Houston Mayor Bill White raised $1.5 million in the third quarter of the year, and hopes to spend that money running for the U.S. Senate. His campaign says that brings the total contributions so far to about $6 million. White's campaign didn't total their spending for the three months ended September 30, or how much money they had in the bank at that point (and the full report was not yet posted on the Federal Election Commission's website. White had $3.7 million on hand at mid-year. Fellow Democrat John Sharp had $3.1 million at that point, and everyone else in the race lagged far behind.
State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, has raised $1 million for a U.S. Senate race, including $254,020 raised during the third quarter and a total of $110,000 she loaned her own campaign. She ended the period with $555,693 in the bank. And she said in a press release that the money will be there if there's a special election for the U.S. Senate, or if she has to wait until Kay Bailey Hutchison's current term ends in 2012.
Former Secretary of State Roger Williams says he leads the declared Republicans in the U.S. Senate race, with $1.3 million raised and almost $900,000 on hand. Exact numbers will be available when his report is.
The reason we stuck "declared" in that last bit is because Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst could hop into the race and change the money rankings. Hutchison hasn't resigned and so Dewhurst has said he'll run for reelection and will reevaluate if anything else opens up. That preserves his current position, since nobody seems eager to run against the richest guy in state office. But it keeps out of some things, like a U.S. Senate candidate forum in Frisco this month. The Texas Medical Association invited all of the declared candidates, a list that doesn't include Dewhurst.
Not all of the federal candidates' third-quarter reports are posted online yet (keep checking here, as we will), but there are some numbers worth noting. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside, got to the end of September with $2 million in his bank account. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, had $1.8 million on hand. Former Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, had $1 million on hand. Only Barton in that group has said he might be interested in running for U.S. Senate, but they've all got more money than most of the people who've said they are running. Of the Texas candidates whose reports are online, only Barton raised big money during the quarter. He raised $1 million in 90 days.