Texas GOP backing diverse candidates
Being a woman in a male-dominated industry has been a struggle for Angelica Garcia, a selfmade Latina businesswoman who grew her transportation company from scratch. Now she’s confident she has what it takes to represent her rapidly changing community in the Texas Legislature.
She’s not alone. Following the 2018 “year of the woman” that saw Democrats elect scores of women to Congress and state legislatures across the country, Garcia is one of 37 Republican women vying to serve in the Texas Legislature.
“I really do think the party needs more diversity and exclusivity,” Garcia told the Houston Chronicle editorial board. “It’s not the cookie-cutter white male. And I just feel that people want to see something different. From knocking on doors and seeing and talking to people, they’re excited about a new face.”
Texas Republicans have seen twice as many women running for Congress since 2018, and a strong field of female candidates at the state level is welcome news for a party that has grown increasingly male-dominated and white. Of 83 Republicans in the Texas House, just six are women and one, Houston Rep. Angie Chen Button, is a woman of color.
The Republican Party of Texas has long talked about attracting more diverse candidates. Now that it’s happening, the party plans to showcase those candidates with a video testimonial about why they are Republicans, according to a strategy memo that was leaked to the press in November.
Party Chairman James Dickey has said last year was the “biggest ever push” to attract and equip
potential candidates for 2020. More than half of the party’s recruiters urging women to step up into leadership roles are women themselves. But the goal, party officials have insisted, was always to find the best candidates regardless of their gender or race.
“One thing that we’re finding this election cycle is a greater interest by female candidates running as Republicans and a greater interest by minority candidates running as Republicans,” Gov. Greg Abbott said after a rally in Baytown this week. “The Republican Party really is growing from within from all these different people who share conservative values, share the values about freedom, about a strong economy, about individual liberty as opposed to one-size-fitall government mandates.”
At stake this year is more than gender parity. Republicans are trying to block Democrats from flipping the nine Texas House seats they need to seize control of the chamber. The timing couldn’t be more consequential: state lawmakers will redraw district lines for congressional and legislative districts next year, shaping which party is likely to win those seats for the next decade.
‘Seed money’ for future
With a commanding Republican majority in the Legislature, Abbott spent 2018 trying to defeat Republicans he criticized as not being conservative enough. This year, he’s using his $33 million campaign war chest to support 22 of the 97 state legislative candidates who are women, Hispanic, Asian American, Indian American or black.
That includes spending more than $23,000 supporting Jacey Jetton, a former party chairman in Fort Bend County who is of Korean descent; paying for more than $11,000 worth of digital ads for Manish Seth in east Fort Bend County’s District 27; expensing $17,000 in ads for conservative activist Lacey Hull in a west Harris County swing district; spending more than $19,000 supporting landscaping company owner Kronda Thimesch in House District 65 in North Texas.
Garcia is running in one of the most competitive districts in the state, a rapidly changing area of middle-class families stretching from Katy to Cypress, where 40 percent of people speak a second language at home. Democrat Gina Calanni flipped the district in 2018, unseating a longtime Republican by 113 votes.
Garcia wants everyone to know she has the governor’s endorsement: It’s on her campaign Tshirts, handouts and yard signs. Abbott’s campaign has spent at least $26,000 helping her election bid, namely by airing digital ads on the political newcomer’s behalf. The Associated Republicans of Texas Campaign fund, supporting moderate GOP candidates, has spent nearly $100,000 supporting her campaign since January.
If elected, Garcia says, she would spend her time in office focused on the economy and lowering taxes while reinforcing “familyfirst values” in state government.
Motivated to win District 132 back after his 2018 loss, Mike Schofield is running against Garcia for the Republican nomination. After serving for four years in the Legislature, he says he has the expertise to be effective on issues such as taxes and flood control. As one of the most conservative Republicans lawmakers in Harris County, he argues he lost the last election because he was trying to help candidates in other races and neglected to focus on his own.
Schofield said his message is resonating with voters and has nothing to do with his gender or race.
“I have knocked on 3,200 doors in this race myself, in addition to what other folks have knocked on my behalf,” he told the Houston Chronicle editorial board in January. “I have talked to the voters at their door and what they’re concerned about is their property taxes, they’re concerned about the border, they’re concerned about Texas maintaining it’s traditional values. Not one of them has said, ‘Geez, I wish you were some other race or some other gender.’ ”
Whether Garcia succeeds in the primary is immaterial, said Rebecca Deen, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. Win or lose, Garcia provides Latinos and people of color who have conservative cultural values — such as opposing abortion and championing the traditional definition of marriage — with a candidate they can relate to, she said.
Given the attention and support for Garcia, she could have the momentum to run for office again if she loses. Abbott’s investment in her is “seed money, if you will” for her political future, Deen said.
“It’s because Ms. Garcia is such an appealing candidate, and she’s exactly the kind of demographic the Republicans have longed to get,” she said.
Republicans say they do not engage in identity politics but confirmed that 55 — about one-third — of their candidates for the Texas House are women or people of color. Democrats say they don’t have a final count of how many of their candidates belong to an ethnic minority.
Where Republicans reject identity politics, Democrats celebrate it. Women make up some of their strongest candidates in the U.S. Senate primary and are some of the most aggressive fundraisers in running for Congress, party spokesman Abhi Rahman said. In the Legislature, the party says more than half of its candidates are women.
“We want candidates to reflect the electorate,” he said. “The candidates that we have are diverse. They are people who have traditionally been locked out by the Republican establishment. … Our candidates represent the now and the future of Texas. Republicans represent the past.”
‘Ability to connect’
Jetton, one of the candidates for District 26, wasn’t supposed to be Abbott’s choice, but the governor has spent more than $23,000 supporting him.
Abbott originally backed Rep. Rick Miller, a Republican in Fort Bend County, one of the most diverse in the nation. Abbott yanked his endorsement when Miller was quoted as saying he thought Jetton and another candidate, Leonard Chan, were running against him because they were “Asian.” A third candidate, Matt Morgan, is white.
Miller later apologized and withdrew from the race. Abbott later endorsed Jetton, who said it doesn’t matter what ethnicity someone is if he or she can connect with voters.
“It still boils down to who is willing to go into the different communities and who is willing to connect with them,” Jetton said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of ethnic background you have, you have the ability to connect with people. You have the ability to connect in conversations.”
Election Day is Tuesday.