According to the Dallas Morning News, Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke has outraised former Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz in the last quarter of 2017.  During the 3-month period, Beto O’Rourke has raised $2.4 million, while Sen. Ted Cruz has brought in only $1.9 million. Rep. O’Rourke ended 2017 with $4.6 million on hand. His competition Sen. Ted Cruz, however, has raised a total of $7.3 million in 2017.

O’Rourke told the newspaper in an interview: “The intensity of support and breadth of that support is really encouraging, money is not the most important thing, but it is important, and it will be critical to our chances in the upcoming primary in March and the election.”

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the U.S representative for Texas, and Ted Cruz challenger, is a former singer and guitarist, who together with Cedric Bixler-Zavala (Vocalist for the Mars Volta, and At the Drive-In) was a member of the band Foss in the early 90s. in an interview with Washington Post, he said: “I wasn’t that good at it,”, although he admitted that his father also disapproved his involvement with Foss. “He won’t say it, but the expectation is: We didn’t take out loans for you to go to Columbia and then [play] in a punk band your whole life.” He continued.

Even though since 1988, no Democrat has been able to win the Senate election in Texas, Rep. Beto O’Rourke is looking to defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in the upcoming primary in March and the election.