FIRST ON FOX – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appears to be upping his fundraising as he builds resources towards his bid for re-election next year to a third six-year term in the Senate.
The conservative firebrand lawmaker brought in $5.4 million during the July-September third quarter of 2023 fundraising, according to figures shared first with Fox News on Monday morning.
Cruz’s haul is up from the $4.4 million he raised during the April-June second quarter of fundraising and the $1.8 million he brought in during the first three months of 2023. It is also a significant increase from the $3.5 he raised during the third quarter of 2017, the similar fundraising quarter during his 2018 re-election campaign.
The Cruz campaign says they entered October with over $6.7 million cash on hand in their coffers.
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They noted that they had over 34,000 donors, including 10,000 new contributors, spotlighting that the senator’s average contribution during the quarter was $40.30 and consisted of donations from Texans in 240 out of the state’s 254 counties, and from supporters in all 50 states.
“The momentum and excitement to re-elect Senator Ted Cruz could not be more tangible. With $5.4 million raised in Q3, we are seeing more and more Texans animated to re-elect Ted Cruz and ensure that Texas remains the nation’s model state for conservative values and ideas. Democrats better gear up, because Senator Cruz is ready for a hell of a fight to keep Texas, Texas,” Cruz spokesperson Nick Maddux emphasized in a statement to Fox News.
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Cruz has said that his re-election bid next year for a third term representing Texas is “going to be a firefight.” And there’s already a large field of Democrats gunning to win their party’s nomination and face off with him in 2024.
Cruz, who narrowly defeated then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke in a hard-fought 2018 Senate battle, touted in a Fox News Digital interview earlier this year that after former President Donald Trump, “there is no Republican in the country that Democrats hate more than me.”
He highlighted that it is “something I wear as a badge of honor. There is no Republican that they would like to beat more than me.”
Cruz was dramatically out-raised in that 2018 showdown by O’Rourke, and Rep. Colin Allred, the most prominent of the Democrats running to take on Cruz, topped the senator by nearly $2 million during second quarter of 2023 fundraising.
Allred has yet to announce his third quarter fundraising. Candidates for the Senate have until Oct. 15 to file their reports with the Federal Election Commission.
The Cruz campaign announced their third quarter haul and cash on hand as a combined total of money raised across three fundraising entities: Ted Cruz for Senate, which is the senator’s reelection campaign committee; Ted Cruz Victory Committee, a joint fundraising committee; and Jobs, Freedom & Security PAC, a leadership political action committee. The leadership PAC cannot spend funds directly on Cruz’s reelection.
Senate Democrats are defending their fragile 51-49 majority in next year’s elections.
Republicans need a net gain of either one or two seats in 2024 to win back the majority — depending on which party controls the White House after next year’s presidential election.
The math and the map favor the GOP, as the Democrats are defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs, including three in red states and a handful in key general election battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania