There is a race on for the Republican nomination for Texas governor. Incumbent Greg Abbott is being challenged by former state senator and businessman Don Huffines and former Texas GOP chair and QAnon supporter Allen West.
Abbott is taking these opponents seriously and is working to bulk up in areas where he’s vulnerable to right wing criticism. This includes appeals to COVID-19 truthers who are opposed to government intervention in slowing the virus spread and turning the border into a cooked-up crisis with troop build-ups and wall construction.
In his 25 years in statewide politics, Abbott has never lost a Republican primary. But he’s never really had a strong primary challenger. Abbott also has a campaign war chest of over $55 million, the largest for any statewide candidate in Texas history. That doesn’t seem to bother Huffines who announced in May that he was challenging Abbott.
Huffines spoke to Texas Matters about the issues that he thinks will attract Republican primary voters. It’s important to remember that these candidates are working to appeal to a specific subset of the population which is the hard right-wing that makes up the GOP primary voting base.
In the interview Huffines uses offensive terms for people who are in the country without authorization. And he makes claims about the November election that are not true. One point to set straight: the vast majority of Texans believe the November election was fair and untainted by voter fraud. Huffines claimed millions of Texans believe there was wide spread fraud and that’s his rational for calling for an election audit of the results from Texas largest counties.
This is not true according to a Texas Tribune/UT poll conducted in June of this year.
Power Failures
The issue that many in Texas would like addressed is the grid. The electrical system failed in February during a record breaking winter storm.
What really happened during the worst power failure in Texas history? What could be done to fix it? And how much is this going to cost you?
KUT Austin public media energy reporter Mose Buchele did the digging to come up with answers. He lays it out in a podcast called "The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout."
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