GOP State Rep. David Cook has three potential paths to take in a fledgling bid for the job that Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is seeking again next year. The course that Cooks on now is the only one of the three that appears to have little or no chance for success in the speaker's election in January.
Cook, a second-term Republican from Mansfield, can expect to remain a prohibitive underdog as the consensus challenger for conservatives as long he thinks he can oust the current Republican speaker without a single vote from Democrats. The push to secure 76 votes or more from fellow Republicans borders appears to be wishful thinking if not flat-out delusional based on the history of leadership contests in the west wing of the Texas Capitol during two decades of GOP rule.
No Republican has won a speaker's race in modern times in Texas without votes from Democrats. But Cook has said or done nothing up to now to snap that streak with a campaign that revolves on stripping power from the minority party's members instead of courting their support.
There are only two realistic roads for a GOP challenger for speaker to take if they're serious about winning. Such a candidate would have almost no shot without some measure of support from the Democrats in a House where the Republicans are more bitterly divided than they've been since the GOP seized control of the chamber in 2003.
A challenger who wants to have a fighting chance can follow the game plan that Republicans Joe Straus, Dennis Bonnen and Phelan all had in place when the Democrats were united behind them in successful speaker bids.
With the GOP holding an 86-64 edge in House seats, Phelan could claim the gavel for the third time in 2025 with the need for only 14 GOP votes if the major parties broke even in the general election and the minority party's members are all in his camp in speaker bid number three. Every House seat that Democrats pick up this fall reduces the amount of Republican support that the eventual victor would need if Democrats are united behind them.
Cook has 46 names on a pledge list that he released last week after emerging triumphant in an informal vote on a designated challenger in a field where there'd been five. Cook has declined to identify two other Republicans who he says have endorsed him for speaker but don't want anyone to know. That leaves Cook 22 votes short of the number he'd need to chase Phelan from the dais. The sophomore representative from Tarrant County apparently hasn't picked up any new support since emerging as the conservative choice for speaker.
Cook said that some more Republicans have told them they plan to support him for Phelan's position but didn't want to go public on that until after the election on November 5. House members who've been around longer than Cook know he can't count on any of those until it appears he's on track to win. A strong showing by Democrats on the House battlefield this fall could spark an exodus of Cook pledges to the candidate who has the best chance to win. Here are the possible outcomes of the 2025 speaker's race in Texas.
Congress Model
A GOP challenger secures at least 76 votes from Republicans in the leadership sweepstakes in 2025.
This hasn't been done in 11 House speaker elections in the past 22 years.
With 48 Republican incumbents and candidates for first terms pledged to Cook, conservatives are 28 votes shy of the majority they'd need to replace Phelan. But Cook's support may have peaked with nothing to offer the 38 Republicans who haven't endorsed him including at least 17 who would have committee chairmanships to lose if Phelan goes down.
Several Republicans who are not on Cook's pledge list are fighting for political lives in districts where Democrats could win in November and will be favored to do so in some cases. An association with the far right could be a kiss of death to their campaigns in swing races where crossover votes are on the line.
Texas Status Quo
A Republican wins with the Democrats united behind him or her. This is the way Joe Straus won four of five fights for speaker. Straus had most of the Democrats in his first winning speaker's race in 2009 when the Republicans had 76 seats compared to 74 for Democrats. But Straus only needed eight or 10 Republicans to topple Craddick.
Dennis Bonnen did the same en route to his only victory in a speaker's election in 2019. All of the Democrats supported Phelan in his first two campaigns for speaker. But that doesn't mean they won't switch their collective allegiance to another Republican who's not on the Cook pledge list.
Split the Democrats
Cook or another challenger would need 10 to 20 Democrats on board to have a fighting chance to deprive Phelan of a third term as the chamber's top leader. That could be tough for a candidate like Cook who's vowed to punish them with a ban on Democratic committee chairs. Cook and his supporters have boxed themselves into a canyon from which there's no real escape with the partisan purity pledge that's effectively given the Democrats the ability to choose the next Republican speaker.
Midland Republican Tom Craddick - the first speaker for the GOP in more than a century - might have had a chance to win the post in 2003 without the need for Democrats. But Craddick had alienated a small but vocal group of moderate GOP colleagues who'd threatened to oppose him in the leadership quest. Craddick put the race to rest immediately after the 2002 election when he scored vows of support from a dozen Democrats who ended up with committee chairs and other plums in the GOP's debut session as the majority party.
Craddick had earned a reputation as partisan conservative in an arena that prided itself on a spirit of independence that bipartisanship instilled and assured. But Craddick hadn't painted himself into an unnecessary corner with threats to take the clout away from colleagues in the minority party. Some of the House's milestone accomplishments in the early stages of the Republican era required some support from Democrats as a result of requirements on two-thirds votes. And most if not all of the Democrats on Craddick's original team remained in leadership roles throughout his three terms as speaker.
Phelan appeared to have relatively good relationships with the Democrats in his first three years on the job. Some are grumbling now, however, about messages that Phelan lieutenants are sending out about a doubling-down on abortion, school vouchers and other hard-right proposals that Democrats fiercely oppose.
Democrats who are unhappy with Phelan could broker a deal with another House Republican who'd have a good chance to win if they're united again. It may be impossible to imagine that being Cook.
While the GOP is a heavy favorite to keep the majority at the polls this year, the Democrats would take the chamber back with a net gain of 12 seats. That's the number they picked up in 2018 the last time that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was on the ballot here. State Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos, who knocked off an incumbent Republican that year, is the only Democrat who's a candidate for speaker up to now.
