The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
● WI-01: House Speaker Paul Ryan's Wednesday retirement announcement dropped like a bombshell, but it didn't take long for local Republicans to recover from the shock and start expressing interest in Ryan's now-open suburban Milwaukee seat. The filing deadline isn't until June 1, however, and the primary will be in early August, so there's still plenty of time for the field to develop—on both sides. Wisconsin's 1st District moved from 52-47 Romney (whose running-mate that year was Ryan) to 53-42 Trump, but Ryan's departure should give Democrats a larger opening.
Campaign Action
State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was mentioned as a possible candidate almost immediately, and he said he would decide on a bid by Friday. However, Vos' timing is poor: Just this week, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that he was among several lawmakers from across the country who had taken a free trip with lobbyists to London last summer. Ohio state House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger announced he was resigning this week in the midst of an FBI investigation that reportedly includes an inquiry into this trip, though Vos himself denies he's been contacted by the feds about it. Still, not good.
A number of other Republicans are also possible candidates, though Vos' decision could have an impact on who runs. Attorney Bryan Steil, a member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and a longtime Ryan friend, said Wednesday that he was giving the race "serious consideration." State Rep. Samantha Kerkman also said she was interested and would decide in a couple of days. The Wisconsin State Journal adds that state Sen. David Craig, who is a former Ryan aide, is "rumored" to be interested.
The Huffington Post also writes that senior House GOP aides have "floated" the name of Andy Speth, Ryan's deputy chief of staff, but there's no word on his interest. A local GOP operative also speculated that state Sen. Leah Vukmir could abandon her Senate bid and run here instead, but there's likewise no sign she's considering this. However, one big name we can cross off the list is Reince Priebus, the former RNC chair who briefly (and haplessly) served as Trump's chief of staff before getting fired after just half a year on the job. Priebus definitively said on Thursday he was a no.
Two Democrats were already running against Ryan before his departure, but a familiar name is also expressing interest. Assemblyman Peter Barca, who served as his party’s minority leader from 2011 until last year, said Thursday he was "going to give it some thought,” and that he planned to decide within days. Barca, then as now a member of the Assembly, won a previous version of this seat all the way back in 1993 in a tight 49.9-49.3 special election against Republican Mark Neumann, but he lost their rematch 49.4-48.8 during the next year's GOP wave.
Barca returned to the Assembly in 2008 and became minority leader two years later, after Democrats lost the chamber. However, after he was one of just three Democrats to vote for GOP Gov. Scott Walker's much-criticized $3 billion tax incentive package to lure the electronics company Foxconn to the Milwaukee area, members of his caucus publicly criticized him, and he stepped down from his leadership post.
But no matter what Barca does, it may be tough for anyone else to gain traction in the Democratic primary. Iron worker Randy Bryce entered the race last year with a popular announcement video, and he's been a strong fundraiser (though more on that later). Bryce, who has played up his blue-collar background, has the support of Bernie Sanders, and the DCCC recently added him to their Red to Blue list for top candidates.
However, Bryce does have some potential liabilities. He only paid off some old debts, including $1,300 in child support and a $2,000 loan from almost two decades ago, well after he kicked off his campaign. Bryce also got himself into trouble in October when he tweeted a picture of Ivanka Trump with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau captioned, "Don't worry @jaredkushner regardless of what might go down - she'll be okay. #MuellerTime."
It's hard to know what exactly Bryce meant by this—Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale said it sounded like Bryce was "suggest[ing] Ivanka will hook up with Trudeau, or something, if her husband gets arrested"—but whatever he had in mind, the reaction was sharply negative. Bryce eventually deleted the tweet and seems to have become more disciplined since then, but this kind of shoot-from-the-lip style could cause him more trouble on the campaign trail.
And while Bryce has raised indeed a tremendous amount of money, he's also spent a tremendous amount of money, far ahead of Election Day. Bryce raised a total of $4.75 million through March, but he had only $2.3 million left in the bank. That's still an enormous war chest for a House campaign, but critics have questioned his high burn rate, including some odd expenditures like a January cable TV ad buy … that ran in Seattle and San Francisco.
The other Democrat in the race is Cathy Myers, a member of the Janesville School Board. Myers has earned significantly less attention than Bryce, and she's also raised far less money. However, Myers did say she brought in $500,000 during the first quarter of 2018, though she did not make her cash-on-hand totals available yet.
Senate
● CA-Sen: A super PAC called A Progressive California, which is backed by the state and national nurses' unions, is airing a new 60-second TV ad in support of Democrat Kevin de Leon, who is running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The spot starts by dinging Feinstein, with news clips noting that she failed to win the state Democratic Party's formal endorsement earlier this year, then features footage of the senator calling for "patience" with Donald Trump and insisting he "can be a good president."
It then switches to an extended clip of de Leon's speech to the same party convention, where 54 percent of delegates gave the challenger their support, compared to just 37 percent for the incumbent. In his remarks, de Leon throws heavy shade at Feinstein without ever mentioning her name, saying he was "never fooled into believing that Donald Trump can be a good president." He also outlines a list of policy preferences, including Medicare for all and support for sanctuary cities. The size of the buy is not known, but it sounds fairly small, since the PAC says the ad "will air across Los Angeles on cable news this week."
● MO-Sen: A new poll from Mason-Dixon finds Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill with a narrow 45-44 edge on state Attorney General Josh Hawley, her likely Republican opponent. There hasn't been much reliable polling out of Missouri this year, but those numbers exactly match the results of a PPP poll from January.
Interestingly, despite widespread conventional wisdom that McCaskill must be disliked in her home state, she posts a 41-39 favorability rating, not that far off from Trump's own 44-38 score—and this in a state he carried by 19 points. If anything, it's Hawley (who is still unknown to a lot of voters, with favorables at 33-23) who's on the defensive. Democrats have been linking him to indicted Gov. Eric Greitens, who now hovers on the edge of impeachment after the release of a chilling report from a legislative committee detailing his involvement with a woman he's accused of blackmailing.
That report finally prompted Hawley to call on Greitens to resign, but Greitens is still shrieking that all the accusations against him are "lies" and that he's the target of a "witch hunt." It sure sounds like he's not going anywhere unless he's forced to, and that only makes it harder for Hawley to put any distance between himself and the governor.
● NJ-Sen: Monmouth gives Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez a huge 53-32 general election edge over former Celgene Executive Chairman Bob Hugin, not too different from the 49-32 lead Quinnipiac found last month.
Voters aren't exactly enamored with Menendez, whose 2017 corruption trial ended in a hung jury (the government later dropped the charges), but they're not furious with him, either: Menendez posts a 37-38 approval rating and a weaker 28-35 favorable score, while a significant number of voters don't have an opinion about him for either category. Hugin is almost completely unknown, but he has the money to get his name out. Still, it doesn't look like enough voters in this blue state want to give Menendez the boot to give the Republican an opening.
Gubernatorial
● CA-Gov: The Public Policy Institute of California takes another look at the June top-two primary, and they find little movement from a few weeks ago in the race for second place. The results are below, with PPIC's March numbers in parentheses. Note that this poll identified the candidates by their ballot designation, which we've also included next to their names here.
Lieutenant Governor/Businessman Gavin Newsom (D): 26 (28)
Businessman/Taxpayer Advocate John Cox (R): 15 (14)
Public Policy Advocate Antonio Villaraigosa (D): 13 (12)
Assemblyman/Businessman Travis Allen (R): 10 (10)
California State Treasurer John Chiang (D): 7 (6)
Education/Youth Advocate Delaine Eastin (D): 6 (5)
While Newsom began 2018 with more money in the bank than all his opponents combined, a group backing Villaraigosa (who is better known as the former mayor of Los Angeles but is not allowed to identify himself that way on the ballot) has the resources to make a push for him. Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018, which is group sponsored by the California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, recently received a $7 million donation from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Villaraigosa has frequently come into conflict with teachers unions, which helps explain why charter school supporters like Hastings are pushing for him.
● CO-Gov: Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, who ran an aborted campaign for the GOP nomination earlier this cycle, endorsed state Treasure Walker Stapleton on Wednesday. Tancredo, who has made his name as an anti-immigration zealot, has a base of support with GOP activists in Colorado, and his support could give Stapleton a boost at this Saturday's party assembly (also known as the party convention).
Stapleton needs the support of at least 30 percent of the delegates if he wants to be on the June primary ballot, and while it looks like he'll meet this threshold, conventions are too unpredictable for anyone to be sure. Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and a few lesser-known candidates are also depending on a good showing on Saturday to make the ballot, while wealthy businessman Victor Mitchell and former investment banker Doug Robinson decided to collect signatures so they could skip the assembly. Stapleton also turned in signatures, but he had them thrown out this week and accused the company he'd hired of engaging in fraud.
● FL-Gov, FL-Sen: Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has released new internal polling from PPP of both the Democratic primary and the general election for Florida's open gubernatorial race, as well as some numbers for the Senate matchup between Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott.
Levine has led the pack in fundraising and has also tapped some of his immense personal wealth, allowing him to blitz the airwaves early. It's therefore no surprise to see that he's out in front for the Democratic nomination, taking 29 percent while former Rep. Gwen Graham is in second place with 21. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, meanwhile, is well behind at 8, and businessman Chris King takes just 4 percent. However, it's a long way until the Aug. 28 primary, and a 36 percent plurality of voters are still undecided.
Levine also pitted himself and Graham against the two main Republican candidates, state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who's more of the establishment type, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, a member of the nihilistic Freedom Caucus who has the Club for Growth's backing. The matchups are all pretty tightly clustered, which makes sense, given that all of these candidates remain largely unknown to most voters:
- Levine: 42, DeSantis: 37
- Levine: 41, Putnam: 37
- Graham: 40, DeSantis: 36
- Graham: 37, Putnam: 36
Most heartening, though, are the Senate results, which have Nelson up 50-44 on Scott, who just joined the contest earlier this week. Nelson is better-liked than Scott, with a 47-37 favorability rating compared to 47-46 for his opponent. Notably, though, Trump doesn't fare especially poorly here, with a score of 46-48. In a way, that's actually good news for Nelson: If he's up 6 points even if opinions on Trump are just about equally divided, then it means he doesn't have to count on Trump being totally toxic in order to prevail.
Perhaps the best sign of all, though, is the fact that a pro-Scott super PAC called the New Republican PAC released its own poll to push back on PPP's, but their results only put Scott up a single point, 47-46. What's more, the survey was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a firm so notorious for its terrible results that the NRCC reportedly warned campaigns away from hiring them after they epically blew Eric Cantor's 2014 primary defeat. The fatwa seems to have since been lifted, as various McLaughlin polls have trickled out over the years, but why use them when you could use literally anyone else?
● IA-Gov: Gov. Kim Reynolds now faces no opposition in the June GOP primary, but she's taking to the airwaves early anyway with her first TV spot. Reynolds narrates and says she and her husband "used to wave goodbye in the driveway as we took turns leaving for work and watching the girls," explaining he worked days and she worked nights. Reynolds describes her story as the Iowa story, and says it's why she's cutting taxes and "paving the way for new, good paying jobs."
● MO-Gov: The Missouri state House released its investigative report on Wednesday that, among other things, featured a woman describing in detail how Gov. Eric Greitens restrained, exposed, and photographed her without her consent and coerced her into giving him oral sex. Plenty of Greitens' fellow Republicans want him gone, but it may take a while before the state is free of him.
Just before the report was released, the governor gave a press conference declaring that it was all a "political witch hunt," so don't expect him to go quietly. Greitens' trial for felony invasion of privacy charges is set to begin May 14, and as Carolyn Fiddler writes in our latest This Week in Statehouse Action, legislators may wait for a conviction before they try to impeach him. In any case, the leadership plans to call a special session after the regular session’s adjournment on May 18 to consider the matter. If Greitens resigns or if forced out, Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Parson will become governor, and he will serve until Greitens' term ends in early 2021.
While Greitens had a horrible relationship with the legislature even before his scandal became public, GOP members still seem to want to wait until they have enough political and legal cover to oust the nominal leader of their party. However, a few notable Show Me State Republicans have made it clear they want him gone now. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mike Kehoe became the highest-ranking state Republican to call for him to resign.
Businessman David Humphreys, who was a top donor to Greitens 2016 campaign, also told him to get lost. Attorney General and Senate candidate Josh Hawley and Rep. Ann Wagner also called for him to quit, and while Rep. Vicky Hartzler didn't explicitly tell him to resign, she said his alleged behavior isn't "befit for a leader in Missouri or anywhere else for that matter."
And believe it or not, there may be even more shoes left to drop. The state House is also investigating whether Greitens' campaign improperly obtained a list of donors from The Mission Continues, a charity for veterans that Greitens founded and ran until stepping down the year before he began his run for governor. On Wednesday, transcripts from the House Special Investigative Committee on Oversight's meetings revealed that they would publish their report on this at some point in the future, but it's not clear when.
● OH-Gov, OH-Sen: On behalf of the conservative group 1984 Society (while the organization holds itself out as nonpartisan, their name is a reference to the year the GOP took control of the state Senate), Fallon Research takes another look at both parties' May 8 primaries. The group says the polls were commissioned to give lobbyists and businesspeople a better idea of where to spend their money in the next month.
In the Democratic race for governor, former state Attorney General Richard Cordray leads former Rep. Dennis Kucinich 28-13, while no one else takes more than 5 percent. On the GOP side, Attorney General Mike DeWine leads Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor 43-26 for governor. Polling has been very limited for all these contests. Last month, SurveyUSA found a 21-21 tie on the Democratic side, while DeWine held a stronger 50-18 lead over Taylor
Taylor soon released her own primary poll from Remington Research, which showed her trailing DeWine "just" 42-32. DeWine and his allies have been airing plenty of negative ads against her, so even if the contest isn't as close as Taylors' poll says it is, he's certainly acting like she's a threat.
Fallon Research also tested the GOP primary for Senate, where Rep. Jim Renacci holds a 22-7 lead over businessman Mike Gibbons; Renacci edged Gibbons 21-10 in last month’s SurveyUSA poll. Gibbons is also out with a new TV ad. It's a pretty conventional spot featuring Gibbons telling an audience that he's a businessman and not a politician (Pro Tip: If you're asking people to elect you, you're a politician. End of story). He also denounces earmarks and says that no one "Who comes to this country, illegally, should have some special path to being a citizen."
● PA-Gov: Businessman Paul Mango recently launched a negative ad against state Sen. Scott Wagner that called him, among many other things, a "deadbeat dad." Wagner, who is Mango's main rival in the May 15 GOP primary, is now out with a response ad staring his daughter, where she tells Mango that he's "not half the man my father is," and calls for him to "[T]ake down your disgusting ad and apologize."
● SC-Gov: While the American Future Fund has spent $500,000 so far on GOP primary ads for former state cabinet official Catherine Templeton, the candidate herself is now up with her first TV spot. Templeton tells the audience that the media called her a buzzsaw "because I fired over 100 bureaucrats, took on unions and won, and beat the Obama administration when they tried to take our jobs." Templeton then bemoans how career politicians increase spending, "leave us with billion-dollar nuclear [power] boondoggles, and then cover their corrupt … you know whats." Templeton doesn't directly mention Gov. Henry McMaster, the guy she's hoping to beat in June.
House
● CA-39: Businessman Andy Thorburn is out with a poll of the June top-two primary from the Democratic firm the Mellman Group, and they find a very chaotic state of affairs:
Former state Assemblywoman Young Kim (R): 13
Businessman Andy Thorburn (D): 11
Navy veteran Gil Cisneros (D): 11
Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson (R): 10
Former state Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff (R): 10
Pediatrician Mai Khanh Tran (D): 6
Former Commerce Department official Sam Jammal (D): 4
Democrats have openly fretted that Republicans could grab the two general election spots and hold this seat by default, but this poll indicates that the GOP should also be concerned about a top-two disaster. And with so many candidates from both parties on the ballot and turnout still a very big question, both parties have every reason to be nervous about June.
● CA-48: Former Nestle executive Michael Kotick announced on Tuesday that he was dropping out of the June top-two primary and endorsing real estate company owner Harley Rouda, a fellow Democrat. Team Blue became nervous about being locked out of the general election in March when former Orange County GOP Chair Scott Baugh launched a surprise bid against GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and national Democrats have been looking to winnow their field. Architect Laura Oatman also dropped out and backed Rouda last month, though it's too late for either her or Kotick to remove their name from the ballot.
● FL-15: Several Republicans have started making noises about running to succeed retiring Rep. Dennis Ross in this central Florida district, but no one has committed yet. State Sen. Tom Lee, who has been considering a run for state chief financial officer, expressed interest almost immediately, and state Sen. Kelli Stargel soon said she was also eyeing the seat. Stargel also told the Tampa Bay Times that state Rep. Colleen Burton also was considering, though Burton hasn't said anything publicly yet.
But wait, there's more! Former state Sen. Ronda Storms, who is currently running for the state House, told the paper that "people have asked me to consider it, but of course it's all premature," which isn't a no. Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacy White also said he would think about it, but only if both Lee and Storms didn't run. State Rep. Ross Spano is currently campaigning for attorney general, but his spokesperson didn't rule out the possibility that he'd switch races. The filing deadline is May 4, and the primary will be in late August.
This seat went from 52-47 Romney to 53-43 Trump, but it could be a Democratic target in a good year. However, Team Blue doesn't have a strong bench here, and Hillsborough Democratic Party Chairman Ione Townsend said she doesn't "know of any other possibilities" aside from the six candidates who were already running against Ross. Navy veteran Andrew Learned looks like the frontrunner, but he didn't raise much money before Ross retired or attract much national support. However, that could change now that this race looks more enticing for outside groups.
● MN-08, MN-02, MN-03: Minnesota Democrats will hold their endorsement conventions on Saturday in three competitive congressional districts, and they could play a big role in deciding who wins the August primary.
The biggest contest to watch is in the 8th District, where a number of Democrats are jockeying to succeed retiring Rep. Rick Nolan in his competitive northeastern seat. Three candidates have pledged to drop out of the race if they lose the battle for the party's endorsement, which requires winning the support of 60 percent of delegates: former state Rep. Joe Radinovich, North Branch Mayor Kirsten Kennedy, and former FBI analyst Leah Phifer. State Rep. Jason Metsa and retired Duluth news anchor Michelle Lee, by contrast, have not ruled out continuing on to the primary regardless of what goes down at the convention.
The local political tip-sheet Morning Take recently examined the state of play and reported that Nolan and his allies want to prevent the endorsement from going to Phifer, who had launched a challenge to Nolan before he decided to retire. It's not just about personal pique, though. Phifer's detractors are worried that her opposition to local mining projects and her weak fundraising will harm Democrats' chances in the general election against St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber, the likely GOP nominee.
Morning Take writes that Phifer has done well at preliminary caucuses, but unnamed insiders think she's unlikely to win more than 40 percent of the delegates. They also think that Radinovich is more organized than Kennedy and will have the edge against Phifer, though it's possible no one will take the endorsement. These same sources also say they doubt that Metsa has the support of more than 10 percent of the delegates. Of course, these highly unofficial whip counts are subject to a lot of uncertainty, and conventions always have the power to surprise.
That said, the other two Democratic conventions taking place Saturday look considerably more settled. In the race to take on GOP Rep. Jason Lewis in the 2nd District, Morning Take writes that 2016 nominee Angie Craig is the heavy favorite over high school football coach Jeff Erdmann, who has had trouble raising money. They say the same thing about businessman Dean Phillips' prospects against Tonka Bay Councilor Adam Jennings in the neighboring 3rd District, where the Democrats are trying to unseat Rep. Erik Paulsen. Both Craig and Phillips are on the DCCC's Red to Blue list for top candidates.
Note that not every district will hold a convention this weekend. Both parties will host conventions in the open 1st District, where Democratic Rep. Tim Walz is leaving to run for governor, on April 21, and they'll likewise both gather for their statewide conventions, where they'll vote on endorsing candidates for governor, the first weekend of June.
● NM-02: The political arm of the House Freedom Caucus has endorsed state Rep. Yvette Herrell ahead of the June 5 Republican primary in New Mexico's open 2nd Congressional District, where she'll face off against former state GOP chair Monty Newman. While the Freedom Caucus spends almost nothing on campaigns (guess they're too busy shutting down the government and destroying our credit rating), their endorsements do offer a helpful guide to filtering Republican candidates and understanding who's the most nihilistic of them all.
● PA-01: Former JAG attorney Rachel Reddick is joining philanthropist Scott Wallace, her main rival for the Democratic nomination, on the airwaves ahead of Pennsylvania's May 15 primary. But where Wallace confined his attacks to Trump, Reddick instead directs her fire at Wallace, suggesting she thinks he's the front-runner. "Who can we trust to stand up to Trump? A Maryland multimillionaire?" the narrator sneers as Wallace's name and photo appear on screen, "or Bucks County's own, Democrat Rachel Reddick?"
The spot then briefly mentions Reddick's career as a navy prosecutor and calls her "an advocate for domestic violence victims," but then pivots back to hammering Wallace. The narrator declares Wallace "isn't one of us," claiming that he was registered to vote "at his mansion in Maryland" until last year and had asked for absentee ballots to be sent "to his home in South Africa, in a gated luxury estate." Suggesting she's a better tribune of progressive values is a risky approach for Reddick, though, since she had been registered as a Republican until just last year.
● PA-05: The large Democratic field in Pennsylvania's 5th District keeps shrinking with the departure of attorney Dan Muroff, who dropped out of the race on Thursday. Muroff candidly declared that he saw "no clear path to win the nomination," though he declined to endorse any rivals. There are still a ton of Democrats running here, and to keep track of them all, you can consult our handy Pennsylvania House races cheat-sheet.
● SD-AL: Ah, lovely: We've got ourselves a Republican candidate for Congress who's openly rooting for a violent terror attack on American soil. Here's a new recording of South Dakota state Sen. Neal Tapio, one of several Republicans running for his state's open congressional seat, describing what he sees as his path to victory in the GOP primary:
"And then all that has to happen is that there will be one more terrorist attack between now and then and I will be the, just by the Trump effect, I will be the candidate. That's the way I look at it."
Of course, Tapio has in mind Islamist terrorism—white nationalist terror directed at, say, people of color or abortion clinics probably wouldn't float his boat quite so jauntily. Indeed, in a screamingly unapologetic response on Facebook, Tapio shrieked:
Where the hell do you think this hateful and deadly ideology comes from? Does it come simply by accident? Or from a few extremists who "misinterpret" the true Islam?
Give me a break.
To suggest I am advocating for a terror attack is a disgusting smear and you should be ashamed of yourself. Anyone that would even suggest that is a vile and disgusting individual not worthy of being taken seriously.
Then what exactly did he mean when he said "all that has to happen is that there will be one more terrorist attack" and he'll win the Republican nomination? We're just dying to know.
Grab Bag
● Statehouse Action: This Week in Statehouse Action: The Cruelest Month edition features the latest on a bombshell legislative report detailing Gov. Greitens’ horrific actions in Missouri, the end (probably) of the GOP’s attempts to trigger recall elections in Nevada, efforts by Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania to ensure they get the partisan gerrymanders they rely on for power, good recruitment news for Democrats across the country, and more!
Never miss a state politics update—sign up here to have This Week in Statehouse Action delivered hot and fresh to your inbox each Thursday!
● Where Are They Now?: On their way to prison, if they're Steve Stockman. The former representative from Texas (who was elected to two extremely non-consecutive terms in 1994 and 2014) was convicted on Thursday of 23 felony counts of wire fraud and mail fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations. (To his credit, he was acquitted on one count of wire fraud.) The 61-year-old Stockman potentially faces "decades" in prison.
The charges stemmed from accusations of spending $1.25 million in charitable contributions that he'd collected on decidedly non-charitable projects, including financing campaign expenses for his long-shot campaign against John Cornyn in the 2014 Senate primary (which, after some initial hype, turned into a confused, desultory effort where he got pasted in the final results). It also paid for hiring one of his operatives to volunteer in the office of a Republican state legislator that he worried was a potential rival, in order to perform surveillance.
But most of the money went to personal expenses that, cumulatively, sound like something he'd win in a messed-up Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right, including "hot air balloon rides, kennel bills … a new dishwasher, a pricey New Orleans hotel, flights to Africa, rehabilitation for alcoholism ... and a trip to Disneyland."