Ted Cruz has hit pay dirt — and he might have Jeb Bush to thank.
In his first week as a presidential candidate, the Texas senator raked in more than $4 million for his campaign account, including $1.5 million from major donors, and he has already brought in hundreds of thousands more dollars since. A herd of super PACs supporting Cruz brought in another $31 million, Bloomberg reported Wednesday — an eye-popping sum that has stunned more than a few competing Republicans.
Bush, a former Florida governor whose powerful family has deep roots in Texas, has factored prominently into Cruz’s pitch to big donors. Cruz and his allies have stressed some urgency in light of Bush’s early success raising money, and have pressed upon potential supporters that Cruz is the strongest conservative alternative to Bush.
“What I tell people is, look, if you’re going to wait, then effectively you’re going to say you’re fine with Jeb being the nominee, because Jeb is going to have plenty of money,” said Hal Lambert, who left his fundraising role with the Texas Republican Party to join Cruz’s campaign as finance co-chair. “For Sen. Cruz to mount a strong campaign and be the nominee, then we’re going to have to raise the money.”
And Cruz has so far delivered impressively, bucking the conventional wisdom that his conservative campaign would be propelled solely by grassroots fuel. In addition to the money Cruz has raised, his campaign has secured commitments from roughly 200 bundlers, who will each bring in at minimum $50,000 (the “federalist” tier) or more than $500,000 (the “founders”).
Some of those bundlers were locked in well before Cruz announced his bid for president. On March 5, Cruz’s national finance chairman Willie Langston emailed donors Steve and Debbie Pfeifer to thank them for joining “Team Cruz” and the campaign’s national finance committee.
“Miles to go before we sleep!” Langston signed his email, approximately quoting the poet Robert Frost.
The Pfeifers would be listed among the hosts for Cruz’s first major fundraiser March 31, one week after he announced his bid for president, at Goode’s Armadillo Palace, a barbecue and music joint in Houston. The country music singer Charlie Robison performed, and Cruz outperformed expectations — bringing in $943,000 from an event that his campaign predicted would net around $750,000.
On the same evening, nearby, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry held a fundraising event of his own at a high-end private residence. Among those in attendance was Judith DuBose, a former Romney bundler — but she and a group of others soon decided to duck out of Perry’s fundraiser in favor of Cruz’s.
“You walked in the door, and it was electric,” DuBose said. “Ted Cruz didn’t have balloons dropping, but he had that kind of energy.” While Perry’s event had been intimate, the crowd size at the Armadillo Palace flirted with a fire code violation, she said.
Perry has taken a hit as many Republicans in Texas who are wary of Bush have looked not to Perry as a natural alternative, but to Cruz. Those have included some of Perry’s former campaign aides — such as Lambert and Lauren Lofstrom, who served on Perry’s fundraising team in 2011 and now is Cruz’s chief fundraiser.
And when Perry’s team trumpeted a roster of top supporters to media last month, many of those listed had not yet committed fully to the former Texas governor — including Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., who has signed on to host an event for Cruz and has already donated earnestly to his cause.
It has not hurt Cruz that he hails from Texas, where Republican money gushes like oil. When Bush’s political committee listed its Texas leadership committee last month, it read like a who’s who of GOP donors in the state. But what stood out to Cruz’s team were the big names that weren’t listed, and how many big donors were not yet locked up.
“As we’ve talked to them, they’ve said they don’t think another Bush should be in the White House,” Lofstrom said.
Cruz already has received substantial support from donors such as San Antonio businessman Red McCombs, a billionaire who supported Rick Perry in 2011; energy executive Kyle Stallings, who will host a fundraiser for Cruz on April 27 at the Petroleum Club in Midland, Texas; and Tom Hicks, who has a long business and political relationship with George W. Bush, having bought the Texas Rangers from him for $250 million in 1998, and has lived in the same neighborhood as George W. and Laura Bush. Hicks will host an event at his home for Cruz on April 23.
Cruz is also finding a well of untapped support outside of Texas. The billionaire investor John Childs, who Boston Magazine wrote is called the “Republican ATM” for his generous donations to candidates and causes, has offered to host a dinner for Cruz in New York.
“While we’re not going to get Jeb’s people, there’s a lot of really impressive people out there,” Lofstrom said.
“It doesn’t make sense for us to spend our time recruiting Ray Hunt,” she added, referring to the oil-man billionaire who is among Texas’ wealthiest, and who is a major supporter of Bush. “Certain people who have come out for Jeb, though, we’re not above saying we’d love to be their second choice.”
Already, Cruz has scored a few banner poaches, such as when he earned support from Stan Herzog, the Missouri CEO of Herzog Contracting, who contributed substantially to Walker’s gubernatorial bids.
Herzog, who shares Show Me State ties with Cruz’s campaign manager Jeff Roe, rang up Cruz’s camp after some of Walker’s remarks left him unsettled. Cruz ultimately won Herzog over — a significant enough boon that Kate Doner, Walker’s fundraiser, called Roe to discuss it.
“I just heard about Stan,” Doner said, according to Lofstrom. “I’m really disappointed. Congratulations to you.” A spokeswoman for Walker declined to comment.
With a wide Republican primary field, many donors have not yet committed to a single candidate, including some who have supported Cruz. The senator will make his case to many of these big donors as he hosts a string of events this month, hoping to multiply the success of his Houston kick-off.
On April 6, an event at the home of John Paul Dejoria, who made his billions founding Patron Spirits and the ubiquitous Paul Mitchell hair care line, brought in roughly $300,000 for Cruz. The following day, Cruz swung by the so-called “Prime Passover Experience” at the St. Regis hotel in Dana Point, Cali., to network with the moneyed Jewish community. Next week, on Wednesday, Cruz will hit San Antonio for an event where hosts will commit to raise at least $25,000.
Of the initial $4 million Cruz raised during his first week as a candidate, $1.5 million came from major donors and bundlers, according to his campaign, including the nearly $1 million raised in Houston — a haul one fundraiser for another Republican candidate called “very impressive.” The remaining $2.5 million in small-dollar donations was brought in from online contributions and solicitations by email and phone; the campaign did not send any mail during its first week.
By March 15, 2016, Cruz’s campaign will aim to raise $30 million from big donors and events alone, Lofstrom said, with another $20 million, at minimum, from the grassroots fundraising side.
“My job is to expand the tent, but Ted comes with such a passionate intense following,” Lofstrom said.
“I think that’s probably a stark difference from a Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum,” who each rose to prominence at turns in 2012 with skeletal staff and a bare-bones fundraising apparatus. “Ted is running out into the field with a lot of people behind him.”
