It was already shaping up as one of the most intriguing political races of 2022: Attorney General Ken Paxton, an ally of Donald Trump’s who faces an array of legal difficulties, was seeking to stave off GOP primary challenges from the heir to the Bush political legacy, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and a conservative state lawmaker.
Now the state lawmaker, Matt Krause, has dropped out of the race and one of the most controversial members of Congress, Louis Gohmert, has joined the fray.
Political experts this week were trying to sort out what the shakeup of the race portends for Paxton and his primary challengers. Three Democrats are vying for the chance to take on the primary winner.
Gohmert, a nine-term Republican congressman from Tyler and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, could potentially siphon votes from Paxton, who is seeking a third term.
That could be easier said than done given Paxton’s unwavering support from the right wing of the party, political experts said Tuesday. Trump, the former president, is backing Paxton.
Also vying to replace Paxton are Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush, and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, the first Latina elected to statewide office in Texas.
Krause announced Monday that he was dropping out to run for Tarrant County district attorney in his hometown after the incumbent, Sharen Wilson, announced this month she was retiring. He told Hearst Newspapers that another motivating factor was that he and Gohmert occupy the same political lane by appealing to hardliners; he’ll be tossing his support to the arch-conservative congressman moving forward.
Gohmert, who has been in Congress since 2005, is known for being one of the body’s most conservative members. The former state appeals court judge has a reputation for espousing conspiracy theories and making outlandish, sometimes homophobic statements, including previously comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality and linking Christians against same-sex marriage to Jews in the Holocaust.
In Gohmert’s announcement video, he slammed Paxton for filing a lawsuit that sought to challenge the election results in four states that Democrat Joe Biden won based on changes that those states made to procedures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court found Texas lacked legal standing to bring the case. Gohmert said that while he supported the premise of Texas’ suit, Paxton had undermined the case by being from a state where county election officials also had changed election rules because of COVID-19.
Harris County, for example, introduced drive-thru voting for the first time and allowed drop boxes for mail ballots. The suit had claimed that other states that took similar actions created an opportunity for voter fraud and therefore their results should have been thrown out.
“I think this is a good example of the hairs that are trying to be split in trying to portray oneself as the most conservative conservative in a race of conservative politicians,” Blank said.
An October poll by the University of Texas/Texas Tribune shows Paxton drawing the support of 48 percent of registered voters who said they planned to vote in the March GOP primary. Bush polled the next-highest, with 16 percent. Three percent supported Krause and 2 percent supported Guzman.
The same poll found that while Krause and Guzman were relatively unknown to voters — 66 and 57 percent respectively did not have an opinion of them — most people knew of Bush but had mixed opinions of him. Thirty-eight percent had an unfavorable opinion of Bush, compared to 23 percent favorable.
“The main advantage that (Gohmert) has is he already has a certain presence in the Republican Party and especially in the Republican Party of the state,” said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project, which conducted the poll. “He may enter the race in a better position because he’s more well-known than any of the other candidates, without the baggage that Bush seems to carry.”
However similar Paxton and Gohmert are on paper ideologically, Gohmert will have to contend with the incumbent’s loyal base.
“The difficulty here is Paxton is relatively strong” with the “far-right, activist wing of the primary electorate,” Blank said. “Both in the Legislature and as attorney general, Paxton has really made many efforts, mostly effective, to align himself with the activated constituencies. The idea of either someone like a Krause or a Gohmert challenging Paxton from his right is on the one hand slightly far-fetched, but on the other hand, it’s a very narrow path.”
Gohmert’s entry could benefit Bush or Guzman by keeping Paxton below 50 percent, forcing a runoff election, said Brian Smith, political science professor at St. Edwards University in Austin.
“If we go to the primary and the conservative right wing of the Republican Party splits between Paxton and Gohmert, then Bush and Guzman are there to pick up pieces,” he said.
Like Paxton’s other challengers, Gohmert has zeroed in on the attorney general’s looming legal troubles as the reason why voters should shift their support. Paxton has been under indictment since 2015 on felony securities fraud charges and is facing an FBI investigation after being accused last October of corruption by his top aides. He has maintained his innocence in both cases.
“If you allow me, I will not wait to be my busiest until there’s some bad press about legal improprieties,” Gohmert said in a two-minute campaign announcement video posted to YouTube late Monday. “I’ll start boldly protecting your rights on day one.”
In 2018, Paxton won by the slimmest margin of any Republican statewide candidate — 4 percentage points — in defeating Democrat Justin Nelson, who was relatively unknown before the election and who focused his campaign on raising awareness of Paxton’s indictment.
Three Democrats are also seeking to unseat Paxton. They are Dallas-area civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski and former ACLU lawyer Rochelle Garza.
While a crowded field of serious contenders proves it’s not just Texans on the other side of the aisle that sense Paxton could be vulnerable, polling so far seems to show that his scandals have not caused him to lose his appeal within the Trump-era GOP. Of Republican voters in the UT/Texas Tribune poll, Paxton had a 65 percent approval rating, and of those who consider themselves “extremely conservative,” that number rose by 10 points.
“The sort of feedback mechanism that I think we used to get from the electorate when the electorate was not as polarized just isn't there anymore,” Blank said. “It's pretty hard to think of situations where a Democrat does something so bad or a Republican does something so bad that their own partisans will en masse turn on them.”
taylor.goldenstein@chron.com
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