Social conservatives spend big for modest gains in GOP races
For those keeping score in the long-running struggle between centrist Republicans and anti-establishment conservative groups
that has defined recent legislative elections in Texas, Tuesday’s Republican primaries produced mixed results.
Social conservative groups like Empower Texans that had
been hoping to push the Texas House GOP majority further to the right ahead of next year’s House speaker race appear to have fallen short of that goal. But they won several contested races and might add a few members to their ranks of insurgents.
More than two dozen competitive House Republican primaries pitted candidates backed by Empower Texans or by the Wilks brothers, ultraconservative donors from Cisco, against those backed by such centrist-aligned groups as the Texas Association of Business or political committees tied to House GOP leadership. All but two of the targeted incumbents avoided defeat, and open-seat races were largely split between the factions. Five more key races appear headed for runoffs on May 22.
There are 95 Republicans in the 150-member Texas House, which will select a new leader next year after the retirement of five-term Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican from San Antonio who for years has been the top nemesis of Empower Texans and some megadonors like the Wilks brothers and Midland oilman Tim Dunn. The groups they back have spent several millions of dollars on legislative races to push the
state further to the right this election cycle.
Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones said that insurgent conservatives will be happy with their gains, although the results are not a “pop-thechampagne-cork victory” for their side.
“As long as they come out with net gain, it’s all positive because their goal is to slowly erode the centrist conservative contingent in the House, and every centrist they knock off in the primary is one less vote for a moderate speaker in the mold of Joe Straus,” Jones said.
Empower Texans framed Tuesday’s results as a victory, focusing on the fact that all 12 members of the far-right Freedom Caucus either won or were unopposed in their primaries.
“Despite the Austin establishment’s best attempts to field challengers to all twelve members, only four received opponents in the primary, with all of their liberal challengers being defeated,” the group posted on its website. “With additional victories across the state by conservative candidates, it appears the Freedom Caucus will be growing its ranks.”
The biggest wins for the insurgents were the defeats of Dallas Rep. Jason Villalba by challenger Lisa Luby Ryan and of Rep. Wayne Faircloth of Galveston by Mayes Middleton. Faircloth, however, already ranked among the more conservative members of the GOP caucus, according to a voting record analysis by Jones.
Conservative activists also notched victories with apparent wins by Jonathan Boos in the race to replace moderate Rep. Cindy Burkett, who ran for the state Senate, and Steve Toth in the open seat vacated by retiring Rep. Mark Keough. But even more so than Faircloth, Keough was one of the most conservative representatives, meaning Toth’s victory will do little to change the caucus’ politics.
The centrist faction, however, made some gains of its own. The open seat now held by Dripping Springs’ Rep. Jason Isaac, a conservative who gave up his seat to run for Congress, might go to a Straus-friendly Republican with Ken Strange defeating Amber Pearce, who was endorsedbyEmpowerTexans.
In one of the ugliest races, Fort Worth’s Rep. Charlie Geren, a top ally of Straus’, fended off a challenge from Bo French, who also had tried to unseat Geren in 2016. Geren blamed the race’s negative tone on outside forces like the Wilks brothers; Michael Quinn Sullivan, who leads Empower Texans; and Dunn, who donates to Empower Texans and other groups.
“The issues are the lying men in Cisco, Texas, and Midland, Texas, that are funding (French) and putting out all the negative pieces, and they’re liars. Michael Quinn Sullivan is a liar, a damned liar,” Geren told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who shocked the Capitol this primary season by actively campaigning against Faircloth and two other Republican incumbents, also saw mixed results. His other two targets — moderate Reps. Lyle Larson of San Antonio and Sarah Davis of West University Place — defeated their challengers.
Davis took several shots at Abbott in her victory celebration, saying her campaign came down to “whether the Republican party would be big enough to support diverse voices, and the right of a representative to vote her conscience and her district,” the Texas Tribune reported.
In three hotly contested GOP primaries in the Texas Senate, conservatives fared better, with Burkett appearing to have come up short in her challenge to Sen. Bob Hall and with Rep. Pat Fallon victorious in his bid to unseat moderate Sen. Craig Estes. Sen. Kel Seliger, another target of the further right groups, appears to have narrowly avoided a runoff against two challengers.