Candidates who support the right to secession win elections in Texas
Candidates who signed the Texas First Pledge did OK in the GOP primary elections yesterday, despite running against incumbents who got tons of money from lobbyists.
This proves that in Texas, candidates who are willing to pledge to let Texans vote on independence, and pledge to act on the results of that vote, often defeat non-pledgers.
Let’s focus on the state legislative races. Six Texas First pledgers defeated House incumbents or could defeat them in runoffs:
@JanisHolt59 defeated Ernest Bailes (very red district)
@realmitchlittle defeated Kronda Thimesch (district voted 60% GOP in 2022)
@ShelleyLuther defeated Reggie Smith (very red district). She famously (viral video) went to jail for opening her hair salon during COVID to provide a living to her employees.
@CoveyTX forced RINO Speaker Dade Phelan into a runoff (very red district) [update: he lost a very tight race]
@AndyHopperTX forced Lynn Stuckey into a runoff (very red district) [update: he won]
@DavidLowe4Texas forced Stephanie Klitsch into a runoff (very red district) [update: he won]
Additionally, four other legislative Texas First pledgers won:
@jltrahan (very blue Senate district)
@Toth_4_Texas (incumbent, very red district)
@WesleyVirdell (very red district. The incumbent Andy Murr was afraid of a primary challenge)
@BenMostynTX (very blue district)
Plus, two Republican Texas First Pledgers will go to a runoff against each other in a district that voted 57% Dem in 2022: Summara Kanwal and Lea Simmons
Amusingly, incumbent Glenn Rogers mailed out postcards decrying Mike Olcott’s support for Texas independence. He lost 2 to 1! Maybe Mike will sign the pledge now.
Newspapers, such as the Dallas Morning News, ran hit pieces against pledge signers, but in any Texas election, and especially a Republican primary, it seems to be a plus not a minus, judging from our 2022 poll.
In other races, Texas First pledgers @AllenWest won GOP chair of Dallas County, and Gwen Withrow won GOP chair of Montgomery County. By the way, of the three bad judges in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who were on the ballot, all were replaced, so hopefully that will convince at least one judge to change his vote to create a 5/9 majority on the court to give the Texas AG authority to prosecute election fraud again.
It looks like the Texas First pledgers have the upper hand in the runoffs 84 days from now, but they’ll need more money to remain ahead in the polls. Governor Abbott opposes three of them, as part of his competition against Ken Paxton for influence in the House. You can donate to the Texas Nationalist Movement to help them support them in the runoffs.
In addition to these three runoffs, the TNM has set a goal to replace the state GOP chair, Matt Rinaldi, who illegally refused to put a Texas independence question on yesterday’s ballot despite being presented with the requisite number of signatures. The TNM has asked Texas Republicans to participate in local and state GOP conventions, in order to replace the chair and every SREC (State Republican Executive Committee) member who voted against putting a question about Texas independence on the GOP primary ballot.
Weston Martinez is running to replace Matt Rinaldi, and has signed the pledge. I met him at the TNM conference in November, and it’s pretty clear he’s a friend of the TNM.
In my last substack, I noted that just replacing a few members of the Texas House of Representatives might be enough to wrest control of the House from Democrat-supported Speaker of the House Dade Phelan. And now, it looks unlikely that Phelan will even win his own seat. The question is whether we’ve replaced enough RINOs to convince the GOP caucus in the House to unify around a conservative for Speaker for the 2025 session. That’s a session where the TNM would like to pass a bill to create a referendum on Texas independence.
I’m predicting that there will be eight Texas pledge signers, plus Mike Olcott, in the House in 2025 [update May 2024 after runoff election results: that seems to be the right number but instead of Covey, we’ve got A.J. Louderback]. But more candidates might pledge by then. That’s only 6% of the 150 seats, but our poll proved this is a winning issue, so hopefully a bill will pass if the new Speaker lets the bill pass through committees to the floor.
In other news, a few secession polls were published. You can see my threads on them in X here and here and here. Or follow my other social media here.
You probably heard that on January 25, 25 Republican governors expressed support for the governor of Texas’ actions to use state authority to block feds from a section of the border and to add razor wire to the border.
Ken Paxton, Texas AG, is a popular conservative who released his endorsements. To see how they did in elections yesterday, look at the list below. I showed the Texas First pledgers in yellow, and winners are marked green. These are the results with 95% of precincts reporting, as of 9 am Texas time.
The Texas Senate is conservative. There are 86 Republicans in the Texas House, but many are RINOs. Tom Glass described the impact of these primaries on the GOP in the House: “Seven Paxton impeachers lost outright last night. Eight more, including Speaker Dade Phelan, were forced into runoffs. Normally, an incumbent forced into a runoff loses. That means 15 Paxton impeachers are in various stages of defeat. When we add the five establishment retirees who did not seek re-election, one other establishment loss, and a Democrat seat likely to flip Republican, we are looking at as many 22 flipped seats!”
Texas Scorecard wrote “In House District 80, Don McLaughlin Jr. won the Republican primary. This seat is projected to flip from Democrat to Republican this year.” However, it’s only rated a 51% R 49% D seat. He hasn’t signed the pledge. Only about 8% of the Texas House seats are within 6% of evenly balanced R/D, because of gerrymandering. Currently, the House is 57% R 43% D.
