January 29, 2018

The Democrat Challenging Ted Cruz Is Raising Huge Sums of Money

Live-streamed haircuts, early morning jogs, and a whole lot of campaign cash.

Beto O'Rourke

John Glaser/CSM via ZUMA Wire

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No one in America is running a campaign quite like Beto O’Rourke’s. The Democratic congressman from El Paso, Texas, who is campaigning for Senate against Republican Ted Cruz, has turned his underdog bid into a sort of never-ending reality show, broadcasting nearly every campaign function, pit stop, and road-trip musing on Facebook. In August, 12,000 people tuned in to watch him get a haircut.

And O’Rourke is, literally, running. On Sunday, he kicked of a 24-hour live-stream event by going to a park in Houston for what is becoming a campaign trail routine—a 5:45 a.m. jog with supporters. People actually showed up:

The day culminated with a 1:30 a.m. town hall meeting at a coffee shop near the University of Texas at Austin, followed by a trip to the airport for a flight back to DC.

The most enticing Democratic opportunities this year in Texas are probably further down the ballot, but O’Rourke’s unorthodox campaign is kind of working. On Sunday, as he was somewhere on the road between Houston and Austin, his campaign announced it had raised $2.4 million in the last quarter, its biggest haul to date.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that a Texas Democrat raised a lot of money—there are a lot of people in Texas, and many of them are even Democrats. But this is the second time O’Rourke has out-raised his opponent, and he trailed Cruz by just 8 percentage points in the most recent poll. The smart money is still on the Republican incumbent in Texas. But if you need more evidence that the Resistance has hit Houston hard, look no further.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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