‘It’s a wake-up call.’ Sen. Ted Cruz backers react to Beto O’Rourke challenge

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by Kevin Diaz 9/4/2018

 The biggest surprise of the U.S. Senate race in Texas is that, two months out from Election Day, it’s any race at all.

With the polls tightening and a major conservative group making plans to join the fray, the donor network backing Republican incumbent Ted Cruz is taking fresh stock of the national political winds lifting the insurgent challenge of Democrat Beto O’Rourke.

So is President Donald Trump, who has announced an October rally “in the biggest stadium in Texas we can find” to boost Cruz, his most bitter personal rival in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries.

O’Rourke - an El Paso congressman running without PAC money - has surprised the pundits by surpassing Cruz’s prodigious fundraising machine, with $13.9 million banked as of July 1, compared to $9.3 million for Cruz, not counting another $1 million Cruz keeps in two other fundraising PACs.

“It’s a wake-up call that we can’t take this race for granted,” said Texas GOP fundraiser Mica Mosbacher. “There’s no room for complacency at this point.”

Oddsmakers and polls still favor Cruz, but not by much in a year when Trump’s acerbic presidency looms over the midterm elections in November.

Nevertheless, Cruz-aligned donors and some outside groups say they are just starting to line up for what could be an all-out digital and television blitz in the fall, particularly if it looks like Cruz is in any real trouble.

Until late summer, few thought that Texas would even be on the national political map for control of Congress.

“Who would have expected a challenger to be able to out-raise the incumbent senator, Senator Cruz?” said Texan John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “But Senator Cruz, I think, will be adequately funded as well.”

More: https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/It-s-a-wake-up-call-Sen-Ted-Cruz-13203704.php