5 takeaways from Texas’ contentious GOP primary runoffs

The Texas GOP primary runoff put Republican intraparty divisions on full display Tuesday night as several mainline conservative incumbents fended off challenges from their right even as other incumbents were defeated.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and state House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) survived primary contests against challengers who had the support of former President Trump or hard-line conservatives.

At the same time, a handful of state legislators lost their re-election bids after drawing the ire of the state’s top Republicans. about your opposition to Governor Greg Abbott’s (R) school voucher policy or his support for the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) during the impeachment process.

The mix of results between mainstream conservatives and radicals is only expected to deepen tensions between the two sides — to the potential benefit of the state’s embattled Democrats.

Here are five takeaways from the controversial Texas primary runoff.

Trump and Paxton take a hit

For Texas’ rising far right, there was one main target: State Rep. Dade Phelan (R).

Phelan is “bad, bad, bad for the Republican Party and for democracy. We need him beaten and beaten,” Trump said in a video shared Saturday on her Truth Social platform.

Trump called on Texans to vote for Phelan’s opponent, former Republican county chairman David Covey, in a “very important” runoff.

As speaker of the House, Phelan presides over the faction of “business Republicans” that governed Texas from the late 1990s until the rise of Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) in the 2010s.

Though a conservative Republican himself, Phelan, 48, also serves as head of the last part of state government not in the hands of the far right — a body that, in the 2023 legislative session, rejected some of Trump’s top priorities. Abbott and Patrick, as the attack on renewable energy and the allocation of millions of dollars to a state immigration policy.

But Phelan drew the particular ire of Abbott and Patrick for what they considered insufficient support for school vouchersa policy that opponents saw as a means of allowing wealthy parents to take money away from public schools.

And he earned the enmity of Paxton, a people plagued by scandal Trump allyfor leading the House in its impeachment trial last summer — a move that intensified divisions in the state party into something approaching civil war.

In the March primaries, where Covey won more votes than Phelan but failed to clear the margin of victory, the far right sought to present Phelan as a moderate liberal or even a closet liberal.

In last night’s second round, this strategy narrowly failed. Just over 25,000 Orange County Republicans showed up in the primary and Phelan won by a margin of 400 votes, or just over 1.5 percent, leaving him battered but still in office.

But with proxy victories for his enemies in other runoffs last night, the question of whether Phelan maintains his role as Mayor remains an open question.

Abbott and Paxton still won some important victories

Although top Republicans were unable to unseat Gonzales and Phelan, they still had their fair share of victories on Tuesday night.

Abbott targeted a number of Republicans who chose to get rid of the school voucher provision in the state’s education package.

School voucher policy was a major priority for Abbott, and the governor supported Republicans who sought to challenge members of the Legislature who blocked the governor’s attempt to include the voucher program in the education bill.

Six voucher opponents were defeated during the initial March primaries, with another three missing the primary runoff on Tuesday — meaning Abott and his allies have already eliminated 75 percent of the voucher opponents they targeted.

But even supporting the governor’s priorities on school vouchers wasn’t enough to save some incumbents.

Three state House members who incurred Paxton’s ire by voting to impeach him last year also lost their seats in the runoff, raising the total number of incumbents displaced by the far right for a record 15according to the Texas Tribune.

Abbott said Tuesday that the House “now has enough votes” to approve vouchers — although that assumes all of these candidates win in the November general election.

A moderate House Republican screeches

Gonzales barely held on in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District in the GOP primary, which runs from El Paso to San Antonio.

He survived a primary challenge against Brandon Herrera, a YouTuber and gun enthusiast who enjoyed the support of hard-line conservatives including House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) and Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.).

Gonzales and hard-line conservatives often found themselves on opposite sides on key GOP issues, including whether to include a mandatory warrant for a U.S. spying program and whether to support the House speaker’s foreign aid legislation, Mike Johnson (R-La.).

But the Texas congressman has also faced ire from within the state Republican Party, which censured him last year for his support of several Democratic-backed pieces of legislation, including the bipartisan gun safety bill that emerged after the Texas shooting. school of 2022 in Uvalde – which Gonzales represents – and the Respect for Marriage Act.

Several outside groups entered the GOP primary to help Gonzales, a sign of how tight the race has become in a swing congressional district. The Republican Jewish Coalition contributed $400,000 towards an ad purchase for the primary runoff, while a super PAC aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Herrera targeted in a US$1 million advertising buy, among other groups.

Money matters

The 2024 Republican primary fight marked a watershed in Texas politics: the influx of money into what have historically been sleepy, low-cost races.

The high roller status of these races was evident in the Phelan-Covey clash. 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 the conservative donor Alex Fairly, according to Followthemoney.org.

But Phelan drowned Covey in a flood of money, including $1 million from major state Republican PACs, $700,000 from oil and gas and half a million from real estate interests. A significant chunk – around US$660,000 – came from the casino mogul Miriam Adelson. He also received $75,000 from controversial oilman Harlan Crow, patron of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During the Republican primary season, Adelson also donated $9 million to Texas Defense, a PAC to which she is the only donor, according to The Texas Tribune. This is matched on the other side by US$6 million was poured into the coffers of school voucher supporters by Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass.

Gonzales was also aided by a monetary advantage. The ad tracking company AdImpact reported five days before the election that there was $3.6 million in advertising spending supporting Gonzales, another $1 million launching anti-Herrera ads, and about $800,000 spent supporting Herrera at that time.

Deepening Republican Party divisions in Texas embolden Democrats

On Wednesday, the Texas Democratic Party pointed to Phelan’s near-defeat as a harbinger for the state — and a possible salvation for the party, which dominated Texas for much of the 20th century.

“The surprising primary defeats suffered by Republican Party incumbents, previously considered ultraconservative, demonstrate unequivocally that MAGA extremists have taken complete control of the Republican Party,” the state Democratic Party said. wrote in a blunt statement.

Although most Texans are governed by local Democratic administrations, the party has failed to win statewide office in the last 30 years.

However, this upcoming election could be existential for them: The Republican primary proposal would create an Electoral College-like system in which state officials would have to win a majority of counties – effectively locking Democrats out of poweras the Tribune reported.

Nearly three-quarters of Texans believe the state has been captured by “an extremely conservative agenda,” according to a poll from the progressive group Unlocking America’s Future earlier this month.

On Wednesday, state Democrats sought to present themselves as the main party of opposition to a rising far right.

“Despite being one of the most conservative speakers to ever lead the Texas House, Dade Phelan was forced into a precarious and unprecedented primary challenge after refusing to tolerate corruption,” the party wrote.

“Congressman Tony Gonzales narrowly escaped defeat to a C-list YouTube gun influencer after being censured for supporting commonsense gun legislation aimed at preventing tragedies like the Uvalde massacre from occurring again.”

These close races — and the wave of eliminated incumbents — “show that the state Republican Party has been hijacked by the most extreme fringe of the far right and is completely incapable of leading,” the statement continued. “The Texas Democratic Party calls on all Texans – regardless of party affiliation – to speak out against this depravity.”