The Texan Podcast - Following the Money in Texas Politics: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 5

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

In episode 5 of The Texan's "Smoke Filled Room" podcast, Senior Editor McKenzie DiLullo and Senior Reporter Brad Johnson explain the dynamics of different players behind the scenes in Texas politics and analyze the campaign finances from this year's hotly-contested primary elections.Subscribe to The Texan for full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/

That's, you know, they spent a lot of money. Yas gave them $4.7 million. So that's more Yas money in this. So Yas spent over $10 million in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not even if you include whatever he gave Club for Growth. Oh, man.

Imagine having that much money to just blow on stupid campaigns. Like, if I was that rich, that's not what I would spend my money on. Issues you care about or issues you care about. Or issues you care about. Hey, to each their own, right? I'd buy a baseball team. What would you do with, okay, I was about to ask you, what would you do with $10 million? Yeah, I'd buy a minor league baseball team. That's what I would do.

Minor league, really? Yeah, that way I can, well, $10 million is not going to buy you a major league baseball team. It gets you some steak. Okay. But I, I'm talking about actually owning one and getting to call the shots. Like choosing. Got it. An outrageous name, like the rocket city trash pandas.

I mean, the minor league baseball team names are fantastic. El Paso Chihuahuas. That's a great one. You know, up where I'm from, the Toledo Mud Hens. Would you do like some sort of Harambe ode? I might do a Harambe, yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. Well, howdy folks. Welcome to another episode of Smoke-Filled Room.

I'm Mackenzie DeLullo, Senior Editor at The Texan, and I'm here with Brad Johnson, Senior Reporter. Bradley, how's it been since the last time I talked to you about an hour and a half ago? Well, I've been pulling campaign finance reports and looking at spreadsheets for the last four hours, so only so good, I guess. Only so good. And I will give Brad major kudos, which you will no doubt spurn. They, Brad has been working very diligently on these,

on all the information we're going to go over today. This is a pretty numbers heavy data driven podcast. We have planned for today and Brad compiled all sorts of information to try and make this as valuable as possible. So Brad, thanks. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for doing that. It is my job.

It would not be, it would not be me paying you a compliment and you retorting back. If you did not some say some sort of obligatory, it's my job comments. So here we are. Correct. I'm contractually obligated to agree with you there. There we go.

There we go. Okay. Well, folks, let's talk about what our topics are today. We're basically on the front end of the pod, going to spend a little bit of time answering campaign FAQs, frequently asked questions, giving details into staff, finances, contribution rules. We're kind of going to lay the groundwork on how some of the campaign mechanisms work before we dive into the nitty gritty of what money was spent this primary

cycle and who spent it. That's the crux of this podcast. The data Brad's been compiling is all the money that was spent and who it was given to, who spent it. So right off the bat, Brad, we're going to talk about some of the major players in campaigns and what they contribute, what their roles are. I want to talk about consultants on our weekly roundup. In your fourth reading, we talk a lot about political consultants. Let's explain first, in your words, the role of a consultant in a campaign cycle before we dive into a little bit of who the players were. I also real fast want to plug forth reading your newsletter where you dive into so much of this and you talk about the consultants.

And specifically this cycle in both the primary and the runoff, you tallied up a scoreboard of basically who had the best nights on election night. So it's definitely worth reading. Really fascinating. Definitely drew some eyeballs. So it's definitely worth reading. Really fascinating. Definitely drew some eyeballs. So go subscribe to The Texan. Make sure you get access to Brad's newsletter. Fourth reading comes out every Tuesday. But Brad, explain the role of campaign consultants.

You know, consultants exist behind the scenes, on the back end, developing strategy for candidates, you know, choosing where to spend money, how much money to spend on things, advertising of various kinds, whether it's TV ads, mail pieces, radio ads, digital ads, all this stuff. It is a very sophisticated business and industry. And there's a lot of money up for grabs in this. And it's a very competitive industry. You know, you have some firms that are really big players in terms of size and scope. Firms like Axiom Strategies and Murphy Nasica are probably the two biggest in terms of just size of the company. Then you have others that are more, you know, lean, that are leaner

operations. You know, you got, you know, Jordan Berry, Keats Norfleet, Chad Crow. That's a smaller, smaller operation, although it's not a one-man operation. Casey Strategies there. You know, Farrell Gagesdahl, you know, all these kinds of different ones. A new one is Griffin Communications. That's Elliot Griffin. That's a, I think his first cycle was 22. Most of these other guys have been around for a long time. And, you know, as with any industry,

each one is trying to get a competitive edge over the others. You know, there are some lanes, each one kind of fits into one lane or maybe one or two where they all have political ideologies. You know, they generally stick to candidates of a certain stripe, although that's not the case entirely. Some have some crossover, but generally you can put each of them into, you know, one kind of one or two kind of factions or, you know, strands of the party. And we're talking about Republicans here because that's where most of this money was spent. So I guess we should, we should stipulate that up top. But, you know, you have Murphy Nassica that is, they represent the speaker, Dade Phelan, and a lot of his allies in the House, you know, they had a rougher go at this primary. You know,

we all know which direction the political winds flowed. And Murphy-Nasko's clients kind of fell at the rough end of two of those, the Paxson impeachment and the school choice situation. Now, there are others that are involved, but take Murphy. They had the biggest win of the primary, which was Phelan's win in the runoff. So nobody had a horrible primary, which was Phelan's win in the runoff. So, you know, nobody had a horrible primary, like entirely bad. Nobody had an entirely good primary. But we've seen these, we talk a lot about the factions among elected officials or among activist groups. There's also factions among consultants. And some work with certain ones. Others, you know, don't.

And so it kind of dovetails along with the broader fight over the direction of the GOP. But these are the guys that are pulling the strings behind the scenes on a lot of it, whether it's in candidate recruitment or in campaigns deciding what strategy to take. It's a very important aspect of politics, and that's why a lot of these are, you know, if you look on my consultant scoreboard, anyone with a large client base and who racked up more than a few wins, you know, is a pretty good consultant, I would say. It's just, you know, the political winds ebb and flow. And sometimes you're at the short end of it. Other times you're riding high, riding the big wave into a windfall of electoral

victories. It just kind of varies. And this was, as we've talked about, was a very unique cycle. So anything I missed there in terms of consultants? I would just say, very tangibly speaking, a consultant is the campaign advisor, the chief campaign advisor. When it comes down to it, they're the ones pulling a lot of the strings, making a lot of the decisions, putting money in different pots, whether it is for advertising, mailers, staff, whatever it is. The consultant is very much behind the scenes and making those decisions along with the campaign manager, along with the candidate. But typically the consultant bears the brunt of those decisions. The candidate has plenty on their plate. The campaign manager is very much an employee of the campaign and boots on the ground, usually handling campaign staff, block walkers, maybe being the one writing the checks, making sure the ad buys go through,

but the consultant is strategist behind the scenes, ensuring those decisions are made to the best of their ability. And we're going to talk through a few positions here, similar to consultants, in that consultants have clients, right? They are not directly employees of campaigns. It's a different kind of relationship they have with candidates compared to an actual staffer, a campaign staffer, a capital staffer. They have clients and their clients are elected officials. These are the insiders of the insiders. They typically are the ones making sure that mail gets dropped, ads get bought. Like I said, those are decisions that they're making and pulling the strings on. So very different from a campaign manager in that sense. And we can get into that a little bit

later. I also want to talk about fundraisers here very quickly, because I'd say there are kind of three different roles contracted by campaigns. We'd say consultants are the most forward facing. Fundraisers are also very important in this where they can get on the phone with somebody and say, hey, so and so senator wants to sit down with you, you multi-millionaire out of West Texas. Let's sit down and talk about policy priorities, this legislative session. Let's write a check. Like, I saw you write a check for this person. Hey, well, hey, my client voted for that bill too.

Let's sit down and talk about it. So fundraisers are making a lot of those calls, setting up a lot of those meetings, ensuring checks get written for the candidate. And they're also on a contract basis. And you'll see a lot of clients work with the same consultants that work with the same fundraisers. It's kind of clubs, right? So a lot of people have good relationships and it all bleeds into who they work with. Anything to add on the fundraising? Yeah. I don't think, no. Anything to add on the fundraising side. Yeah. I don't think, no. Other than that, I think you nailed it.

Yeah. It's interesting. So we're also going to talk PACs really quickly because a lot of what we're going to be, well, not really quickly. It'll probably take a minute. But a lot of what we're talking about today involves PACs, political action committees. Brad, why don't you go ahead and detail a little bit of the PAC's role in a campaign? So a PAC is, you know, an outside organization, not explicitly, well, I guess some of them are specifically tied to candidates, but they're not,

they're run by another person separate from the campaign itself. You know, some are entirely their own entity tied to special interests. You know, a good example of that would be Texans for Lawsuit Reform or the Texas Realtors PAC. They have their political leanings, they have their kinds of candidates that they like and they don't like, but they're not specifically tied to a candidate.

You have others, though, GPACs like Texans for Greg Abbott that is specifically Greg Abbott's fundraising account. Every candidate has a cash-on-hand account, and that's where you pull most of these elected officials' fundraising numbers from. But Abbott, I'm not exactly sure the thinking behind it, but he raises a lot more money than the average candidate. And so I'm sure in some fashion the GPAC rather than the cash on hand account is more flexible in what he can use it for. For example, he used a lot of this money to go after incumbents, House incumbents, Republicans. And so you have PACs like that.

Then you have PACs that are tied to or aligned with specific consultants. You know, you have the Protect and Serve Texas PAC that's generally tied to Murphy and Asica, not just them. There are other consultants that, you know, looking through finance reports that you can see who's, you know, who have expenditures going to them for various things, whether it's mail and whatnot. And then another example of a category type of PAC is those tied to specific donors. You know, Defend Texas Liberty, Texans United for a Conservative Majority, this would kind of fit that with, mostly fit that with Tim Dunn as the primary donor to those groups. Of course, we've talked before about DTL has been basically mothballed, and now Texans United for Conservative Majority is the group pushing that, or the envelope on that side of things.

DTL was former state rep Jonathan Stickland's PAC. And so the current iteration is TUCM. Another example of a donor-tied PAC would be Don Huffine's Texas Prosperity PAC. So there's all kinds of intermixixing of these things those are the general shapes um you know another example uh tlr is not just as far from just this but dick weakly is the biggest donor he he is i think the chair of tlr you know you have the Associated Republicans of Texas, whose main donor is John Now, who also happens to be Greg Abbott's treasurer. So, you know, I lay out those categories to try and explain as best I can the different kinds of purposes behind these things. But as with anything, you

know, it's more gray than black and white when you're looking at these lines. But that's generally the lay of the land there. Absolutely. And I think in Texas, you know, you have those big PACs that are kind of warring politically on a more state level. And you also have PACs that can come in that are much more policy oriented, that have a certain policy issue they care a lot about. And they'll support a candidate based on a vote or their alignment with those values, that issue, their vote on a bill, whatever it is. But I will say that that is, you know, there are kind of two political stripes there, the more general PACs that

have candidates who support for a variety of issues and like the much more single oriented policy issue PACs that support candidates based on something very specific. And that's also where fundraisers come in and will set meetings with PACs, specifically the more single-issue ones that want to make sure that they touch base with a candidate after a legislative cycle. Okay, in-kind donation. That's some verbiage we're going to hear a lot about today as we get into the nitty-gritty of the numbers. What is an in-kind donation? It is any expenditure that is spent on behalf of a candidate. So, you know, you have, let's take Texans for Greg Abbott.

You know, they spent, they would buy a TV, make a TV buy for a certain candidate. And then because it's not a direct contribution to the candidate, it has to be marked as an in-kind, even though it's just Texans for Greg Abbott spending the money. There's really no role by X candidate in purchasing that. But it still has to be counted as a benefit to this candidate. So that's how it's recorded on the campaign finance reports. Yeah. Did I hit that or anything else you want to add on that? Yeah. I think that's exactly how it works. And it can be like you said, self-funding or from something else. But political campaigns. This is all, everyone's working together on this, right? So even if you have a fundraiser, not all campaigns have a fundraiser that's hired. That's usually the more high dollar

campaigns that have a fundraiser specifically hired. But let's say this campaign has a fundraiser as well. They're all working in unison, hopefully, to try and get big checks written for their preferred candidates. That usually means consultants that have good relationships with certain donors are on the phone with them, soliciting meetings, soliciting checks, whatever that might be. The fundraiser is just very specifically setting up meetings and ensuring, hey, let's send you out to this city in your district or this city outside of your district, or let's send you down to Austin to meet with lobbyists and let's get you a full day of meetings. And this person has a check for you, but they want to meet you in person to give it to you. So hopefully they're all working in

unison. It's not like it's siphoned completely. Consultants are certainly soliciting donors for their candidates, but the fundraiser, if you do have one, is the one that's really ensuring that you have a lot of meetings set up for specific days. Anything to add on that, Bradley? No. You know, I guess I guess I would talk about pollsters then. All of this can be boiled down to the broader fight over the political fight over the direction of the party or just or conservatism or right of center political world. You know, it's a constant tug of war, trench warfare between all these different factions. And there are different points along the supply chain of each faction.

You know, you have the candidate, you have the consultant, you have the fundraiser, you have the pack. Generally, they're just all fighting for an extra few inches of ground with each of these races, and they self-siphon each other into their own. They work together if they're on the same team for whatever it is, you know. Sometimes we see those sands shift like we have seen over the last few years. People who used to hate each other are now, you know, on the same side politically.

It's been, yeah, very interesting to watch unfold. And I will say as well, a lot of like you're saying consultants stick with one kind of Republican, one kind of Democrat that they help elect. And they're all kind of of the same ilk. But occasionally, especially when you have like a newer firm, you're taking who you can get. And so there's a different kind of approach that you can have. You can either be a little bit more in unison with the kinds of candidates that you choose to take on as clients or you can say, hey, we're hired guns. Let's get the job done. I don't care your political stripe so much as I care about the party and beating a Democrat or how much you're paying me. Yeah. An example of that I'd give is, you know, I mentioned Elliot Griffin at the top, a newer firm. You know, he's generally representing clients on the more right side, right wing of the party generally. But, you know, he took on Travis Clardy in the primary. And obviously, Travis Clardy lost. That was one of Abbott's upsets or victories in this school choice fight that we'll talk about. But, you know, that's an

example of not always sticking to just not trying to not to be stuck in one singular box. And that's something these consultants actively try and do. So. Absolutely. And it gives, you know, the potential for bona fides down the line if a big client comes up and says, hey, I want to work with you, but you don't work with this kind of person. Oh, no, I have. I have before. Here's my roster. Talk about pollsters. Brad, this is another type of profession where they have clients and these clients are, you know, they actually can be consultants, but typically these are elected officials that are their clients. Yeah, I'd say this might be the most flexible of the group. Maybe fundraisers fit this too

in terms of being hired guns. It's not always the case. Pollsters generally fit, like any of these others, into one side of the fight over the Republican Party or whatnot. But some of them don't fit that entirely. And I think regardless, you see some of the top pollsters in the state representing people on all kinds of sides. So, you know, for example, I saw at Dean Phelan's election night victory party, I saw Chris Perkins. I think Ragnar, that is firm? I believe so. Okay. One of the top pollsters in the state, and he would argue the top pollsters in the state, he would argue the top pollster in the state, as all these consultants would say about themselves. But, you know, he's definitely up there.

And so he was, you know, clearly doing work for Phelan, it looks like there. He was also, I believe, Connie's pollster when she was in the Senate. So, you know, Phelan and Connie don't really come from the same faction of the party. So there's an example of Perkins doing work across multiple sides of things. And, you know, obviously back then there was not this massive civil war that we see going on right now, at least as intense as it currently is. But I generally, maybe I'm wrong on this, but I generally see them as among the more flexible components of this political industry. And some pollsters don't just do state level work. They

also do national work and they'll work with different advocacy groups, polling on issues. There's a lot that can be done in polls. It's not just, well, candidate A or candidate B be the winner at the end of the day. There's all sorts of polling that goes into well-funded campaigning. And a lot of those are issue-based questions or favorability questions, more nuanced things that then either get slapped on a mailer, put in a television or radio ad, and there's a lot that can be done with polling. So it's far more complex.

And we could do a whole podcast just on polling. Yeah, and I think one more thing I'd say is that, you know, it's incredibly important because it informs messaging decisions. And, you know, you have push-polls that are trying to assert a certain, you know, outcome intentionally rather than trying to gauge what the actual environment politically looks like. And that's generally frowned upon, although, you know, it has its uses for certain things. But generally, you know, these pollsters want to be right because they like saying they're right. They like to be able to point out, hey, I was right. This means you should use me instead of the other guy over there as a client next time.

So there's a lot of personal pride, I'd say, in this along with consultants generally. Absolutely. It's politics. It's egos. It's power. It's win-loss records. I mean, can you get more high stakes and ego-driven type stuff? This is where it's made or broken for so many elected officials. So where they spend their money and how they operate during campaign season, who they choose to pay is a very, very big deal. And I said this a little bit earlier,

I'll clarify. Campaign staff is full-time typically. You can certainly have part-time staff, but a campaign manager would typically be a full-time staff employee of a campaign. Oftentimes, if you are an incumbent, you'll take your chief of staff and put them on a campaign payroll, making sure that they aren't being paid by the state, but they're being paid by the campaign, something that can allow them to work on your campaign. You cannot use state resources to return to your seat. So that's a big part of it. But this is a full-time employee of your campaign, of your candidacy, as in your capacity that they're a candidate or an elected official. And this allows you to have basically a body man, somebody that can keep track of everything that's going on, not somebody who's

split between five, 10, 15 different campaigns. That's typically how that works. They're a little bit more hands-on with the day-to-day of the campaign, not just on the conference calls. Who hires and fires these people? This is certainly up to the discretion of the candidate. The candidate at the end of the day, the elected official at the end of the day is the one making these decisions. But of course, everyone has a different shop set up, right? They may trust somebody explicitly and have them run everything. The hiring, the firing just depends on how it works. And elected officials are so different. So many of them have different ways of running their offices and running their campaigns. So it just depends. Agree. Great. Generally speaking, Bradley, before we get into the money here, was this a high spend election cycle this year? Low spend? Where are we at? It was a very, very high spending election. I mean, it's probably the most expensive Texas primary in a long time, especially one that doesn't have all the statewides at the top of the ballot.

And I'm not even including the federal side of things or at least the U.S. Senate side. That's a different level of money that they bring in, as are the governor's race. But in terms of the legislature and the House of Representatives, maybe that doesn't really count here as much just because redistricting has made so many of those districts just, you know, unwinnable for the opposite party that doesn't hold them. Which just means there's less emphasis for a lot of these races than you'd see otherwise. And there just weren't as many contentious primaries in Congress. You know, we saw Texas 23 go to a runoff. We also saw Texas 12 go to a runoff.

There's a lot of money put into that 23 Gonzalez seat, but most of them, it wasn't anything like what we saw, especially the statehouse. But the statehouse was outrageous. I mean, a lot, a lot of money. You know, probably when everything comes down to it, I guess, like, it's a wide range, but $30 to $50 million. That's a ton. You know, just $12 million in one race.

That's the speaker's race. Just an insane amount of money. Um, you know, house district for a house district, which, you know, normally probably runs. Now that was the speaker's race. So that is an outlier because of how important it is. But you know, a state house district usually probably runs in a primary between maybe on a low end, 75 to 100K to a couple hundred thousand dollars. I think, you know.

I mean, some of them a lot less than that too. It depends. But now we're seeing multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, as the kind of standard bearer for these House seats. And a lot more of them, because of all the overarching political currents, drawing this money in, whether it was Abbott, any other school choice focus groups, or Texans United for Conservative Majority focusing on like Paxton impeachment retribution. It's just, and then the money trying to counter those two, those two waves.

So it was just a flood a tsunami of money and I don't know if we'll ever see that again I mean obviously you know once things kind of the amount of money spent on these things just tends to generally raise each cycle yeah and maybe this kind of resets whatever the the mean or median is. And now the floor is going to be much higher. We might not see as much money. We probably won't see as much money go in this next time in 26. But it has increased. You knock on wood right now. Okay.

We need stuff to cover, so maybe I shouldn't um but you know that i think we've we've reset the floor on what to expect in these house races because of this this primary uh season it will be very easy to set a new normal of a much higher yield than in previous cycles where it's like oh oh, well, we took steps back after the craziness of 2024. But I think this political year, it is fair to say, and we don't say this often, that it has been an unbelievably wild political year. And you look back at everything that's happened. And with an impeachment, the expulsion of a member, school choice, the governor's involvement, it is wild. And so there is reason for this money spent, but it still is interesting. And I'm curious to see, you know, if that will continue into next cycle.

We'll have that much involvement and money spent and hot topics and just different factions of the party warring over very different issues. So, you know, we had members or candidates aligned on impeachment and school choice. And so you'd find Paxton and Abbott on the same side, and then you'd find Abbott and Paxton on different sides in the next race. So it just was very interesting. And I don't know what next cycle will yield, but it could always get crazier. So we'll see. I want to quickly... Well, actually, let me jump in real quick because I just did some very rough math. Let me say that. Very rough on the broader categories that I totaled in the docket here. And I totaled over 80 million dollars. So I wouldn't use that explicitly as you know the

the number of authority on this but you know there's probably there might be some cross-mixing of of the categories that I have here but I mean it's it's an insane amount of money. Yeah absolutely. I mean 80 million dollars was what amount of money. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, $80 million was what Beto O'Rourke spent in the 2018 U.S. Senate race, right? So, insane. Yeah, it is insane. And this is a legislative cycle, so obviously many more seats we're talking about here, but still an unbelievable amount of money for those same state level seats.

And I'll make the disclaimer too, we are, and by we, I mean Brad. Brad crunched these numbers. It's our best estimate. There are certainly room for mistakes. If you catch us in one, please let us know. We did our absolute best tallying these numbers, but there's a lot of, they're overlapping reports, they're crazy numbers and a lot to consider here. So we did our best. We're as accurate as possible. And we'll move forward with those numbers and give you guys as best an idea of what was spent this cycle as we can. Brad, generally, okay, the average budget for like a House seat versus a Senate seat versus a congressional seat. And we also should talk here about how much like the limits of what can

be donated to a campaign that does not exist in Texas on the state level. It does on the federal. And so you'll see a very different campaign budget perhaps for a state senate seat versus a congressional seat depending on the contentiousness of that race. But we're not dealing with campaign contribution caps on the state level here in texas yeah there's no no contribution cap in texas that's why you see you know million dollar donations or um you know a million dollar donation combined with a two million dollar loan in lieutenant governor dan patrick's case i think that's think that was the record largest until we saw Jeff Yass give $6 million to Abbott. So we're on the fast track to a $10 million donation, I think, at some point, which is wild to think about.

But yeah, Texas, there are no contribution limits, and that's why it's so prolific in the political spending that we see. And, you know, where Texas is limited in terms of the scope of the country from which to pull money, now obviously you can raise money from wherever you want. It's just you're not going to have as many interests wanting to spend money in Texas, especially if they're not located in Texas. Whereas in Congress, you can raise money across the country because whatever you do in Congress affects the whole country, at least more pointedly. But on the congressional side, was it now $2,700 or $2,800 individual limits? I think it's – Somewhere in there for individuals.

It's different for individuals versus PACs. But I think it's – Right, right. Yeah, you're spot on. You're close. So – and that's per election. So I'm pretty sure. So $2,700 or $2,800 from an individual for the primary and then another

one for the general. I think I have that right. But, you know, we often see a lot of husband and wife pairings, you know, that each max out for congressional candidates. But, you know, even maxing out there is, it just pales in comparison to what we see on the state level because there's no limit. It's a wild time. You can have a $250,000 check written in the last five days of a campaign and nobody blinks an eye on the state level. It's wild. How often do campaigns report or have to report their finances? Let's specifically talk on the state level.

Okay. So every year, everyone who has an account has to file two semiannuals, one in January, one in July. When you're on the ballot, the filings become a lot more frequent. You know, you have the 30 day before an election and eight day before an election. You have cash on hand reports in between the eight day report and the election itself. Certain PACs have to report monthly. So there's a lot more info there more regularly. You know, for example, on the semiannual side, you know, Abbott, because he's not on the ballot, even though he spent $9 million, at least in this race, you know, he only had to file the January semiannual.

And then he'll have to file the July semiannual. So a lot of these numbers that we're pulling this from come from self-reported, self-reporting candidates in their own filings that are actually on the ballot. So they'll register an in-kind donation from Texans for Greg Abbott, and that's how you pull it there. But everyone will file two semiannual reports in Texas. There you go. Okay. On that note, let's go ahead and, oh, and it's reported to the Texas Ethics Commission as well. That's where all these numbers are run. So this is where we're pulling from. Let's jump into the numbers. I think we've laid 36 minutes worth of groundwork and that's plenty of groundwork. That's what the timer says.

Nitty gritty? Here we go. Let's talk school choice. Walk us through where the pro-school choice money was over a year, that he was going to go full throttle in this regard and hinted at it during the legislative session, was talking about school choice even before session started. I mean, this was where he was spending his time, was trying to get school choice across the finish line, could not during the legislative session after multiple special sessions. The governor called all the legislators back to Austin. This primarily was bottlenecked in the House, where bills met their demise for a variety of different reasons, even with a lot of school funding, teacher pay raises type stuff thrown in. How much did the governor spend trying to get school choice amenable candidates elected to the Texas House.

So from what I pulled from the TUC, it was about $9 million. And six of that comes from Jeff Yass, who is a billionaire. I think he lives in Pennsylvania, if I remember correctly. I think you're right. He's involved in various things. I think he's a tech entrepreneur. That's where he makes his money. He is an he's involved in various things. I think he's a, he's a tech entrepreneur. That's where he makes his money. He is an investor in TikTok.

So that's been, you know, that was something that was a messaging point we saw used against candidates who benefited from the school choice money, specifically from Abbott. That, you know, a TikTok billionaire is trying to buy off this House seat. That was a point of messaging we saw a lot in this race. I think someone called it the Yassification of Texas politics. Maybe that was Patrick's key text before he went to the Washington Post. I think he said that, yeah. Yass also gave to groups like AFC Victory Fund. I think he also gave money to Dan Patrick at the last minute, like a few hundred thousand dollars.

So I would assume the single biggest donor in this whole primary fight in terms of raw dollar figures. So Abbott used that $6 million and used every bit of it plus some of his own money it looks like to give out either direct contributions or in-kind contributions to candidates. And on Twitter I put out a list of the top 20. I won't go through the whole thing. I'll just give you like the top five.

But you can see the whole list on that confounding app. Alan Schoolcraft in HD44, $837,000. Janice Holt in HD18, $837,000. Janice Holt in HD18, $707,000. Mark LaHood in HD121, just under $700,000. Stormy Bradley out in HD, I think, 72 against Drew Darby, $640,000. And then Helen Kerwin in HD58, $592,000. And then Helen Kirwan in HD 58, $592,000. You have to go down one to, I think, number 22 on the list to reach a candidate that did not receive six figures from the governor on this list. So he had lots of money to give out and boy,

did he do it. I mean, it's just prolific spending. And I will say it's worth noting that yes, although the governor did receive $6 million from Jeff Yass, the governor is a prolific fundraiser in his own right. And so if he wanted to spend $9 million of his own money, that would barely make a dent in what the governor has in his war chest. And so if he wanted to spend $9 million of his own money, that would barely make a dent in what the governor has in his war chest. So worth stating that as well. Notable, of course, that he got those, you know, that $6 million from Yass, absolutely. And they were aligned specifically in this policy fight for that objective to be aimed at. But the governor is well within his fundraising prowess to spend $9 million and

change and change and change. The war chest of the governor is notorious throughout the country. He is an absolute fundraising monster. So it just certainly helped, of course, to have only about, according to our math, three million pulled of his own money in that regard. He sits very pretty regardless. We'll see what his July semiannual report says, but his cash on hand at the end of the January semiannual filing was $32 million. There you go. When he's not on the ballot, right? I mean, this is something where he's headed into a primary he cares very deeply about, but he's not on the ballot right i mean this is something where he's headed into a

primary he cares very deeply about but he is not on the ballot and not fighting for his own seat and retention um what about club for growth another big name in texas politics and specifically in terms of spending yeah so club is you know they've been a big player for years now. Dave McIntosh is the guy who runs that out in D.C. It's a federal group. This is not a Texas-focused group. But they've decided to play in this Texas scene, especially this cycle. They've done it before. It's not the first time.

When looking through their reports, I found $6 million in non-federal spending slash disbursements. I don't think that's entirely comprehensive because they claim to spend $8.4 million in the primary and the general in Texas races. So I would take that number. But, you know, they were focused on pro school choice and trying to defeat feeling that was i think that's where they mainly came in they also came in for brent hagenbue in sd30 they ran ads for him but you know club is known for their biting whether it's tv ads or mail pieces. They don't really, they get their hands dirty. So candidates don't really have to. That's kind of their role. We should talk about that too, is how that works is oftentimes if a PAC comes in and wants to run an ad on behalf of a candidate, it'll say,

you know, paid for by Club for Growth or paid for by Associated Republicans of Texas, whoever it is, it'll say the PAC's name. And there is, I'm rusty on my rules here, but there are limitations on how much a candidate or their campaign can know about an ad before it goes up too. So there's this, sometimes you see this happen where an ad is run. It's overtly negative in a way that maybe the candidate is like, dang it. I didn't want to be that negative at this point in the campaign, but there's nothing they can do. And this group just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in that effort for their campaign, which can get awkward. So that is certainly something that

happens as well. You know, an example of this on a much, much smaller scale, I mean, it's not the kind of money that we're talking about with club, but America, American values first pack started running. You know, I've written about it in a few pieces, started sending mail pieces into House districts. It was a very weird situation, like how they selected their, the candidates they were helping or going after in these races was very strange. And really the only thing I could think of was, the tie that made any sense whatsoever was a Liberty County tie. And Liberty County is in House District 18. I believe they were pro-Bales, Ernest Bales in that race, and anti-Janice Holt.

Which is also where Colony Ridge, that incredibly controversial development, is mainly found. So that was a big part of the question surrounding it as well. But they were sending in these very biting mail pieces, you know, with Canada, the person they're attacking with a very Photoshopped unfavorable image. Um, and they, they didn't, there was no coordination that I know of, at least among some of the people they were supposedly helping because some of them were like, why are they doing this? One in particular told me, you know, my opponent is polling in the 30s. You're just giving her name ID. Why are we doing this?

Yeah. Those are the kinds of examples, right, where somebody is like, I'll help, and they go rogue, and it's actually not a help. But the reason that I said Liberty County is that HD18, but also they sent mail pieces for a bunch of local candidates. The sheriff there, I think a county commissioner or two. So it's this very weird situation and this PAC is like based out of Utah or something or Nevada and I got the guy who runs it on the phone and I asked him if he could talk about it and he just hung up on me. But you know, that's among the more shady operations. And that's something that happens with these packs as well. You know, some of them are pretty clear about their intentions and others are very much not so.

And that's usually when you see the more unsavory advertising. And Club, you know, they're very clear what they're about. This is their brand. But man, they didn't pull any punches in any of these advertisements. And they're pretty effective along with, you know, Abbott and the other school choice groups. And sometimes, I mean, this is hearkening back to my ill-fated campaign staff days that I do not miss with an ounce of my soul. But, you know, you'd receive back a mailer from a graphic designer or consultant or whoever it might be, and you'd see your opponent's face photoshopped into oblivion. You're like, this doesn't even resemble the person anymore. They just look like some scary monster. And walking that back is something that a lot of campaign staff has to do, that it would actually backfire to put out something as bombastic as that to purposefully change somebody's image,

which happens regardless. I mean, I can't even begin to go through the examples we have of different ways that that's employed by everybody in politics. Nobody is clean of this. This happens across the board. But it gets dirty and it gets wild. And I would put together a book one day of all the things that have not been sent out by campaigns and then compare it with those that have. And both equally can be bad, but certainly a lot does not make it into people's mailboxes and for good reason. Well, and, you know, I'll add on Club that because it's a federal group spending in Texas,

it's not as evenly distributed as or evenly listed, clearly listed as a TEC report is because, you know, they're spending all over the country. So it's hard to see, it's hard to match donors who are intending to get involved in a Texas race when this is a national group that puts ads all over the place. But I believe, I remember seeing Yass give them a donation when I was looking through a while ago. But it's far from just him.

You know, there's all kinds of donors giving to Club for Growth. And, you know, they're very prolific actors as well in the political sphere. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we could go into this for so long. We're at 48 minutes. We still haven't gone through a lot of people here. AFC Victory.

Let's talk them. AFC Victory is the Americans Federation for Children, I think. Their victory fund, their political arm. And they raised and spent like $8.5 million. We're talking pro-school choice here. That's what we're talking. Them specifically pro-school choice, yes. And actually they might have gone after Phelan as well.

I mean, he was an easy target for a lot of these guys, even though he wasn't one of the ones who voted against the education savings accounts in the House. Their argument is he didn't do enough to push it, but he tried to maintain this neutral, you guys figure it out position. And we saw how that ended up. So AFC Victory, their record they ended up with was like 11-9, I tallied. And that's, you know, they spent a lot of money yes gave them 4.7 million so that's more yes money

in in this so yes spent over 10 million in texas uh yeah yeah and that's that's not even if you include whatever he gave club for growth yeah yeah i don't have a number on that one oh man but yeah so imagine having that much money just blow on stupid campaigns. Like, if I was that rich, that's not what I would spend my money on. Or issues you care about. Or issues you care about. Hey, hey. Oh, my gosh.

To each their own, right? I'd buy a baseball team. What would you do with – okay, I was about to ask you. What would you do with $10 million? Yeah, I'd buy a minor league baseball team. That's what I would do. Minor league, really? Yeah, that's why, that way I can, well, I don't, $10 million is not going to buy you a major league baseball team. It gets you some steak. Yeah, I can buy a part of one, but if I want to be the head honcho. There are a lot of owners of, okay, the head honcho. Well, yeah,

but if I want to be the head honcho. $10 million can get you in the door, my gosh. There are a lot of owners of the head honcho. Well, yeah, but if I want to be the head honcho. But 10 million can get you in the door. My gosh. There are a lot of people who own baseball teams who don't own baseball teams. Okay, but I'm talking about actually owning one and getting to call the shots. Like choosing an outrageous name like the Rocket City Trash Pandas. I mean, the minor league baseball team names are fantastic. El Paso Chihuahuas. That's a great one. You where I'm from the Toledo Mudhens there are a lot of others would you do like some sort of Harambe ode I might do a Harambe yeah that's a good idea yeah um yeah but

yeah I would not put it towards political spending that's for sure got it got it um and you know this this pack specifically is a single issue pack focused on school choice club is not explicitly that um abbott's campaign obviously on this in this race in this campaign was focused on that. But this, like, AFC Victory Fund, it has one purpose for, you know, to flip enough seats to get school choice. And then you have another one of those similarly aligned groups, Family Empowerment Coalition, PAC. They spent $1.6 million. The record I tallied for them was 11-4. You know, this is, maybe I'm missing one or two here and there, but this is pulled from the finance reports where they have to declare who they're for, who they're against. FECPAC, they are funded mainly by Leo Lindbeck and Doug Deason,

two donors, activists in conservative circles in the state, and they have been for a while. But they came out really quick during the school choice fight and said, anyone who votes for this, we're going to help you, and votes against it, we're going to come after you. And, you know, $1.6 million is still a large chunk of money. It's not what those two other groups spent. But, you know, it's nothing to sneeze at. And they focused more on contributions. I think AFC was this as well.

Whereas, you know, Club was doing in-kind spending along with Abbott. These two groups just generally, not entirely, but generally just gave more in direct contributions. Then the other interesting thing with them was they gave to Sean Theory, Democrat House member in HD 146, I think it was. So that caused a bit of a stir and an interesting subplot there. She was embattled over her vote for the child gender modification ban and her speech on the floor supporting the Republican-backed bill. So that's where that came in. What about anti-school choice money?

So the primary one during the primary was the Charles Butt Public Education PAC. It's been around for a while. Charles Butt, head of HEB. And he's been backing the, they're not all more rural, but mainly more rural Republicans who are or have been more naturally opposed to such a policy. He gave $5 million in the primary, and the record that I calculated for him was 8 and 9. So, you know, in previous cycles, that wing of the party has done a lot better. This cycle just didn't happen, you know, for reasons we already talked about. That PAC gave $5 million, $4.1 million of which came from Butt himself. And then, you know, it was a mix of contributions and in kinds. But the notable thing with him, with this PAC was that they pulled out of the runoffs almost entirely.

And, you know, the amount of money they spent in the runoffs was like 50K or something, very small amount. I kind of saw the political winds perhaps at play and decided, hey, our money is better spent next cycle. Yeah, I mean, you know, they kind of got their teeth kicked in and, you know, taking their ball and going home and trying to regroup for the next session to figure out what they can actually get done, whatever it is they want. You know, I'm sure preventing, you know, education savings account plan is not the only thing they want to accomplish.

So, you know, by continuing to be in the fray of the runoff, you know, just making more of an enemy out of the governor. So that's kind of how I see it happening there. Although, you know, the candidates who are in the runoffs who are dependent on this money because they were being very much outspent by all the groups we just talked about for 20 minutes. They were very mad and they felt left out to dry and it caused a lot of ruffles, ruffling of feathers in that circle of things. And we'll see if fences get mended there. Yeah, certainly. Well, we could talk about school choice forever. I do think moving on to the speaker's race is of incredible importance and we'll probably spend a good chunk of time

getting into all of this. This was obviously the big race everyone was watching in the primary, even more so in the runoff with fewer races on the ballot. Walk us through the money spent in the Covey v. Phelan of it all. So Phelan raised $9.5 million. I calculated some of the top donors. The Republican State Leadership Committee, $750,000. Carl Rove and Joe Strauss, former Speaker Joe Strauss, are associated with that. I don't think they run it specifically, but they're involved in running

it. Then you have Las Vegas Sands and Mary Madelson gave $350,000, plus another $500,000 through the Texas Defense Pack. Ray Hunt of Hunt Oil gave Phelan $200,000. The Associated Republicans of Texas gave $200,000. John Now gave $150,000. Now is a beer distributor. That's where he makes his money. He's Abbott's treasurer, and he is the director or chairman of the Associated Republicans of Texas. And then you had Rod Sanders give $150,000. So that's some of the top ones. You know, we've delved a lot into the speaker's race before, so we won't go into the factors at hand in there,

but that's just the spending, the fundraising we've seen. And, you know, it also dovetails. We talked about consultants. We talked about the elected officials, the different sections of the party, and, you know, the broader fight over the direction of this side of the political aisle. Well, that applies to donors, too. You have donors who have stakes in this, and they want to get their guys through just as much as the consultants do or the candidates themselves. And it's fascinating to watch. Obviously, there are many more wealthy people in Texas who are set and would be more than fine donating significant sums to candidates. So it's very interesting to watch who does enter. And in order to

write these kinds of checks, you have to care very, very deeply about whatever it is, whatever angle you're coming at this from. Right. I mean, there are so many folks who opt like you would not to spend their 10 million dollars on school choice proponents and their races. So it's interesting to see who. Why are you smirking? I was going to say, or you have to have so much money, you don't know what to do with it races. So it's interesting to see who, why are you smirking? I was going to say, or you have to have so much money. You don't know what to do with it. Yeah,

it's true. Brad, I have so many things that I could roast you about. And actually I should find more ways to roast you. Cause I got a shout out on Twitter this week saying that my roasting of you was appreciated and should continue. So I'm going to try my best to find ways to continue. Well, you might as well shout him out three several days.

We'll test if he is actually listening to this podcast too. Yeah. Made my day. It's going to go to my head. So thanks. Appreciate it. And I will continue to roast Brad. Well, congrats that, you know, your biggest fans in an anonymous account.

Thanks, Brad. Appreciate it. Him and my husband. Woo! an anonymous account. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate it. Him and my husband. Woo! And my mom. You're thriving. On those notes, Covey. Who gave to Covey?

So Covey raised, and I should say that we might see more money come in when we hit the semianannual in January, but this should be mostly up to date. So Covey raised $2.6 million. $700,000 of that came from Alex Fairley. He's an Amarillo millionaire. I think he runs a healthcare company he was also involved in he first got involved in the fight over the debt maneuver up in Amarillo that was his foray into activist politics and another notable part of this is his daughter

ran 4-1 the HD87 race and is going to be a state rep. So, you know, you have Fairley himself giving $700,000 to the opponent of the Speaker of the House, and his daughter is about to be a member in the chamber of the, you know, the House, the state House. If Phelan remains Speaker, that's probably not going to bode well for Caroline Fairley, the member-elect there, legislatively.

Who knows what happens? Maybe the swords are put down. I don't know if that's the case, though. But anyway, so you have Fairley waiting in there, and he pumped a lot of money into that. I think we'll see him get more and more involved as things go on. Then you had the Texans United for Conservative Majority give $1 million. You had Roger Elswick give $50,000. And that is notable,

I should say. Elswick gave money to various House members, or not House members, challengers to House members. But he was also just appointed the public member on the Sunset Advisory Commission by Lieutenant Governor Patrick, who, of course, was very involved trying to knock off Dave Phelan. So a bit of backroom politicking. I think it's pretty clear that is. Surprise, surprise. I know, right? So backroom politicking happens at all. And I will say too, that a lot of donors end up, and it's not necessarily like tit for tat necessarily, it just usually means people are aligned. But a lot of these people appointed to so many different boards in state government can be appointed by the governor or donors and people heavily involved in support of the governor's efforts.

Oh, yeah. If you look up appointees to most of the positions in the state that are appointed by the governor, you'd probably find them on his campaign finance reports as well. Not all of them, but it's a pretty clear trend I think you'd probably find them on his campaign finance reports as well. Not all of them, but, you know, it's a pretty clear trend I think you'd find. So next on there, you have the Deasons. I mentioned Doug Deason involved in FECPAC. Well, he gave, he and his wife gave $50,000. Then you have John Shields gave Covey 50K, Antonio Attorney and then we mentioned Club for Growth well Club for Growth spent a lot of money on that

race dumping in mailers and TV ads and just blasting the heck out of HD 121 the Beaumont area as as Feel Inside did too. God help those people hopefully they have recovered

from the sheer amount of political advertising that hit their inboxes and mailboxes and TVs. But that's generally the lay of the land there in 21. And obviously that was the biggest part of the broader house fight that, you know, we'll talk about. Millions and millions of dollars thrown into a House race. Makes sense why this cycle with all the factors at play, but it is absolutely crazy. Let's talk then about the House itself, the broader political fight that's

happening in the House. It's where all the action was this primary cycle. The Senate was so boring compared to the House. And I think that's typical as of the political climate in the last several cycles. It's kind of how it's been. But let's talk about where money was spent in these fights for these House seats. So, you know, the first place you got to look when you talk House races is the Speaker. And the Speaker spends lots of money. You know, obviously he was preoccupied with his own race, and that cost a lot of these incumbents money they would have otherwise gotten in donations or in-kind expenditures from the speaker. But he still put a lot of money into these races to try and defend some of these incumbents. Secure Our Border Now PAC was created.

One million dollars between Phelan and Texans for Lawsuit Reform to try and mainly, it wasn't only just this, but mainly protecting incumbent Republicans. And that's something I found odd, and I'm not sure exactly why this is, but it just kind of went dark in the runoff. I don't think they spent really anything. Things kind of shifted in the runoff to the Protect and Serve pack, which spent over $1 million. That's existed for a while. I remember that being a big player in the 22 primaries and runoffs. You know, I mentioned it earlier. It's a primarily Murphy-Nassica related pack. That's not the only firm, though. You know, Casey Strategies and Lawson Strategies I also saw in the finance reports there. But generally, they help that PAC is sending in kind of, you know, club-for-growth type

advertisements on behalf of, you know, the, I guess, the more moderate or less bomb-throwing side of the, you know, Republican candidate sphere, whether it's candidates or elected officials, mostly helping incumbents, I'd say. And then if you look at the funding mechanism, it's primarily candidates themselves donating to the PAC that obviously will then, you know, send in mailers or TV ads on their behalf. So that's a bit different than what we've seen in some of these other cases, but pretty normal for just the general swing of things. Absolutely. I do want to clarify that I do not need encouragement on Twitter in order to want to roast Brad. That will continue regardless of whether I am encouraged. I think that is important to state for the record. So

Brad, don't just think that if you squash somehow all anonymous accounts with your dictator-like power that I would stop because I will not. Well, as we know, I'm in no position to buy off any politicians to ban anonymous accounts. So maybe you can talk to any of these number of people that we're talking about on this, make an appeal to them on this podcast. We'll see what we can do. The anonymous text ledge account world is quite something. That's a subject for another day. It is.

But they fuel the fire. They fuel the fire. Okay, Brad, what is next? Ad um adelson okay let's talk casinos yep mary maddison the widow of sheldon adelson owner of las vegas sands casino empire and she got um she's getting increasingly involved in politics. We saw she just promised to give, or she did give. She gave Ted Cruz $1 million for his PAC. And then I think she promised a lot of money to Donald Trump in the presidential race. Well, she spent, or she at least put $9 million into this Texas House fight, into texas defense pack which cropped up in april and i don't think it's a one-to-one comparison but it kind of filled the void of the charles

butt pack when that stepped away and you know it it backed generally five candidates that i saw on their on their finance reports they spent it looked it looked like $6.7 million. So they didn't spend it all. They put in $1.2 million to John McQueenie, who upset Cheryl Bean in the HD97 runoff after Bean almost avoided a runoff entirely. Spent $500K, sent $500K to Justin Holland in HD33, Phelan in 21, and Frederick Frazier in HD61, and $460K to John Kemple. Clearly this group is

casino-focused. I mean, Adelson would not give them the money if they weren't. They're trying to make some ground, gain some ground on casinos, and they have a lot of ground to gain in order to get something across. Most notably that the lieutenant governor is very much against this, and he's going to kill anything that comes in front of him. But they view this as a long game and trying to legalize casinos in the state. But this is going to be probably central to cycles going forward and a lot of money at their disposal to decide what to do with it. Yeah, absolutely. We'll watch this legislative cycle to see this session to see what actually happens with that policy issue.

Okay, let's talk three very, very big name players in terms of state level politics. These are often warring factions that the heat's been turned up to 10 with these three players. I specifically with two, I'd say the third has always kind of been at odds with, well, let's just get into it. There's a lot we can say about these three big factors. We have, of course, Texans United for a conservative majority, Texans for lawsuit reform, and Associated Republicans of Texas. If you are in and around Texas politics, you are very familiar with who these groups are, who they support, what their realm is. But quickly, Brad, overview of these three groups. So based on what I pulled today, and again, it may not be entirely, it may not be the entire picture, but it's at least most of it. TUCM sent, or raised and spent

$7 million in this race, the vast majority of which came from Tim Dunn, you know, the oil magnate from West Texas that gets a lot of ink spilt about him in the Texas press. And, you know, he's a lot more involved than he had been, you know, 10 years ago. He's very involved and he's got this whole apparatus, this umbrella apparatus, among which is Texans United for a Conservative Majority. Another notable name that I picked out of the donor filings was Elswick that we talked about. He was appointed to the Sunset Advisory Commission, just noting that he also gave to that group. I looked up the Defend Texas Liberty spending from from 22 primary and that it looked like was $8.2 million. Again, that was a rough calculation, but interesting that at least as of now,

unless we get something new or I miss something, maybe I did. They spent less money this cycle than they did last cycle. Again, it's still pretty comparable, though, and that's a lot of money. You know, on some races they were aligned with Club for Growth, specifically the Speakers race. TUCM sent in a lot of money to Covey and spent a lot of money against Phelan. And so the only other aspect of this that I would mention is that in the court of criminal appeals races that we saw that was maybe not quite as red hot as at least as prominent of a theme as these house races were, it was also just another example of – it was just another front of this trench war. And that was over those three seats. They had, TUCM is loosely, you know, tied to Texans for responsible judges. I believe

TUCM gave them that group money and they were successful. They won all three of those races. So, you know, this group rebranded after the scandal with Nick Fuentes and Defend Texas Liberty, and they managed to have a very successful primary by their standards, I'd say. Especially after the Paxton impeachment, they have more political capital than they've had in a long time with more of a track record of success to back it up. We'll see if that continues. This was a very unique cycle. But, you know, they're going to try and continue to gain ground as, you know, the other side of things is going to try and regain ground. Absolutely. Okay. Their best friends, TLR, Texans for Lawsuit Reform. Yeah, I mean, the squabbling between these two groups actually,

from what I know, understand started in 22. You know, it was not this cycle. It was not impeachment. They were fighting it out last cycle. And maybe the one before that, I don't remember that as well. And I think it would be fair to say that for a conservative majority, whatever, you know, moniker they were going by at the time would be supportive of those incumbents. And then TLR would come alongside them in that way. But that's really only the, you know, they still were very skeptical of each other and very distrusting. But it's, I mean, we are way past that. And it's very much a different story now. I mean, one race in the 22 cycle that I remember was very hotly contested between these two sides was House District 52.

Caroline Harris ended up winning that. I think she was TLR backed. And I remember specifically a lot of mailers going in accusing her of being backed by a liberal organization. You know, that's how the language went on the mail or mail pieces um and you know the um i forget the guy's name but um the the one in the runoff that she defeated he was backed by defend texas liberty at the time so you know this is just another chapter on this this you know clash between these two groups tlrLR, of course, you know, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, they were founded to try and bring in tort reform and prevent

frivolous lawsuits. They got it, and now, you know, they still represent business interests, and there are various other issues that the business community wants, but they generally focus on the legal side of things. For example, they just were talking about reforming the Texan Citizens Participation Act that they say has led to just dragging out lawsuits. You know, we saw some among the Texans United for Conservative Majority crowd criticize that, accuse them of trying to strip, you know, free speech rights. And this is just the next front that we're going to see these two groups battle on. But in terms of TLR, $12.5 million spent. A lot of it was just contributions to candidates. That was their main focus here. They got $1.3 million from Dick Weekly. Also, I should say they had, I think this group is the biggest fundraiser in the state.

Abbott is up there pretty close, but even he doesn't have as much money as TLR does, or at least earlier this year did when I looked at the numbers. But Dick Weakley is the chair of the group. I think he was the one that founded it, or at least one of the few people that founded it. He gave $1.3 million. Jeff Hildebrand gave $500K. Brian Sheffield gave $500K. Ken Fisher, Michael Manners and Steven Wynn gave $250,000 but the group had just decades of money piled up to spend however much they wanted

and they still have probably like $30 million cash on hand or something like that, it's just a massive amount of money and then I mentioned the CCA stuff with Texans for Responsible Judges or maybe it for Responsible Judges, or maybe it's Responsible Judiciary, I can't remember. But anyway, TLR, the TLR affiliated group there in that clash that ended up on the losing end of these was the Judicial Fairness

PAC. That was funded primarily by TLR, although also Joe Lonsdale came in, a name I recognized as a donor there. And that was the clash there. So they're going to regroup and try and come at it from a different way, I'm sure. And TLR has always been a heavy hitter in terms of financing. They have, just like you were saying, an incredibly sizable war chest. They're just a big player. Anytime a primary cycle or a general cycle comes around. Okay.

Associated Republicans of Texas. They are the group I was referring to, implying earlier that's always been at odds with the Texans United for a conservative majority faction of the Republican Party. These are typically, you know, two different groups that very much support opposing candidates. So how did they do the cycle? So they spent $4.8 million and contributed $3.6 million to candidates. So, you know, roughly $8 million, more than $8 million on that end of things. One million of which came from John Now, who I mentioned, beer distributor, avid treasurer, head of, at least, you know, yeah, head of art.

He doesn't run day-to-day, but he's very involved. The Republican State Legislative Committee as well gave $850K to ART. Ray and Woody Hunt gave $500K each or in total. And then the Charles Butt Public Education PAC gave them $250K. So, you know, where TUCM is very much on the hard right of this factional battle, ART is on more incumbents or more moderate candidates within the Republican Party. And those two, of course, are just always going to clash, always have, always will. It's a never-ending trench, bout of trench warfare, you know,

trying to gain some ground in a few electoral wins here and a few electoral wins there to try and build enough to get whatever policy it is you want done ultimately. Yeah, absolutely. As it is each and every cycle, but especially contentious it felt this one and especially nuanced with impeachment, school choice, the governor, all at different sides of the – or corners of the – what's the wrestling term? That's what I'm picturing. Different corners of the –

The octagon? Ring? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. You really need to get your sports analogies settled before you go into a podcast. This is a recurring problem from you. Yeah. But yeah.

Yeah. True. I don't have any comeback to that. That's just a fact. And it's embarrassing. Let's move on. It really should be. Especially with how much you claim to be a sports fan.

Okay. I don't i am more of a sports fan than most people in the office that's not saying that much and i care a lot about sports but just because i'm not as obsessed with you as as obsessed as you with different sports things that's true i don't know what i'm saying in the office you are in terms of sports fans you are generally the tallest midget. I'm just not prepared for the next thing that's going to come out of your mouth, especially when you have that face right before you say words. It just freaks me out. Okay, we're going to talk about one Senate district, the Senate of it all, really the only one worth talking about in terms of Republican primary politics, Senate District 30, talk about warring factions, talk about nuance to support. Senate

District 30 is all that and more. Walk us through, Hagenbue ended up being victorious at the end of the day. How much did he spend and how much did he spend himself? Yeah, obviously we talked about it before, but this was just to recap. This was the SD30 race, the Drew Springer seat. He didn't, Drew Springer did not, decided not to run for re-election and Brent Hagenbue came in, filed. He was immediately endorsed by Lieutenant Governor Patrick along with Abbott. TLR also endorsed him eventually, the business owner. He self-funded, largely gave $1 million. Dan Patrick gave him $792,000. TLR gave him $525,000. So, you know, that's not the entire list of donors to him, but that is by far the biggest hitters in this. And, you know, he ended up victorious, but we saw this massive clash

between the more business establishment side of things and the more, if you want to call it grassroots side of things, backing Jace Yarbrough, his opponent, particularly in the runoff when it was just those two. There were four candidates overall, but just those two made the runoff. For Yarbrough, you know, he was outspent by quite a bit. Hagenbue had spent $3.3 million. Yarbrough spent $680,000. You know, there aren't that many names that really stick out when you look out at his donor list. You know, James Stanton, $125, 125 000 that was the biggest donation that i found mark adamson 60 000 um i believe darlene pendry was you know one of the only the other names that that stuck out to

me okay as a you know a typical donor but from what i saw you know there wasn't any very well-known donors involved here, you know, flashing the cash. And it, you know, he managed to put up a really good fight in the primary. He, I think, only lost by, like, three points. But it was, you know, he and the other candidates prevented Hagenbue from getting even close to avoiding a runoff. But ultimately, I think he probably finished about 10 points difference roughly in the runoff. So ultimately, Hagenbue just had more money to spend and it worked for him. And I think it is worth saying as well that when you have the governor, the lieutenant governor, supporting a candidate like Hagenbue, it may deter big donors from

supporting a candidate on the other end of the spectrum. Even if they're pretty politically aligned, it's a primary, they're both Republicans, they're both more conservative Republicans, by whatever definition you determine is accurate for that, right? But if you're a Dan Patrick donor, and Dan Patrick is so ardently campaigning against this guy, and for his opponent, you're likely not going to write a check for him. Whether that is just because you want to maintain a good relationship with the lieutenant governor, you want a phone line open, whatever that means. Now, of course, at the end of the day, also, you are a donor and you can continue to donate to the lieutenant governor. And there

should be a level of respect that's given there because you are giving your money to him, right? So there is, but there's multiple different angles to that. And if you're a PAC specifically, that's where the political capital comes into play. If you're a lobbyist, if you're a PAC, you're not going to be given to, it's much less likely that you are giving to a candidate like Yarborough who is up against big names, even if he is supported by an incredible slew of grassroots activists. And when the lieutenant governor was at the Republican Party of Texas convention, he was faced with that. He went to the Senate districts, gave some speeches, and people chanted Jace's name at the lieutenant governor. So this was certainly very contentious, especially when you see Dan Patrick very much aligned with the grassroots this cycle on a lot of different issues that they're caring about. Aligning himself in that way is kind of an alternative to feeling, a foil to feeling.

To watch this dynamic go down was very fascinating. Well, an example of someone staying out or not getting, choosing a different side than you would think they might, Don Huffines backed Hagenbue in this race. Great example. He endorsed him. When normally, you know, Huffines ran against Abbott. You know, he primaried the governor. He is more from the side of the party that J.C. Arborough is from,

at least as these factions shifted out in this race, yet he backed Hagenbu. And there's a lot of speculation why, but, you know, I think you can chalk it up to not wanting to make an enemy of a lieutenant governor more than he already has, if he has. But, you know, it's... That was an interesting dynamic at play in this race. And, you know, Huffines angered a lot of people And that was an interesting dynamic at play in this race.

And Huffines angered a lot of people that are typically big fans of his. They could probably get over it, but there's a lot of ill will there, and there still is. I've seen in comment sections or chats, people are still pretty angry about it. And we'll see if that gets amended. But that was an interesting aspect of that very odd race. And Patrick is, of course, very aware of that. People's memories, the memories of voters, depending on what happens and how an elected official can placate concerns can be very short. So there is, of course, ways for that to be mended over time. But it'll be interesting to watch. Brad, well done compiling all of this. This was a great run through of everything and you

hammered out the last little bit here very quickly when we had to uh run through all these numbers as quickly as humanly possible and delayed at the beginning so killed it brad well done well thanks you're welcome i want to end with a question yeah well yeah but also you're not good at taking compliments from me either so i never know what i'm going to get with you i just give them regardless because i'm a good natured human being i would like to end with a question on a scale of one to ten how would you rate my uh level of sports fan you being like an eight or a nine um i'd probably say like a five. I think that's pretty accurate. Yeah. Okay. I'll take it. Do you know who players on your favorite teams are?

And big players on other teams. And I'll know like the headlines of the day. Sure, when they're dating Taylor Swift. Oh, that is so offensive. Do you know who Tyreek Hill is? No. Oh, I'm like, okay. Yeah.

Best wide receiver in the NFL or one of the two or three best? Oh, okay. Used to be on the Chiefs with your boy Travis. My boy Travis, my gosh. Ridiculous. No, but I'll know the headlines of the day. I'll talk to you about some big contract or some big draft. I like to know what's going on.

I appreciate it because every other time I talk sports in the office, everybody's eyes just glaze over and it's like I'm speaking Yiddish. Although you do make it harder for me when I don't know something because you roast me severely. So then I feel very demotivated to continue to engage with you in that way. It's not fun to roast someone who doesn't care at all. If I were to talk sports to Rob and he got a question wrong and I said, ha ha, you got egg on your face,

he wouldn't give two hoots about it. He would actually take pride. He would't give two hoots about it. He would actually take pride. He would take pride in knowing nothing about sports. He's actually someone who uses the word sports ball, which is just a contemptible characteristic. No, 100%. I agree. I agree.

Okay, Bradley. Well, thank you for that. I don't feel as roasted as I could have been thanks I'll take it lord in heaven folks thank you for bearing with us on this hour and a half long episode of smoke filled room and we'll catch you next month