In Texas Republican primaries, it may come down to this: How conservative are you?
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2022 Texas primaries
Early voting begins Monday in Texas, with races for top county and state officials on the Republican and Democratic primary tickets.
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County judge candidate Tim O’Hare went to a meeting of Tarrant County Republicans with a pitch: Tarrant County is at a crossroads.
“We’re the last Republican urban county in the state of Texas,” he said in January.
How does the county stay that way? By standing up against the “ill effects of illegal immigration” and pushing back against “Marxist socialist critical race theory,” he said, citing his efforts to address two of the Republican Party’s most prominent priorities.
The talking points could are similar to a number of other candidates’ platforms — up and down the ballot — as Republicans fight to distinguish themselves as more conservative than their opponents in the March 1 primary. Early voting starts Monday and runs through Feb. 25.
The primaries have attracted a slew of candidates challenging their fellow Republicans from the right as they too pitch themselves as the best person to take the state (or in O’Hare’s case, the county) in a conservative direction.
“I think that that battle itself is playing out to be one of the clearest examples of the civil war that goes on in the Republican Party at a local level statewide,” said conservative Republican political consultant Luke Macias.
The polarization among Republicans has increased the past 50 years as the party’s dominant force switched over to the conservatives, said James Riddlesperger, a professor of political science at TCU. Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said the battle of ideologies has been happening since at least 2010.
“It’s more common now to find the more centrist fighting a rearguard effort against the more conservative groups, and often trying to downplay their pragmatism or their moderation because that today is more of a liability than an asset in the GOP primary,” Jones said.
In the past, Riddlesperger said, it’s been liberals and conservatives in both the Democratic and Republican parties battling it out for seats. Now, nomination in the Republican Party, in particular, has come down to those who are conservative and those who are very conservative, Riddlesperger said.
The confounding factor: Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump is the symbol of the Republican Party right now, and these very conservative candidates are all trying to demonstrate that they’re kind of ‘Trumpier’ than the moderates,” Riddlesperger said.
Candidates tie themselves to Donald Trump
The former president’s name is splashed across websites and mailers as candidates try to prove allegiance. On two Tim O’Hare mailers for the county judge’s race, Trump’s headshot sits alongside O’Hare’s and mentions the former president’s endorsement. One of his opponents, Betsy Price, makes a point on her website to mention Trump referred to her as a “fantastic friend.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — all seeking reelection — each took turns addressing a Conroe crowd during a Trump rally in January.
“Donald J. Trump loves the great state of Texas, and Texans love President Donald J. Trump,” Abbott said at the event. He and the three other candidates have each received the former president’s endorsement — though CNBC reported some Trump allies want him to rescind his support for Abbott.
This grip is something Riddlesperger has never seen before, and for the Democrats, he says there’s no such “litmus test” for support of former President Barack Obama or President Joe Biden.
Parties have typically been bigger than any one candidate, he said. That’s not the case with Trump.
“If someone’s a Republican and not seen as entirely loyal to Donald Trump, they then become susceptible to attacks from the right,” Riddlesperger said.
In state races, Matthew Wilson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said the ability to prove Republican candidates are less conservative than their counterparts haven’t been as successful, particularly with the gubernatorial race.
Former Texas Sen. Don Huffines is one example of the trend of Republicans challenging each their from the right playing out in a statewide race. He has worked to distinguish himself from Abbott, sharing advertisements that hit the governor on issues like election security and property tax rates.
“We are going to give Greg Abbott the retirement party he deserves and make Texas the lighthouse of liberty once again,” Huffines said in a January statement that aligned with the announcement of his campaign finance figures.
The news release ended with a short sentence: “Don Huffines, an actual Republican,” a message voters also see on billboards and his website.
“It’s hard to make the case that Greg Abbott is not really a conservative,” Wilson said. “You know, Greg Abbott has, he has made a point of tacking to the right on a variety of high-profile questions, whether it was abortion or immigration or various forms of resistance to directives from the Biden administration on mask mandates. On a variety of things, Greg Abbott has been very careful to take the conservative mind and to appease potential critics on the right.”
Wilson said the phenomenon is also occurring on the Democratic side where “progressive leftists” take on incumbents, as was the case when U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated a 10-term incumbent in 2018.
Republicans challenge opponents from the right in Tarrant County
Riddlesperger said the phenomenon of attacking from the right is playing out more in races — both locally and statewide — where there isn’t an incumbent running for reelection.
The most high-profile example in Tarrant County has come in county judge’s race between former Fort Worth Mayor Price and Southlake attorney O’Hare.
During an interview with the Star-Telegram Editorial Board on Wednesday morning, Price said constituents wanted a candidate with a more positive platform that wasn’t solely based on attacking the opponent.
She didn’t mention O’Hare by name, but O’Hare is the only candidate who has made a point of directly going after Price as he’s pursuing the Republican nomination for county judge.
In an interview with a Star-Telegram reporter on Thursday, Price stood by her statement and said Tarrant County residents were looking for experience and leadership. Her definition of a positive platform, she said, was putting out the facts, telling people what you’re going to do in the position and letting people know your record.
O’Hare’s primary argument when going after Price has been distinguishing himself as a “true conservative.” He said the reason he’s going after Price and not other candidates is because she’s the opponent who has a chance of winning.
“I’m just running a campaign based on facts, based on my records, based on her record,” O’Hare said. “Based on things I’ve stood and fought for, based on things she stood for, or things she hasn’t fought for. Voters can decide from there which one they’d rather have.”
One way O’Hare’s campaign has been able to get at his opponent has been through Price’s ability to work across party lines. Recently, he’s knocked Price for her support of Biden’s infrastructure bill, which will fund the long-awaited Panther Island project.
In ads, O’Hare has also said Price supports “anti-police protesters.” The claim led Price’s campaign to release a video on Twitter in which she said she stood against Black Lives Matter “extremists.”
Price said Thursday she hasn’t made any changes to her campaign or its messaging in light of O’Hare’s comments about her on the trail. She said she’s never felt any pressure to present herself as more conservative.
“What’s the old adage, you can’t change a tiger’s stripes?” Price said. “I’ve been a conservative all my life. For me it’s not about degrees of conservatism, it’s about are you a conservative or are you not, period.”
And if in the chance either of them win the Republican nomination for county judge, both O’Hare and Price said they have no plans to switch gears in the next phase of their race.
“I think people need to know this is about public service,” Price said. “It’s not about politics. It’s about keeping our communities strong, keeping government from overruling your life and keeping taxes as low as possible.”
‘We should be able to get anything we want through’
But Republicans challenging Republicans from the right isn’t limited to open seats.
Rep. Stephanie Klick, a Fort Worth Republican who took office in 2013, has garnered four primary challengers for House District 91, more than any other Republican incumbent. There isn’t a Democrat running for the seat. Opponents have criticized Klick as not being conservative enough, saying she did not do enough to ban access to gender-affirming health care for kids in particular.
Klick, in a meeting with the Editorial Board, said the Public Health Committee, which she chairs, advanced a bill that would have barred gender-affirming procedures for children. It was one of several similar bills filed when lawmakers convened in Austin.
A campaign mailer from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, funded by oilmen and GOP mega-donors Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, accuses Klick of betraying Republicans when she voted against blocking Democrats from serving as committee chairs when the House took up its rules. Only five Republicans supported the measure. A photo of the ad was shared on opponent David Lowe’s Facebook page.
Texas Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek tweeted a photo of a mailer from the group Abolish Abortion Texas criticizing a KIick over an abortion bill that didn’t get a hearing in the public health committee she chairs
Lowe, a stay-at-home dad running for the central Tarrant County district seat, has openly criticized Klick. Republicans are challenging other Republicans from the right because people are tired of not seeing change, Lowe said.
“To put it frankly, I think that people are pissed off,” he said. “And rightly so. This is a Republican-controlled majority in a Republican-controlled state. We should be able to get anything we want through, right? But we can’t. We keep bowing down to the minority.”
Klick did not return interview requests, but in her conversation with the Editorial Board she defended her legislative record, pointing to her work on the compassionate use program allowing low-level THC cannabis to be used as a treatment for certain medical conditions. Klick said she also supported funding for border security and authored a bill making it a state jail felony to knowingly block an ambulance from getting to hospitals — a bill responding to protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd.
“I have a record of passing complex legislation to support my constituents, and the endorsements I have is based on the work I’ve done as a legislator representing my community,” she said.
Klick’s campaign touts launching her bid with the endorsement of 90% of Republican precinct chairs in House District 91. She has the support of groups like the NRA, anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, Texas Values Action and Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
To David Silvey, a political podcast host and one of Klick’s other opponents, the extensive list of endorsements isn’t necessarily a positive.
“Republican establishment in Texas consistently fails to pass multiple priorities every year,” he said. “This is one of those issues where yes, this last legislative session has been a little better than the previous ones, but there’s still plenty of priorities for the Republican Party that have not been passed. And the problem is that the establishment continues to lean on each other to keep getting themselves elected.”
Could it win in Texas?
Jones, the professor from Rice, said being the most conservative candidate doesn’t usually count against anyone in the primary races. When it comes to Tarrant County, the answer is a little more unclear.
“Price is probably one of the few remaining pretty unabashed, pragmatic, centrist conservatives in the sense that she’s conservative, she’s a Republican, but she’s also not ashamed of being sort of on that wing of the party,” Jones said. “During her tenure as mayor of Fort Worth, that was pretty clear. And so whereas O’Hare is more of a doctrinite, Freedom Caucus approach, and he’s being supported by the most, sort of, extreme conservative elements within the Texas Republican Party.”
Wilson said that in Tarrant County, there’s a conservative streak that could be taken advantage of in primaries, but that depends on voter turnout.
Riddlesperger thinks such extremes from Republicans may not end up working out if these candidates win their primaries and move on to the final round: a race against a Democrat. He said more moderate candidates tend to have an upper hand over those who are more extreme, and anyone who’s too far right or left could end up providing an advantage to the opposing party.
The county in particular has flashed back and forth from red to blue the past four years. While Republican candidates have been able to win comfortably, Democrats had wins with Beto O’Rourke in the 2018 Senate race and Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
As for the Republican Party, Lowe, like O’Hare, sees a crossroad ahead.
“We’re at a stop sign,” he said. “We’re either going to turn right or we’re going to turn left.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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