Facing outspoken GOP challenger, Huffman wins Abbott’s support
AUSTIN — Longtime Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston won a key endorsement Thursday from Gov. Greg Abbott in her primary reelection fight with an outspoken GOP challenger.
The move is expected to deepen existing divisions in the Texas Republican Party that have been simmering for years, and have surfaced anew as control of the party took a hard-right conservative turn in recent years that left party moderates and the establishment wing increasingly isolated.
Thursday’s endorsement is Abbott’s ninth of conservative lawmakers who support his political positions, and comes after he last fall endorsed the conservative challenger to incumbent Republican state Rep. Sarah Davis, whose House district overlaps with Huffman.
The announcement came just weeks after Abbott had appointed Huffman’s GOP challenger, Missouri City attorney Kristin Tassin, to a gubernatorial special advisory commission on special education.
“Joan has been a key partner of mine in passing common-sense solutions for Texas,” Abbott said in a statement. “Joan is principled. She keeps her word and I know she will continue fighting by my side to make Texas even better next session.”
While it is generally rare for governors to get involved in a local legislative campaign, Abbott was irked last summer by House leaders who derailed roughly half of his must-pass agenda — including the controversial bathroom bill — and had promised he would help those who stood with him in the upcoming legislative re-election campaigns.
The support of Abbott, who remains popular across Texas in recent polls, signals that he could campaign for some House and Senate candidates and perhaps help financially as well. With well over $40 million in his own campaign war chest, and as the state’s top Republican elected official, the governor is being looked to by many less-wellfunded Republican candidates for support and encouragement.
Re-election targeted
Huffman, who chairs the powerful Senate State Affairs Committee, has served in the Senate since 2008. Before that, she worked as a Harris County assistant district attorney — rising from misdemeanor court to chief felony prosecutor — and served for two terms as a state district judge.
In recent legislative sessions, her committee has vetted a slew of controversial bills including the bathroom bill, which required people to use the restroom of their birth gender, and a ban on union dues deductions from government paychecks. Those measures angered moderate Republicans and Democrats, and targeted her for opponents in her re-election campaign.
In the GOP primary, she faces Tassin, the president of the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees who is an outspoken critic of Huffman on public education. In the November general election, the winner of the Republican primary will face Fran Watson, an attorney and past president of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus.
Opponent praised
Both Tassin and Watson insist that Huffman is too conservative to represent the interests of the economically and socially diverse district that includes parts of Harris, Brazoria and Fort Bend counties.
Huffman has responded that Tassin has a history of voting in past Democratic Party primaries, though voting record show she voted in GOP primaries in 2014 and 2016.
In a speech to an education group last year, House Speaker Joe Straus — who challenged Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over their conservative agenda — publicly singled out Tassin for praise for an op-ed article she had written on a public education issue.
At another point, in urging members of the Texas Association of School Boards to get more involved in the political process, Straus said, “I bet a few of you would make great members of the Texas Senate.”