During the Republican Party of Texas’ annual convention last weekend, delegates voted to oust Abraham George, the first Indian American to chair the state party, and replace him with someone even further to the right.
The Texas GOP abandoned George in favor of D’rinda Randall, his former vice chair, along with her running mate, David Covey. The decision sent shockwaves through conservative Texas circles, and it comes amid tense infighting that’s dogged the state party in recent months.
Though the convention championed the slogan “unity drives victory,” Randall’s win over George signifies that not all is well behind the scenes. As the party scrambles behind its controversial U.S. Senate nominee, Ken Paxton, cracks have begun to form between interests and coalitions.
“No matter how hard the establishment tries, it’s never enough for the right fringe. And so it was a thumb in the eye to the very conservative Republican elected establishment in Texas, and George paid the price,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson told the Current.
Paxton endorsed George days before the convention, adding to a long list of high-profile individuals and groups backing his campaign. Though Randall maintained a shorter list of supporters, she all but swept the vote, winning 25-3 after all the 31 Senate District Caucuses were polled. A third candidate, Sandra Whitten, pulled the remaining three.
George’s departure despite his incumbent status and big-name backers marked another electoral shakeup, reminiscent of Paxton’s decisive victory over incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in Texas’ Republican Senate primary.
Randall’s election appears to fit with a broader pattern in the Texas Republican Party, Jillson said.
Those who vote in GOP primary elections tend to be more conservative than the average Republican who casts a ballot in the general, Jillson said. That lean to the right grows even stronger at the state convention, where the party’s fringiest supporters hold sway.
“That is a collection of several thousand of the most committed ideological and partisan Republicans in the state,” Jillson said. “So they’re very dissimilar even to the primary electorate, let alone the general electorate.”
Despite George’s legislative wins, including a major boost for school vouchers, he failed to meet the far right’s standards. Randall, meanwhile, succeeded in courting the party’s rightmost fringe, marking the fifth election of a new state chair in six years.
The frequent changes fit into a picture of a Republican party facing deep divisions, UT-San Antonio political scientist Jon Taylor said.
“For a party that’s been in power for so long, it tells me that under the surface, there are a lot of ideological fights going on, personal animus and scores being settled,” Taylor said.
George’s Indian ancestry also likely presented a problem as he tried to court some of Texas’ most extreme voters, observers said. Rising anti-Muslim sentiment, particularly in North Texas, has hung heavily over the Texas GOP as its politicians have repeatedly invoked rhetoric about the “Islamification of Texas.”
Though George is a Christian and made combating Sharia law — a frequently misrepresented religious and moral code of Islam — part of his platform, his ethnicity alone could have been enough to make many far-right delegates distrustful, Jillson said.
Even so, George advised two Muslim delegates to leave the GOP during last weekend’s convention. Members already attempted to expel the delegates for their ties to the Council of American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group Gov. Greg Abbott has tried to designate a terrorist organization without offering proof of such ties.
”I would strongly advise you to leave our caucus,” George told the Muslim delegates, according to a Texas Tribune report. “There is a Democratic Convention happening in a couple of weeks. Join them.”
Randall kept her campaign away from the anti-Islamic rhetoric, instead focusing her critiques of George on finances, grassroots fundraising and communication with leadership. She had made a name for herself by developing a strong network of support with the people who matter in winning such a contest — far-right grassroots organizers and supporters.
Randall cited the party’s budget deficit as a major concern when it came to George’s leadership. This focus on finances comes after a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, the party’s governing board, claimed leading up to the convention that the event put the party at a $651,000 loss. While George said the amount is closer to $100,000, the deficit cast a further shadow on his abilities.
Even with her decisive victory, Randall now will face ideologues who have proven difficult to appease, Taylor said. Despite an optimistic tone, she likely faces a caucus no friendlier than the one that booted George.
“Now we have a lot of work to do,” Randall tweeted after her victory. “I will be calling on the people of Texas to step up, so we can remove every Democrat as we go and make Texas redder than ever before!”
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