Perry's Future

Texas Monthly posted a blog last week concerning Rick Perry’s recent fundraising which leads the author, Paul Burka, to believe that Perry will not run for reelection. Burka is the dean of Capitol press corps, and has spearheaded the Texas Monthly political coverage for over 40 years. A frequent guest on many national news programs such as MSNBC, Fox, NBC, and CNN, Burka is a credible source who is well respected nation-wide.

Paul Burka considers due to the lack of fundraising by Governor Rick Perry’s party, he will not run again in the upcoming election. In the 2010 election, Perry spent over $41 million on his campaign. This year he has only raised $3.554 million with $6.028 million on hand leaving Burka to conclude that the prospect of Perry running for reelection in November is out of the picture. Burka also believes that Perry could be “vulnerable to a strong Republican like Greg Abbott”, thus risking his perfect record in Texas elections. Having said this, Perry still does have two fundraising periods before the 2014 general election giving him a lot of time to raise more money if he chooses to do so. Burka still believes that if Perry were to run for his fourth term, he would have gathered more funds by this point.

In my opinion, I strongly agree with Burka. The statistics presented in the blog lead me to believe that at this point in time Perry should have collected more money for his campaign, considering how much he spent in previous elections. Unless he was to gather upwards of $35 million in the next two fundraising periods, there is not a strong indication that Perry is even considering running for reelection.