Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, shown at a rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday, helped pay for his 2012 election campaign in part by taking out personal loans from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 
 
 Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, shown at a rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday, helped pay for his 2012 election campaign in part by taking out personal loans from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Photo: Ryan McBride/ Zuma Press 
 
 WASHINGTON—Texas Sen. Ted Cruz didn’t disclose to election officials a pair of loans he took from Wall Street banks when he first ran for the Senate in 2012, an omission that could violate campaign rules. 
 
 Mr. Cruz, a Republican, helped pay for his 2012 election campaign in part by taking out personal loans from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that were eventually worth a total of between $500,001 and $1 million, according to financial disclosure forms that he filed with the Senate. Mr. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, worked for Goldman Sachs at the time. There is no indication that his wife was involved with the loan. 
 
 Mr. Cruz disclosed those loans to Senate officials as required by congressional rules but didn’t tell federal election authorities about the loans, as required by election rules. 
 
 The omission was first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday. 
 
 Kenneth Gross, a campaign finance lawyer for Skadden Arps and a former Federal Election Commission general counsel, said that if a “candidate borrows funds to finance his campaign and puts those funds in his campaign, the candidate must disclose the original source of those funds.” 
 
 Mr. Cruz told reporters late Wednesday that “those loans have been disclosed over and over and over again on multiple filings. If it was the case that they were not filed exactly as the FEC requires, then we’ll amend the filings. But all of the information has been public and transparent for many years and that’s the end of that.” 
 
 A spokesman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Citigroup also declined to comment. There is no allegation that the banks did anything improper. 
 
 Under the Senate’s financial-disclosure rules, senators and candidates for the Senate must make public information about their assets, income and debts. Under Federal Election Commission rules, candidates must disclose the source of funds for their campaigns. Mr. Cruz disclosed to the FEC at the time that he had put roughly $1 million in personal funds into his election campaign, but he didn’t disclose that the source of that money may have been the loans he received from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs at about the same time. 
 
 At the time of the 2012 Senate race, Mr. Cruz was being outspent by Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who was considered the favorite and spent more than $20 million of his own money on the race. 
 
 Mr. Cruz first disclosed the loans on his congressional financial disclosure forms in July 2012, a few months before the election. Those filings show that he took out a “margin loan” of between $100,001 and $250,000 from Goldman Sachs earlier in 2012. Mr. Cruz had a brokerage account with Goldman Sachs and he told reporters Wednesday that he took out a margin loan from that account. 
 
 Mr. Cruz’s July 2012 financial report to the Senate also shows that he took a “line of credit” from Citigroup of between $250,001 and $500,000. 
 
 The loan from Goldman was later increased to between $250,001 and $500,000, according to subsequent financial disclosure reports for 2012 that Mr. Cruz made after being elected to the Senate. 
 
 The senator’s financial statements for 2012 show that he paid off both the loans from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup by the end of that year. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Ted Cruz on Wednesday night dismissed a New York Times report that he failed to properly disclose a loan from Goldman Sachs during his 2012 bid for the U.S. Senate, calling the matter merely a "filing error." 
 
 "It is an inadvertent filing question," he told reporters at a press conference in Dorchester, S.C. "The facts of the underlying matter have been disclosed for many, many years. It is not complicated. Our finances are not complicated." 
 
 The Times reported that the Cruz family took out a hefty low-interest loan from the bank, from which the candidate's wife took a leave of absence as a managing director at Goldman Sachs at the launch of the Texas senator's presidential run. That loan did not appear in the reports Cruz filed with the Federal Election Commission during his 2012 run. 
 
 "If it was the case that it was not filed exactly as the FEC requires, we'll amend the filings," Cruz said. "But all of the information has been public and transparent for many years." 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, the Cruz campaign called the charge an "issue of semantics." 
 
 "The campaign is going to ask the FEC what to do," a campaign aide said, noting the loan was previously disclosed as part of Cruz's personal financial disclosures when he entered the Senate. 
 
 The loan, which was for just under $500,000, was from his own assets, "not borrowed money," the campaign said. 
 
 But a story often part of Cruz's speech on the road is his family's decision to invest in the campaign with the family's own finances. 
 
 Cruz says on the stump that he and his wife "liquidated" their life savings to put into the Senate run. 
 
 The campaign says he personally fronted a $1.43 million of his campaign's financing from personal savings, sold stock, and this particular loan. 
 
 It also said on Wednesday night that Cruz ultimately repaid the loan in full but did not specify how. 
 
 The campaign said Cruz was not aware at the time the loan was taken out that he had to file the loan with the FEC and was just made aware of it by the New York Times' inquiry. ||||| FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2016 file photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at his South Carolina Republican presidential primary rally in Columbia, S.C. Bush kept his struggling Republican presidential... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2016 file photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at his South Carolina Republican presidential primary rally in Columbia, S.C. Bush kept his struggling Republican presidential campaign afloat with a $250,000 personal loan _ barely enough to keep it from plunging into debt.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2016 file photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at his South Carolina Republican presidential primary rally in Columbia, S.C. Bush kept his struggling Republican presidential campaign afloat with a $250,000 personal loan _ barely enough to keep it from plunging into debt.... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2016 file photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at his South Carolina Republican presidential primary rally in Columbia, S.C. Bush kept his struggling Republican presidential... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, the final three Republican candidates running for president, began this month with drastically different campaign fortunes, new fundraising reports show. 
 
 In one month, Cruz raised what Kasich has collected over the entire course of his longshot bid. Trump, a billionaire, has raised relatively little money as he "self-funds" his effort. 
 
 On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders outraised Hillary Clinton for the second month in a row. But the Vermont senator still started March with about half as much cash on hand as the former secretary of state. 
 
 The presidential candidates — current and former — must file their February campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission on Sunday, as they look ahead to the next series of nominating contests — in Arizona, Idaho and Utah on Tuesday. 
 
 What we've learned on the money front: 
 
 ___ 
 
 KASICH MONEY STRUGGLES 
 
 Kasich, the Ohio governor, had about $1.3 million in available campaign cash as this month began. 
 
 That's far less than the $8 million in cash that Cruz's campaign had on hand as of the last day of February, although millions of those dollars are under lock until the general election. 
 
 Cruz, a Texas senator, continued to lap Kasich in fundraising. His $12 million in February roughly equals Kasich's entire campaign haul, dating to last summer. 
 
 Kasich's home-state win last week convinced him to stay in the race in the hope of emerging as a "consensus candidate" during a contested convention this summer. That could be triggered if Trump does not win enough delegates in the remaining primaries. Kasich has no mathematical path for winning the nomination outright. 
 
 Both candidates also benefit from outside groups known as super PACs. Several of Cruz's boosters reported beginning March with a collective $10 million left to spend. Add to that another donor-led super PAC funded by a $10 million contribution that remained mostly intact. 
 
 Kasich's super PAC, New Day for America, reported raising $3.2 million in February and ended the month with $2.5 million cash on hand. 
 
 ___ 
 
 TRUMP DIGGING DEEPER INTO HIS POCKETS 
 
 The billionaire businessman loaned himself another $6.9 million, bringing the total amount he's loaned to himself to $24.4 million. Trump's campaign manager has said the candidate has no intention of trying to recoup the money he loans himself. 
 
 And while Trump continues to boast about self-funding his campaign, he collected about $2 million in new contributions in February, bringing his total raised this cycle to $9.5 million. 
 
 He continues to spend big on private airfare, including more than $640,000 to his own airline. And he spent $3.5 million on placed media, including Twitter and Facebook ads. 
 
 ___ 
 
 TRUMP FIGHTERS 
 
 Three billionaires supplied more than 80 percent of the cash last month for a super political action committee dedicated to derailing Donald Trump. The group is called Our Principles. 
 
 February fundraising reports show the Ricketts family — who own the Chicago Cubs and whose patriarch founded TD Ameritrade — gave another $2 million last month, adding to their earlier $3 million investment. Paul Singer, a New York hedge-fund billionaire who backed Rubio, gave $1 million, and Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens also chipped in $1 million. 
 
 The group has reported raising $7.8 million since its inception. FEC documents show the group has spent at least $16 million attacking Trump — so far with little impact. The gap between reported income and expenditures means the majority of the donations to Our Principles arrived this month. Those donors will be disclosed next month. 
 
 ___ 
 
 GOING BROKE FOR RUBIO 
 
 Wealthy donors handed over $25 million last month to a super PAC backing then-Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. And the candidate's official campaign had its best month yet, raising about $9.6 million. 
 
 It still wasn't enough. Rubio, a Florida senator, ended his bid after an embarrassing loss to Trump last week in his home state. 
 
 Conservative Solutions PAC raised about $58 million in support of Rubio and it attracted a surge of donors in the days after one-time rival Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, dropped out on Feb. 20. 
 
 Poultry magnate Ronald Cameron was Conservative Solution's top donor in February, contributing $5 million. Cameron had previously given $3 million to a group backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also once a 2016 presidential hopeful. 
 
 The insurance executive Hank Greenberg's C. V. Starr & Company Inc. and Starr International companies gave a total of $5 million to Conservative Solutions. Last year, C.V. Starr gave $10 million to a group backing Bush. 
 
 ___ 
 
 DEMOCRATIC CASH 
 
 Sanders' campaign reported raising more than $43 million in February, outraising Clinton by about $14 million, federal fundraising reports show. 
 
 Sanders, whose online fundraising in small increments has set records, continued to draw substantial support from low-dollar donors. In February, more than 60 percent of his campaign's money came from people who had given $200 or less to federal candidates in this election cycle. 
 
 But the Vermont senator also reported spending about $41 million last month. He started March with about $17 million in cash, about half as much as Clinton's $31 million in available cash. 
 
 Clinton's supportive super PAC, Priorities USA, reported raising a little less than $5 million in February, half of its January haul. Still, the group began this month with $44 million to spend; representatives say they are preserving much of it for the general election. 
 
 The biggest donor last month to Priorities was Chicago media executive Fred Eychaner, who gave $2 million. 
 
 ___ 
 
 CARSON CASH CONTINUED 
 
 One hallmark of a failing presidential candidate is the struggle to raise money. 
 
 That's why Bush had to lend his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars last month, fundraising documents show. And it's why New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appeared to end his bid owing roughly $200,000 more than he had in available cash. 
 
 Not so with political newcomer Ben Carson. 
 
 The retired neurosurgeon never won any of the early primary contests, and he suspended his campaign at the beginning of this month. Even so, in February he raised $5.7 million, and he had almost $5 million in cash at the start of March. 
 
 Carson was the top Republican fundraiser of the 2016 contest at the time he dropped out, but he also maintained above-average costs for raising that money. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Chad Day and Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
– Banks loaned Ted Cruz as much as $1 million during his first Senate campaign in Texas back in 2012, but you wouldn't know it from campaign finance reports. While Cruz eventually disclosed the loans from Citibank and Goldman Sachs—each valued at $250,000 to $500,000—to Senate officials, he failed to inform the Federal Election Commission as required, reports the New York Times. At the time, Cruz spoke of how he and his wife put "our entire net worth" into the campaign. NBC News reports he used $1.43 million in personal funds. But "a review of personal financial disclosures that Mr. Cruz filed later with the Senate does not find a liquidation of assets that would have accounted for all the money he spent on his campaign," per the Times. A Cruz rep admits the Goldman Sachs loan was used for the Senate race and a failure to disclose it was "inadvertent." She didn't comment on the Citibank loan, which the Times notes would have freed up other assets even if it wasn't used on Cruz's campaign. The Times notes, too, that disclosing the loans might have hurt Cruz's campaign, given that he was criticizing Wall Street bailouts and big banks. Cruz, who says the loans were borrowed against the couple's own assets, cites a "filing error," per NBC. "Those loans have been disclosed over and over and over again on multiple filings," he adds, per the Wall Street Journal. "If it was the case that they were not filed exactly as the FEC requires, then we'll amend the filings."