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| @DrewDarbyTX thanks voters after primary win in House District 72 on March 5 |
Darby Weathers Killer Storm with Better Grip
on District that Angry Governor Couldn't Buy
Capitol Inside
March 11, 2024
Governor Greg Abbott took out five Texas House Republicans in the primary election last week - and he expects to boost that number to eight in GOP runoff elections that feature incumbents he's targeting in a school choice retribution crusade that seeks to milk a civil war among Republicans here.
But the governor proved to be no match for State Rep. Drew Darby in the vouchers vengeance quest when the veteran Republican from San Angelo knocked the wind out of Abbott challenger Stormy Bradley's sails with almost 57 percent of the first-round vote in House District 72. Abbott suffered his most stinging defeat in the initial election when GOP voters in HD 72 demonstrated to him that the seat was not for sale to the highest bidder with Darby's 14-point dismantling of the Bradley campaign in a race that the governor's camp thought could swing either way.
Darby had the most exceptional showing for an incumbent in Texas in round one - and he's being recognized for this accomplishment in the Capitol Inside Best of the Texas Primary Election competition for 2024. GOP State Rep. Stan Lambert of Abilene ranks second in the incumbent superlative category as the only other House Republican who survived the governor's wrath with a victory in the primary over an Abbott candidate who he eliminated with 54 percent of the vote.
A country lawyer who was elected to the lower chamber initially in 2006, Darby gave supporters cause for substantial angst when he raised less than three dollars for every four that Bradley generated for the race thanks in huge part to the governor's largess with contributions of more than $640,000 for the HD 72 fight.
Bradley rounded up $1.008 million for the race that's she helped fuel with $190,000 worth of loans and donations from herself to the campaign. Most of the rest came in the form of contributions of $104,000 from the pro-vouchers Family Empowerment PAC. It all turned out to be an epic waste in a rural district in which Darby was dramatically more in touch than the governor and outside special interests that are poised to profit off the school choice measure that Abbott expects the House to pass in 2025.
Darby outfoxed Abbott at ever turn. The governor who'd been the aggressor ended up on the defensive as much or more in HD 72 than the targeted incumbent. Abbott stumbled blindly into the first trap that Darby set for him when the governor sent a cease-and-desist letter with a demand that Darby remove all the endorsements that he'd received from the state's top leader in the past from his campaign web site. Abbott made it clear with these grievances that his word is only good until prescribed expiration dates.
Abbott seemed to forget his own guiding mantra that all advertising tends to be good. Darby reaped a windfall of publicity before shrugging off the outdated endorsements from the governor as though he'd simply forgot about them. Darby had to get a chuckle when he pulled the older Abbott endorsements from the site in a move that prompted the local newspaper to write a story on how the governor's own site continued to display all of his own glowing reviews of the West Texas lawmaker's work in Austin through the years.
Darby hit another major Abbott nerve when he posted a video on X that portrayed school choice as a handout for migrants in the state illegally. Abbott went berserk despite the fact that undocumented students would have qualified for taxpayer subsidies for private education under the terms of the governor's proposal. The governor had done an effective job of keeping that particular gremlin hidden from public view.
The wages of being outsmarted at ever turn in HD 72 manifest in bald-face lies that Abbott invoked in a hasty counterattack on social media several weeks before the vote. "Drew Darby is a liar," Abbott vented on X. "Every session he served in the Texas House he voted to use your taxpayer dollars to provide free education for illegal immigrants at your local public schools. He repeatedly votes like a Democrat.
Now he adds lying to his résumé."
It's not clear if Abbott even realized he was speaking French to the conservative Texas base with the way he presented the word resume. Never mind that Abbott could have said the same exact thing about every Texas House and Senate Republican who've voted for the state budgets that the governor signed into law with such a requirement as a federal mandate that's long been in place.
Darby's camp exposed Bradley as a hypocrite as well when his campaign spotlight the challenger's well-documented opposition to school choice as a trustee on the Coahoma Independent School District board in a tiny town down the road from her residence in Big Spring. Bradley made it look like she was selling out when she reversed course as a newfound vouchers fan as a condition for Abbott's support that wasn't negotiable.
Darby managed to upstage Abbott at a rally for Bradley in San Angelo a month before the election. Abbott's team rounded up about 150 Bradley supporters for the event on February 9 when some 60 pro-Darby voters demonstrated on his behalf outside the venue.
Abbott had more cause for a red face when photographs of Bradley in sexy poses started to circulate on the Internet as vestiges from a career as a professional lingerie model on the side. The pictures would only arouse feelings in those folks who really believe that Texas public schools were infested overnight with pornography that Abbott and GOP lawmakers claim to have eradicated in regular session last year.
Abbott operatives made a scene that was PR gold for Darby when they had state troopers escort three women donning Darby shirts from the rally. The state police told the female trio that they were throwing out of the event for the same of their own safety.
The 10 House Republicans who Abbott targeted in round one have sworn they were simply voting their districts' wishes with the positions they took and refused to relinquish in the school choice struggle in moves that were suicidal politically for some in hindsight. Darby is six years older than Lambert at the age of 77. They are the last of a dying breed in a House where the days of bipartisan comradare are coming to an end.
The Best of the Texas Primary Election will be rolled out in single installments as per tradition here in recent election years. |
