The Texas Governor Race Primaries Summed Up
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY FOR GOVERNOR
Oh man, is this a race. Governor Greg Abbott, who has served since 2015, and served as Attorney General and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas before being elected, is being primaried. He’s become rather notable for his conservative positions, where he successfully advocated for the Texas State Capitol to display the Ten Commandments in Van Orden v. Perry (2005), unsuccessfully attempted to defend Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage, numerous lawsuits against the Barack Obama administration, support for the Donald Trump administration, and lately, various acts of legislation such as the Texas Heartbeat Act that struck against abortion. Furthermore, Abbott has become recognized for being paralyzed from the waist down after an oak tree fell on him while he was jogging in 1984. Abbott recently has faced extensive heat from Texan residents over his reaction to the power crisis following the deadly February 2021 winter storm and COVID-19 measures.
Abbott himself is running on his experience mostly, repeatedly noting how much Texas has grown as of late, with pointing out that Texas is the tenth largest economy in the globe if it was its own country. Additionally, he is running on his more conservative ideas, such as how he signed into law a campus carry act, the Heartbeat Bill, and more. He as of late has also unveiled a “Parental Bill of Rights” bill that would “enable parents to voice their concerns to school officials more efficiently”. Additionally, it would look into “the availability of pornographic material in school libraries” and the option for parents to decide if their students should have to repeat a course or grade level. Abbott has been backed by former President Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Funnily enough, Paxton early on said that he doesn’t support Abbott, then rescinded his statement, endorsing the Governor.
Allen West is quite the guy. West served in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War, got charged in an incident where he simulated an execution of an Iraqi policeman where he shot a gun near the man’s head, moved to Florida, taught as a teacher, and then entered politics in 2008. He lost to Democratic incumbent Ron Klein in his first race, but won the seat in 2010 as a member of the Tea Party movement. However, his tenure in Congress would be incredibly short as he’d lose re-election in 2012. West was known in Congress to have accused multiple Congressmembers of being members of the Communist Party, said those who had Obama bumper stickers were a “threat to the gene pool”, that African American Democrats tried to keep African Americans on the “plantation”, compared himself to Harriet Tubman, and more. Basically, he’s built different. In 2019 he would run for Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas (yes, he moved from Florida to Texas), and actually beat the incumbent, James Dickey on a campaign ushered by a movement against Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen. He made the party coin the slogan “We are the storm”, a phrased used by the QAnon conspiracy theorist movement, defended the movement to invalidate election results in some states, and even said that “law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union”, basically, he threatened secession if Biden was inaugurated. Which I mean, Biden was inaugurated and nothing happened, so. West also self-treated himself with Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine against COVID. West is running against “state control of education”, saying that it was one of “Karl Marx’s planks in the Communist Manifesto” and that he would fight the “ideological war” in schools that implant Critical Race Theory of Social Emotional Learning in school. Man. West has been backed by Michael Flynn and State Representative Kyle Biedermann.
BlazeTV host Chad Prather is also running. He announced his bid on the platform of defending ICE, the First Amendment, and going against big tech media organizations. His campaign website also includes a Parler link, as well as an article seemingly pushing the blame of Representative Henry Cuellar’s FBI raid on the fact he criticized President Biden. He’s been endorsed by Roger Stone.
If anyone had to beat Abbott, it’d probably be Donald Huffines, who owns and operates Huffines Communities, a real estate development in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and recently served as a State Senator until losing to a Democrat. He was the fourth most conservative member of the 2017 Texas Senate, and is running to the right of Abbott. He supports banning gender reassignment surgeries for minors, wants to “abolish abortion”, supports banning Critical Race Theory, and accused Abbott of using tax dollars to “advocate for Transgender ideology” by providing a suicide hotline for LGBT youth. He also wants to declare Bitcoin as a legal tender for use. Recently, Huffines has been in a scandal because he wouldn’t take action against a campaign staffer who has extensive ties to Nicholas Fuentes and said in a YouTube video that he wants to maintain a “supermajority of white people” in the nation. He has received endorsements from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Representative Ron Paul, former State Representative Jonathan Strickland, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, and formerly received Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi’s endorsement, but this was withdrawn as Rinaldi ascended to the position. The Texas Signal has declared himself the “most dangerous man in Texas” due to his conservative positions.
Paradigm Partners has released a whole bunch of polls showing Allen West always in the 30s in a run-off against Greg Abbott, now, I don’t want to be that guy, but this is INCREDIBLY SKETCHY polling. Every page has a weird “CONFIDENTIAL” stamp on it, and the poll claims to have shown Governor Rick Perry the polling, which apparently reacted with a series of “grunts and facial distortions”, and for some reason, the polling denotes this. Additionally, it was an internal and I cannot find that much about the polling company. UT Tyler published a poll where they have Greg Abbott relatively easily beating out the field, same as YouGov. I would say that the likely scenario is Abbott wins, but Huffines may knock him down a few pegs.
Prediction: Likely Abbott
Personal Preference: While I 100% don’t support him in the general election, my choice has to be Abbott relatively easily, but all of them suck.
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR GOVERNOR
Well, this contest is relatively easy.
Congressman Beto O’Rourke, former nominee for Senate in 2018 and candidate for the Presidency in 2020, is running for Governor. I’ll just dive into his biography, he was born in a local political family in El Paso (his dad served as County Judge, funnily enough, he was a Republican), and entered a punk rock band. He was also a member of the computer hacking group Cult of the Dead Crow and ended up becoming a politician following the successful mayoral run of Ray Caballero. Caballero, a political progressive, criticized local industries and home developers for urban sprawl and pollution, with this, he became hated by the local businessmen and was defeated in 2003 by Joe Wardy, who himself served as a businessman. This 2003 defeat caused many staffers, including future Congresswoman Veronica Escobar and Beto to look into running for office. Beto would run for City Council, defeating incumbent Anthony Cobos and was chosen as mayor pro tem in his first-ever city council meeting. He then ran against Democratic Representative Silvestre Reyes in the 2012 Democratic House primary, where he criticized Reyes’s conservative positions, including his opposition to LGBT rights and drug legalization. Beto’s history basically is comparative of that to a modern progressive House candidate. His campaign was widely on foot, and he ended up winning. O’Rourke ran for Senate in 2018 where he ran an incredibly modern campaign, posting to social media daily with videos and posts as he traveled the state, crisscrossing the state numerous times, and visited every single county in Texas. He raised millions of dollars and ended up barely losing. He then ran a failed Presidential bid and gained controversy for his heavily pro-gun control positions, he would drop out before the primaries. In this race, he has been backed by US Representative Joaquin Castro, county judge Clay Jenkins, and some progressive organizations.
The candidates running against Beto aren’t notoriously notable, however, there was a significant protest vote against Beto in the 2018 Senate primary, and if anyone is going to get these votes, it’ll probably be reporter Joy Diaz as she’s taken up some notable headlines. I won’t delve too much into Joy Diaz, however, just know that she’s running on “pragmatism ahead of ideology”.
Prediction: Safe Beto
Personal Preference: Beto O’Rourke
This race is basically a clown car that stretches a state with 254 counties. Which is, a lot. Texas is insanely massive as a state, has tons of groups within it, and ultimately, has become quite the competitive state. Will Beto be able to captivate the general election voter base to cement a victory? Will one of Abbott’s challengers actually upset him in the primary? Who knows? Well, I bet the 169 people who reside in Loving County do.
