Last night Congress’s oldest member, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) became the first serious trophy for Tea Party insurgents after a long string of defeats in other states. Hall, who was born in 1923, served in World War II and had a lengthy career as a Texas judge and state legislator before first being elected to Congress in 1980, lost in a runoff against former U.S. Attorney Tom Ratcliffe, who pulled in money from anti-GOP establishment sources.

Hall hadn’t had a significant challenge in decades. In 2004 his Democratic opponent spent $197,000, more than anyone in the last seven cycles until Ratcliffe, but Hall bested him by almost $1 million and won the race. This year, Hall had raised more than $1 million as of his most recent filing, but had only spent $615,000. Ratcliffe raised less money than Hall, only about $955,000, but had also spent more, $765,000.

The two candidates faced off in an early March primary, but because Hall failed to get 50 percent of the vote, yesterday’s runoff was scheduled. Between the dates of the primary and the runoff, both men received significant infusions of cash — though how they each restocked their war chests is telling of the type of campaigns they ran and their supporters.

Between April 1 and May 7, Hall raised $401,000 — $83,000 in large individual donations, $169,000 from corporate PACs and $55,000 from the leadership PACs of fellow Republican lawmakers, including many senior members. He picked up only $3,110 in small-dollar ($200 or less) donations.

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Following May 7, Hall received at least $55,000 in contributions above $200 — again mostly from corporate PACs and fellow members of Congress. Hall also loaned his own campaign $100,000, a sizable amount for someone whose average estimated net worth in 2012 was $2.1 million.

Ratcliffe, on the other hand, raised just $142,000 between April 1 and May 7, but almost all of it came from individual donations. Of the $113,000 in gifts of more than $200, at least $107,000 was raised on Ratcliffe’s behalf by either the Club for Growth ($91,899) or the Senate Conservatives Fund ($15,155), anti-GOP establishment groups that tap into their own grassroots followings and collect contributions for candidates. Ratcliffe picked up another $133,000 in large donations between May 7 and the election, including a frenzy of donations on May 19 and 20, indicating anti-establishment conservatives smelled blood in the water.

Ratcliffe did not rely entirely on groups like Club for Growth to tap into anti-GOP establishment donors: He also lent his campaign a significant amount of money, to date about $575,000, which is more than Hall picked up from PACs and colleagues ($539,000.)

Outside money played a smaller role in this race. All told, only $235,000 was spent by outside groups. Hall received modest support from Conservatives Acting Together PAC, a Texas-based super PAC almost entirely funded by Richard Collins, a Dallas investor. The super PAC arms of both Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund spent moderately to support Ratcliffe. But the biggest outside spender, by far, was the Now or Never PAC, a super PAC that spent heavily in some of the most acrimonious election fights of 2012. The group spent $101,000 attacking Hall.

Now or Never PAC has yet to report receiving any donations in 2014, but in 2012, it raised millions from several prominent anti-GOP establishment groups, including $2.5 million from Americans for Limited Government (a dark money group closely linked with New York City real estate developer Howard Rich), $2.1 million from New Models, a mysterious politically active nonprofit, and $1.7 million from the American Conservatives Union.



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