We can add Kel Seliger in SD31 to the list of Republicans being attacked by Empower Texans as we head to the general. Rather than “money from Austin”, it’s switched up to money outside his district. #txlege Tim Dunn and ET World seems like they are really mad about wasting all that money on Mike Canon.
$349k - Empower Texans
$50k - Kyle Stallings
$20k - Texas Right To Life
$20k - Tim Dunn
$10k - Dick Saulsbury
#txlege

Tim Dunn and Empower Texans are sending out letters to folks in House District 2, attacking Dan Flynn, the Republican incumbent. Yes, thats right. The republican incumbent is being attacked by the extreme end of the republican party as we near the general election. #txlege First off, Empower is telling people to use transparency texas . org for campaign finance data. This is a site with campaign finance stuff, but what they don't tell you is that Empower Texans owns the site. Show up for data, read Empower propaganda. Not very transparent. #txlege

Since Jessica was good enough to bring up Paxton and Empower and declare "He's their man", I thought I pull together a mini-thread and few pie charts to help illustrate that fact. #txlege

https://twitter.com/jessicashortall/status/1033337582501945344

In the 2014 election cycle, Ken Paxton was running for AG for the first time. From 01/01/2013 - 12/31/2014, Paxton raised:
$8,323,245 from 3,951 donors
$4,443,856 (53%) from the top 100 donors
$1,098,470 came from ET World (DOES NOT include a $1,000,000 loan from ET) #txlege

Looks like Texas Alliance For Life is doing "pay to play" advertising for some candidates.
02/25 - Mailer supporting Jason Villalba $11,886
02/28 - Villalba donation for $12k
02/28 - Mailer supporting JD Sheffield $10,483
06/08 - Sheffield donation for $11k
#txlege And then there is a $17k donation from Texas House Leadership Fund to Texas Alliance For Life on 03/14. Right after TAFL had spent $16,657 on mailers for Capriglione & Cosper ($13k on 02/28), and Clardy ($3.6k on 03/02), all candidates that THL had supported. #txlege

I've looked at the 19 Empower Texans candidates still on the ballot. Some serious money pouring in, dominating a candidates finance report. It's even more startling when you see the 23 candidates who didn't advance in the primaries.

https://twitter.com/christackettnow/status/1029116095171624965

#txlege 23 Empower Texans endorsed / funded by the ET World candidates got knocked out in the primaries. There was A LOT of money poured into these candidates from all across ET World. The graphic shows you just how much ET World filled up their coffers vs regular folks. #txlege

What will follow is a snapshot of the contributions and donors to each Texas Senate race. I'll post the candidates by Republican, Empower, and Democrat. Pies will be added in fits and starts, but all will be in this thread. SD2
Bob Hall (E) running against Kendall Scudder (D)
Since 01/01/17 raised $1,382,313
657 donations
$2,103 avg
ET / TRL - $503k (36.4%)
ET9 - $208.5k (15%)
ETR - $269k (19.4%)
ET World Total - $980.5k (71%)
Top Donors
- Empower Texans ($393k)
- Dan Patrick ($247k)
#txlege

Time for an Empower Texans candidate (ETs) snapshot. ETs are on the ballot as Republicans, but I separate them due to donor mix. What will follow is a snapshot of the 19 ET endorsed House candidates still on the ballot (23 endorsed / funded ETs are out). #txlege As you read through the thread, I'll be using shorthand to save characters.
ET / TRL = Empower Texas and Texas Right To Life. Both are funded by the same folks.
ET9 = Top 9 donors to Empower Texans
ETR = Big $ donors / campaigns who exclusively give to ET candidates

All profiles on the site are fully updated through the SemiJul report. Some links to jump right to the charts:
TX House Contributions - bit.ly/txhousecontribs
TX House Rankings - bit.ly/txhouserankings
TX Senate Contributions - bit.ly/txsenatecontri…
(cont) #txlege (cont) All profiles on the site are fully updated through the SemiJul report. Some links to jump right to the charts:
TX Senate Rankings - bit.ly/txsenaterankin…
TX Statewide Contributions - bit.ly/txstatewide
TX Statewide Rankings - bit.ly/txstaterankings
#txlege

A few updates on what's happening with my christackettnow webpage / dashboards. I'm changing the structure on some of the pages, which I hope will keep the info just as clear, but allow a deeper dive if that's what you are looking for. I'll detail changes below. First up is a new page for Texas statewide races. I had done posts about statewide elements, but had not dedicated space on the site for them. That has changed. Gov, Lt Gov, Commish (RR, Ag and Land), Attny General, & Comptroller are all captured. bit.ly/txstatewide #txlege

Time for a quick, back from vacation, wanting to drop something on a Sunday night kinda thread. First off, I've got a new page added to the site with statewide races (Lt Gov, Attyy General, Ag Commish, Land Commis) which you can access here: bit.ly/txstatewide #txlege Pulling from the consolidated data from 01/01/2017 through 06/30/2018, let's see where the money / donors etc stands in the 4 races I've got queued up.

Guess what? Empower Texans did an unexpected 10 days After A Change In Campaign Treasurer report which had Tim Dunn give another $500k. Let's get a quick reminder of what the Empower Texans donor mix has been since 01/01/2015. #txlege Updated donors to Empower Texans PAC since 01/01/15
- $6.5MM total
- $2.67MM Tim Dunn (40.7%)
- $2.4MM Wilks family (37%)
- $448k Kyle Stallings (6.8%)
- $302k Mayes Middleton (4.6%)
- $297k Dick Saulsbury (4.5%)
- $413k EVERYONE ELSE (6.4%) (471 people)
#txlege

I’ve been almost exclusively focused on the Texas House races, with some emphasis in the Senate, nothing on the statewide races. With the SemiJul reports out, let’s rectify that. Let’s open with @DanPatrick and @CollierForTexas in the Lt Governor race #txlege On the SemiJul report, there are some striking differences in donor counts, both unique donor and total donations.
Dan Patrick
- 378 Unique donors
- 418 Total donations
Collier
- 804 Unique donors
- 1798 Total donations
#txlege

Wrapping up the Top 20 lists with the Empower party.
If you want to see part 1, the Dem list, it's here:

https://twitter.com/christackettnow/status/1016117596536688642

And here is part 2, the Rep list:

https://twitter.com/christackettnow/status/1016154961309323264

There are 6,568 unique contributors to Empower candidates running for Texas House. How much of what candidates have received has come from the Top 20 Empower donors (which we can hopefully all agree would be “Special Interests”)? Remember, top 20 is 0.3% of the total donors. /2

Last thread we agreed that top donors to any party are the "special interests" who are working to gain influence for their goals and issues with candidates in a party. I detailed the Dems last time. Now lets get a good look at the Republicans. #txlege /1

https://twitter.com/christackettnow/status/1016117596536688642

There are 9,133 unique contributors to Republicans running for Texas House. How much of what candidates have received has come from the Top 20 Republican donors (which we can hopefully all agree would be “Special Interests”? Remember, the top 20 are 0.2% of the total donors. /2

If we can agree that the top donors to any party can and should be thought of as the special interests, I'd like to build upon my data from yesterday and illustrate the candidates who are (or aren't) being funded by those top donors. There are 8,724 unique contributors to Democrats running for Texas House. How much has each candidate received from the Top 20 Democrat donors (which we can hopefully all agree would be “Special Interests”)? Remember, the top 20 are 0.2% of the total donors. #txlege /2

I've finally got every Texas House candidate who will be on the ballot in November updated in the database at christackettnow.com. Now that it's all in, it gives us an interesting look at how the parties have raised money through the run-offs. #txlege /1 Let's start with the overall. $30 million has gone into Texas House races since 01/01/2017. Your top contributor to House races is Empower Texans, with $2.3MM, which is 8% of the total. Here are the top 20 in a pie chart (including the overall total) and bar chart #txlege /2

A friendly reminder that Empower Texans / Wilks World were the primary donors in @KenPaxtonTX's 2014 election. There is a reason he always sides with them. #txlege @NelsonforTexas @drdrbrockman @mentack

https://twitter.com/mentack/status/1012756713571803141

In the 2014 Primaries, @KenPaxtonTX received $1,576,366. Who was his largest donor, with 19% of the pie and $302,470? You guessed it! Empower Texans #txlege

A new page is on my site. I've added Dollar Rankings for both the House and Senate races. I've still got a few candidates I'm in the process of adding, but the lion's share of the data is all there. #txlege House - datastudio.google.com/reporting/16lb… And here is the Dollar Rankings page for the Senate races. This one is a little behind the House version, but it will continue to be updated. #txlege Senate - datastudio.google.com/reporting/16lb…

I've seen the press release where Empower Texans is doing their best to try and spin the 05/22 elections. I can't see how last night was anything other than a TOTAL disaster for them. #txlege (1) Looking at their 05/14 PAC filing, I've isolated all of Empower Texans spend directly related to the 05/22 elections. I've put all of the costs into a pie chart. The orange slices of the pie are where they won. The blue shaded pie slices are where they lost. #txlege (2)

Spending too much time wading around in the Runoff reports and I noticed something that struck me as odd. It has to do with Empower Texans and donations to Jonathan Stickland. #txlege If you look at Stickland's filings from the past year, SemiJul17 and SemiJan18, he has taken in $299k. None of it has come from Empower. Lots of it from the usual Empower donors, but none from the mothership.

A propaganda story in HD08, told in 4 pictures #txlege This propaganda story from the Young Conservatives Of Texas PAC for HD08 was sponsored by Empower Texans, who have provided McNutt with contributions of $300k this reporting period (59.7% of his total) and the other ET connections who have given another $155k (31%) #txlege