In the runoff elections for the Republican primary in Texas on Tuesday evening, the intra-party divisions of the Republicans became clearly perceptible, as several established conservative politicians fended off attacks from the right while other incumbents came up brief.
Both Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas and Republican Speaker of the state House of Representatives Dade Phelan prevailed in the primaries against challengers who enjoyed the backing of either former President Trump or die-hard conservatives.
At the same time, several state lawmakers lost their re-election bids after drawing the ire of the state’s leading Republicans. about their opposition on the school voucher policy of Governor Greg Abbott (R) or their support for the removal of Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) during the impeachment proceedings.
The mixed results between mainstream conservatives and hardliners are likely to only exacerbate tensions between the two sides – possibly to the benefit of the state’s beleaguered Democrats.
Here are five takeaways from the contentious Texas primary runoffs.
Trump and Paxton face setbacks
For the long-rising far right in Texas, there was one main target: state Rep. Dade Phelan (R).
Phelan is “bad, bad, bad for the Republican Party and democracy. We have to beat him, and beat him hard,” Trump said. said in a video shared it on Saturday on his platform Truth Social.
Trump had called on Texans to vote for Phelan’s challenger, former county Republican chairman David Covey, in a “very important” runoff election.
As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Phelan leads the Business Republicans faction that governed Texas from the slow 1990s until the rise of Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) in the 2010s.
Although a conservative Republican himself, Phelan, 48, also serves as head of the last part of the state government that is not in the hands of the far right – a body that has rejected some of Abbott and Patrick’s key priorities in the 2023 legislative session, such as the attack on renewable energies and providing millions of dollars for government-directed immigration policy.
But Phelan aroused the ire of Abbott and Patrick especially because of what they saw as insufficient support for school vouchersa policy that opponents viewed as a means of allowing wealthy parents to divert money from public schools.
And he won the enmity of Paxton, a scandal-plagued Trump’s allybecause he led the House of Representatives’ impeachment proceedings last summer – a move that exacerbated divisions in the state party into something that amounts to a civil war.
In the March primary, in which Covey received more votes than Phelan but did not have the margin of victory, the far right tried to portray Phelan as a moderate or even secret liberal.
This move narrowly failed in the runoff election last night. Just over 25,000 Orange County Republicans participated in the primary and Phelan won by 400 votes, or just over 1.5 percent. This leaves him battered, but still in office.
But given his opponents’ proxy victories in other runoff elections last night, the question of whether Phelan will retain his role as Speaker of the House remains open.
Abbott and Paxton were still able to achieve some crucial victories
Even though leading Republicans failed to oust Gonzales and Phelan from the parties, they still enjoyed their fair share of victories on Tuesday night.
Abbott targeted a number of Republicans who voted to abolish a school voucher clause in the state’s education package.
School voucher policy was a top priority for Abbott, and the governor vigorously supported Republicans who opposed lawmakers who blocked the governor’s attempt to include the voucher program in the education bill.
Six voucher opponents were defeated in the first primary in March, and three more lost their runoffs on Tuesday. That means Abott and his allies have now eliminated 75 percent of the voucher opponents they targeted.
But even supporting the governor’s priorities on school vouchers was not enough to save some incumbents.
Three state House members who incurred Paxton’s wrath by voting for his impeachment last year also lost their seats in the runoff election. This brings the total number of incumbents pushed out by the extreme right to a record high of 15according to the Texas Tribune.
Abbott claimed on Tuesday that the House of Representatives “now has enough votes” to pass the ballot measure – but only if all candidates win the general election in November.
A moderate Republican in the House of Representatives narrowly gets through
Gonzales narrowly won the Republican primary in Texas’ 23rd congressional district, which stretches from El Paso to San Antonio.
He survived a primary against Brandon Herrera, a YouTuber and gun enthusiast who enjoyed the support of conservative hardliners including House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) and Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.).
Gonzales and hard-line conservatives have often been on opposite sides on key Republican issues, including whether to impose an arrest warrant on a U.S. spy program and whether to support Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s foreign aid bill.
But the Texas congressman has also faced the wrath of the state’s Republicans, who have rebuked him over the past year for his support of several Democratic-backed bills, including the bipartisan gun safety bill passed after the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde – which Gonzales represents – and the Respect for Marriage Act.
Several outside groups intervened in the Republican primary to support Gonzales, an indication of how close the race had become in a swing congressional district. The Republican Jewish Coalition contributed $400,000 to purchase an ad for the runoff election, while a Super PAC was allied with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee targeted Herrera in purchasing a $1 million ad, among other groups.
Money is crucial
The 2024 Republican primary marks a turning point in Texas politics: a flood of money flowing into campaigns that have historically been still and low-cost.
The high-roller status of these races was evident in the Phelan-Covey duel. Covey received $845,000 from Texans United for a Conservative Majority, a far-right PAC run by oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Dan and Farris Wilks; $120,000 from Patrick’s campaign committee; and $700,000 from conservative donors Alex Fairly, according to Follow Geld.org.
But Phelan showered Covey with a flood of money, including $1 million from PACs of the state’s major Republicans, $700,000 from the oil and gas industry and half a million from real estate interests. A significant portion – about $660,000 – came from Casino Tycoon Miriam Adelson. He also received $75,000 from controversial oil magnate Harlan Crow, the sponsor of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
During the Republican primaries, Adelson also donated $9 million to Texas Defense, a PAC for which she is the sole donor, according to The Texas Tribune. On the other hand, there is the Six million dollars flowed into the coffers the proponent of school vouchers by billionaire Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania.
Gonzales also benefited from a financial advantage. The advertising tracking company AdImpact reported five days before the elections that $3.6 million was spent on ads supporting Gonzales, another $1 million on anti-Herrera ads, and about $800,000 in support of Herrera.
The growing division among Republicans in Texas encourages Democrats
On Wednesday, the Texas Democratic Party called Phelan’s near-defeat a sign of the state’s success – and a possible salvation for the party that dominated Texas for much of the country in the 20th century.
(*5*) the state Democratic Party said. wrote in a devastating statement.
While most Texans are governed by Democratic governments at the local level, the party has failed to win political office at the state level in the past 30 years.
This next election, however, could be of existential importance to them: The proposed Republican primary system would create an Electoral College-like system in which state-level officials would have to win most of the districts – effectively exclude the Democrats from poweras the Tribune reported.
Nearly three-quarters of Texans believe the state has been taken over by an “extremely conservative agenda.” according to a survey by the progressive group Unlocking America’s Future earlier this month.
On Wednesday, the state’s Democrats sought to portray themselves as the party of establishment opposition to the rise of the far right.
“Despite being one of the most conservative speakers to ever lead the Texas House of Representatives, Dade Phelan was forced into an unprecedented, precarious primary after refusing to tolerate corruption,” the party wrote.
“Congressman Tony Gonzales narrowly avoided defeat at the hands of a C-list YouTube gun influencer after being reprimanded for supporting common sense gun laws aimed at preventing tragedies like the Uvalde massacre in the future.”
These close elections – and the wave of incumbents being voted out – “show that the state Republican Party has been hijacked by the extreme fringe of the far right and is completely unfit to lead,” the statement continued. “The Texas Democratic Party calls on all Texans – regardless of party affiliation – to stand against this depravity.”
