Abbott: 'Texas remains a red state'

On Nov. 6, Greg Abbott won a second term as governor by more than 13 points, an ample margin but not nearly the 20-point spread of four years ago, and on a GOP ticket with uneven results, including a close call for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and some down-ballot defeats.

But in an interview with the American-Statesman midway between Election Day and the start of the next legislative session in January, Abbott said Texas remains securely Republican — even in a high-turnout midterm election — and that the election results presage a session with a mandate and the will to rein in property taxes and reform the school finance system, two issues that vexed his first term as governor.

“An appropriate political environment is one that is responsive to the voters, and this past election voters were adamant that they expect members to fix the property tax system in the state of Texas and fix school funding in the state of Texas,” he said. “Everybody who campaigned, everybody who got elected, heard those two themes repeatedly, and so the perception I have received from all the members who are coming back to Austin is they are galvanized in support of addressing these two issues.”

“They are two separate issues, but they are hinged together, and we will solve both of them,” Abbott said.

But does he really believe that the Legislature — controlled by Republicans but with fewer seats than two years ago amid Democratic gains in both chambers — will be able to limit tax increases and find more money for schools in the 140 days that commence Jan. 8?

“I’m saying it will be done,” said Abbott with an imperial smile.

The interview was conducted in the conservatory of the Governor's Mansion under gray skies and drizzle late Thursday afternoon on his return from the funeral of President George H.W. Bush at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston.

'A few touchdowns'

In 2014, after serving on the state Supreme Court and as attorney general, Abbott defeated state Sen. Wendy Davis for governor in an operatic campaign that dominated Texas politics. This year, his contest with former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez lacked drama or suspense, with all eyes in Texas and nationally on the race between Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D- El Paso, in which Cruz, with in indispensable lift from Abbott's field operation, eked out a 2.6-point victory.

"Texas is no longer, I believe, a reliably red state," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, in a Nov. 27 election post-mortem. "We are on the precipice of turning purple, and we’ve got a lot of work to do to keep it red."

But Abbott, who in campaign and fundraising mode warns of the dire threat to Republican hegemony in Texas, offered the serene observation that the party's statewide winning streak in every biennial election since 1996 had been extended.

“I think if you look at it you can kind of compare it to a football team that has lost 11 games in a row but has scored a touchdown or two, and they talk about winning a championship,” Abbott said of Texas Democrats. “The fact of the matter is that, for 11 elections in a row. Republicans have not lost a statewide race, and, once again, Republicans have not lost a race statewide, even though a few touchdowns were scored. And so Texas remains the largest red state.”

“I do want to add something else,” Abbott continued. “In this campaign, my opponent said something that my opponent said four years ago. They said, ‘Texas isn’t a red state, it’s a nonvoting state.' Well, there were more people who voted this election than last time. In fact, there were a record number of people who voted, and I received a record amount of votes in a midterm election."

The moral of the story: "Texas is no longer categorized as a nonvoting state," Abbott said. "But Texas remains a red state."

The Abbott campaign would have liked to have eclipsed its 20-point 2014 margin, but having Cruz at the top of the ballot was unhelpful.

On Cruz's narrow Senate win, Abbott said. “Look, there are a multitude of dynamics in that race that make it a one-off election."

But Abbott said, "Anytime anyone wins a race by more than a dozen points, if you’re quibbling over the score, your priorities are misfocused."

According to the CNN exit polls, Abbott won among women, though not by as large a margin as four years ago. He did about as well with Hispanics — 42 percent in 2018 to 44 percent in 2014 — but this time running against a Latina, and he more than doubled his share of the black vote, from 7 percent to 15 percent. While their numbers are too small for exit poll results, Abbott said he won the Asian vote.

"We were able to succeed in our effort to reach out to all demographic groups in the state of Texas with a winning message," Abbott said.

Property tax plan

One rap on Abbott from some legislators his first term was that he was too much the judge and too little the pol mixing it up with members; that he was better at amassing political capital — he's the most popular politician in Texas — than spending it.

"Four years ago, I was locked into a heated campaign where I was fighting for my own political life," Abbott said. "This time I got engaged very early with members, campaigned very aggressively for members throughout the entire campaign process, so there is a strong bond that has been built over the past year working so hard for people who are now elected to office and will be engaged in the session.

"Separate from that we have been laying out a lot of details about the issues that they are pressed on, details about issues that are very complex," Abbott continued. "My point is that on some issues they will vote on it's just very visceral ... others it's very complex, meaning it takes pages upon pages and chapters upon chapters to be able to explain it and for members to comprehend it, such as property tax reform ... the same thing with regard to school finance reform." 

Early this year, Abbott unveiled a 33-page property tax plan that would cap revenue increases for local taxing entities at 2.5 percent a year. Abbott presented the plan, which was more sweeping than the property tax rollback proposals that foundered during the previous summer’s special legislative session, at a Houston press conference flanked by state leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who blamed the House for scuttling property tax reform, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton — the presumptive next speaker of the House — who put the onus on the Senate.

To work, Abbott's property tax plan would require the state to substantially increase education funding to fill the gap created by the lost property tax revenue, and the question remains where exactly that money would come from.

Without getting specific, Abbott said, "There are a lot of different revenues sources that are available for us to make sure that the state is going to be able to provide more funding," and that legislators ought to be offered a menu of revenue options to choose from.

"I think when we come up looking for solutions that will do both, reducing property taxes as well as adding more funding for schools, that we need to put everything on the table and let the members decide what they find to be the best pathway for them," Abbott said.

Also, he said, "It’s important that when you fund education, you are not just pouring money into a flawed system.

"What must be done is an investment in strategies that yield good results," Abbott said. "The best results are those results where students are achieving more and advancing more, and the best way to achieve those results is by investing in good teachers. And so we will be adding more money to strategies, like paying teachers more, that yield the best results."

Democrats and many public school advocates agree that an overhaul of the public education funding system is overdue, but they are fearful that the GOP priority of limiting property tax growth will preclude meaningful school finance reform and leave schools underfunded once again.

Austin-area elected officials, mostly Democrats but including Republican Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, met Wednesday to discuss the best way to combat Abbott's plan, which they described as detrimental to funding necessary services in fast-growing communities.

Another Texan president?

Abbott and Patrick, who presides over the Senate, took office at the same time. House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, who did not seek re-election in November, already had been speaker for three terms when they arrived.

By the special session in the summer of 2017, Straus was the odd man out, with Patrick describing himself as Abbott's "wing man." But there were times during their shared tenure when Abbott might have worried that, given the right opportunity, his wing man might try to go home with the girl.

In November, Patrick defeated his underfunded opponent, Mike Collier, by fewer than 5 points in what could be read as a referendum on his more provocatively conservative leadership, and two of his most ideological allies — Sens. Konni Burton of Colleyville and Don Huffines of Dallas — lost to Democrats, thinning his majority.

Bonnen, who has promised that school finance reform will be at the top of the agenda, is more conservative than Straus. But he was the former speaker's right-hand man, and he managed in the space of a few weeks this fall to clear a field of speaker candidates by winning the support of a majority of Republicans and nearly half the incoming Democrats, who had flipped a dozen seats in the November elections. The Patrick-aligned House Freedom Caucus has had its wings clipped by the defeat of Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, and some close calls for other members.

In a new session, an engaged governor could emerge as the fulcrum between the House speaker and Senate president.

The state's last two Republican governors ran for president. George W. Bush served two terms in the White House. Rick Perry ran twice and lost.

There is in President Donald Trump a Republican in the White House who plans to run for re-election, but whose future is not entirely certain.

In the meantime, the Texan most talked about as a potential presidential candidate is O'Rourke, with three terms in Congress and a losing Senate race to his credit.

Would that be too great a leap? Abbott was asked.

"They didn’t think it was a leap when they chose Barack Obama, who had been elected just a couple of years before," Abbott said. Democrats nominated Obama for president four years after his election to the Senate. O'Rourke has been in Congress for six years.

"Think about that. So he’s actually more experienced than Barack Obama was in D.C. politics," Abbott said. "Not that I’m promoting him for the position of course."

Abbott recently attended a meeting of the Republican Governors Association in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he was elected the group's vice chairman.

It will, he said, mean a "heightened national profile."

To what end? Does he aspire to higher office?

"Is there a higher office than Texas governor?" said Abbott who, for as long as Trump remains his party's likely nominee in 2020, can parry such questions with an appeal to Texas vanity.

Gov. Greg Abbott's support in 2014 and 2018Total vote:

2014

Greg Abbott: 59.3 percent

Wendy Davis: 38.9 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 55.8 percent

Lupe Valdez: 42.5 percent

(Source: Texas secretary of state's office. Numbers do not total 100 percent because of additional candidates.)

Female voters

2014

Greg Abbott: 54 percent

Wendy Davis: 45 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 50 percent

Lupe Valdez: 47 percent

Male voters

2014

Greg Abbott: 66 percent

Wendy Davis: 32 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 60 percent

Lupe Valdez: 36 percent

White voters

2014

Greg Abbott: 72 percent

Wendy Davis: 25 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 69 percent

Lupe Valdez: 29 percent

Black voters

2014

Greg Abbott: 7 percent

Wendy Davis: 92 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 15 percent

Lupe Valdez: 82 percent

Hispanic voters

2014

Greg Abbott: 44 percent

Wendy Davis: 55 percent

2018

Greg Abbott: 42 percent

Lupe Valdez: 53 percent

(Source: CNN exit polls. Numbers may not total 100 percent because some respondents did not choose one of the candidates.)