Don Huffines Enters the Texas Governor’s Race to Challenge Greg Abbott
Jose Nino
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Former Republican member of the Texas State Senate Don Huffines is launching a primary challenge against incumbent Governor Greg Abbott in 2022.
Huffines is a notable Dallas-based businessman whose family is known for the business prowess in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The former State Senator’s campaign centers on the theme that Abbott has not delivered the goods on conservative policy items such as re-opening the Texas economy from the jump.
“Texas deserves actual Republican leadership that will act urgently and decisively—no more excuses or lies,” Huffines declared in a statement, promising to take decisive action on border security, property taxes, and election integrity. All of these are major agenda items of disaffected Texas conservatives. During his time in office, Huffines was a proponent of changing Texas’s gun laws by being one of the elected officials pushing for Constitutional Carry, which ended up being subverted by Republican leadership in the State Senator.
He would eventually be defeated in 2018 by Democrat Nathan Johnson. Demographic changes in the DFW area coupled with a generalized anti-Republican backlash led to Huffines’ defeat.
Abbott is expected to run for a third term in office in 2022. However, he will face stiff challenges from within his party due to his failure to reopen the state in a timely manner and pass legislation that conservatives care about.
Huffines took advantage of this discontent towards Abbott by protesting outside of the Governor’s Mansion in the fall of 2020.
Although Huffines did not call out Abbott by name, he criticized “politicians who offer nothing but excuses and lies” and vowed to take on the “entrenched elites of the Austin swamp.” Huffines has also taken on immigration patriotism and believes that Texas needs to “finally finish the [border] wall.” In addition, he would work to put the state “on a path to eliminating property taxes.”
Even if Huffines ends up losing, a primary challenge to Abbott should serve as a wake-up call for the Governor. Inability to act on grassroots conservative policy items will result in stiff primary challenges from the Right.
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