Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst joined a long list of candidates for Congress who have bet their personal fortunes in politics -- and lost.Ted Cruz, the newest Tea Party star, easily defeated Dewhurst in the Senate Republican runoff in Texas last night.
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Dewhurst, who owns an energy company, spent about $25 million of his own money in the race.
That's only half of what wrestling executive Linda McMahon spent in 2010 when she made her first bid for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut. McMahon spent $50.1 million two years ago, financing 99% of that campaign on her own.
The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks money in politics, found that only four of 32 candidates for federal office in 2010 who spent more than $1 million out of their own pockets won their races.
Republican Meg Whitman set the record for self-funded candidates when she spent more than $140 million of her own money in the 2010 California governor's race. The former CEO of eBay lost to Democrat Jerry Brown. Whitman now runs Hewlett-Packard.
Cruz is favored to defeat Democrat Paul Sadler in November. Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison is retiring.
