The race to be the next governor of Texas is heating up, and this time the competition is about who has raised the most money in the last half of 2013. Democratic contender, Wendy Davis claims to have raised $12.2 million, while Republican Greg Abbott reported $11.5. Simple logic says that Davis won that lap, but the Republican camp is saying Davis is employing “fuzzy math” to inflate her total and create positive momentum reported Jay Root for The Texas Tribune.
There’s also friction about the number of unique donors Davis is citing, 71,000, an unbelievably high number, and a legitimate bragging point for the Democrat. Many of the donors are not accounted for in the data because only donations of $50 or more have to be itemized.
“Texans deserve to know who is funding Sen. Davis’ campaign,” said Abbott spokesman Matt Hirsch. “Why is Sen. Davis hiding the source of hundreds of thousands in contributions?” Abbott reported more than 11,000 donations and voluntarily itemized the ones that were under $50.
Abbott carried a $27 million balance forward into 2014, while Davis netted about $9.5 million after expenses.
The rest of the story can be found at the Texas Tribune.
To see an itemized account of donors for Texas candidates, the Texas Tribune created an interactive campaign finance viewer. It can be found here.
