AUSTIN — The West Texas billionaires who once struck fear in the hearts of incumbent Republican state lawmakers have plunked a bet down in the governor’s race this year.
But while fracking billionaire Farris Wilks and Midland oilman Tim Dunn have had limited success in picking off individual establishment Republicans in the Legislature, their seven-figure wager on Don Huffines to defeat incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott in four weeks seems folly to some.
“That’s probably a poor use of their money,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. “It’s going to be burned by Huffines and maybe it will allow him to win 10% of the vote or 12% of the vote, instead of 8% of the vote. But it’s not going to affect the overall outcome of the race.”
According to campaign finance reports posted Tuesday on the Texas Ethics Commission website, Abbott raised $1.43 million between Jan. 1 and Jan. 20 as he seeks a third term this year.
In the reporting period, Democrat Beto O’Rourke raised $1.31 million; former state Republican chairman Allen West, $332,000; and Huffines, the former one-term state senator from Dallas, $1.1 million.
The lion’s share of Huffines’ haul was $1 million from the Defend Texas Liberty political action committee, given to him on Jan. 19.
That was the same day that Wilks, of Cisco, owner of Wilks Brothers LLC, plowed $2 million into the PAC. Two weeks earlier, Dunn, chief executive of Midland-based oil and gas exploration company Crownquest Operating and the PAC’s other big benefactor, chipped in another $2.3 million. Plano billionaire Ken Fisher, executive chairman of Fisher Investments, who ranks No. 131 on Forbes’ list of the richest Americans, gave $100,000.
Defend Texas Liberty, a two-year-old effort whose first treasurer was conservative Austin lawyer Tony McDonald, followed by former Bedford GOP Rep. Jonathan Stickland, has stayed mostly under the radar.
It backed Dallas hair salon owner and COVID-19 shutdown order rebel Shelley Luther in her unsuccessful bid for Texas Senate in a December 2020 special election. On Jan. 7, it gave $50,000 to Luther for her bid for Texas House, against Rep. Reggie Smith, R-Sherman.
Until this year, the PAC sprinkled decent but not terribly eye-catching contributions on some of the Legislature’s most staunchly conservative Republicans — Sen. Bob Hall of Edgewood and Reps. Bryan Slaton of Royse City, Kyle Biedermann of Fredericksburg, Tony Tinderholt of Arlington, Jeff Cason of Bedford and Matt Schaefer of Tyler. Dunn supplied the bankroll — $290,000.
With the recent $4.3 million infusion from Dunn and Wilks, though, Defend Texas Liberty is peeling off the five- and six-figure checks this year — $100,000 to Slaton, $50,000 to Attorney General Ken Paxton, $25,000 to Fort Worth Rep. Matt Krause, who’s running for Tarrant County district attorney, and $150,000 to Conservative Republicans of Texas, a PAC founded by Houston supplements-industry entrepreneur and social conservative Steven Hotze.
That’s on top of the $1 million it gave Huffines. Though the real estate developer has loaned $5 million to his long-odds gamble he can oust Abbott, until January, Huffines only had managed to coax a relative handful of six-figure checks — from his own family members, Dunn, Dallas architect Scott Hall and Houston retiree Joe Gutierrez.
Meanwhile, since Abbott won his second term in 2018, he’s received $1 million in contributions from Dallas pipeline magnate Kelcy Warren, Dallas telecom entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist Kenny Troutt, Houston road contractor James Pitcock and Midland oilman S. Javaid Anwar — and two $1 million checks from Michael and Mary Porter of Doss. They’re also the GOP megadonors behind the year-old Texans for Responsible Government PAC, giving it $2 million. It aligns with Abbott’s political projects more than those of Huffines, West, state GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi and Stickland.
Attempts to reach Stickland Tuesday were unsuccessful.
No fear?
According to Rice’s Jones, in past cycles, Stickland, Texas Scorecard leader Michael Quinn Sullivan and operatives such as McDonald were able to tap the bankrolls of Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks to generate fear among more conventionally right-of-center state representatives supporting a procession of recent House speakers — Joe Straus, Dennis Bonnen and current Speaker Dade Phelan.
“That’s where they had the biggest effect was in those state House races,” Jones said. “Sometimes they won. Sometimes they lost. But they usually were able to, at a minimum, ensure relatively competitive races between their candidate and the more establishment-oriented candidate they were trying to defeat.”
Attempting to target a statewide officeholder such as Abbott, who reported Tuesday he had $62.6 million in the bank as of Jan. 20, is a poor investment, the professor said.
“It’s not going to affect the overall outcome of the race, nor is it really even going to dent Abbott’s margin of victory,” he said. Every additional million dollars or two that Huffines spends is likely to pull voters mostly from West and a few even less well-known GOP challengers to Abbott in the March 1 gubernatorial primary, Jones said.
“Roughly four-fifths of Texas Republican primary voters like Greg Abbott. There aren’t many fish in that anti-Abbott pond — and to the extent to which there are, West and Huffines are competing for them,” he said.
In recent public polls of the race, Huffines and West trail Abbott badly.
Jones, who helps run a poll sponsored by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, noted that in its most recent survey, conducted Jan. 14-24, Abbott led among GOP primary voters, with 58% to West’s 11% and Huffines’ 7%. Five lesser-known hopefuls drew support of 3% or less.
In the most recent Dallas Morning News-University of Texas at Tyler poll, taken Jan. 18-25, the split was Abbott, 59%; West, 6%; and Huffines, 4%.
Beyond right’s reach?
The Wilks brothers and relatives made a big splash in the 2016 presidential election when they gave $15 million to a super PAC backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who lost the nomination to former President Donald Trump.
For the past decade, Sullivan and McDonald’s former group, Empower Texans, sought to purge “RINOs,” or “Republicans in name only,” from the Texas House.
Sullivan and his financial patron Dunn combined with the Wilkses in a serious vein for the first time in the 2018 cycle. The Wilkses plowed millions of dollars into GOP primaries for legislative seats through Empower Texans, Texas Right to Life and the Texas Home School Coalition, The News reported.
Sullivan’s infamous secret recording of his conversation with then-Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, at the Texas Capitol in June 2019 helped bring down Bonnen, who didn’t seek reelection. Stickland, a favorite of tea party adherents, left the House after the 2019 session. The four-term lawmaker supports Huffines, and is believed to have the confidence of Dunn and the Wilkses.
Rice’s Jones said perhaps the group of staunch conservatives has a longer-range goal. But success on the statewide stage for them this year seems unlikely, he said.
“Not only does Abbott have $60 million on hand, he has the ability to raise as much as he needs,” Jones said.
“That investment in Shelley Luther is probably much wiser and is much more likely to pay off for them than is their investment in Huffines — even though the investment in Huffines is more than 10 times as large,” he said.
O’Rourke vs. Abbott
Looking to the general election, the favorites to win the two major parties’ nominations — Abbott and O’Rourke — are ignoring their primary foes and attacking one another with zeal.
The latest campaign finance reports — “30 day priors” — gave further evidence of a developing theme: O’Rourke has a rock-solid base of small-dollar donors. But as of yet, he’s not taken advantage of the rules in state race that allow unlimited contributions by wealthy individuals.
O’Rourke, who has been running in federal races where individual contributions are capped at $2,900 per election, raised more than $80 million in his 2018 challenge to Cruz in a U.S. Senate race.
But in the reporting period, his biggest donor was Julie Blakeslee, owner of an Austin landscape design firm, who gave him $25,000. David Lee of Houston, a former O’Rourke fundraiser who’s president of the progressive news outlet Texas Signal, and retiree Patricia Walker of Atlanta, Ga., gave O’Rourke $15,000 apiece.
But O’Rourke received 28,600 contributions in the period, more than 9,000 more than Abbott received. The average O’Rourke contribution was $46, his campaign said in a news release. An Abbott release said his gifts in the period averaged $73 apiece.
“By running a grassroots campaign focused on the people of Texas and the big things that they want to accomplish together, Beto has mobilized thousands of supporters to knock on doors, make phone calls, and contribute what they can,” O’Rourke campaign manager Nick Rathod said in a written statement.
Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder noted that his $1.4 million haul for the period included donations from nearly 4,000 first-time contributors.
“I’m proud of the work our team has done and salute the multitude of Texans that have joined Governor Abbott’s campaign to secure the future of Texas,” she said in a written statement.
Abbott’s biggest checks — $100,000 apiece — came from commercial general contractor Chad Merchant of Lubbock’s 7B Building & Development and Anwar, the Midland oilman. Anwar has now given Abbott $100,000 for seven consecutive months.
Sports betting firm’s gifts
Campaign finance reports by Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton underscored how the gambling industry continues to covet a huge market now beyond its reach — Texas, the nation’s second most populous state.
Over two days last month, Joshua Kirschner, vice president for legal and government affairs with Atlanta-based Performance Predictions LLC d/b/a PrizePicks, a sports betting company, contributed $15,000 to Abbott, $10,000 to Patrick and $5,000 to Paxton.
Although at least 25 states have legalized sports betting since 2018, some of the largest potential markets, including California, Florida and Texas, have so far resisted the push to approve sports betting in any form. Louisiana legalized sports betting last year.
In last year’s legislative session, bills to legalize sports betting and destination casinos didn’t clear the very first hurdle — a committee of either chamber. Because the Texas Constitution bans most gambling, the legislation would have needed a two-thirds vote of lawmakers and then the support of a majority of voters to become law.
Some observers, such as Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose team was part of a Sports Betting Alliance last session, have said legalization of sports betting in Texas is all but inevitable.
Patrick, a staunch conservative on both fiscal and social issues who presides over the Senate, is likely the biggest stumbling block. His top political strategist, Allen Blakemore of Houston, lobbied last session for three sports betting companies involved in the Sports Betting Alliance — DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM.
On Tuesday, Blakemore and other Patrick spokesmen did not respond to an email requesting comment.
PrizePicks is an emerging new player in the fantasy-style sports wagering that’s booming. The company’s chief executive, Adam Wexler, 36, a University of Georgia graduate, is a rising Atlanta businessman, according to Atlanta Jewish Times. According to public documents, a Joshua Kirschner attended the University of Georgia from 2009-11.
