Saturday, October 13, 2018

BETO O’ROURKE RAISES RAKES IN $38 MILLION BUT POLLS DON’T LOOK GOOD

Beto O’Rourke Raises Rakes In $38 Million But Polls Don’t Look Good

 October 13, 2018  
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The Democrats have been betting big on scoring a signature win and nothing could be bigger than beating incumbent Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.
The party has staked its hopes on Robert Francis O’Rourke who goes by the nickname “Beto” in the hopes that he will be the giant slayer who will begin to fulfill the longtime dream of turning the Lone Star state blue.
As a member of the House Of Representatives since 2013, O’Rourke has slowly emerged as one of the progressives who is making headway in the party by advocating for policies that are borderline socialism but have a great deal of appeal with the younger voters in the party’s base.
Beto’s insurgent campaign has been greatly aided by national media attention as well as a staggering amount of money that has flowed into his coffers – much of it from out of state – and he thanked supporters for the nearly $40 million that came in last quarter.
In one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate contests this year, Democrat Beto O’Rourke raised a record $38.1 million during the third quarter in a bid to oust Ted Cruz, a prominent Texas Republican who made an unsuccessful run for the White House in 2016.
O’Rourke announced on Friday his eye-popping financial haul over the last three months. It was more than three times the amount raised by Cruz and set a new quarterly fundraising record in a Senate race.
The funding was the most a Senate candidate has raised in a quarter since Rick Lazio, a onetime Republican member of Congress who hauled in $22 million in the third quarter of 2000 in a failed contest against Hillary Clinton for a Senate seat in New York, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Last week, Cruz said his campaign had raised more than $12 million during the third quarter and predicted, correctly, that his rival’s take for the period would top $30 million. During a rally in Texas where he announced his own fundraising success, Cruz said of O’Rourke: “If you wanna raise money from Hollywood liberals, there ain’t nothing better. But that’s not Texas.”
O’Rourke’s unprecedented fundraising caused a stir on social media, with many commentators noting that it outpaced what high-profile presidential candidates have raised in a quarter in the past.
O’Rourke has also benefited greatly from overwhelming support by Hollywood liberals and was recently endorsed by movie tough guy Robert DeNiro as a legitimate threat to President Trump.
But it is questionable as to whether Beto’s bulging bank account will translate into success on November 6th as recent polls are showing Cruz starting to pull away in the aftermath of the savage character attacks on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Worse for Beto?
There is some grumbling from fellow Democrats that with his own political hopes dimming that he isn’t sharing the wealth by passing some of that money around to them for their own campaigns.
With red-state Democratic Senate candidates dropping in the polls, a growing chorus of party officials is suggesting that Mr. O’Rourke share his bulging war chest with other candidates and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“It’s great that O’Rourke has inspired so many people and raised so much money, and if he can spend it all effectively in Texas, he is well within his rights to do so,” said Matthew Miller, a veteran Democratic strategist and Texas native. “But he could have a huge impact for the party by sharing some of it with the D.S.C.C. so it could be spent in states where candidates just need a little extra to get over the hump.
“It will be bad for everyone, Beto included, if he finishes his race with money in the bank when that money could’ve helped elect Democrats in Missouri, Tennessee or North Dakota,” Mr. Miller added.
Aggravating Democrats further are reports that Mr. O’Rourke — not through any direction of his own — is receiving money from grass-roots supporters in states that also have competitive races. This has included word of an upcoming O’Rourke fund-raiser in Missouri, where Senator Claire McCaskill, the incumbent Democrat, is straining to survive a challenge from Josh Hawley, the state’s Republican attorney general.
If the NYT is correct, then Beto’s stardom could spectacularly backfire but it’s difficult to get donors fired up over candidates who don’t have the clout with celebs or the media presence that he does and there could be much finger-pointing of the “blue wave” fails to materialize as promised.
Election day is now just over three weeks away.
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