AUSTIN, TX — Texans flooded polling places Tuesday to cast deciding votes in a statewide Republican primary in which every leading candidate had pledged, on camera, to file at least one federal lawsuit against the Biden-era administrative state before sundown Wednesday, regardless of which party currently controls it.
The marquee races for governor, attorney general, lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner, and railroad commissioner — an office which, per state tradition, has nothing to do with railroads — all featured candidates running to the right of the incumbent, the incumbent, and a small flag printed with the words “DO NOT TREAD.”
“What you’re seeing in Texas tonight is a primary electorate that wants accountability, by which they mean indictments of other people,” said Carla Westin, a polling director at the Lone Star Civic Survey, an Austin outfit that conducts exit interviews in church parking lots. “Every candidate on the ballot has promised to either secede, sue, or, in two cases, both at once. Voters appreciate the range.”
The gubernatorial primary alone produced six candidates, four of whom have at some point referred to themselves as “the only real conservative in this race,” and two of whom are currently subjects of overlapping ethics complaints filed by each other. A seventh candidate, Brad Coyle of Sugar Land, qualified for the ballot in January but has since been described by his own campaign manager as “more of a placeholder, honestly.”
Down-ballot, the attorney general primary featured incumbent Ken Paxton seeking renomination on a platform titled “Eight More Years of This,” while challenger Russ Tilden ran a television ad in which he physically tore up a printout of the Fourteenth Amendment, paused, and tore up a second one in case viewers missed it.
Democrats also held a primary, according to a spokesman who confirmed the matter by email and asked not to be quoted at greater length.
Turnout was reported as “strong in the suburbs and absolutely deranged in the exurbs,” per a precinct chair in Montgomery County who said her polling site had run out of “I Voted” stickers by 9:40 a.m. and begun handing voters small American flags that one elderly man immediately attempted to file as a tax deduction.
Several candidates made campaign stops Tuesday morning at the same Buc-ee’s outside Waco, where lieutenant governor hopeful Dale Brennan staged a press conference in front of the beef jerky wall to announce that, if elected, he would personally fly to Washington and “explain Texas to them, slowly.” Brennan did not specify what he would explain, citing operational security.
The Texas Republican Party, asked whether any of its candidates differed meaningfully on policy, responded with a 14-page document outlining their differences, all of which concerned which federal agency each candidate intended to abolish first. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller’s campaign separately clarified that Miller’s pledge to “abolish the weather” had been taken out of context.
By late afternoon, three campaigns had filed pre-emptive lawsuits alleging fraud in counties where polls had not yet closed, and a fourth had filed a lawsuit alleging fraud in the other three lawsuits. A district judge in Travis County declined to rule, citing a long-standing personal policy of waiting until Texans were finished.
Final results were expected sometime Wednesday, at which point the winners will turn their attention to the general election, the legislative session, the special session that follows every legislative session, and a federal courthouse in Amarillo where, per primary-night tradition, a lawsuit will already be waiting on the docket with their name on it.