Texas governor Greg Abbott now has enough votes in the state house to advance his ambitious school-choice agenda, after six Republican incumbents who were vocally opposed to school vouchers lost their primary runoff elections on Tuesday.
“While we did not win every race we fought in, the overall message from this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” Abbott said. “Opponents can no loner ignore the will of the people.”
The governor’s electoral crusade for school choice came to a head this week, as eleven out of the 15 Republican challengers Abbott backed this cycle defeated House incumbents in their primaries. Abbott also worked to boot seven anti-voucher Republicans off the ballot in the state’s March Republican primaries.
Voucher bills have failed in Texas, most notably, last year, when 21 House Republicans voted against expanding school choice as part of an education-funding bill. Abbott’s push to oust school-choice dissidents was backed by major Republican donors and groups, such as Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children Victory Fund, which spent $4.5 million on the races altogether, Club for Growth, which poured $4 million into targeting anti-voucher runoff candidates, and Jeff Yass, an investor and mega-donor, who made about $12 million in contributions to both Abbott and the AFC Victory Fund. Abbott spent an unprecedented $8 million of his own campaign funds to support pro-voucher candidates.
Texas’s GOP elections “represent the single biggest movement in favor of school choice in modern history,” AFC Victory Fund’s CEO Tommy Schultz said in a statement. “[Incumbents] Justin Holland, John Kuempel, and DeWayne Burns lost the moment they chose loyalty to unions and a corrupt establishment over students.”
Many Republican incumbents represented rural districts, and feared that a sweeping voucher program could cut public education funding or jobs.
“I voted for my district and I have no regrets,” said San Antonio representative Steve Allison, who lost his primary earlier this year. “What the governor did is extremely wrong. Me and the others that he came after have been with him 100 percent of the time on every issue except this one.”
Pro-voucher Republicans now have a majority in the House, with 74 members, in the 150-member chamber.
“As we look ahead to the November general election, we will continue to work tirelessly to elect strong, conservative candidates who will ensure every child in Texas has access to the best education possible – regardless of their zip code or economic background. Working together, we will create an even brighter future for generations to come,” Abbott said.