Tuesday’s primary in Texas was a victory for the Republican Party establishment, but it was far from a decisive show of force in the ongoing battle with the party’s insurgent, far-right wing.
Moderate Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales fended off a far-right, pro-gun YouTube star in his sprawling West Texas district. But it took a major party mobilization and millions of dollars in outside financing to get him to crawl across the finish line shortly after 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
A clearer victory came in an open red congressional seat in the North, where state Rep. Craig Goldman decisively defeated an opponent aligned with members of the House Freedom Caucus.
The results were messier in a slew of hotly contested legislative races. The state House speaker managed to hold on to his seat — also by a few hundred votes — despite a challenge from the right, a symbolic victory in an expensive race that had become a proxy battle. But several other established parties were felled after a series of impeachments during the March primaries. These expulsions were driven by Governor Greg Abbott and other top Republican Party leaders, who went after fellow Republicans for obstructing conservative priorities and supporting the ouster of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Taken together, the results painted a portrait of a complicated, dynamic state in political turmoil.
The outcome of the conference is a huge boon for the deadlocked governing wing of the Republican Conference of the House of Representatives. But the state-level results were less decisive as the warring Republican factions each claimed hard-fought victories across the state. Texas politics have become more vicious in recent years, with the establishment and conservative wings of the party battling over the future of the Republican Party.
That intensity was on full display Tuesday night as the election results poured in.
Tony Gonzales gets a win, with some help
Gonzales and Goldman both received support from established players. While Goldman defeated John O’Shea somewhat easily in Tuesday’s second round, Gonzales’ win was a squeaker.
House Republican leaders had mobilized to defend Gonzales against Brandon Herrera, a pro-gun activist known as “The AK Guy.” He received support from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.). To ensure Gonzales’ victory, several establishment-affiliated super PACs pumped more than $4 million into television. Some of those spots boosted Gonzales, while others attacked Herrera for his history of inflammatory comments made online as a social media influencer. He was harshly criticized for past videos mocking the Holocaust, Barron Trump and veteran suicide.
According to the media tracking company AdImpact, Herrera spent $1.3 million on TV ads, compared to Gonzales’ $1.9 million.
Among the groups that spent millions to block Herrera were AIPAC super PAC, the GOP leadership-focused American Action Network, the political arm of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Hispanic Leadership Alliance.
It was a costly and time-consuming effort. And the race further divided an already fractious House GOP conference.
On TV, Gonzales called far-right members of his conference “sons of bitches” and suggested they were Klansmen. His comments prompted even more Republicans in the House of Representatives to take the rare step of supporting an incumbent member’s opponent.
Gonzales had already made himself vulnerable by repeatedly angering his own base. He voted to codify same-sex marriage and joined with Democrats to pass a bipartisan gun control bill after a deadly shooting at an elementary school in his district. In the March primaries, he received only 45 percent of the vote and was forced into the runoff, a dangerous spot for a sitting president.
His district stretches from the suburbs of El Paso to San Antonio and includes more than 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. The district has been a battleground in the past and became more GOP-friendly in redistricting. But Gonzales’ allies warned that Herrera’s appointment could make the seat competitive in the general election. Former President Donald Trump won the district by 7 points under current lines.
In North Texas, the race for retiring Republican Rep. Kay Granger also deepened into a proxy battle, but locally. Abbott endorsed Goldman, the chairman of the Republican caucus in the Texas House. But Goldman’s vote to impeach Paxton prompted the attorney general to back O’Shea.
Goldman had a double-digit lead during the March primaries, but that wasn’t enough to avoid a runoff. A super PAC funded by Republican Party megadonors Goldman reinforced through the primary.
In South Texas, Jay Furman won the Republican nomination in November to face indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).
Texas House Speaker narrowly avoids historic defeat
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan clinched a victory in his second primary Tuesday despite being targeted by top GOP leaders.
Phelan was up just 366 votes with all precincts reporting — a remarkable turnaround after finishing second behind his well-funded challenger David Covey in March. Covey, a former county party chairman, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Millions of dollars poured into the race as it became the highest-profile state-level battle in the war between the GOP establishment and the far right.
Phelan lost support from the state party after failing to pass major conservative agenda items such as school vouchers and leading an impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton, facing securities fraud charges, began a campaign of revenge against the Beaumont Republican and the incumbents who voted to oust him. Paxton was acquitted of charges by the Senate last September.
Phelan, who arrived at his election night watch party with a cigar in his mouth, told his supporters that “House District 21 is not for sale.”
Gov. Greg Abbott is claiming victory in the campaign to oust Republicans who opposed his school voucher plan
Texas is embroiled in a battle over school vouchers. And after the state legislature undermined Abbott’s prized school choice proposal, he hit the road take out the legislators at the ballot box. He largely succeeded in doing so on Tuesday.
Only one of the four Republican incumbents who faced a runoff and opposed school vouchers survived, with state Rep. Gary VanDeaver managing to hold on to his seat despite being targeted by Abbott and aligned Republicans. But the three other Republicans who also voted against school vouchers — state Reps. DeWayne Burns, Justin Holland and John Kuempel — all lost to far-right candidates recruited by Abbott.
Amid the national wave of new school choice laws, Abbott has tried to reshape Texas’ primary and secondary education through a voucher program that allows parents to use public money to pay for private education, but last year enough Republicans joined the Democrats to stop him from doing so. Furious, Abbott has spent months on a revenge tour to replace anti-voucher Republicans and give himself a pro-voucher majority.
Fifteen Republican incumbents were voted out in total during the Texas primary season, ten of whom were explicitly targeted by Abbott for voting against vouchers.
It wasn’t just Texans spending money on these races. National groups like Club for Growth and school choice advocates like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican megadonor Jeff Yass poured money into supporting pro-voucher candidates.
Abbott declared victory Tuesday night, saying there will now be enough votes to pass his voucher proposal.
“While we did not win in every race we fought, the overall message of this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” he said in a statement.
