(C) Texas Tribune This story was originally published by Texas Tribune and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Blast: Time for Republicans to regroup [1] [] Date: 2024-06 With the most grueling period of the Texas election behind us, it’s time for the House to count its wounded — and regroup. Fifteen GOP incumbents lost during the primaries. Six of the eight incumbents on the ballot last night appear to have lost. Three committee chairs from House Speaker Dade Phelan’s leadership team (DeWayne Burns, Stephanie Klick and John Kuempel) lost their runoffs. Reggie Smith lost back on March 5. Based on Gov. Greg Abbott’s napkin math that he needed to flip two more anti-voucher seats to clear a path for school vouchers next session, the governor appears to have done it. Five voucher races were on the ballot yesterday. Abbott’s pro-voucher candidates won in three of those races. However, that count presumes no seats flip between parties in November. Perhaps the biggest headline from last night is that Phelan survived his primary challenge from David Covey. Although the primary challenge wounded him, he doesn’t appear as wounded as one may have thought. Doing a bit more napkin math, 11 Republican members joined Phelan at his watch party: Giovanni Capriglione, Jay Dean, Cole Hefner, Lacey Hull, Stan Kitzman, Brooks Landgraf, Jeff Leach, Will Metcalf, Morgan Meyer, Jared Patterson and Terry M. Wilson. With support from those, plus himself and 64 Democrats, it looks like Phelan has the number to remain speaker. That doesn’t mean there still won’t be a speaker’s race, and it doesn’t mean next session will be any less chaotic. The House will swear in around two dozen Republican freshmen in January, the largest incoming class for the majority party since 2013. Of course, the outsized 2013 freshman class was partially a result of the 2012 redistricting. The next big freshman class from the majority came in 2011, which followed the red wave of backlash to former President Barack Obama’s first two years in office. The bottom line is there will be a large incoming class of Republicans — 15 of whom ousted incumbents — who want change or have their own ideas of how the House should be run. Once the House starts seriously considering something like stripping Democrats of chairmanships, what’s to stop others from raising their own suggestions. Adding to the chaos will be Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s open war with Phelan. Phelan or whoever succeeds him will have to navigate the precarious waters down a few of his trusted lieutenants. Former Republican Caucus Chair Craig Goldman will be gone, likely heading to Congress. There are the four committee chairs who lost their primaries, Andrew Murr is retiring and another two chairs will be in the dog house: J.M. Lozano has now thrown in his lot with the Contract with Texas crowd, and Tom Oliverson has launched his own speaker bid. There’s also caucus treasurer Shelby Slawson, who on Monday called for new leadership in the House, and Chair Angie Chen Button, who has a decent battle on her hands in the general election. During his celebratory speech on the final day of the Texas GOP Convention last week, new party Chair Abraham George gave a hint at what the next two years will look like. “There are times that [Vice Chair D’rinda Randall] and I and our SREC are going to have to call out Republicans … and don’t call us divisive at that time,” George said. “We’re just doing our job, the job that we promised to be able to do. But none of that is today, all of that is in January.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://mailchi.mp/texastribune/the-blast-time-for-republicans-to-regroup Published and (C) by Texas Tribune Content appears here under this condition or license: Used with Permission: https://www.texastribune.org/republishing-guidelines/. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/texastribune/