National PAC spending $1M to unseat Phelan
A national political group plans to spend nearly a million dollars to unseat Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan as he fights to survive a GOP runoff election next month.
The Club for Growth, a group funded by GOP donors that usually focuses on congressional races, said it would spend $900,000 in the Beaumont media market. The group already has posted one ad that describes Phelan as a “Democrat in disguise.”
Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, faces a May 28 runoff against GOP activist David Covey.
No Democrats are running in the heavily conservative district, so whoever wins the runoff will be elected. A Texas House speaker has not lost reelection since 1972. If Phelan is deposed, it inevitably will set off a scramble for the gavel within the House Republican Caucus. At least one other Republican, Cypress Rep. Tom Oliverson, already has said he wants the position.
The announcement was part of a planned $4 million ad buy across Phelan’s race and four other GOP runoffs, each of those targeting incumbents who opposed private school vouchers. That included more than $2 million in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to oppose Reps. Justin Holland and DeWayne Burns, $650,000 to oppose Rep. John Kuempel near San Antonio and $300,000 to oppose Rep. Gary VanDeaver in Northeast Texas.
Phelan has said he supports vouchers but advised House members last year to vote as they saw fit — a move that voucher proponents have criticized. While roughly two dozen GOP House members ultimately joined with Democrats to defeat the proposal, it was the furthest any voucher bill had advanced in the House in two decades.
A spokesman for Club for Growth said the group sees Phelan as an obstacle to passing “school choice” in Texas.
“School freedom is the defining civil rights movement of our generation and Texans sent a clear signal demanding school freedom during the March 5th primary elections,” said Club for Growth Action President David McIntosh. “You can no longer consider yourself a conservative if you oppose school freedom.”
The group has been allied this cycle with Gov.
Greg Abbott, who has led the charge to unseat voucher opponents.
The new ads come as Abbott has said virtually nothing about whether Phelan should remain in office, though in recent weeks the governor has had Phelan by his side at several events, which could be seen as a tacit endorsement.
Abbott’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Phelan’s.
Phelan has served in the role since 2021, with his first legislative session described by Abbott as “one of the most conservative legislative sessions our state has ever seen.”
The biggest donor for the Club for Growth this cycle is Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, who has given the group $16 million.
Yass also gave the largest single donation in Texas history — $6 million to Abbott in January, which the governor used to help defeat seven antivoucher Republican incumbents in the March primaries.
The Republican governor is seeking to expand his victories in the May runoffs. If his favored candidates win at least two of the four close races, Abbott is poised to win enough support to enact his private school voucher plan in the next legislative session.