Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan escaped a May primary runoff defeat by the skin of his teeth, but the Beaumont Republican’s support within his own party is as diminished as ever.
Many of his key GOP allies in the House preemptively retired or otherwise fell victim to Governor Greg Abbott’s vitriolic primary war against the rebels who undermined his demand for “school choice.” (Phelan’s apparent unwillingness to whip support for vouchers, alongside various hot wars with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, is what earned him his political precarity.) Other Republican incumbents who once supported Phelan have since defected, spurred by the fallout from the House’s ill-fated impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last session.
While his foes narrowly failed to take him out at the ballot box, they’ve since turned their focus to denying him a third term as speaker—a post he assumed after his predecessor, with the help of his own poor judgment, was kneecapped by the same clan of right-wing agitators.
