Texas House Speaker rolls into town as local Republicans brace for tough election – San Antonio Report

Texas House Speaker rolls into town as local Republicans brace for tough election  San Antonio Report

There are signs that party leaders are bracing for some tougher-than-expected state legislative races this November. Local Republicans got an unusual visit from Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) on Thursday — the latest sign that party leaders are bracing for some tougher-than-expected state legislative races this November. Republicans currently hold an overwhelming 88–62 seat majority in the Texas House, where the biggest fights are most often between warring factions of the GOP. Even in one of the last bastions of GOP moderates, that’s driven the local delegation to the right in recent years, as longtime members lost their primaries or retired. Now internal polling and early voting analysis indicates close contests in some of those same districts, and Republicans who pushed their party’s conservative reboot are suddenly scrambling to present a united front.

Burrows’ various PACs have poured big money into Bexar County to help state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio), state Rep. Mark Dorazio (R-San Antonio) and Jorge Borrego, who is running to replace state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) in Texas House District 118. All three San Antonio-area Republicans supported a more conservative nominee for House Speaker last year, but on Wednesday, appeared eager to put aside past differences. They posed for pictures and signed their names on Burrows’ tour bus, emblazoned with the words, “One Party,