Rarely have the infighting among Republicans in Texas been as bitter, protracted and consequential as the primary showdowns that culminated on Election Day Tuesday.
The fights have focused mostly on members of the Texas House who angered many conservative voters last year by indicting the Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, on corruption and abuse of power charges. Mr. Paxton, who was acquitted in the Texas Senate, vowed revenge, and his number one target was House Speaker Dade Phelan.
Gov. Greg Abbott is also pursuing several Republicans in the Texas House, seeking to unseat those who opposed his plan to use public money to help families pay for private and religious schools.
The aggressive statewide campaigning by both leaders is fueling tensions that have simmered for years between the party’s old guard and a more socially conservative faction aligned with former President Donald J. Trump sees Tuesday’s vote as an opportunity to shift the balance of power in the Texas House. , which has served as a mediating force in state politics.
The race is not unique to Texas as Republicans across the country and in Congress are engaged in a battle for control of the party. But the result could reverberate widely if Republicans in Texas, the most populous and wealthiest conservative state, decide the state needs to move even further to the right.
“This is a once-in-a-generation election,” said Nick Maddox, a Republican consultant who works with Mr. Paxton and Republican candidates in more than a dozen races.
If the two chambers of the Texas Legislature came out of the election more right-aligned, “it would be the most conservative legislature in the country,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant who has worked with school voucher advocates. “Dudd and his allies are the only thing stopping that from happening.”
The flood of outside money and the sheer number of contests, including more than a dozen races considered competitive, have left longtime representatives scrambling for their political lives. Those involved in the fundraising said the primary looked likely to be the most expensive ever seen in Texas, a state known for big campaign spending.
To finance his statewide push, Mr. Abbott received a $6 million campaign contribution — the largest in state history — from a Pennsylvania billionaire, Jeff Yass, who supports school voucher programs. A pair of West Texas billionaires who have long supported Christian conservative causes have put more than $2 million into helping candidates aligned with Mr. Paxton. Millions more have been spent on the defense of Mr Phelan and his embattled colleagues.
“It’s uniformly the most painful election we’ve experienced,” Mr Phelan said, referring to his own experience and that of his colleagues.
Greeting voters this week in Vidor, Texas, near the Louisiana border, Mr. Phelan — wearing a white T-shirt and camouflage hat, both bearing his name — blasted his opponent’s claims that the Texas House under his leadership had not advanced conservative causes.
“We went from 50,000 abortions to 34, and they say that’s not pro-life. We have constitutional power. You no longer have to get a license from the government to carry a gun, and they were saying that’s not good enough because convicts can’t have it,” Mr Phelan said. “Tell me what remains to be done? Mandatory transportation?’
In addition to trying to oust Republican state representatives like Mr. Phelan, who backed the attorney general’s impeachment last year, Mr. Paxton is trying to overhaul the state’s highest criminal court, ousting three Republican justices who serve on the court Criminal Courts of Appeal.
He has criticized the judges as only Republicans for their part in an 8-1 ruling by the all-Democratic court that found the state Constitution did not allow Mr. Paxton to unilaterally prosecute criminal voter fraud cases without going through local prosecutors.
Sharon Keller, the presiding judge and one of those facing a challenge, said she was surprised by the attacks. “I’ve always been criticized, if anything, for being too conservative,” she said he said in a TV interview.
At the same time, Mr. Paxton faces criminal charges, dating back to a 2015 indictment for securities fraud. Disputes over details that have delayed this case have already been brought before the highest criminal court, whose judges he is now attacking.
While both Mr. Abbott and Mr. Paxton are going after Republican incumbents, their interests are not always aligned. And Mr Abbott has himself faced challenges from the hard right of his party, including in his 2022 primaries.
In the Houston suburb of Katy on Monday night, Mr. Abbott appeared with State Representative Jaycee Jetton, who supported the governor’s private school voucher plan but had voted to impeach Mr. Paxton. It was the third time the governor had traveled to the region to support Mr Jetton during the primary.
In an interview, Mr Jetton lamented the large number of mailers and adverts against him, particularly those suggesting he supported the “trans agenda”. He clarified that he was a co-sponsor of the ban on gender transition care for minors.
“There are a number of candidates who are claiming lies,” he said. “If they win, I think that puts us in a dangerous direction.”
Nowhere has the campaign been as fierce as in the Southeast Texas district that Mr. Phelan has represented since 2015, and where his family has been prominent in business for generations. A boulevard in Beaumont, the largest nearby city, bears the family name, as does a shopping plaza. He has not faced an opponent from either party for a decade.
Mr. Phelan is being challenged by David Covey, a local GOP activist and technical consultant to the oil and gas industry, who has promised to help make the Texas House more like the conservative conservative Senate.
Mr. Covey, who described himself as a “very committed Christian and a conservative,” said in a telephone interview that Mr. Phelan and other representatives in Austin had been too nice to Democrats and had lost touch with what voters want. Republican voters.
“The conflict comes from elected leaders not listening to Republican voters and the majority of Republican activists,” he said.
His campaign was bolstered by third-party groups such as Texans United for a Conservative Majority, backed by West Texas oil and gas money, and catapulted into the national spotlight by an endorsement from Mr. Trump, who called Mr. .Covey out of the blue to offer it.
“It was an incredible moment in my personal life and in the campaign,” Mr. Covey said. “His message was, as goes Texas, so goes the nation.”
Mr. Phelan, for his part, has been endorsed by Rick Perry, the former Republican governor, who has held two events for the speaker in recent weeks.
At one point in the race, online revelers, supporters of Mr Phelan and those claiming to have a transgender child and a fentanyl addiction, knocked on doors in the area, including at Mr Phelan’s own home. He was not home at the time, Mr Phelan said, but his wife and four children were.
Separately, a 44-year-old man from Orange County in Mr Phelan’s area was arrested after making threats against Mr Phelan on Facebook. “He talked about the rifle he was going to use and how he was going to do it — I think he said my right temple,” Mr Phelan said.
A recent poll by the Texas Politics Project, a program at the University of Texas, showed Mr. Phelan’s approval statewide had risen slightly since December but remained below 30 percent.
“Phelan’s been there for a while, maybe it’s time for some new blood,” Vidor resident Pat Jinks said after casting his ballot for Mr. Covey at an early voting center there. Her husband, Brett, said he voted for Mr Phelan.
Another voter, Tony Wilcoxson, the mayor of nearby Rose City, appeared and shook hands with Mr. Phelan. He said he voted for the speaker because of the help Mr. Phelan had secured for the area after Hurricane Harvey. “I’m as conservative a Republican as they come, anti-abortion, pro-gun, all that good stuff, but at the end of the day you’ve got to take care of people,” he said.
Early voter turnout in the Texas primary was low in most places, and Republican voters who turned out to vote in Ventor appeared divided and eager to put the race behind them.
”I wasn’t unhappy” with Mr. Phelan, said Randy Jarrell, who nevertheless said he voted for Mr. Covey. He said Trump’s endorsement had an impact on him and his wife, who also supported the challenger. Both were sick of the leaflets in their mailboxes and the barrage of attack ads on TV.
“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” he said.
