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As of now, Ted Cruz (and maybe Donald Trump) lead the GOP field, Ben Carson is going nowhere, and Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabeee aren’t making a comeback. Note: See the first part of this story for important data and explanatory information. WHY TED CRUZ (AND MAYBE DONALD TRUMP) ARE THE GOP FRONT-RUNNERS If you believe in the predictive validity of fundraising numbers, Ted Cruz is actually the front-runner in this race, with Donald Trump his only serious competition. Cruz is the only candidate who has shown that he can extensively raise hard dollars from both large and small donors,...

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is fiercely guarding its libertarian base against GOP rival Ted Cruz, producing the harshest pushback yet to the Texan's efforts to consolidate conservative support in his own bid for the White House. As the two candidates crisscrossed this key presidential proving ground Monday, the rift remained on full display, with Paul's campaign all but suggesting Cruz's team was trying to buy the support of libertarian voters. Paul has a long history with the liberty movement, a campaign spokesman said, and "no amount in any bank account can...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/13/usa-today-gop-power-rankings-cruz-rises-fiorina-falls/73861114/

One of the surprises of the election season has been Ted Cruz’s phenomenal fundraising numbers. He was out-raised by Ben Carson in the third quarter, $20 million to $12 million, but doubled Marco Rubio’s $6 million haul. And Cruz’s momentum shows no sign of letting up: A source with the campaign tells me that between the start of the fourth quarter on October 1 and close of business on Friday, October 9, the campaign had raised $1 million. A spokesman for Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose third quarter numbers were underwhelming, said he’s on track to have the best fundraising...

Sen. Ted Cruz raised $1 million in the first nine days of the fourth quarter, according to his presidential campaign. The number shows that his fundraising operation appears to have thus far outpaced the previous quarter's results and has momentum. "It certainly shows what kind of incredible support and enthusiasm we have for our campaign," said campaign manager Jeff Roe in a statement touting the October fundraising numbers. "But more than that, we have made the right investments in our fundraising infrastructure that ensures a sustained ability to raise the resources we need to be competitive in the early states...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign raised $12.2 million in the third quarter, more than twice as much as the $6 million that Florida Senator Marco Rubio brought in during the same period. Cruz’s campaign said it took in 184,800 donations in the third quarter, the average coming in at $66, bringing the total Cruz has raised since launching his presidential bid to $26.5 million. “We are thrilled to see a grassroots wave of support for our campaign gaining momentum all over the country,” Cruz said in a statement Thursday night. “Not only are we seeing a surge of new...

Without votes or caucuses, candidates are winnowed out A political revolution is taking place in America. The process of selecting party presidential candidates has been transformed in the last two or three election cycles. Now we have the early debates designed to drive poll numbers and tell us who’s “ahead” and who’s “behind,” who’s “gaining” and who’s “dropping.” Yet not a single vote has been taken, not a single voter has pulled a lever in a voting booth or gone to a single caucus. And yet candidates are being winnowed out. Take, for example, Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Is he...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's campaign for president will announce in the coming days that it raised approximately $2.5 million in the third quarter and has $2 million cash on hand, Communications Director Sergio Gor said Thursday. That haul is just a fraction of the $20 million the campaign of retired brain surgeon Ben Carson says it is on track to post for the third quarter -- half of that money coming in in September alone. Paul's third quarter total is well under the $7 million the libertarian firebrand raised in the second quarter. Part of that money was transferred from...

<p>Bundling campaign donations is no longer just for the well-heeled and well-connected.</p> <p>Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is launching a social crowd-funding platform this week that encourages small donors to set up mini-fundraising operations by dangling video game-style badges and “secret events” as rewards.</p>

“Don’t look back,” Satchel Paige once advised, “something may be gaining on you.” For Hillary Clinton, that something is Bernie Sanders. The FEC filings from both campaigns show that donations to Team Hillary dropped substantially in the third quarter (called the second quarter in relation to campaign filings), allowing Sanders to muscle up to near-parity: As Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders inch closer together in the polls, so it seems do their fundraising numbers.Clinton raised roughly $28 million in the second quarter of her presidential campaign, a Clinton campaign official familiar with Federal Election Commission filings said. This figure,...

The super PAC supporting neurosurgeon Ben Carson for GOP president has seen a surge of donations since his appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where Mr. Carson said he wouldn’t advocate for a Muslim to be president of the United States. “We sent out an email to Carson supporters, and we’ve never had an email raise so much money so quickly — it’s unbelievable,” said John Philip Sousa IV, who chairs the 2016 Committee super PAC. “My phone has exploded over the last 48 hours — of people wanting me to pass on to Dr. Carson how much they...

PHOENIX — Heidi Cruz, investment banker and political spouse, stood outside a ballroom here, shaking hands and making small talk, working to close her most ambitious deal yet: getting her husband elected president. Cruz, 43, is a potent weapon for the presidential campaign of her husband, Sen. Ted Cruz. He relishes fighting with Democrats and Republicans; she is quick with a hug. He tries to galvanize voters; she spends hours on the phone, trying to persuade them to max out their donations. "Stylistically, I can soften him a little bit," Cruz, clad in navy leggings and black flats, Roberto Cavalli...

There's another sign — if you needed one — that Jeb Bush is sucking wind in the Republican primary: Three top fundraisers from Bush's home base of Florida have left the campaign. The particulars of the split are up for debate, according to Politico's Alex Isenstadt and Marc Caputo, who broke the news. But regardless of the proximate cause, it's a big deal because it suggests two larger issues for Bush's campaign: He's dug a big hole and there's concern in his own camp that he won't be able to dig his way out. It also comes less than three...

After investing a sizable fortune into building a political machine that now rivals the size and budgets of both major political parties, the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are seeing some of their top operatives take jobs with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The fact that many of Trump’s political positions are at odds with those of the Koch brothers does not seem to be a factor. Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, who spent many years of his career working for the Koch political network, first as an assistant at the Koch-led group Citizens for a...

One of Scott Walker’s top fundraisers met with Donald Trump on Monday and discussed the possibility of leaving the Wisconsin governor’s camp to work for the GOP presidential front-runner’s campaign, the fundraiser and Mr. Trump said. Anthony Scaramucci, a national finance co-chairman for Mr. Walker’s campaign, said in a phone interview that the two discussed the possibility of his defecting to Mr. Trump

Major Democratic fundraisers have been invited to meet with Vice President Joe Biden at his residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory after Labor Day, part of a series of conversations he is having with senior party players as he contemplates jumping into the 2016 race. Among the guests invited to the gathering are top bundlers who raised large sums for the Obama-Biden campaigns in 2008 and 2012, according to people familiar with the outreach. The sitdown is scheduled to take place during the week following Labor Day.

Olive Branch, Mississippi (CNN)—Ted Cruz gushes about his wife, Heidi, on the campaign trail, telling an audience here that she is "beautiful, brilliant and my very best friend in the whole wide world." She's also something else: The best fundraiser in the Republican presidential candidate's corner. The senator's wife, a top executive at Goldman Sachs who is taking a leave to work at campaign headquarters, is effectively leading her husband's fundraising operation, running some weekly finance calls and pushing major donors to give the maximum they're allowed under federal law. It's a far cry from the caricatured profile of the...

Cruz Picking Up Money and Support According to the Dallas Morning News, Ted Cruz isn’t making things any easier for Rick Perry. Cruz has raised close to $900,000 from some of the same donors who donated to Perry’s 2012 campaign. Those same people have only donated a little over $370,000 to Perry this time. Cruz isn’t just raising money though, he is connecting with a lot of potential voters. With $14 million, Cruz’s campaign has raised more than any other Republican–he was the first candidate to officially declare, which gave him a head start on fundraising–and he’s dominated the market...

At a fundraiser to help cover the funeral costs of a friend who died trying to stop a fight outside a Saskatoon bar, a group of young men ended up embroiled in a fight that led to two of them facing assault charges. It was a sad set of circumstances that concluded in Saskatoon provincial court on Thursday, with Christopher Godlien pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm. The second accused, Robbie Watier, previously pleaded guilty to assault in relation to the same incident. They were at Tequila Nightclub on the night of March 8, 2014, at a fundraiser for...

Ben Nash, chief executive of PCS Wireless, is the man behind a mystery $250,000 donation to a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, according to the New York Times. Nash donated $250,000 to Stand for Principle PAC in January through “V3 231 LLC,” a company registered in New York. Nash donated to Cruz because “he has been a strong supporter of Jewish issues,” company spokesman Robert Barletta told the Times. Nash, a former student of Jewish religious texts at Yeshiva, co-founded PCS Wireless in 2001 as a teenager.The company became a major global distributor of new and used...