seven times the haul reported by his Democratic foe, Cecilia Castellano.

In the Dallas suburbs, meanwhile, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, was outraised by Democratic challenger Averie Bishop, a former Miss Texas who is hoping to oust the moderate Button by reminding voters of the incumbent’s support for private school vouchers and the state’s abortion ban.

Bishop raised a whopping $600,000 over the nearly three-month reporting period, with the biggest chunk — $250,000 — coming from Leaders We Deserve PAC, the group led by Parkland school shooting survivor and gun control activist David Hogg. Another $150,000 came from Fair Shot Texas PAC, a pro-labor political group that spent thousands on canvassing operations for several Democratic House candidates.

Bishop easily surpassed Button’s $391,000 haul during the period. But Button, an eight-term incumbent, began July with far more cash in her account, allowing her to outspend Bishop over the last three months and head into the final weeks of the campaign with more cash on hand.

Button’s biggest donors in the latest fundraising period were Texans for Lawsuit Reform, or TLR, the influential tort reform group that is mostly backing GOP House candidates; Associated Republicans of Texas, or ART, which paid for nearly $60,000 worth of canvassing and ads; and Abbott. The trio made up almost half of Button’s fundraising.

Democrats are also angling to reclaim the Rio Grande Valley House district they lost in 2022 to state Rep. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito. Some Democrats have been bullish on their chances there given that Lopez won by just 4 points in 2022 and Biden would have narrowly carried the district in 2020. But Lopez, with the help of Abbott, TLR and ART, received $304,000 in donations and funding for ads and polling — more than six times the amount reported by Democrat Jonathan Gracia, the attorney and former Cameron County justice of the peace running against Lopez.

Democrats raised more competitive sums in the San Antonio area, where they are targeting state Rep. John Lujan in the only other GOP-held House seat carried by Biden. Lujan is up against Democrat Kristian Carranza, a political operative who had staked out a commanding financial lead over Lujan through the first half of the year. They each reported nearly identical fundraising totals from July through September — more than $380,000 each — and had similar amounts of cash on hand, though Carranza more than doubled Lujan’s spending over the period.

Though Democrats were vastly outraised in the three GOP-targeted South Texas districts, the opposite picture emerged in the North Texas race between state Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D-Dallas, and Republican Steve Kinard. Plesa, a top GOP target who won her seat by fewer than 900 votes two years ago, raised $348,000 to Kinard’s $75,000 haul, and she outspent him nearly 9-to-1 during the reporting period.

Democrats also had the upper hand in the only competitive Texas Senate district, where state Sen. Morgan LaMantia of South Padre Island is up against Republican Adam Hinojosa in a rematch of their tightly contested 2022 race. LaMantia’s family, which runs the L&F beer distributor, loaned her campaign $2.5 million, helping her easily outspend Hinojosa even as he reported his own impressive haul of more than $1 million.

Disclosure: Texans for Lawsuit Reform has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.