Texas - Political Piggy Bank

Texas does not lead the nation in political donations, at least not yet. California has that honor, but Texas is not far behind. So far, in this political season, California donors have coughed up about $16.9 million for presidential candidates. Texas is close behind, having donated about $16.2 million. And we haven't even gotten into the election year of 2012 yet. Here are the top five states in donations:

California...............$16.9 million
Texas...............$16.2 million
New York...............$10.4 million
Florida...............$6.5 million
Massachusetts...............$5 million

There hasn't been a lot of presidential campaigning in Texas for quite a while. That's because primary-wise Texas is not an early voting state, and most of the time the races have been decided when the voting in Texas takes place. However, the Texas primary was moved up to March a few years ago and this years Republican primary might actually go that long without being decided. So there might be a few visits to Texas by some of the Republicans looking for votes anywhere they can get them.

As for the general election, Texas will probably be ignored again. Texas is a solidly Republican state, and almost no one expects President Obama to carry Texas. That means it's unlikely for the candidate of either party to waste their time coming to Texas -- especially when there are so many other states that could actually be in play.

But even though the candidates won't spend much time in Texas, they know there is lots of money to be had here, especially for Republicans, and their campaigns will be working as hard as they can to get their share of that money. As Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, says, "Texas is consistently one of our four or five greatest sources of political cash. Texas is full of big givers and every candidate knows it."

Here are the candidates who have received money from donors in Texas:

Rick Perry...............$9.7 million
Barack Obama...............$2.4 million
Mitt Romney...............$2.1 million
Ron Paul...............$662,099
Herman Cain...............$254,002
Michele Bachmann...............$200,000
Jon Huntsman...............$134,750
Newt Gingrich...............$122,740
Rick Santorum...............$47,525
Gary Johnson...............$36,400
Jared Blankenship...............$33,800
John Thune...............$19,550
Randall Terry...............$7,300
Mike Pence...............$5,200
Thaddeus McCotter...............$3,250