Democratic Congressman Colin Allred announced his campaign raised more than $30 million over the last three months, outpacing his opponent, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who raised around $21 million during the same period.
Both candidates have raised $132 million collectively since the start of the race, which is expected to be one of the most expensive Texas Senate races in the Lone Star state's history.
Allred has so far outpaced Cruz in every quarter. His campaign reported collecting 1.8 million individual contributions and $68.7 million in total receipts since its launch, along with contributions from 252 of Texas' 254 counties and an average donation of $36.57. In the press release announcing Allred's third-quarter fundraising results, campaign manager Paige Hutchinson voiced confidence less than a month from the elections, saying "This November, Colin Allred will send Ted Cruz packing for good."
Cruz closed out the third quarter – which ran from July through September – with $16.2 million cash across his three accounts, which include a leadership PAC that cannot spend directly on his reelection and a joint fundraising committee that sends money to Cruz's campaign account, the Texas Tribune reported. The amount of cash available for Allred's campaign at the moment is unknown.
While fundraising totals are positive indicators of overall support, they weren't enough in the 2018 Texas Senate Race, as then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke vastly outraised Cruz and then lost with 48.3 percent of the vote to Cruz's 50.9 percent.
The Hill reports Cruz's allies predicted that Republicans would spend between $50 million and $100 million to defend the GOP senator and that Democrats would spend $100 million to $150 million to defeat him.
The fundraising news comes as Allred and Cruz face a narrowing gap in their race to the Senate, which Cruz has led from the start. A recent poll conducted by Emerson College, The Hill, and Next Media shows Ted Cruz leading Allred by 4 points, 49 percent to 45 percent, with 6 percent undecided.
According to the poll's results, 44 percent of voters view Allred favorably, 40 percent view him unfavorably, and 15 percent said they hadn't heard of him. For Ted Cruz, the poll found that 50 percent of voters in the state have an unfavorable view of the GOP incumbent, while 48 percent have a favorable view of him.
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