We Lost AND We Won!
The unofficial results are that Gerdes won with 57.8% to my 42.2%. The votes for Gerdes were 14,136 versus 10,309 for Glass, meaning I lost by 3,827. I am pretty sure that the mail-in ballots are not included in the vote count, but the 500 or so mail-in ballots will not make a difference in the outcome.
When I first thought about running for HD 17 in 2022, Kathie said that the most important thing was to change the culture of the Texas House in order to select a speaker in line with the grassroots. Last night, we did exactly that, and that is why I say “we won,” even though we lost our race for HD 17.
The “Weak Link” Has Been Repaired
HD 17 was just one battle in the establishment v. grassroots war raging in Republican Texas House primaries across the state. I had said that if we won just ten or so of the 42 challenges to Paxton impeachers, it would be a gamechanger.
The good news is that we had a tremendous shakeup last night in the Texas House for the good! Throughout the campaign, I repeatedly said that the Texas government is the strategic line of defense against an occupied DC that seeks to destroy everything Texans hold dear, but that the swamp-controlled Texas House is the weak link in our defense. It looks like that will no longer be the case in 2025.
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!
The quality of the victors last night is incredible. To mention a few:
- Mike Olcott, Parker County Conservatives founder
- Mitch Little, one of the awesome Ken Paxton impeachment defense team
- Shelley Luther, who went to jail for opening her hair salon during COVID to provide a living to her employees, and
- Janis Holt, former SREC member who represented the Colony Ridge area
Grassroots champion Matt Morgan defied all odds in Fort Bend County with the most impressive victory of the primary, surviving non-stop bombardment of lying ads on Houston TV and endorsements against him by Abbott and Patrick. Wes Virdell, Texas executive director of Gun Owners of America, won the seat vacated by the retiring House impeachment manager.
They are going to rock the Texas House!
When Ken Paxton urged us at our January event to vote against three of the Court of Criminal Appeals incumbents who gutted his ability to prosecute election fraud in Texas, I wondered if he had enough clout to deliver on that request. The person that does have that kind of clout, though, is Donald Trump, and Paxton persuaded Trump to endorse against them, too. All three incumbents lost last night.
Gratitude
I can’t express enough how humbled and awed I am by the enthusiastic, sustained support of so many in this district and around the state. My campaign was funded by you. It was implemented by you with block walking, word of mouth, sign deployment, standing at the polls, and prayer. We are a band of brothers and sisters working to save our posterity, our liberty, our state, and our nation. There is a special bond created in such a fight, and Kathie and I will cherish the friendships and memories from this campaign for the rest of our lives.
The Deciding Factor in the HD 17 Race
This result is not what I expected, given the overwhelmingly positive feedback I received standing at the polls and at the door while block walking. There is a lot of analysis to be done, but I have a few thoughts about why we lost that I will share.
The biggest factor in this race was Governor Abbott’s endorsement and support of Gerdes. Abbott is tremendously popular in this district and across Texas, and his endorsement carried more weight with the swing voters that matter than Ken Paxton’s endorsement of me and Gerdes’ vote to impeach Paxton. Abbott backed up his endorsement with at least $80,000 of ads on Gerdes’ behalf, something that Paxton was not able to do, given his need to spend so much on his impeachment defense.
Polling says that Trump’s endorsement would have countered and surpassed Abbott’s had I gotten it. But Dan Patrick, for his own reasons, apparently persuaded Trump not to endorse me, despite Ken Paxton and Sid Miller urging Trump to do so.
I said at the beginning of the race that the crystalizing event for me running again was the vote by Gerdes to impeach Paxton. I thought that would be an action by Gerdes that would alienate him from voters, and it largely did. I did not factor in that, while Abbott wants to defeat a Phelan-controlled House, he does not want to cede influence over the House to Paxton. I seriously doubt that Abbott, Patrick, and Trump would have played the endorsement game in this unusual year without Paxton first endorsing.
The unpleasant fact of Texas House races in the Republican primary continues to be that the majority of Republican primary voters do not have news sources about what happens at the Texas House and overly rely on endorsements and advertising to make their choice for their state representative.
Money for advertising is not near as determinative in a two-way race where, as in this case, we had sufficient funding and ground game to get our name and message out. Yes, $1 million dollars of big donor money came in from outside the district for Gerdes, arrogantly attempting to pick our representative. That may have played a part in the Gerdes victory, but I think the Abbott endorsement and ads turned the tide from what was probably an early lead by our campaign, driven by our block walking, word of mouth, sign deployment, and advertising.
The voters have spoken. I wish the best for Gerdes and hope that he justifies their support.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Because our posterity, state, and nation need effective action to save them, I plan to continue doing what I can in that larger fight. I hope that a lot of us continue working together in that fight. Here are some of the ways that I want to keep going that maybe you can help in, too. More details as we go.
First, I want to do what I can do to help fund and support the challengers of Paxton impeachers in their runoffs. They are:
HD 21 – David Covey against Texas Speaker Dade Phelan (Jasper, Orange, Jefferson Counties)
HD 64 – Andy Hopper against Lynn Stuckey ** (Wise and Denton Counties)
HD 61 – Keresa Richardson against Frederick Frazier ** (Collin County)
HD 91 – David Lowe against Stephanie Klick ** (Tarrant County)
** Governor Abbott has endorsed and is supporting the Paxton impeacher that has been forced into the runoff. Note that in other runoffs, Abbott endorsed and supports the challenger because of the school choice issue.
Second, I intend to go to my Republican precinct and county conventions and seek to go to the RPT state convention and get the best platform, priorities, and party leadership we can.
Third, I want to focus on what we can do to insure secure elections in the big counties of Texas for the general election.
Finally, I want to start preparing legislation and strategies for the 2025 Texas legislature.
I don’t know about you, but when I prayed about this race, I prayed that God’s will be done. Evidently, He has other plans for me and this district than what we worked for. I accept that and will keep pushing forward.
I hope we get to work together in the future . . .
Toward liberty,
Tom Glass