for Huffines and West — the two most vocal and well known of Abbott’s GOP challengers — losing the nomination won’t necessarily mean they’ve lost ground in the larger goal both have long tried to achieve: moving the Republican party further to the right.
Their platforms call for drastically reducing property taxes or eliminating them outright. They say they would replace that revenue, which funds everything from Texas schools and city streets to local governments, with a much larger consumption tax — though neither candidate has named the amount by which they’d want to raise Texas’ 6.25% state sales tax. They also would send more troops to the state’s southern border — beyond the 10,000 Texas National Guard members already deployed under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. And they want to let parents use tax dollars to subsidize private or charter school education for their children.
“They’re looking to get to his right because they know that’s the key to winning a Republican primary,” Steinhauser said. “They’re looking to move the debate to their ground.”