The controversial runoff elections on Tuesday revealed the unrest in the Republican Party in the state of Texas.
In the elections, which were marked by unprecedented outside spending, the party’s so-called economic faction was battered but still managed to hold on, as some incumbents held on, most especially Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dade Phelan (R) and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).
However, their positions are precarious. In the vote on Tuesday, conservative hardliners in the state executive the board largely cleared of members who have spoken out against it – mostly those who fought against increasing privatization in the state’s huge public school system, as well as a smaller group that supported the impeachment by Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
Tuesday’s results “really were the most chaotic outcome,” said Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “Most of the targeted Republicans lost, and yet the speaker still pulled out a narrow victory.”
As a result, the primaries have deepened divisions within the state’s Republican Party as a whole – a body widely criticized for, as Blank noted, “giving attacking Republicans a higher priority than building the state’s party.”
Now, he said, “it looks like the party is going to continue in that direction.”
Tuesday’s election took place shortly after a state party convention in which Republicans adopted a hardliner program They call abortion “murder, not health care,” advocate for the abolition of no-fault divorce, describe homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle” that deserves neither legal protection nor parental rights, and classify climate-warming carbon dioxide as “not a pollutant.”
These measures ran counter to the once dominant “business” faction of Republicans in the state, which tended to prioritize the culture war over the day-to-day functioning of the state.
These intra-party tensions were clearly noticeable after the runoff elections on Tuesday. School voucher activist Corey DeAngelis called the result “a political earthquake.”
Abbott said he now had “the votes needed to push through school choice,” which supporters call a voucher, and conservative activists were already sharpening their knives for Phelan, who they felt was not sufficiently committed to the cause.
“We’ll see if the speaker follows through,” said Sherry Sylvester of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “He has a whole new House of Representatives, many of whom were elected on their commitment to school choice, and he has not passed school choice, has not made it a priority and has said he would have preferred a weaker version of school choice.”
Now, she said, the voucher side has the opportunity to “pass a stronger version. Because every time before, it included incentives for school districts. We don’t need those incentives now. We have the votes.”
But that kind of analysis looks at things too “simplistically,” argued Republican lobbyist Thomas Ratliff. Whatever the main commitment of lawmakers to the vouchers, he said, “there are 37 different versions of what that means. There will be a divide within the House and an equally large or larger divide between the House and the Senate.”
Ratliff pointed to the gigantic number of Texas House members who have thrown their support behind Phelan since the runoff election and said it will not be uncomplicated to defeat him.
“What is still true in Texas politics is that representatives and senators don’t like the other side interfering in what they consider to be their internal affairs,” he said. “I think outside interference causes the House to come together and form the wagon train.”
The Republicans’ malice was also clearly evident in the race for congressional seats.
Gonzales narrowly defeated Brandon Herrera, a YouTuber and gun enthusiast, in Tuesday’s runoff election. The congressman has drawn the ire of Texas Republicans over the past year with his stance on several bills. Notably, he supported a bipartisan gun safety bill following the devastating school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which Gonzales represents, and supported the Respect for Marriage Act.
In response, the Republican Party of Texas reprimanded Gonzales – a move that would allow them to remove him from the electoral list, in accordance with the measures proposed in the recent party programme.
Gonzales’ primary became personal when several of his fellow lawmakers endorsed Herrera in the primary. Among those supporting the YouTuber were House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) and Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.).
Although Gonzales had the support of Abbott and others as well as his colleagues from his home state, the conservative politician was only able to narrowly win.
As is typical in Texas primaries, both Gonzales and Republican Rep. Craig Goldman (Texas), who is running in the 12th Congressional District, were “challenged from the right,” Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Travis County Republican Party and a Republican strategist, told The Hill.
“I wouldn’t say any of her opponents were serious,” Mackowiak added.
“But the political environment made them serious.”
Many in the party argued that non-Republicans helped Gonzales win. That belief — and the steps the party is taking to respond to it — underscore a second divide between those Republicans who believe in a gigantic tent that includes as many recent voters as possible and those who want a smaller, more ideologically unified party committed to the culture war.
The Republicans’ recent platform, for example, limits voting in the primary election to registered party members and sets out the party’s intention to end the state’s long early voting period.
These moves are even causing concern among some members of the state’s emerging far right.
“As a conservative, my side constantly has good ideas that we think we can convince people with,” Sylvester of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Hill. “Elections are about ideas and we have to make it [people to vote] as possible.”
Sylvester also criticized his party’s platform plan, which requires statewide elected officials to win more than half of Texas’ counties – thereby excluding the predominantly urban Democratic Party from power.
Still, Sylvester and other Republicans agree that the party will be successful this fall.
“Texas Republicans are more united than ever,” state Republican Party Chairman Abraham George said in a statement to The Hill. “We just overwhelmingly adopted our platform, legislative priorities and rules at our convention and elected new party leadership.”
Others see a longer road ahead of them.
Except in a few “liberal” districts, the infighting in the state’s House of Representatives is unlikely to give Democrats much of a chance of winning, experts told The Hill, noting that many of these key elections took place in rural districts where conservative majorities rule.
However, they admit that tensions and internal power struggles will continue in the autumn and in the recent legislative period.
“I think this will continue all summer, all fall and all winter, because everyone is looking at Dade Phelan and whether or not he can remain speaker,” said Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser.
“There are many interest groups that want to replace him, not only on the issue of free school choice, but also on other issues such as the border or other cultural issues.”
Phelan is still considered the clear favorite to win the House majority, Blank of the Texas Politics Project told The Hill, in part because many lawmakers may be upset about the role Abbott, Patrick and Paxton played in unseating their incumbent colleagues.
“They may have created an environment where it is even less likely for those Republican members – or at least a significant portion of them – to come forward with the goal of compromise,” Blank said.
This split could give Democrats in the state legislature a level of strategic power they have not seen in a long time.
“From Washington to Austin, Republicans are more divided than ever,” Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told The Hill.
But as in Congress, “unity is our greatest asset when Democrats come together,” he said.
One looming question is whether Republicans in Texas will start rejecting bills just because they were proposed by Democrats, Ratliff told The Hill.
“If Democrats return to the legislature next session with less power and less say, they could become another force for chaos, which is not really their role,” Blank said. “And so it could be that factions of the Republican Party’s primary caucuses are in dispute within the legislature and Democrats are more inclined to add fuel to the fire.”
Abbott’s attempt to take control of the House of Representatives could fail because of something far more prosaic than intra-party politics.
“They only have one issue in mind, but they have 7,000 bills in front of them. So there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what these members want to do,” Blank said.
But he said those hoping the insurgents would transform the culture of the House may be disappointed.
“Having a significant impact on the rules or the process,” he said, “is not the norm for a new member.”
