The Texas Lieutenant Governor Race, Summed Up
Dan Patrick is viewed by many as one of the leading figures in Texan conservative politics, and he’s taken up quite the name for himself. Starting out as someone who begun a broadcasting career with programs such as WNEP-TV and WTTG, following bankruptcy, Patrick ended up becoming a conservative commentator that would leapfrog into a bid for Texas State Senate. He would easily win his first election, and then would create a Tea Party Caucus in the Texas State legislature upon re-election following 2010. Patrick would be listed as one of the most influential Texan conservative figures, and following a hotly contested race against incumbent David Dewhurst in 2014, Patrick would become Lieutenant Governor following a primary win. Patrick completely opposes abortion, supports charter schools, creationism, opposes Critical Race Theory, and heavily supports Donald Trump. Patrick has numerous controversies over his positions, with Patrick arguing that if Texan law against same-sex marriage was repealed, so would laws against bigamy, pedophilia, and incest.
Following the Orlando nightclub shooting, Patrick tweeted a Bible verse that read: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Galatians 6:7”, supports bathroom bills, and called Beto O’Rourke “light in the loafers”, a slur used to institute someone as gay, but said it was unintentionally corresponding to that.
Patrick also opposes public schools from requiring students to read writings from figures such as Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr.
Patrick has been endorsed by Former President Donald Trump, former Governor Rick Perry, and both Senator Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and is mostly running on his conservative positions.
Daniel Miller is the President of the Texas Nationalist Movement, the goal of the movement is the “complete, total and unencumbered political, cultural, and economic independence of Texas”.
Through this organization, Miller gained tons of controversy, as representatives of the group made multiple trips to Russia and received funding to attend a conference in Russia from the Russian government. The top issue at play for Miller of course is formulating an independent Texas, but he is running on other issues such as abolishing the property tax and on the viewpoint that “Neo-Marxists want to rewrite and dilute the story of the Battle of the Alamo”, and that “they want to sanitize, federalize, and then globalize The Alamo”.
Miller has collected several endorsements, such as former State Representative David Simpson, State Representative Kyle Biedermann, Brackettville District Attorney Brent Smith, and the Conservative Republicans of Texas.
The rest of the following candidates are mostly conservative activists, such as: Trayce Bradford, Todd Bullis, Aaron Sorrells, and Zach Vance.
Polling mostly has Dan Patrick avoiding a runoff, however, with a usually large undecided percentage.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, three major candidates are running.
State Representative Michelle Beckley, who won office after defeating the author of the Bathroom Bill of Texas, Ron Simmons, in 2018, has been a relatively notable LGBTQ+ activist in the Texas legislature. She has also been an advocate of women’s rights, opposing the Born Alive bill of Texas. Beckley briefly ran for Representative of Texas’s 24th congressional district this year, before swapping to run for Lieutenant Governor instead. Despite her social liberalism in the legislature, Beckley has been accused of racist comments by joking that the only Spanish words she knew were “taco and burrito”.
Beckley has been running on a platform revolving around social liberal values and revitalizing the energy grid in Texas.
The Vice Chair of the Texas Democratic Party, Carla Brailey, is running on ending the “extremist agenda” of the state government and supporting the legacy of the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. She supports revitalizing the power grid, universal background checks, a minimum wage of $15 an hour, and more.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram endorsed Brailey as the candidate “with the best chance to beat Patrick”.
Mike Collier, the finance chair of the Texas Democratic Party, as well as a former nominee for comptroller and the nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018, is the probable frontrunner of the race.
Collier has mostly run on “fixing the damn grid”. But other positions, such as support for the legalization of marijuana and public schools expansion also have been benchmarks of his campaign.
In this race, Collier has been formally backed by State Representatives James Talarico, John Bucy III, Gene Wu, Donna Howard, Eddie Rodriguez, Terry Canales, and Alex Dominguez. He also has been backed by the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, the Austin Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, and the Texas AFL-CIO.
Collier lost by around 5% in 2018, improving upon Beto in mostly Republican north Texas, and if he wins, he may have a real shot at the race this time. Either way, if it’s Brailey, Collier, or Beckley, the nominee will have a real, but perhaps, difficult shot at flipping the office.
