Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick holds a commanding money advantage over Democrat Vikki Goodwin with less than three weeks until Election Day, but the Republican is campaigning against her by name and warning supporters that low turnout could cost the party the office, The Texas Tribune reported Thursday.
Patrick, 76, has led the Texas Senate for nearly 12 years. In campaign finance reports filed a month before the election, he had about $24 million in cash on hand to Goodwin's roughly $643,000, according to the Tribune. Through early this week, Patrick had spent nearly $14.5 million on political ads, while Goodwin's campaign had spent $25,983, the Tribune reported, citing the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Goodwin, 59, is a state representative from Austin and a real estate broker who flipped a Republican-held House seat in western Travis County in 2018. Polling cited by the Tribune shows nearly half of voters still do not know her, yet she held a narrow lead in a survey taken earlier this month. No Democrat has been lieutenant governor since 1999.
What each side is saying
Goodwin is running on a larger state share of public school funding and a state-run health insurance option that her campaign says would be paid for in part by a new tax on legal cannabis, which it estimates could raise about $267 million a year.
She has also attacked Patrick's push for a near-total ban on hemp-derived THC products and his long support for publicly funded school vouchers.
"The lieutenant governor, again, is trying to paint me as ultra-liberal," Goodwin told the Tribune.
Patrick's campaign did not respond to the Tribune's interview requests. Sherry Sylvester, a former top adviser who ran his 2018 campaign, called him "the most effective Texas legislative leader since LBJ" and said Goodwin's voting record shows she favors a state income tax and a higher gas tax, pointing to her vote against a proposal meant to make an income tax harder to enact.
