Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton crusaded against House Republicans who voted against school vouchers and in favor of impeachment, respectively.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton waged parallel crusades against Texas House Republicans this primary season.
After a bloc of Republicans joined with Democrats to kill Abbott’s priority school voucher legislation, the governor vowed revenge. He spent generously and campaigned aggressively against those anti-voucher Republicans in an effort to replace them with members who would support the measure next year.
Similarly, Paxton took aim at every Republican who voted to impeach him on charges of bribery and corruption. He was ultimately acquitted by the Senate. Paxton leaned on his far-right allies, including West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, to attack his enemies and prop up ultra-conservative challengers.
Incumbent Republicans under attack defended their votes during the legislative session, saying they’d done right by their districts and passed some of the most conservative bills in House history.
Here’s how the primaries shook out.
How the impeachment, voucher votes played out in the primaries
During the 2024 primaries, Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed several challengers who ran against incumbents who voted against school vouchers last legislative session. Attorney General Ken Paxton also endorsed challengers, taking aim at incumbents who voted to impeach him. Here’s how each House Republican’ voted on those issues and whether they won or lost their primary.
Out of 18 House Republicans who voted for impeachment and against school vouchers:
Out of 41 House Republicans who voted for impeachment and for school vouchers:
Out of 20 House Republicans who voted against impeachment and for school vouchers:
17 won their primary.
No one lost their primary.
3 did not seek reelection.
Out of 3 House Republicans who voted against impeachment and against school vouchers:
- Note: The graphic above does not include Dade Phelan, Tom Oliverson and Richard Hayes, who were either absent or present but not voting during at least one of the votes. The representatives are shown in the table below.
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Dist. House Rep. Impeach Vouchers Primary Result 1 Gary VanDeaver Y N Won 3 Cecil Bell Jr. N Y Won 4 Keith Bell Y N Won 5 Cole Hefner Y Y Won 6 Matt Schaefer N Y Did not seek reelection 7 Jay Dean Y N Won 8 Cody Harris Y Y Won 9 Trent Ashby Y Y Won 10 Brian Harrison N Y Won 11 Travis Clardy N N Lost 12 Kyle Kacal Y N Did not seek reelection 13 Angelia Orr Y Y Won 14 John Raney Y N Did not seek reelection 15 Steve Toth N Y Won 16 Will Metcalf Y Y Won - Source: Associated Press, Texas House Roll Call
- Credit: Carla Astudillo
- Rebekah Allen contributed to this report.
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Carla Astudillo
- SENIOR DATA VISUALS DEVELOPER
- castudillo@texastribune.org
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Rebekah Allen
- POLITICS EDITOR
- rallen@texastribune.org
- Printed by permission – The Texas Tribune
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