The Blast - September 17, 2025

33 days until early voting begins
48 days until the November election
52 days until the 2026 primary candidate filing period begins
82 days until the 2026 primary candidate filing deadline

IN TODAY’S BLAST

• (Almost) all the candidates, all in one place

• An opening for Brazos

• Exclusive poll: Redistricting and quorum break underwater

(ALMOST) ALL THE CANDIDATES, ALL IN ONE PLACE

Three of the four GOP attorney general candidates were in Waco last night for a meet and greet, likely the first of many in the busiest statewide primary on the Republican side.

State Sens. Joan Huffman of Houston and Mayes Middleton of Galveston and former deputy attorney general Aaron Reitz were there. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin had to be in Washington for duties on the Hill but sent his deputy chief of staff as a surrogate. Each of them made their pitch to a crowd of a couple hundred people at a country club on Lake Waco.

Huffman, who is coming up on 17 years in the Senate, said she’s “been in the trenches” as a prosecutor, judge and chair of key Senate committees, which she has used to shepherd conservative legislation. She said she’s been an assistant to her fellow senators on the legal matters surrounding their bills, too.

She wants to bolster how the AG’s office cracks down on Medicaid fraud, cybersecurity and human trafficking.

Middleton, similarly, leaned on the conservative legislation he’s passed during his seven years in the Lege on transgender issues, prayer in schools and, recently, paying for sweets with food stamps. He called for building an election integrity division now that the Legislature has clarified the AG’s ability to prosecute election fraud. He wants divisions targeting corruption, cartels, organized crime and “waste, fraud and abuse.”

Reitz touted his tie to President Donald Trump from his two and a half months as assistant U.S. attorney general in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy, a job he got “from a handshake at Mar-a-Lago.” Through his two and a half years as a top aide to outgoing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, then two years as chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, he said he proved himself as battle-tested for the “the lawfare environment in which we’re waging war with the left.”

Continuing his battle analogy, Reitz said the legislative experience of his three opponents does not qualify them to perform the unrelated duties of the attorney general.

“The Legislature puts beautiful, well-functioning weapons on the wall of this armory that I call state and federal law, but you need an attorney general who has been in legal combat, who knows what the enemy is this day and tomorrow, next week, next month, and knows what weapons to go into that armory and deploy strategically,” Reitz said. “One day you may need a fully automatic belt-fed machine gun on a tripod, the next day you may need a bowie knife to slip under the enemy’s ribs and walk away quietly, and the next day you may find that the enemy is so overwhelming that you have to call in superior air power from Washington.”

Yes, Reitz was a Marine.

John Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the Roy campaign, gave an overview of the congressman’s career path, noting that he, like Reitz, once served as a deputy to Paxton and chief of staff to Cruz. Reitz has Paxton’s endorsement while Roy is backed by Cruz.

An awkward moment flared up when Fletcher was saying kind words about the other candidates and noted that he and Reitz often see each other, including at the gym.

“Need to get back in the gym, brother,” Reitz shouted out from the crowd.

“Yes, sir, working on it,” Fletcher said.

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AN OPENING FOR BRAZOS

It’s been three days since U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul announced he would not seek reelection, and no serious candidate has jumped into the race.

That may sound like impatient framing, but the longtime Austin Republican’s retirement was somewhat expected among the political class, the ones who would be lining up potential candidates.

McCaul’s brand of foreign affairs-focused leadership has fallen out of favor among Republicans in the Trump years, and he failed to secure a waiver to continue this year as Foreign Affairs chair after hitting the GOP’s term limit. Perhaps the most telling sign was that McCaul raised only $75,000 in the first half of the year, far shy of his usual benchmark.

While we wait for candidates to emerge, one interesting dynamic to watch is whether McCaul’s successor will hail from Austin or somewhere else.

With McCaul out of the mix, Bryan, College Station and the Brazos Valley have a shot at electing a representative from their area for the first time since Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Flores left office after the 2020 election. Apart from Flores’ decade in Congress, the Brazos Valley has been represented by a mix of lawmakers hailing from Austin, Dallas, Houston and Waco in recent decades.

After Flores, U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions made his comeback and represented the area from Waco. Then, McCaul was grandfathered in as Brazos County’s incumbent after his district was reworked to be a safer seat for Republicans during the 2021 redistricting.

Per 2024 results, more of the new TX-10’s Republican primary electorate is concentrated in the Brazos Valley counties than in Travis County — a notable change from the district’s prior makeup.

The seat was pushed into the Brazos Valley for the first time in the 2021 redistricting, but the 2025 redraw has extended its eastern boundary well into East Texas, too. That’s a lot of new ground to cover for TX-10’s future representative.

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EXCLUSIVE POLL: REDISTRICTING AND QUORUM BREAK UNDERWATER

Both Republicans’ redistricting effort and Democrats’ quorum break are underwater, according to a new poll of Texas voters.

A poll set to be released tomorrow by Texas Public Opinion Research found that 38% of statewide voters supported redistricting while 46% opposed it. Additionally, 45% disagreed with the decision to break quorum while 36% supported it.

TPOR polled 843 registered voters from Aug. 27 to 29. That was in the throes of the second special session. The survey showed voters were significantly more tuned into the policy issues than usual, with 52% aware of the special session and 34% aware that there had been two special sessions.

The poll has a margin of error of 4.6 points.

Support for those issues was largely split along party lines. Among independents, 51% opposed redistricting (42% strongly) while only 30% supported it (12% strongly). As for the quorum break, 42% of independents opposed it (33% strongly) and only 34% supported it (24% strongly).

The framing on the redistricting question stated that districts are usually redrawn every 10 years. It didn’t get into the politics of who started the arms race.

There’s plenty more data in the poll on special session priorities, ICE deportation activity, floods and affordability.

• Gov. Greg Abbott signed several bills from the second special session today, including the abortion pill bill (HB 7), the STAAR test bill (HB 8) and the over-the-counter ivermectin bill (HB 25). Updates are rolling in on TLO.

• Abbott vetoed SB 18 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, related to dam permitting from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

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• TX-08: Republican Jessica Steinmann says she raised $350,000 in less than a week of her campaign to succeed U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Magnolia.

• TX-21: Republican Mark Teixeira has picked up endorsements from U.S. Reps. Pat Fallon, R-Sherman, and August Pfluger, R-San Angelo, as well as U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.

• SD-4: One potential candidate to watch for to succeed state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, is longtime Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon. Ligon, who has held that office since 2009, is a client of Allen Blakemore.

• HD-96: Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare endorsed Ellen Fleischmann to succeed state Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield. Cook is running for the state Senate.

• The State Democratic Executive Committee’s Finance Committee will meet tonight. They are expected to consider language to get an early start on paying a $150,000 annual salary to Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder, rather than waiting until after the party’s 2026 convention.

• Steve Bannon has been scheduled to speak via a video address at this weekend’s Texas Youth Summit in The Woodlands.

Do you or someone in your office have a new job you’d like mentioned? Email us.

• Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Jerome Greener, executive vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as director of the new Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, created by the “Texas DOGE” law, Senate Bill 14.

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“Ken Paxton’s legal crusade against Beto O’Rourke is faltering before an all-Republican appeals court” by Eleanor Klibanoff of The Texas Tribune

“Texas GOP may be banking on low Hispanic turnout in new map” by Gabby Birenbaum of The Texas Tribune

“Charlie Kirk’s killing adds to rising security concerns among Texas politicians” by Taylor Goldenstein of the Houston Chronicle

Our condolences: “U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales staffer’s death under investigation; her body was on fire, official said” by Nancy M. Preyor-Johnson of the San Antonio Express-News

“Dallas County Republicans vote to hand-count March primary election day ballots” by Tracey McManus of The Dallas Morning News

It’s IShowSpeed, according to the Youths^TM:

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(Sept. 17) State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels
(Sept. 18) State Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont
(Sept. 18) State Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City
(Sept. 18) Former cyclist Lance Armstrong
(Sept. 18) State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin
(Sept. 18) State Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston

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