State Sen. Mayes Middleton and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy will face each other in a May runoff to decide who will be the GOP nominee for Texas attorney general, the Associated Press declared Tuesday.
Middleton had a commanding lead with Roy, an Austin congressman who was the front-runner through much of the campaign, pulling a distant second through early returns and a share of election day results.
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Neither candidate was on track to clear the 50% needed to avoid an overtime round on May 26.
State Sen. Joan Huffman and former Department of Justice lawyer Aaron Reitz are trailing the two frontrunners. Reitz was endorsed by incumbent Ken Paxton, who is forgoing reelection to run for the U.S. Senate.
Roy, a conservative firebrand from Austin known for his principled stands that have sometimes put him at odds with GOP leadership, entered the race as the clear frontrunner, in part because he was more widely known among voters. Middleton, a Galveston oil and gas executive and one of the state’s most rightward lawmakers, closed the gap through a self-funded ad blitz that plastered his “MAGA Mayes” messaging across airwaves and mailboxes.
The runoff promises to be an expensive, bare-knuckle battle for a role that has grown to be one of the most important in Texas, and in the national conservative movement. Under Paxton, the agency became a partisan juggernaut, aggressively suing Democratic presidential administrations, local governments and nonprofits. Both Roy and Middleton have vowed to continue using the office to advance conservative goals through the courts.
“You look at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, this is the largest legal power in the conservative movement, nationally, period, end of story,” said Adam Piper, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association. “This is not just about the boundaries of Texas, this is about the entire conservative legal movement.”
On the Democratic side, state Sen. Nathan Johnson was running well ahead of his two opponents, former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski and Dallas attorney Tony Box. Johnson was within striking distance of an outright win, while Jaworski and Box were jockeying for the second spot.
Middleton vs. Roy
Roy is running on his experience at the highest levels of government, from serving as Paxton’s first top deputy to senior roles with Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and former Gov. Rick Perry. He touts prominent endorsements, including from Cruz, and national name recognition after three full terms in Congress. He’s also said he would prioritize strengthening the agency’s bureaucratic functions, like child support enforcement and consumer protection, which have languished under Paxton.
But he faced stiff headwinds from his opponents, who hammered his tumultuous relationship with President Donald Trump and Paxton. Roy was the first Republican to call for Paxton to resign after seven of his top aides reported him to the FBI. He defied other Republicans in voting to certify the 2020 election and said Trump engaged in “clearly impeachable” conduct on Jan. 6, 2021.
Roy has tried to recast those criticisms as proof of his qualifications to be Texas’ next top lawyer, saying he’s a principled conservative whose only allegiance is to Texas and the Constitution. He also says his experience winning a contentious and expensive reelection fight in 2020 against former state Sen. Wendy Davis has prepared him to win in November.
“The only way that I’ll lose this election, after all that I’ve done to defend the state of Texas, all that I’ve done to fight for conservatism, all that I’ve done in a courtroom, my legal bona fides, my background, is if somebody else is trying to buy Texas,” he said. “If somebody wants to spend their entire mass fortune doing so, I still think I’m going to win.”
Middleton is similarly conservative — he led the state House Freedom Caucus, while Roy was a prominent member of the U.S. House version. He’s spent millions in television ads, mailers and text messages to plaster his “MAGA Mayes” message across the state, touting his allegiance to Trump and conservative record as a legislator.
On the campaign trail, Roy and the other candidates assailed Middleton’s lack of legal experience. While Middleton graduated from law school and is registered with the State Bar of Texas, he has virtually no courtroom experience, and has worked exclusively within his family oil and gas company.
He has tried to equate his legal experience to Paxton’s before he was elected attorney general, saying they have similar civil law backgrounds. Paxton worked in private practice, was in-house counsel for J.C. Penney and ran his own law firm for 14 years.
But that’s not why voters supported him, Middleton said in an interview with the True Texas Project, a conservative grassroots group.
“The reason we supported [Paxton] when he was running for attorney general is because he had that proven conservative record,” Middleton said. “It’s about who has that proven conservative record, which is what I have.”
Disclosure: State Bar of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.