Texas gov.’s rightward turn faces test
Abbott won election on relation to business but has recently embraced party’s fringe elements
AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott surprised some on his staff when he arrived at his office this fall with plans for a new pandemic decree: a ban on mandated vaccinations by private employers in Texas.
The decision was a stark departure for the two-term governor, an intrusion into business decisions of the sort Abbott had long opposed — and had indeed opposed just two months earlier. “Private businesses don’t need government running their business,” a spokeswoman had said then.
His about-face drew criticism from major Texas business groups, from corporations like American Airlines and from a powerful player in local Republican politics, Texans for Lawsuit Reform. It also prompted frustration among some of the governor’s staff.
Those who have known Abbott and watched his rise — from lawyer to state court judge to attorney general and, ultimately, to governor — have been stunned at his sudden alignment with the Republican Party’s most strident activists.
But as a governor with a keen sense of the political winds, in a state where Republican domination remains complete, his ban on vaccine mandates was in keeping with his penchant for reading the moment. And at this moment, even in business-centered Texas, corporate interests are out, and cultural concerns are in.
He is overseeing an audit of the 2020 results in four large counties in Texas, a state former President Donald Trump won by more than 5 points. He called for and signed into law restrictions on transgender athletes after appearing content, four years earlier, to watch bathroom restrictions on transgender Texans fail in the face of opposition from businesses. He went from a mask mandate last year to a ban on such orders this spring.
His rightward shift will be tested next year as he faces his most well-known and well-funded Democratic challenger yet, Beto O’Rourke, who announced his run late last month. Their contest raises the question of how far right a Texas governor can go and still hold on against a rising tide of Democrats in the state’s largest cities and suburbs.
The election is also an important test of Abbott’s strength on the national stage, where he is frequently mentioned alongside potential non-Trump presidential candidates, even as his aides insist he is not interested. His attacks on O’Rourke have doubled as attacks on President Joe Biden.
These days, Abbott finds himself torn between the even-keeled conservative approach that has brought him favor in Texas business circles and an intense focus on winning in the evolving Republican Party, according to interviews with many current and former advisers and more than two dozen friends, former colleagues, elected officials and political strategists.
His vaccine mandate ban was not enough for ultraconservatives, who have been demanding a special legislative session to codify his order. At the same time, businesses and hospitals have largely moved forward on existing or planned vaccination requirements, and the state has done little if anything to enforce the ban, industry groups said.
When Abbott first ran for governor, in 2014, he presented a more moderate side when facing Democratic state Rep. Wendy Davis. An ad in Spanish featured his wife, Cecilia, granddaughter of Mexican immigrants. Another had him rolling in his wheelchair — he is paralyzed from the waist down from an accident in 1984 — across a map to show businesses leaving California for Texas.
But as Republicans have strengthened their hold on state government, Abbott has seen challenges from his party’s animated base. This year, Abbott has joined with the firebrand lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, backing perhaps the most conservative legislative sessions in Texas history.
“Greg is an arch, arch far-right conservative, which remains a shock to me,” said Pearson Grimes, a partner at the law firm where Abbott worked in the 1980s.
“When I knew him long ago,” Grimes said, “I never would have dreamed that this would be his politics.”
Abbott, who conducts few news conferences, declined requests to speak for this article. His press secretary, Renae Eze, described him in an email as an “unwavering conservative leader” and “defender of constitutional and fundamental rights,” a man driven by his belief in “Texas exceptionalism” and the need to protect it.