Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa have signed up far more donors than their Republican opponents in the Texas suburbs, the fast-growing counties around the state's biggest cities where Republicans have long made up for their losses in the urban cores, according to a Newsweek analysis of campaign finance records. Between July and September, Talarico raised more than twice as much as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from individual donors in 19 suburban counties around Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. In the governor's race, Hinojosa had more donors than Governor Greg Abbott in all 19, and by more than 10 to 1 in seven of them, including Collin, Williamson and Denton.
Early voting starts Monday. Polls have Talarico narrowly ahead in the Senate race and the governor's race close to even, and the suburbs are where Republicans have the least room to give. Mark Jones, a political science fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, told Newsweek that Republicans "rely on running up the numbers in the suburban areas to make up for the losses that they always experience in the big urban areas like Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio." "If Paxton doesn't do better than he's doing right now in the suburban areas, he may very well lose," he said.
Newsweek reviewed every itemized contribution from individual Texas donors in the Talarico and Paxton campaigns' third-quarter reports to the Federal Election Commission, which cover July 1 through September 30, and in the Abbott and Hinojosa campaigns' 30-day pre-election reports to the Texas Ethics Commission, which run through September 24. Each donor's ZIP code was assigned to the county it mostly falls in. Paxton's campaign also reported about $3.5 million in small contributions without donor addresses, which are not included.
Newsweek reached out to the Talarico, Paxton, Abbott and Hinojosa campaigns for comment. Talarico's campaign reported $11.5 million in itemized contributions from about 38,000 Texans in the third quarter. Paxton's reported $4.3 million from about 8,300.
About 10,200 of Talarico's donors live in the suburban counties, and together they gave $2.6 million. Paxton had about 2,600 suburban donors and $1.1 million. Talarico raised more in 16 of the 19 counties, while Paxton came out ahead in Parker County, west of Fort Worth, and in Waller and Chambers, two lightly populated counties on the edge of the Houston area.
Collin County, north of Dallas, gave Talarico $480,000 from about 1,850 donors and Paxton $223,000 from about 490. Williamson County, north of Austin, split $503,000 to $100,000. Even in Montgomery County, the Republican stronghold north of Houston that includes The Woodlands, Talarico raised $220,000 to Paxton's $162,000.
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