“As a civil rights lawyer and former public school teacher, Mike Siegel is a champion for everyday people. He couldn’t be more different than Congressman McCaul, who has proven after more than 15 years in office that he’s no longer interested in serving everyday Texans. While Mike Siegel has dedicated his life to fighting for the unspoken and unheard, Congressman McCaul only answers to the wealthy and powerful. Mike nearly unseated Congressman McCaul in 2018 and these results show him running strong and well positioned to win this fall.” – DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos
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To: Interested Parties
From: Avery Jaffe, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: July 14, 2020
Subject: UPDATE: The Case Against Congressman Mike McCaul
Congressman Mike McCaul is everywhere but Texas’ 10th Congressional District.
No stranger to Fox News green rooms, luxury limousines and taxpayer-funded overseas trips, McCaul’s famously disengaged approach to his district has rendered him unknown in TX-10 and his constituents not-so-hot on whether to re-elect him. And it’s not just Congressman McCaul’s voters who are lukewarm on whether he should keep his job; McCaul himself appears ambivalent at best on whether he wants his job in Congress in the first place.
But after being passed over for every Trump administration job he auditioned for, McCaul has resorted to repeatedly inflating his fundraising numbers to mask his half-hearted campaigning. (And don’t ask about McCaul’s staggering 245 percent burn rate despite having zero primary opponents!)
While the Democrats running to replace Congressman McCaul are focused on improving the lives of everyday Texans, McCaul has only looked out for himself since entering Congress in 2005. McCaul has increased his wealth by more than 940 percent as he voted to strip away health care, get rid of protections for Texans with pre-existing conditions, give himself and his friends enormous, budget-busting tax cuts and opposed efforts to lower prescription drug costs. How about those priorities!
Civil rights lawyer and former public school teacher Mike Siegel has dedicated his life to improving the lives of others. Unlike Mike McCaul, who has spent his decade and a half in Congress growing his wealth and building an economy that works for the very wealthy and his corporate donors, Mike knows that public service is about what you give – not what you take. Mike’s narrow loss in this seat in 2018 was one of the closest races in Texas last cycle and in 2020, with a stronger campaign infrastructure and national attention, he’ll finish the job.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
HEADLINE: Campaign finance records show Rep. McCaul spent lavishly [Texas Signal, 9/10/19]
“‘[McCaul] has been looking for the exits for a while,’ Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said. ‘Being in the minority in the U.S. House is not a lot of fun.’” [Austin American-Statesman, 8/9/19]
“McCaul won by 4.3 percentage points to a lightly funded Democrat last year, after cruising to victory in previous elections. The close race was seen as a reflection of a district that is experiencing rapid demographic change.” [Austin American-Statesman, 8/9/19]
“In recent years, the populations of Latinos, African Americans and Asians in McCaul’s district have boomed. Between 2012 and 2017, Latinos grew from 26% to 29% of the population as over 60,000 moved there or were born, according to American Community Survey figures” [CNN, 8/18/19]
HEADLINE: Amid raft of Texas GOP retirements, Democrats give Rep. McCaul a shove [Houston Chronicle, 8/7/19]
The High-Flying Congressman Who Cares About Everything But TX-10
JET-SETTING ON TAXPAYERS’ DIME, WHILE FEATHERING HIS OWN NEST
Over 15 years in Congress, Congressman McCaul has spent tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded travel to places like France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Panama, Argentina and Mexico.
And as one of the wealthiest Members of Congress, Mike McCaul has pursued policies that benefit multi-millionaires like himself, his family and their well-connected friends. Over 15 years in Congress, McCaul’s own net worth has grown by more than 940 percent as he’s voted to give taxpayer-funded bailouts to big banks, strip health care away from hardworking Texans, and blow up the national debt to give tax breaks to wealthy drug manufacturers and corporations that ship jobs overseas.
Meanwhile, Mike Siegel has an incredible story to tell about giving back to Texas, a powerful contrast to Mike McCaul’s insider dealing and self-enrichment.
ON AN ENDLESS QUEST TO STRIP AWAY TEXANS’ HEALTH CARE
McCaul has bragged about his 46 separate efforts to repeal, defund, delay, or dismantle the Affordable Care Act. In July 2017, Congressman McCaul said on Fox News that he did not deserve to be re-elected if Republicans failed in repealing the ACA. On this note, we agree: Congressman McCaul does not deserve to be re-elected.
McCaul voted for the Republican effort to strip away health care and repeatedly voted to throw Texans with pre-existing conditions off their health insurance plans, decisions that will haunt him in his 2020 re-election effort.
SPENDING CAMPAIGN CASH TO SUPPORT HIS FAMILY’S LAVISH LIFESTYLE
The only thing that Mr. and Mrs. McCaul love more than luxury limousines is making their campaign donors pay for them. To date, Congressman McCaul has spent more than $36,000 on a luxury limousine service. That limousine service is so good that Mrs. McCaul wrote a glowing testimonial in which she kindly shares that they’re just using the limos for personal purposes.
While Congress McCaul uses his campaign account as a personal piggy bank, spending thousands at a time at luxe restaurants across the country – especially the posh Capitol Hill Club in Washington D.C. – everyday Texans are making tough choices between their prescriptions and saving for retirement.
MIKE MCCAUL REALLY, REALLY HATES HIS JOB
Congressman McCaul’s focus is everywhere but TX-10.
The truth is McCaul has offered himself as a nominee for several executive branch offices as well as the United States Senate. In 2012, McCaul openly mulled running for the Senate. He did so again in 2017 when he not only considered primarying Sen. Ted Cruz but also wanted to run for Sen. John Cornyn’s seat amid rumors Cornyn was being considered for FBI Director.
Additionally, McCaul was at one point “a leading candidate” to be Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security before the position went to John Kelly. More recently, McCaul floated his name for Director of National Intelligence and even Secretary of State if Mike Pompeo had decided to run for Senate in Kansas. A boy can dream!
Unfortunately for Mike McCaul, none of those attempts to get out of the job he currently holds, but really seems to hate, ever panned out.
Or, as a resigned McCaul told CNN: “But I have to live in the reality I’m in — and that is I’m running for reelection.”
16 more weeks, Congressman.
PATH TO VICTORY
Texas’s 10th Congressional district stretches from the greater Houston suburbs to areas north of Austin. The district is growing and has strong minority compositions, with Black and Hispanic Texans making up a combined 30% of the district’s eligible voters. It is a district with a high rate of educational attainment, reflecting the kinds of dense suburbs that have shifted toward Democrats since 2016.
After decades as a Republican stronghold, the 2018 cycle showed evidence of shifts in demographics and voter attitudes, as Beto O’Rourke won the district with 50.2% of the major party vote. The 2018 Democratic candidate won 47.8% of the major party vote, more than 7 points higher than 2016’s congressional support and 12 points higher than 2014’s congressional support.
Mike Siegel will continue to build on recent trends toward Democrats, particularly in a cycle with presidential level turnout, as Texas becomes center stage for federal contests in 2020.
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