Phelan headed to runoff pushed by Paxton over impeachment
House speaker faces Trump favorite in May
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is headed to a runoff against GOP activist David Covey after failing to secure a majority of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, a seismic turn of events that puts the powerful Beaumont Republican’s political future in doubt.
The rocky outcome, coming on Phelan’s own turf, could jeopardize his continued grasp on the gavel even if he wins the overtime round in May.
It came as many of his closest allies in the House were locked in tight races Tuesday night or had lost their races to Republican primary challengers backed by Gov. Greg Abbott or Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The GOP heavyweights waded into dozens of state House races, with Abbott campaigning against lawmakers who opposed private school vouchers and Paxton trying to oust those who voted to impeach him.
Phelan issued a defiant statement late Tuesday, framing the outcome as a win in the face of “a tidal wave of outside influence and the relentless flood of special interest dollars pouring into” the district.
“This runoff is not just another race, it’s the front line of the battle for the soul of our district,” Phelan said.
Paxton called for the runoff to be “a rallying cry for all conservatives across Texas.”
“The battle lines are drawn, and our resolve has never been stronger. We will not rest until we have secured victory in this runoff and reclaimed our state from the forces of Dade Phelan and his liberal backers,” Paxton posted on X.
Phelan finished a few percentage points behind Covey on Tuesday, while a third candidate, Jasper County hairdresser Alicia Davis, received enough support to prevent either front-runner from winning enough votes to reach 50% plus one vote — the threshold to avoid a runoff.
Phelan has represented his Southeast Texas House district since 2015, spending his last two terms leading the lower chamber as speaker.
During Phelan’s reign, the Gop-controlled Legislature passed laws banning abortion and allowing permitless carry of handguns. But much of the primary in Phelan’s House District 21 centered on charges that he held up other conservative legislation and ceded too much power to Democrats. The House’s move to impeach Paxton on corruption charges — paired with its failure to pass a school voucher proposal — turbocharged GOP backlash toward Phelan and other House Republicans.
Covey, who won the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, argued that Phelan is more beholden to “his liberal donors and friends in the Texas House” than the constituents of his district. He also drew support from Phelan’s two main political rivals, Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Patrick, the powerful Senate leader who has feuded with Phelan over property taxes and border security, spent thousands of dollars from his own campaign account to boost Covey.
Phelan countered his critics by pointing to the conservative legislation passed during his time as speaker, including laws banning abortion, overhauling the state’s elections, banning “critical race theory,” allowing the permitless carry of handguns and empowering state officials to essentially deport people who are suspected of crossing the border illegally.
He also touted the benefits of having a hometown representative as the powerful speaker of the House, and leaned into his record responding to the string of natural disasters to hit his coastal district in recent years, including Hurricane Harvey.
Phelan also enlisted former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to vouch for his conservative bona fides, featuring the former governor in campaign ads and at a campaign rally last month and even greeting voters at the polls.
But Phelan’s district was swept by an outpouring of ad spending from Covey — who received a majority of his campaign funding from groups bankrolled by right-wing West Texas oil tycoons Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks — and the School Freedom Fund, a political action committee that supports school vouchers.
Phelan received an injection of late support from the Republican State Leadership Committee, a group focused on electing Republicans to legislatures around the country, and Texas Sands PAC, a group tied to the Las Vegas Sands casino empire that advocates for legalized gambling in Texas.
Phelan is looking to avoid becoming the first Texas speaker to lose reelection in his district since conservative Democrat Rayford Price in 1972. Price was defeated barely two months after he had taken over the gavel from a predecessor who resigned as part of the Sharpstown fraud scandal.
No Democrat is running in the heavily Republican House District 21, which covers all of Jasper and Orange counties and part of Jefferson
County, including about a quarter of Phelan’s hometown of Beaumont.