Texas House speaker heads to a runoff against a Trump-endorsed challenger
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and his Republican challenger David Covey, who was backed by former President Donald Trump and Attorney General Ken Paxton, will proceed to a primary runoff race in May, The Associated Press projected.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and his Republican challenger David Covey, who was backed by former President Donald Trump and Attorney General Ken Paxton, will proceed to a primary runoff race in May, The Associated Press projected.
Phelan and Covey were neck and neck in the results early Wednesday, while a third GOP candidate, hairdresser Alicia Davis, won far fewer votes but helped deny both candidates a majority of their party's votes.
Phelan incurred the wrath of Republicans in Texas and nationally when he led the impeachment proceedings against state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Covey, a GOP activist, campaigned heavily on Trump’s support, while Paxton appeared on the trail and in ads on his behalf.
Phelan has perhaps the most politically precarious job in Texas: Speakers must be elected by their districts and all 150 members of the Texas House of Representatives. That means a Republican like Phelan must persuade Democratic colleagues and conservative primary voters in his own district to re-elect him every two years.
Phelan was first elected to the state House in 2014 and took up the speaker’s gavel in 2021. But his tenuous balancing act between the left and right wings of the chamber was disrupted last year when he oversaw impeachment proceedings against Paxton on corruption charges. The impeachment, and the subsequent trial, triggered widespread infighting within the Texas GOP.
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