Texas Republican Primaries Begin Test of Trump’s Influence

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It's an election year — and Americans will be voting sooner than many people may realize. The first primary election is in Texas on March 1, fewer than two months away.

While there will be a handful of important Democratic primaries, the big news is coming on the Republican side for several reasons. For one thing, with Republicans expected to have a good year, their nominees simply matter more, since they're more likely to be elected and share the power of the majority. For another, one of the things that can stop Republican majorities is the possibility of extremely poor candidates winning nominations in competitive seats. Control of the party is at stake, and that's currently a lot more of a contentious question on the Republican side.

Texas does not feature any of the dramatic contests in which a challenger endorsed by former President Donald Trump is trying to unseat an incumbent Republican. For that, we'll have to wait until May, when 13 states choose their nominees. In Idaho (May 19) and Georgia (May 24), Trump-endorsed candidates are taking on sitting Republican governors and, in Georgia, the Republican secretary of state who refused to help the president overturn the 2020 election results, Brad Raffensperger. We can be sure that such challenges will be interpreted as tests of Trump's influence within the party.

But Trump's clout will get an earlier test in some complicated primaries in Texas, where he has endorsed incumbents.

Governor Greg Abbott is being challenged by two even more radical Republicans, former U.S. Representative Allen West of Florida and former State Senator Don Huffines, both of whom are claiming that Abbott is insufficiently conservative. (A few other minor candidates are on the ballot as well, including one named Rick Perry. He's not the former governor, but his name could attract a few votes anyway). Abbott is favored to win the nomination, but if he falls below 50% on March 1 he'll be forced into a runoff, and that will surely be looked at as a sign of weakness even if he ultimately prevails.

Abbott has dominated the polling so far. Should he win while Trump-backed challengers win elsewhere, Trump would have a good argument that his endorsement was decisive. On the other hand, if Abbott gets dragged into a runoff, it would suggest that winning Trump challengers elsewhere might be successful not because of Trump in particular, but because of the general direction of the party.

The attorney general contest in Texas is even more complicated. Scandal-ridden incumbent Ken Paxton is seeking a third four-year term despite having been under indictment for most of his first two terms, and having much of his staff resign and charge him with corruption in an unrelated case during the current term. All of this has earned him three significant challengers: Current land Commissioner George P. Bush, former Texas supreme court Justice Eva Guzman and House Freedom Caucus stalwart Louie Gohmert. Trump endorsed Paxton, although Bush has broken from his family and supported the former president, and the Freedom Caucus members have been Trump's closest allies in the U.S Congress. Paxton, for his part, was a leader in lawsuits asking the courts to overturn the 2020 election. It's unclear what will happen, but Paxton's renomination doesn't appear to be a sure thing.

The winners are likely to prevail in November and govern the nation's second-biggest state. Perceptions about the outcomes matter, too, because they will influence what happens elsewhere. Only a fraction of Republican party actors are enthusiastic Trump supporters, and a smaller (and apparently shrinking) fraction are flat-out Trump opponents. Most Republican party actors, including politicians, will support him if they think they need to. And nothing is interpreted as showing a politician's clout — or lack thereof — as much as the fate of those he or she has endorsed.

If Abbott and Paxton dominate on March 1, Republicans in other states will be more inclined to scurry for Trump's favor before their own elections. If not? Fewer candidates will care about his support, and even those in the May primaries who already have it might be less likely to center their campaigns around it.

The tests of Trump's hold on Republicans are sometimes subtle and will take some time to sort themselves out. But it all starts soon, in Texas.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.