Texas Attorney General Runoff Election Results 2022
Nick Corasaniti
May 24, 2022 More
Bush, George Prescott
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Who won, who lost and what was too close to call on Tuesday.
Ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost in the state of Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, he has sought revenge against the Republican incumbents there whom he blamed for not helping him overturn the results. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump lost in Georgia again, with his endorsed candidates losing in their Republican primaries for governor, secretary of state and attorney general.But those weren’t the only races that voters decided on Tuesday. Here is a rundown of the winners and losers in some of the most important contests in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas:Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, won his primary despite Mr. Trump’s best efforts against him.The Georgia governor who stood up to Mr. Trump, Brian Kemp, easily defeated a Trump-backed challenger. Mr. Kemp will face Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, whom he narrowly defeated four years ago.Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general, also defeated his Trump-backed challenger, John Gordon, to win the Republican nomination for that office. Mr. Gordon had embraced Mr. Trump’s election lie and made that a key part of his appeal to voters. Herschel Walker, the former football star and a Trump-backed candidate to represent Georgia in the Senate, defeated a crowded field of Republican rivals. In Georgia, one House Democrat beat another House Democrat in a primary orchestrated by Republicans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary for her House district in Georgia.In Texas, a scandal-scarred attorney general defeated a challenger named Bush. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Mr. Trump and the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, won the Republican nomination for governor of Arkansas.Representative Mo Brooks made it into an Alabama Senate runoff after Mr. Trump pulled back his endorsement.In Texas, a Democratic House runoff between Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who opposes abortion rights, and his progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney, was too close to call. (Results are being updated in real time here). More
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These Trump-Endorsed Candidates Are on the Ballot Today
Candidates endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump have had mixed success so far in contested Republican primaries for the 2022 midterm elections.Most of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates are running unopposed or face little-known, poorly funded opponents. But many Republican candidates this year, whether endorsed by Mr. Trump or not, have embraced his style of politics, including false claims about the integrity of the 2020 elections.Here is a look at Mr. Trump’s endorsements in closely watched races today in Georgia, Arkansas and Texas.GeorgiaA campaign rally for former Senator David Perdue at the Wild Wing Café in Dunwoody, Ga., where he appeared on the John Fredericks Show, on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesDavid Perdue, the Trump-backed former senator, has trailed in public opinion polls and fund-raising in his effort to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who angered the former president by refusing to help overturn the results of Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss in the state. Mr. Perdue has made lies about the 2020 election results a focal point of his campaign. Mr. Kemp has stood by the results, while supporting new restrictions on voting.Mr. Trump is also supporting Representative Jody Hice in his bid to unseat Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who also refused Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. Mr. Hice, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, has made Mr. Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 elections the center of his own campaign.Herschel Walker, the former professional football player whom Mr. Trump endorsed, has led a crowded field in the Republican primary for Senate, looking to challenge Senator Raphael Warnock, a well-funded Democrat, for the seat Mr. Warnock won in a high-profile special election in early 2021. Mr. Walker has been accused of domestic abuse and embraced skepticism about the 2020 election, but his celebrity and the Trump’s backing have buoyed him in public polling and fund-raising.In the crowded race for an open congressional seat just north of Atlanta, Mr. Trump endorsed Jake Evans, the son of Randy Evans, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Luxembourg. Mr. Evans has been attacked by his rivals for past remarks criticizing Mr. Trump. He has raised less money than Rich McCormick, a former Marine and a physician who narrowly lost a House race in 2020. Dr. McCormick has echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 elections and has refused to concede his own 2020 loss.ArkansasArkansas Republican gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders, second from right, with her husband Bryan Sanders, right, greeting supporters in Harrison, Ark., on May 20.Terra Fondriest for The New York TimesMr. Trump endorsed two candidates who are heavily favored to win their primaries today. Sarah Sanders, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary and daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, is facing Doc Washburn, a conservative talk radio host who was fired after not complying with the radio station’s vaccine mandate.In the race for attorney general, Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, whom Mr. Trump endorsed, has raised and spent far more money than his rival, Leon Jones Jr., the state’s former labor secretary.TexasTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, in July 2021.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesAttorney General Ken Paxton has some problems. He has been indicted on criminal securities-fraud charges that are still pending. Several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor. And he has faced abuse-of-power and bribery accusations. But he also has Mr. Trump’s endorsement and that could prove powerful enough to survive a re-election challenge from George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and nephew of former President George W. Bush who has clashed with Mr. Trump. More
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Bush Dynasty, Its Influence Fading, Pins Hopes on One Last Stand in Texas
ARGYLE, Texas — His famous name shadows George P. Bush, the only member of the dynastic political clan now in public office, as he enters the final days of an uphill campaign to unseat Texas’ attorney general.To some Texans, the Bush family name is a badge of integrity, harking back to a bygone era of rectitude and respectful political debate. To others, it is the disqualifying mark of a Republican old guard that failed the party and betrayed its last president, Donald J. Trump.Mr. Bush would like to make the campaign about the two-term Republican incumbent, Ken Paxton, whose serious legal troubles — including an indictment on securities fraud charges and a continuing federal corruption investigation — prompted high-profile Republicans to take him on in the primary. Mr. Bush made it to a runoff with Mr. Paxton that takes place on Tuesday.A few years ago, Mr. Bush, whose mother is from Mexico and whose father was the governor of Florida, might have won the race handily, his aides believe, and then been held up as a prominent example of a new, more diverse generation of Republicans.But that was before the ground shifted and his family spoke out publicly against Mr. Trump, in an unsuccessful effort to derail his bid for the presidency.Mr. Bush broke with his father (Jeb), his uncle (George W.) and his grandfather (George H.W.) and aligned himself with Mr. Trump and his followers. The effort to distance himself from his relatives was captured in a campaign beer koozie that his campaign handed out last year, quoting Mr. Trump: “This is the Bush that got it right. I like him,” it says, beneath a line drawing of Mr. Trump shaking Mr. Bush’s hand.The effort did not pay off. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Paxton, who had filed lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 election and had appeared with Mr. Trump at his rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, before members of the crowd stormed the Capitol.Mr. Bush, the Texas state land commissioner, bears a family name that evokes a pre-Trump style of Republican politics. Shelby Tauber for The New York TimesSome Texans say the political obituary has already been written for the Bush family, and see Mr. Bush, who is currently the state land commissioner, as its last flickering ember, with little of his forebears’ appeal.“Daddy Bush was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” Carolyn Lightfoot, a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, said of Mr. Bush’s grandfather. But the organization has criticized George P. Bush’s moves as land commissioner over his handling of the Alamo in San Antonio. Ms. Lightfoot said the Bush family and the party establishment were “trying to stuff him down our throats because of his Latino heritage.”For all that the family’s importance may have faded among Texas Republicans, Mr. Bush may still emerge victorious in the runoff. A poll this month had Mr. Paxton’s support at less than 50 percent, and Mr. Bush trailing him by only a few percentage points. Donors have pumped new money into Mr. Bush’s campaign in the final stretch, hoping to push him over the top.Mr. Bush has tried to refine and target his attacks on Mr. Paxton in recent weeks, after his campaign’s internal polling suggested that earlier efforts were hurting his own standing along with Mr. Paxton’s. And Mr. Bush has proudly invoked his family, both in a closing-message political ad and while speaking to audiences that might be unimpressed with the Bush name.“It’s all about ethics,” Mr. Bush told a gathering of Republican women this month in Argyle, a town in the rapidly growing, largely Republican suburbs of Fort Worth. “When people say the last thing we need is another Bush, my response is, this is precisely the time that we need a Bush.”As he barnstorms the state, Mr. Bush, 46, is invariably asked about his relatives, told about some fond memory of them, or challenged to reiterate his loyalty to Mr. Trump.After the event in Argyle, a man in a cowboy hat waited outside for Mr. Bush to emerge so he could confront the candidate.“Would you support for president the Republican nominee, even if it is Trump in 2024?” the man asked.“Yeah, no, I would support him again,” Mr. Bush replied as he walked to his car, wearing black cowboy boots emblazoned with a White House seal and a reference to his uncle’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. “But we’ll see who comes out.”At one campaign stop after another, Mr. Bush is asked about his family or his support for Donald J. Trump.Shelby Tauber for The New York TimesAt a Republican club event in Houston, held down the road from an apartment George W. Bush used to occupy in an area George H.W. Bush used to represent in Congress, George P. Bush delivered a speech attacking Democrats and Mr. Paxton. He promised to strengthen the state’s border with Mexico and to address Houston’s rising murder rate. He opened the floor to questions, but got a comment to start.“I enjoyed watching you talk, because to me, you have all the mannerisms of Governor Bush,” a man told him, to laughter in the room. “Your hands are just like ‘Saturday Night Live.’”Another attendee also made reference to his family. “I’ve heard people say that they’re not going to vote for you because they’re tired of the Bush dynasty,” said Doug Smith, a club member, echoing the views of some in the room. “How do you respond to those people?”“I’ll never run away from being a Bush; I love my family,” he said. Most of the crowd applauded.To live in Texas is to be exposed to the ubiquity of the Bushes, whose family name is borne by airports, roads and schools from Houston to Dallas to Midland. Both Bush presidents have their presidential libraries in the state. In Houston, there are even dog parks named for the canine companions of George P. Bush’s grandmother Barbara Bush, who died in 2018.Exposed to a national spotlight from a young age, Mr. Bush has been hearing about his bright political future for decades. “The Republican convention is doubling as a dress rehearsal for a man Republicans talk about as an up-and-coming heir to the Bush legacy,” The Baltimore Sun wrote of him in 2000, referring to him as a “hunk” who could put “the passion in compassionate conservatism.”Mr. Bush, left, was seen as an up-and-comer in Republican circles in 2000. His uncle George W. Bush was governor of Texas and a candidate for president, and his father, Jeb Bush, was governor of Florida. Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesBut that is not the message Republicans want to hear now, Texas political consultants, donors and observers said.“Everything was lining up to give him the brass ring, but the party changed too much,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. “The Republican base changed in such a fast way that many were left without a chair when the music stopped. Bush is a great example of that.”Jay Zeidman, a longtime friend of Mr. Bush’s, said he believed that those shifts masked a dissatisfaction with the direction the party had taken. “There’s a lack of political courage in this state right now because of Donald Trump,” he said. “I think Americans and Texans are thirsty for some reversion back to what politics used to be.”As he campaigns, Mr. Bush, who grew up in Florida, underscores his ties to Texas: Born in Houston, college at Rice University, a law career in the state. In an interview, Mr. Bush said he understood the legacy of his family as something Texan, as well as “quintessentially American and patriotic.”“My role is to close the wounds of the past,” Mr. Bush said. “What I focus on are areas that I can control, and not focus on the areas that I can’t control. Because that would be futile.”Mr. Bush has staked out hard-line positions that appeal to Republican primary voters on issues like the teaching of race and gender in schools. On immigration, he has urged Texas to formally invoke passages in the U.S. Constitution referring to “invasion,” a step toward the state seizing war powers and a move that Mr. Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott have so far avoided making. He has said there was “fraud and irregularity” in the 2020 election, though he did not believe it changed the outcome.Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, faces Mr. Bush in a primary runoff on Tuesday.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesHe has challenged Mr. Paxton to debate him on issues, but the two have not shared a stage during the campaign. Mr. Bush contrasts his willingness to field questions from reporters and from a variety of audiences with Mr. Paxton’s practice of rarely holding news conferences or taking challenging questions.Mr. Paxton’s campaign declined a request for an interview.“Texas voters have made it clear that they are sick and tired of the Bush family dynasty and their RINO establishment donors playing kingmaker in Texas politics,” said Kimi Hubbard, a Paxton campaign spokeswoman, using an acronym meaning “Republican in name only.”Mr. Bush was careful in an interview with The New York Times not to question the shifts in the Republican Party that have made his run for office more difficult. He said the concerns of party voters were largely the same as when he first ran for land commissioner in the 2014 election: “Concerns on my family, concerns on crime, border security.”Have voters’ feelings about the Bush dynasty hurt him? “I wouldn’t say so,” he said. “I’ve won.”A significant number of Republicans polled in Texas say they would not support Mr. Bush because of his family background. But his lineage is not simply a liability.In this month’s poll by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, people planning to vote in the primary runoff for attorney general were asked what they liked about their chosen candidate. One of the top factors Mr. Paxton’s supporters mentioned was that he was not a Bush. But about the same share of Mr. Bush’s backers said they were drawn to him specifically because he was a Bush.Mr. Bush has drawn financial support from his family’s network, including six-figure checks from some longtime Bush supporters and more than $100,000 directly from his uncle George W. Bush, campaign finance records show.Mr. Bush fielded questions at a Republican gathering in Flower Mound.Shelby Tauber for The New York TimesA week before the runoff, outside an early voting location in his grandfather’s old congressional district in Houston, Mr. Bush’s family name loomed large for Republican voters, both for and against.“We support George P.,” said Julie Treadwell, 50, who had just voted with her 18-year-old daughter. “We want to get back to that,” she said of his family and what they represented to her: “Conservative Republicans that are more even-keel and levelheaded.”Darla Ryden, 59, who overheard Ms. Treadwell’s remarks, waited until she had walked away to her car before describing her own views, which she said were just the opposite.“I was all for George Bush, daddy and son, but now I feel, with the Bushes, it’s more about power than it is about people,” Ms. Ryden said. She voted for Mr. Paxton in the runoff and supported him in the first round of the primary as well, she said, despite “his own struggles.”“The Bushes?” she added. “It’s done.” More
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Indicted. Under F.B.I. Investigation. And Still Popular With Texas Republicans.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, earned the most votes in Tuesday’s G.O.P. primary. His embrace of Trumpism has helped him weather a series of allegations.SAN ANTONIO — The race for Texas attorney general is asking Republicans to determine how many indictments and allegations of corruption are too many. The answer may be there is no limit — so long as the candidate has an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed attorney general, was indicted and arrested on criminal securities-fraud charges that are still pending. He has faced calls for his resignation after several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor. And he has been serving as the state’s top lawyer while under threat of a possible new indictment, as the F.B.I. investigates the abuse-of-office and bribery accusations.“The voters of Texas will tolerate a great deal,” said State Senator Kel Seliger, a moderate Republican who is a former mayor of Amarillo. “They think if somebody is ideologically in sync with them, that’s what matters. I would have thought in Texas that moral example is more important, but apparently it’s not.”In the pre-Trump era, indictments and investigations by federal law enforcement could have been fatal to a Republican campaign. But Mr. Trump has instilled a deep mistrust in government institutions like the F.B.I. Mr. Paxton took the unusual step of authorizing an investigation of an F.B.I. investigation — he appointed a special prosecutor to look into the federal probe of the wealthy donor, an Austin real estate investor named Nate Paul whose home and offices were raided by federal agents.The litany of allegations against Mr. Trump has allowed acolytes like Mr. Paxton to claim that they, too, are victims of a government conspiracy.“That’s the Biden F.B.I., the Biden D.O.J.,” Mr. Paxton said in a recent interview with a Fox News reporter. “They were under investigation by my office. I don’t know what they are going to do. All I can tell you is that we were doing the right thing. We are going to continue to do the right thing. I don’t control what the Biden White House does.”Since the 2020 election, Mr. Paxton has made himself among the nation’s foremost Trump defenders, filing an audacious lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to delay certification of the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He spoke at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the attack on the United States Capitol, won an endorsement from Mr. Trump and earned praise from him at the former president’s rally outside Houston. And he has overlooked the fact that, although he has claimed otherwise, the federal abuse-of-power investigation began under Mr. Trump’s F.B.I., not Biden’s.In the Republican primary on Tuesday in Texas, Mr. Paxton won 43 percent of the vote, a soft showing for an incumbent but one indicative of the three well-funded challengers who saw him as politically vulnerable. Since Texas requires primary candidates to win a majority of the vote to advance to the general election, Mr. Paxton faces a May 24 runoff against the scion of the most famous family in modern Texas politics: George P. Bush, the state’s land commissioner who is the nephew of one president and the grandson of another.The Paxton-Bush runoff crystallized immediately as a contest between an incumbent with ethical and legal issues and a challenger who cannot escape the establishment brand of his family name. In Texas Republican circles, some operatives cast the race as prison stripes versus pinstripes.Mr. Paxton has withstood his legal woes by delivering on the issues that drive Texas conservatives. He’s used his office as the state’s chief culture-war litigator — defending the new Texas abortion law, suing the Biden administration to force the federal government to continue building the border wall and joining a right-wing push to criminalize medical care for transgender youth. Days before the primary, he issued an opinion stating that certain medical treatments for transgender children could be considered child abuse, treatments that doctors describe as gender-affirming care.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Mr. Paxton did not take long to attack Mr. Bush as a symbol of the moderate conservative politics that Mr. Trump has all but excised from the Republican Party.“What has happened with performance by the Bushes over the last decade, it’s been disappointing,” Mr. Paxton said Wednesday during an interview on a conservative talk radio show in Lubbock. “I think a lot of Republicans have had enough of it. The Bushes have had their chance. It’s time for the dynasty to end.”George P. Bush spoke at a candidate forum in Midland last month. Mr. Paxton did not attend the event.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThat a top elected official in Texas could make such a stunning anti-Bush remark and face no political consequences illustrates just how loyal Texas Republicans have become to Mr. Trump and Trumpism.In Mr. Bush, Mr. Paxton has a near-perfect foil for a runoff election that is likely to have half or less the turnout from Tuesday’s primary. Mr. Bush has been an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trump, but his father, Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and a 2016 presidential candidate, and his uncle, former President George W. Bush, have been harsh critics.At a debate last month, the younger Mr. Bush said President Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election and called Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit to block the election results “frivolous” — statements Mr. Paxton’s campaign is using to attack Mr. Bush as insufficiently conservative.Mr. Bush said in radio interviews in recent days that he has contacted Mr. Trump’s advisers to suggest that he switch his endorsement from Mr. Paxton. A Trump aide said that was extremely unlikely. And Mr. Paxton said he spoke with Mr. Trump himself and extracted a pledge that the former president would continue to support him through the runoff.Still, Mr. Bush, whose father was savaged as “low energy” by Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, is not conceding Mr. Trump’s support. Last summer he distributed red koozies with a silhouette of himself shaking hands with Mr. Trump and a quote from the former president: “This is the only Bush that likes me! This is the Bush that got it right.”Mr. Bush signaled he will lean into Mr. Paxton’s ethical and legal issues, which have long been talked about in Texas political circles. In 2014, after Mr. Paxton was first elected attorney general but had not yet taken office, he was accused of taking a $1,000 pen that belonged to another lawyer. (He later returned it and said the episode was a simple mistake.) The State Bar of Texas is also investigating whether Mr. Paxton committed professional misconduct by challenging the 2020 presidential election results.In his own radio interview in Lubbock, Mr. Bush said the F.B.I. investigation and the securities-fraud case “are a matter of public record and should be discussed.” Mr. Bush’s campaign spokeswoman did not return repeated messages this week. Mr. Paxton declined to be interviewed.Mr. Paxton has denied wrongdoing in the securities case and has rejected claims that he accepted bribes in office. Last August, his office produced a 374-page report that cleared him of any wrongdoing and said there was “no evidence” he had accepted a bribe. “A.G. Paxton committed no crime,” the report issued by his office stated.There have been signals that Mr. Paxton’s litany of controversies has tested the limits of Texas Republicans’ patience with him. Representative Chip Roy, a conservative who used to work for Mr. Paxton, called for his resignation in 2020. Along with Mr. Bush, Mr. Paxton’s primary challengers included Representative Louie Gohmert, who gave up a safe East Texas congressional seat to run against him, and Eva Guzman, who resigned from the Texas Supreme Court to challenge him in the primary.During his campaign, Mr. Gohmert predicted Mr. Paxton would face a new federal indictment after winning the Republican nomination and lose the general election to a Democrat. If Mr. Paxton indeed wins the nomination but is defeated in November, it would be a devastating first for Republicans: No Democrat has won any statewide office in Texas since 1994.In the Democratic primary for attorney general, Rochelle Garza, a South Texas civil rights lawyer, garnered the most votes and is headed for a runoff. Her Democratic opponent remained unclear. The third-place vote-getter, Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer, said in a statement he was not ready to concede to the second-place candidate, Joe Jaworski, a former mayor of Galveston, because military and other ballots were still being counted. Ms. Garza said she was confident the attorney general’s office could be flipped from red to blue. In 2018, Mr. Paxton won re-election by narrowly defeating his opponent, Justin Nelson, by 3.56 percentage points.Mr. Paxton has brushed off any suggestion of a Democratic victory in the fall. “In this country, allegations don’t convict you,” he said in the Lubbock radio interview.Mr. Paxton’s aides said Texas Republicans don’t care about the allegations and controversies surrounding his office. They claimed credit for attacking Mr. Gohmert and Ms. Guzman in order to allow Mr. Bush to advance to the runoff. After the Paxton campaign attacked Ms. Guzman in television advertisements in the closing days before the primary, she dropped from winning 21 percent of the vote during the early-voting period to just 14 percent of the vote on Tuesday.“These ads clearly cost Eva a spot in the runoff,” Dick Weekley, the senior chairman of the mainstream Republican group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which endorsed Ms. Guzman, wrote in an email to supporters after the primary.Both Mr. Paxton and Mr. Bush are certain to continue to pitch themselves as the true steward for Trump supporters among Texas Republicans.“It’s easy for me to say that I wouldn’t grovel for the Trump endorsement,” said Jerry Patterson, Mr. Bush’s predecessor as land commissioner and a Republican who is anti-Trump but is backing Mr. Paxton. “It’s just damn distasteful for George P. At some point you just have to have some pride in your own integrity.”Yet Mr. Patterson said he has no problem with Mr. Paxton doing Mr. Trump’s bidding about the 2020 election and constantly stressing his Trump bona fides.“For Paxton that came naturally,” Mr. Patterson said. “It’s not contrived.”Kirsten Noyes More
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Primary Day in Texas Will Offer Preview of Midterm Battles Ahead
Texas is holding the first primary election of 2022 on Tuesday. Some of the dynamics at play include the intensity of Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate.HOUSTON — The Texas primaries on Tuesday will provide the first pieces of the 2022 midterm puzzle.The strength of the two parties’ ideological factions. The intensity of Donald J. Trump’s continued hold on the Republican electorate. And, for bullish Republicans, the earliest signs of how advantageous the political climate has become.The full picture of the 2022 landscape will be revealed through a series of state-by-state primaries held over the next six months. But the country’s first primary elections in Texas represent almost a sneak peek of many of the coming dynamics nationwide in an increasingly challenging environment for President Biden and the Democrats. That includes the impact of strict new voting rules imposed by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature and the political salience of abortion for both parties.A Texas state law last year effectively banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and this year a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court is expected in the Mississippi abortion case, which could affect procedures in multiple states. In South Texas, progressives are attempting to defeat one of the last anti-abortion Democrats remaining in Congress, Representative Henry Cuellar, and they received a political gift when the F.B.I. recently raided his home. Falling short under those circumstances would be a blow for the left after Mr. Cuellar narrowly won two years ago.At the top of the ticket, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is widely expected to vault past two spirited right-wing challengers. But he is also likely to come nowhere close to the 90 percent he marshaled in his last primary four years ago, a testament to an increasingly restive Republican base.Mr. Abbott has aggressively catered to that base over the last year and in the campaign’s closing days, telling state agencies to investigate treatment for transgender adolescents as “child abuse” and suggesting he might pardon more than a dozen Austin police officers who were indicted on charges of using excessive force during racial justice protests in 2020.“Governor Abbott is running very hard and taking the campaign very, very seriously,” said Ray Sullivan, a Republican strategist who served under two Texas governors, Rick Perry and George W. Bush. “There is an ongoing battle: the mainstream conservatives versus more right-wing, more conspiratorial and paranoid voices. Some of the primary elections will help determine where the energy is in the party.”After redistricting, Texas lawmakers erased nearly all the House seats that were competitive in the general election from the map in 2022, magnifying the importance of a handful of contested primaries in both parties. Republicans, in particular, are hoping to build on the dramatic gains the party made in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, particularly among working-class Latino voters in 2020, in the state’s lone open, tossup seat.Nationwide, Republicans are energized by the chance to take back both the House, which the Democrats control by a historically narrow margin, and the Senate, which is equally divided with only Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote giving control to the Democrats.Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings — not just in Texas but even in Democratic strongholds like California — and the lingering cloud of the coronavirus on life, the economy and schools have emboldened many Republican voters, candidates and strategists.But Republicans fear nominating candidates outside the mainstream. The party suffered a series of stinging defeats in two otherwise favorable cycles in the recent past, 2014 and 2010, with candidates who repelled broad swaths of the political middle that still decides elections.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.The concern among Texas Republicans chiefly centers on the attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has attracted the attention of federal investigators after some of his own top aides accused him of corruption.Despite the hostile national climate, Democrats have scored some notable recruiting successes, including two high-profile candidates who came up just short in 2018: Beto O’Rourke, who is running for governor of Texas, and Stacey Abrams, who is running again for governor of Georgia.Beto O’Rourke campaigning for Texas governor in Tyler in early February.Montinique Monroe for The New York TimesMr. O’Rourke, whose Democratic nomination is mostly a formality, has been crisscrossing the state and raising money at a fast clip: $3 million in the last month. But Mr. Abbott, a prolific fund-raiser, outpaced him and entered the final days before the primary with $50 million on hand, compared to $6.8 million for Mr. O’Rourke.Texas has a two-step primary system: Any candidate who finishes below 50 percent will face off against the No. 2 vote-getter in a May runoff.Mr. Abbott appears to be leaving nothing to chance, spending $15 million in the last month alone and seeking to leave little daylight for his conservative opponents as he has overseen a sharp push to the far right in state government.Still, Mr. Abbott, who has Mr. Trump’s support, was booed in January at a Trump rally north of Houston, only winning over the crowd by invoking the president’s name more than two dozen times in his six-minute speech.“I think Greg Abbott has been in long enough,” said Anita Brown, 62, who attended a recent rally for a right-wing House candidate in The Woodlands, a suburban enclave north of Houston. “I would just like to have someone new.”Texas is where Mr. Trump suffered one of his rare primary endorsement defeats last year, in a House race, and while he has issued a range of endorsements, from governor down to Tarrant County District Attorney, he has mostly backed incumbents and heavy favorites.Bigger tests of his influence loom later in the spring and summer, in the Senate contests in North Carolina and Alabama, and in the governor’s race in Georgia. In that Georgia race, Mr. Trump recruited David Perdue, a former senator and governor, to attempt to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who refused to bend to Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.In Texas, Mr. Paxton, a regular guest on Fox News, commands the endorsement of Mr. Trump, but remains vulnerable because of his legal troubles: On top of his aides’ accusations of corruption, the Texas attorney general has been under indictment for securities fraud since 2015.His range of challengers represent the various Republican power centers vying to be the future of the party.There is George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush and a statewide office holder who has held himself out as the most electable conservative in the race, and Eva Guzman, a former state Supreme Court justice who has the backing of some traditional, business-aligned power players in Republican politics.Representative Louie Gohmert, a Trump ally whose speeches and remarks frequently land him on national television, is also running. He attended the Trump rally in Texas and got an unexpected shout-out, despite the former president’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton. Mr. Gohmert also posed with Mr. Trump during a photo line at the rally, but the Trump team refused to send Mr. Gohmert the picture, because they did not want him to use it in the primary, according to a person familiar with the exchange.Representative Louie Gohmert spoke at a forum in Midland with two other Republican candidates for attorney general, Eva Guzman, center, and George P. Bush, right.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe race has been multidimensional. Ms. Guzman has swiped at Mr. Bush, whose family dynasty has been weakened even among Texas Republicans. Mr. Bush has responded in kind. Mr. Paxton has traded attacks with Mr. Gohmert and, in recent days, started going after Ms. Guzman as well.“We haven’t seen a primary this consequential since the 1990s,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.The race is less about policy positions as it is about who holds power in the Republican Party now. “It will tell us a lot about Donald Trump’s juice in Texas,” Mr. Rottinghaus said.Mr. Paxton finished behind the rest of the Republican ticket in 2018, raising some fears that his renomination this year could provide a rare opening for Democrats in November. Republicans have won every statewide race in Texas since 1994.The national battle for power within the Republican Party is centered on the district of retiring Representative Kevin Brady, north of Houston, where a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has spent heavily to elect Morgan Luttrell, a Navy SEAL veteran. The activist wing of House Republicans has rallied behind Christian Collins, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz.While the super PAC aligned with Mr. McCarthy is aiding Mr. Luttrell, the political arm of the House Freedom Caucus is boosting Mr. Collins.At a recent rally for Mr. Collins, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina made clear that their support for Mr. Collins was about opposition to the existing political order in Washington.“This is primary season,” Ms. Greene said. “This is where we work out our differences. This is where iron sharpens iron.”On the Democratic side, two primaries pit the party’s ideological wings against each other.The race for one open seat features a socialist Austin city councilman, Greg Casar, taking on State Representative Eddie Rodriguez. The other race is in South Texas between Mr. Cuellar and a young progressive lawyer, Jessica Cisneros — a rematch in which abortion has been an issue for the district’s large number of Catholic voters.Both races have attracted attention from national progressive figures, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — to the frustration of some Texas Democrats. They view the progressives’ efforts as potentially counterproductive for a party that has been losing ground among traditional Democratic voters in places like South Texas.“I get what people do on the fund-raising side,” said James Aldrete, a Democratic consultant. But unless Democrats do more to address the concerns of low-turnout voters, particularly in Hispanic communities, Mr. Aldrete added, “we’ll be in the same boat: no growth in the statehouse, no growth in the congressional delegation, no Democrat elected statewide.”When Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declared at a rally for Mr. Casar and Ms. Cisneros that “Texas turning blue is inevitable,” the clip was immediately picked up by Republicans, including Mr. Abbott, and wielded as an attack.“She was doing the work for Republicans,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic activist whose political action committee aims to unseat Republicans in Texas. He noted that Texas Democrats are more moderate in their approach to politics and more conservative in their views on issues like guns and abortion than national party leaders.“It’s a field trip for them,” Mr. Angle added. “For us, it’s the future of the state.” More
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Will Trump’s Nod Be Enough for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton?
Attorney General Ken Paxton is likely to end up in a runoff after the Republican primary on March 1. But it remains uncertain who among his big-name challengers will join him there.MIDLAND, Texas — The litany of political vulnerabilities facing the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, would appear to seriously imperil his bid for a third term.There is the indictment in state court for securities fraud. Accusations of bribery and corruption. Senior aides turned whistle-blowers. An ongoing federal investigation.Altogether, it has been enough to attract primary challenges from three heavy hitters in Texas Republican politics: George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush; Representative Louie Gohmert, the outspoken East Texas congressman; and Eva Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice.But whether Mr. Paxton can survive the Republican primary may be the biggest test yet of the power still wielded with voters by an even better-known name: Donald J. Trump.Mr. Paxton has positioned himself as the most aligned with Mr. Trump in a field of opponents eager to claim closeness with the former president. The Texas attorney general unsuccessfully sued to overturn the results of the 2020 election in several states and spoke at Mr. Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.For his efforts, Mr. Paxton garnered Mr. Trump’s endorsement last year, and he had a speaking role at Mr. Trump’s massive rally of Republicans last month north of Houston.“An attorney general who has really led the way, somebody who has been brave and strong: Ken Paxton,” Mr. Trump effused during the rally at the Montgomery County fairgrounds. “Ken, brave and strong. And popular.”Well, not that popular.While polling better than any of his opponents, Mr. Paxton is facing the increasingly likely prospect of ending up in a runoff after the primary election on Tuesday. He has been below the 50 percent threshold in recent public polls, and his campaign is already preparing for another contest.Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas last year.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThat has left the three challengers scrambling for second place. They have been crisscrossing the state, appearing in Republican forums and debates hosted by local party groups. A common theme has been that Mr. Paxton is so embattled he could actually lose to a Democrat in November — a shudder-inducing prospect for Texas Republicans, who have not lost a statewide race since 1994.“When you look at folks like A.O.C., for example, who come to Texas and say Texas is about to turn blue — well, she’s right if we nominate the wrong people as a party,” said Mr. Bush in an interview, referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Switching Parties: Democrats have long held local offices in a small West Texas town. Then top officials decided to leave the party.Politics of Abortion: The fight over abortion rights is changing the political fabric of South Texas, long a Democratic stronghold.Effect of New Voting Law: The law, which Republicans said would make it “easy to vote, hard to cheat,” has led to a jump in rejections of absentee ballot applications.The race for attorney general has become a referendum on the future of the Republican Party in Texas, with various power centers — the remnants of the Bush political dynasty in Texas, the tort reform business elite, the ascendant Trump-without-Trump wing — lining up in different corners.In the waning days of the campaign, attacks have flown freely. Mr. Paxton has traded barbs with Mr. Gohmert. Mr. Bush and Ms. Guzman have gone after each other. But many voters, even those dedicated enough to show up at candidate forums, are only glancingly familiar with the challengers. And accusations against Mr. Paxton are not a new development; he has weathered them for years.Mr. Paxton, who declined an interview request, has been facing state charges of felony securities fraud since 2015, stemming from his time as a member of the Texas House during which, prosecutors have said, he directed investments to a firm without disclosing he would be compensated for doing so. Mr. Paxton has denied the charges and said the prosecution was politically motivated, and successfully delayed the trial amid procedural wrangling over where it should take place.He was re-elected in 2018 by less than 4 percentage points, a narrow margin in a Texas general election.Voters at a forum featuring gubernatorial and attorney general candidates in Midland, Texas.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThen, in 2020, several of Mr. Paxton’s top aides — high-ranking lawyers in the attorney general’s office with conservative credentials — accused him of bribery and abuse of power in connection with his actions on behalf of a real estate developer and campaign donor. Some of the officials, who have since been fired or resigned, have said the developer, Nate Paul, also hired a woman recommended to him by Mr. Paxton.Last week, four of the former officials, who filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Paxton over their firing, said the attorney general had been lying about their allegations as he campaigns for re-election.A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Both Mr. Paul and Mr. Paxton have denied any wrongdoing.Even with the swirl of accusations, Mr. Paxton has not been as weak a candidate as some in Texas political circles thought he would be.“People thought that Paxton would be vulnerable,” said Nathan McDaniel, a Republican political strategist based in Austin. “But what I see voters want is a fighter, someone who is going to sue Google or the Biden administration” as Mr. Paxton has done, repeatedly in the case of President Biden. In recent days, Mr. Paxton also took aim at the parents of transgender adolescents, issuing a formal opinion that certain medical treatments should be investigated as child abuse.“I don’t think personal woes matter as much to the electorate as you might think they do,” Mr. McDaniel said. “Now, if he’s in prison, that’s a whole different thing. But is that going to happen? I don’t think so.”In an interview, Mr. Gohmert predicted that Mr. Paxton would face corruption charges in federal court soon after the primary, leaving Republicans without a chance to replace him before the November general election if he were to win the primary.In response, Mr. Paxton’s campaign sent a statement from the attorney general attacking Mr. Gohmert for “clearly relying on lies, scare tactics and intimidation to win.”U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert greeting voters after a candidate forum.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesPolitical strategists said Mr. Gohmert represents the biggest threat to Mr. Paxton’s base of conservative support. Mr. Gohmert entered the race later than the other candidates, in November, but he has already attracted negative campaign mailers, Facebook ads and a television spot from Mr. Paxton.Mr. Gohmert also has had a friendly relationship with Mr. Trump and was the only other person running for attorney general whom Mr. Trump spoke fondly of during the rally last month.“Louie Gohmert, what a wonderful guy,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, acknowledging Mr. Gohmert among the elected officials there. “This is a man who has been a friend of mine from day one.”Mr. Bush, who tried hard to get Mr. Trump’s endorsement, did not attend the event because of a scheduling conflict, his campaign said.“I definitely wanted that endorsement along with the support of his supporters. That’s why I continue to reach out to not only his followers but also to those who advise him here in Texas,” Mr. Bush said in the interview, adding of Mr. Trump: “I think he made a mistake on this race.”Ms. Guzman, for her part, has been running a targeted campaign, seeking to peel off voters in unexpected places.“I have seen an Eva Guzman commercial during ‘Jeopardy!’ for the last week or two,” said Mari Woodlief, a Dallas-based political consultant. “‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ are two of the best kept secrets in politics because their audience is almost all 60-plus and they’re voters.”At a campaign forum this month, the three battled before a staunchly conservative audience in a theater on the oil-rich plains of West Texas between Midland and Odessa. Each vowed to take a harder line than Mr. Paxton on the border, on crime and on allegations of fraud in Texas elections.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe hourlong debate began with Mr. Gohmert attacking Mr. Paxton for not doing more to investigate allegations of fraud in 2020 and ended with Mr. Bush vowing to fight liberal Democrats who “infest our local governments.” Along the way, Ms. Guzman held the crowd rapt with the story of her father’s killing “by an illegal immigrant” when she was 26.In an interview before the gathering, Ms. Guzman said the experience of seeing her father “covered in a yellow tarp” underscored for her how “these lawless borders are not victimless.” She said her experience on the bench made her better prepared for the job than any of her opponents.Ms. Guzman, who has the financial backing of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a perennial power player in Republican politics, downplayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Paxton. “Texans want to choose for themselves,” she said.After the debate in the lobby of the theater, Roger Barnhart, 74, of Odessa and his son said they still had not decided who they would vote for.“I like Gohmert the most,” said Mr. Barnhart, adding that he was also impressed by Ms. Guzman.“A long time ago it used to be good to have the last name Bush out here — not anymore,” added his son, Dax Barnhart, 47, who works with his father in the hardware business.Though he had yet to make up his mind, the elder Mr. Barnhart came away with one solid impression of the candidates: “Any of them would be better than Paxton.” More
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George P. Bush, Jeb's Son, Runs For Texas Attorney General
George P. Bush — son of Jeb Bush, nephew of George W. Bush and grandson of George H.W. Bush — is running for attorney general in Texas, and away from the legacy of antipathy to former President Donald J. Trump embodied by his own last name.The new campaign beer cozies handed out to supporters this week featured the Lone Star flag on the front, and, on the flip side, a quote from Mr. Trump — who relentlessly mocked Mr. Bush’s father in 2016 — that read:“This is the only Bush that likes me! This is the Bush that got it right. I like him.”The younger Mr. Bush, who currently serves as commissioner of the Texas land office, a statewide post with a wide range of development and education functions, is taking on Ken Paxton, the ferociously pro-Trump incumbent who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit contesting election results in four states that the former president lost last November.The Bush swag tells the story of a Republican primary challenger treading a narrow and perhaps unforgiving path between Mr. Trump and a center-right family philosophy now far out of step with the party’s base.The primary takes place in March, followed by the general election in November. Two Democrats — Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney from Dallas, and Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston — have said they will run. In 2018, Mr. Paxton defeated the Democrat Justin Nelson by around three points.At his Wednesday kickoff at a beer garden in Austin, Mr. Bush accused Mr. Paxton of corruption while emphasizing his own support for Mr. Trump. The attorney general was indicted on securities fraud charges five years ago; he has repeatedly denied the charges and claimed the case is politically motivated.In a follow-up interview with Fox News on Thursday, Mr. Bush praised “the Trump days,” and criticized President Biden for reversing many of the previous administration’s policies at the border. He went out of his way to describe the details of a chat he initiated with Mr. Trump, seeking his support.“We had a great conversation a few days ago, he sent me his best — he had great words of encouragement,” Mr. Bush said of the man who delighted in taunting his father as “low energy.” Mr. Trump, who commands the overwhelming support of Republicans in Texas but who won the state by only five points, has basked in the empowering glow of the candidates’ praise. “I like them both very much,” he told CNN earlier this week. “I’ll be making my endorsement and recommendation to the great people of Texas in the not-so-distant future.”The low-key Mr. Bush, a Florida native whose mother is Mexican-American, has also been adopting an increasingly confrontational posture with local Democrats.Last week, Mr. Bush’s land office — which has broad discretion in doling out federal aid to localities — denied disaster mitigation aid to several cities with large minority populations, including Houston. He reversed course a few days later under pressure from the state’s congressional delegation, announcing he would release about $750 million in funds allocated in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. More
