Governor Tailors Message
for GOP Primary Audience
Capitol Inside
May 5, 2002
Governor Greg Abbott appeared to be running a primary runoff election campaign when he took aim at migrant children on Wednesday with a threat to revive a U.S. Supreme Court case from 40 years ago in an attempt to strip the right of a free education from kids from migrant families in Texas.
Abbott's contemplation of a challenge of a ruling in Plyler v. Doe is tailored for the GOP's far right wing in an attempt to capitalize on the high court's newfound partisan activism in the aftermath of a leaked brief that shows it on the verge of overturning of the right of women to have abortions in Roe v. Wade.
At a time when candidates on both sides of the aisle would typically gravitating closer to the middle, Abbott has intensified a sharp right turn instead with dueling threats on migrant children funding and a declaration of an invasion from Mexico under way in an attempt to seize immigration enforcement from the federal government. The migrant education defunding proposal that Abbott floated on conservative radio has massive potential to backfire in a general election in a state with a rapidly growing Hispanic population and voting trends that show Texas getting more competitive after two decades of Republican rule.
Abbott is running the risk of losing moderates Republicans, independents and potential crossover votes in an apparent sign that he's taking Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke for granted already and grooming himself for a presidential race in 2024. The governor appears to be banking on a majority of the voters in November here being on the far right. That would be a dramatic change from the political landscape in the Lone Star State in the most recent election in 2020.
Abbott has nothing to gain in the fall clash with O'Rourke by targeting innocent children who are in Texas illegally through no fault of their own. The migrant education funding case revival will appeal most to racists in the GOP while Abbott has been stoking the fires as well with his considerations for an invasion declaration in an attempt to seize control of immigration enforcement away from the federal government. Abbott is crafting his latest sensational plans for a primary audience amid apparent expectations of defeating O'Rourke by a comfortable margin no matter what he does between now and November.
No Texas governor in the past century has won the job without a relatively centrist style and base as a moderate Republican or conservative Democrat. Abbott appears to think he could be the first to win with a far right majority and no need for moderate, crossover or independent votes. That would be a dramatic change without precedent almost overnight if Abbott's perception of the Texas electorate is on the mark.
Abbott's rhetoric on the education of migrants would have made more sense in a competitive primary battle like the one that failed to materialize in the first round this year. But it makes little sense on paper for a fall fight with O'Rourke in light of the fact that Abbott already has the far right in his corner as its only choice after crushing seven challengers with more than 66 percent of the primary vote in March.
All of the 20 Texas governors before Abbott in the past century won the job with relatively moderate leadership styles and diverse bases that included strong support from the business establishment. All were either moderate Republicans or conservative Democrats. Abbott had been the same in his first six years as governor - guiding the ship of state in a safe and steady manner that he abandoned after falling out of favor with Donald Trump conservatives for his judicious direction in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abbott's most significant achievements had been a prekindergarten program in his first session as the state's top leader in 2015 before a record spending package on public education that GOP leaders pushed with bipartisan support in 2019 when they claimed to stage the "Super Bowl of sessions." Abbott's first campaign for governor in 2014 featured a television advertisement with him on a crowded freeway in his wheelchair to spotlight a plan for an ambitious of highway funding that he signed into law the following year.
Texas has been becoming more competitive politically in recent elections. Trump won in Texas by less than 6 points with 52 percent of the vote in 2020 - the lowest percentage for a GOP nominee here since 1996.
President Joe Biden held Trump to a slightly lower percentage in Texas than he'd had in 2016. Trump's total vote in Texas jumped 26 percent in 2020 nonetheless - with 1.2 million more voters here than he'd scored four years before in a battle with Democrat Hillary Clinton. But Biden garnered almost 5.3 million votes in Texas in 2020 with more than 46 percent - the highest share of the Texas vote that a Democratic at the top of the ticket had received here since Jimmy Carter carried the state with 51 percent in 1976 as the last Democrat to do so.
Democrats picked up a dozen seats in the Texas House, two in the state Senate and two more in Congress in 2018 when Trump was the president and Abbott was on the ballot for a second term. While Abbott won easily with weak competition from Democrat Lupe Valdez, Republicans running statewide like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton beat Democrats that year by the lowest margins in the GOP era.
While the Democrats' visions of a House majority evaporated at the polls in 2020, the minority party held the GOP to a draw on the state House battlefield in a development that Republicans viewed as a victory. There's been no evidence at the ballot box to suggest that Texas now has a majority of voters on the far right despite a substantial expansion in the past few years. |
