Primary involving House Speaker Dade Phelan called "Battle for the Soul of Texas"

We say we talk politics for a second now to a race involving one of the most powerful lawmakers at the state capitol and Some are calling what's about to unfold a battle for the soul of Texas Yeah, we're talking about the primary runoff It's between the speaker of the Texas House and one of his challengers If you thought you saw the last political reporter Jack Finkel were very wrong Jack We talked about this a lot last night. This race has people talking. So walk us through what the implications are across the state Well, this sure does have statewide implications, Nicole And that's because the speaker oversees the house and can influence what bills are passed and how the chamber is run Conservatives had blasted speaker Dade Phelan for not being conservative enough Phelan is now forced into a primary runoff May 28th after one of his challengers David Covey won 46% of the vote to Phelan's 43% Covey had the backing of former president Donald Trump lieutenant governor Dan Patrick and attorney general Ken Paxton all Three of them railed against Phelan for allowing the impeachment process against Paxton to take place in the Texas House and Continuing the practice of having Democrats serve as committee chairs in addition to Republicans Even though speaker Phelan is a top lawmaker He's not a statewide office holder and still has to run for re-election in his district This was a very local race that took on a very sort of statewide feel Right tons of money was spent on this race To unseat, you know a sitting speaker, which is which is pretty unusual and ultimately, you know, he's not out of the woods yet And so look for a lot of money and influence to pour into that district in Southeast Texas leading up to the runoff on May 28th and blank says This and battles and other Texas House districts drove Republican turnout across the state Governor Greg Abbott targeted 21 Republicans who voted against his school voucher plan of those five incumbents did not run Six lost their races four are now headed for a runoff and six won So if this issue comes up again next year It will likely be much harder for lawmakers to block taxpayer funded school savings accounts And then there's the attorney general who supported the candidates who opposed his impeachment in the house of the 44 He backed 15 120 lost and nine ended up in a runoff And this is going to make the runoff elections in late May all very interesting Interesting is quite the word Jack Fink. We appreciate all your work in the last couple of days. Thank you