The main super PACs supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign only raised a few million dollars in the second half of 2015, a modest sum that far trails the huge checks they collected in the opening days of the campaign.
Cruz’s super PACs, Keep the Promise, have raised only around $2 million in the second half of 2015, according to two people familiar with the figures. The groups have raised up to $5 million in the month of January, the sources said.
That’s a far cry from the $38 million raised in the first half of 2015, most of which came in the opening days of Cruz’s bid.
That sum for Keep the Promise is a significant slowdown and shows the group has not expanded much beyond the original anchor donors that made the group into a surprise story of early 2015. Three families are responsible for $36 million of the roughly $40 million the super PACs raised in 2015, and it does not appear additional donors of the same scale have been landed during the second half of 2015.
One large donor, Dick Uihlein, gave $1 million to the group in the first week of January. And the super PACs hosted a large fundraiser right before the year-end deadline in rural Texas, giving the major donors there little time to cut checks to Keep the Promise.
The group has been slow to part with its money, and one person familiar with the figures estimated it had spent only a third of the cash it raised. Keep the Promise, like the campaign, is preparing to spend much of its cash as the primary race barrels toward more expensive states.
That stinginess, however, has irked some in Cruz’s orbit who would like to see a more aggressive super PAC. Another newly formed, rival super PAC, Stand For Truth, was started by a top Cruz fundraiser but has yet to report its financial information.
All super PACs will report fundraising and spending totals to the Federal Election Commission by Sunday.