AUSTIN — Democrat Beto O’Rourke raised $7.2 million in the first 46 days of his campaign for governor, more than any previous Democratic gubernatorial hopeful in Texas took in “during the opening days of their race,” O’Rourke’s campaign announced Tuesday.
Previously, O’Rourke said he raised slightly more than $2 million in the first 24 hours after he said publicly in mid-November that he would try to unseat two-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
That means between Nov. 17 and the end of the year, O’Rourke raised more than $5 million.
Abbott, a prolific fundraiser, said in mid-November that he raised nearly $5 million from Sept. 7 to Oct. 19.
O’Rourke has received more than 115,600 contributions, his campaign said. Donations came from across the state, and 80% of the total haul was from online contributions.
“I’m grateful to everyone who helped us raise more than $7.2 million in the first weeks of our campaign,” O’Rourke said in a written statement. “While Abbott is taking million-dollar checks from the CEOs who profited off of the grid collapse, we’re receiving support from people all over Texas who want to ensure that our state finally leads in great jobs, world class schools and the ability to see a doctor.”
O’Rourke referred to a Bloomberg report last July about how, during the February 2021 arctic blast and electricity grid failure, natural gas producers in the Permian Basin “began to drastically reduce output days before power companies cut them off,” setting off a wild upward spike in prices. According to the state’s official count, the storm and its aftermath killed 282 Texans, including 126 in North Texas. By some estimates, the freeze caused the deaths of as many as 700 state residents.
For five days of the storm, as millions of Texans were without water and power, and electric generators scrambled for supplies of gas, natural gas companies commanded $8.1 billion for their product that fuels electricity generating plants and $3 billion in sales to utilities that sell natural gas for heating and cooking, Bloomberg said after reviewing public records and interviewing energy executives.
Citing a Citigroup analysis, Bloomberg said that Dallas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners gained the most of any company from the price spike during the storm, $2.4 billion. Energy Transfer, though, said years of investment meant it was able to keep its pipelines running and sell gas from storage, providing critical supplies when others could not. Its prices were fully negotiated and set by the market, the company said.
In late June, Energy Transfer executive Kelcy Warren gave Abbott’s campaign $1 million. In both 2019 and 2020, Warren wrote $250,000 checks to Texans for Greg Abbott.
O’Rourke has criticized Abbott for meeting for much of a day last month with one group of energy executives after another, to discuss the grid’s resiliency this winter. O’Rourke has said Abbott failed to crack the whip and make natural gas weatherize their facilities, to prevent another round of blackouts.
However, Abbott has insisted he and the Legislature passed 12 laws to prevent a repeat of the 2021 disaster. Electricity generators have 15% more capacity this year than they did last year, and the grid manager will move more swiftly in advance of storms to balance supply with demand, he has said. In late November, Abbott told Austin Fox 7 that not only have his new appointees to the Public Utility Commission required weatherization by generators, he’s heard many natural gas company chiefs say that they are weatherizing, too.
“I can guarantee the lights will stay on,” Abbott said.
Candidates in state elections who are filing their “January semiannual” reports of contributions and expenditures online have until midnight Tuesday to submit those reports to the Texas Ethics Commission. The commission has up to two business days for campaign finance reports to be available on its website.