State Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples has been actively running for the job that third-term Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst is giving up so he can pursue an opening in the U.S. Senate in 2012. Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has indicated that he plans to seek the lieutenant governor's office as well this year.

Comptroller Susan Combs, who has a larger war chest at this point in time than all of her potential rivals combined in a race to replace Dewhurst, has left the door open to a possible campaign for re-election although she's appeared to be leaning toward the lieutenant governor's race in two years instead.

While Combs announced last week that she generated $1.1 million from supporters during the past three months and ended December with a $6 million cash surplus, Branch would be a formidable force in the critical cash competition as the most prolific fundraiser in the House who hasn't been speaker throughout the past decade.

Branch planned to report contributions of more than $700,000 between the end of June and the start of January in the campaign fundraising statement that he filed Tuesday afternoon at the Texas Ethics Commission. The reports that are due this week at the state agency reflect donations, loans and expenditures during the past six months along with the amount of cash on hand that candidates had on December 31.

Branch had $1.7 million in the campaign bank heading into 2012 - an amount that probably will be second only to Republican Speaker Joe Straus for the time frame in question. Patterson raised almost $261,000 in the past six months and had cash on hand of nearly $412,000 on the first day of this year.

Staples - a former state senator who won his current job initially in 2006 - rounded up close to $620,000 during the final half of last year and entered 2012 with cash reserves of $1.5 million.

Staples is confident that his fundraising in the lieutenant governor's race will escalate even more in the wake of the news that baseball pitching legend Nolan Ryan has signed on as his new statewide chairman. Ryan, a Hall of Fame member who grew up in southeast Texas, had the lead role in a group of investors who purchased the Texas Rangers in 2010.

While Branch and Staples were essentially in the same ballpark in terms of their fundraising success in 2011, the Dallas legislator had appeared until recently to have his sights set on a race for attorney general even though his name has popped up from time to time in discussions about the lieutenant governor's contest. Branch's camp has confirmed that he will consider a bid for lieutenant governor in two years.

Branch, an attorney whose district in north central Dallas includes the affluent enclave of Highland Park, has a more immediate task as he seeks a sixth term in the lower chamber this year. But Branch hasn't drawn any major party opposition so far in his current re-election bid. Branch has wielded substantial clout in the House in the past three years as a top Straus lieutenant who chairs the Higher Education Committee.

With Branch not on radar screens until now as far as the race for lieutenant governor goes, Staples has been concentrating his attention recently on Combs in an attempt to flush her out on future political plans that she's been keeping close to the vest.

Staples accused the comptroller in a letter this week of sending out conflicting signals about whether she planned to seek re-election or the lieutenant governor's opening. Staples also suggested that Combs had been trying to have it both ways with her position on abortion - and he's indicated that he plans to step up his criticism on the way she handled a major security breach at the agency she runs early last year.