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The Blast- June 27, 2025 [1]
['The Texas Tribune']
Date: 2025-07
Gov. Greg Abbott has set the special election for Nov. 4. The filing deadline will be at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 3.
Three sources tell The Blast that former Southlake Mayor and former congressional candidate John Huffman and former Tarrant Regional Water District board member James Hill are potential candidates.
The Blast reported on Wednesday that Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker was considering a bid, but another source familiar with Parker’s campaign says that is not the case. Parker was just reelected last month.
Today’s maneuvering centers around the far-right lane of the Republican primary, but the more traditional business lane is still up for grabs — assuming someone feels they can muster the cash to take on Patrick’s preferred candidate.
A source familiar with Schatzline’s campaign told The Blast that Schatzline had understood that he would earn Patrick’s endorsement, but the endorsement never came. What’s more, Patrick’s endorsement of Wambsganss came less than an hour after she announced.
Wambsganss is the chief communications officer for Patriot Mobile, a politically active Christian cell phone company whose PAC has operated in North Texas, focusing on school board elections and other local offices. Schatzline has been among the most conservative House members in his first two terms.
Minutes after Wambsganss announced, Schatzline dropped out of the SD 9 race and endorsed Wambsganss. Then, Patrick endorsed Wambsganss, boxing out anyone else who could run in the far-right lane.
Wambsganss’ press release this afternoon listed Allen Blakemore as the point of contact for her campaign. As discussed in Wednesday’s edition of The Blast, Blakemore is Patrick’s consultant and a gatekeeper to the Texas Senate.
It was a shocking turn of events for Schatzline, a second term conservative darling from Fort Worth, who entered the race on Tuesday with a host of local endorsements. But Leigh Wambsganss (pronounced lee womz-gonz) netted the biggest endorsement.
Patriot Mobile executive-level officer Leigh Wambsganss has won the Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sweepstakes for Senate District 9, and state Rep. Nate Schatzline will instead run for reelection.
GOP CENSURE UPDATES FOR THE COMING DAYS
State Rep. Cody Harris is the next House Republican facing a censure to remove them from the 2026 primary ballot, with another censure on the way.
The Henderson County GOP’s executive committee will meet on Monday to consider a censure against the representative from Palestine, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and a member of Speaker Dustin Burrows’ leadership team. A censure is also in the works against Rep. Stan Lambert of Abilene.
The drafted resolution docks him for 17 actions, a more detailed list than past censures. However, the resolution gets a lot of the details wrong.
The list includes some of the things that other Republican members have been censured for, like voting against Rep. David Cook for speaker and voting to stifle debate on the House rules. They also plan to censure him for voting in favor of the state budget, extending the lottery and the TV and film production incentive program backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
But the Henderson County GOP included Harris’ vote to ban “AI-generated political memes” — a misrepresentation of House BIll 366 — and at least eight times he voted “present” on important bills. The only problem is he voted present because he was the one presiding over the House floor at the time of the votes. The presiding member traditionally doesn’t vote.
Notably, they aren’t censuring “Capn Crush” for purposely trying to break the House gavels, a waste of taxpayer dollars.
County Republican parties are expected to adopt many more censures this summer and fall. At 6:30 p.m. today, the State Republican Executive Committee’s resolutions committee will meet over Zoom with the Taylor County GOP’s executive committee to help them censure Lambert, who has served for nearly a decade.
County parties have so far struggled to follow the Texas GOP’s strict guidelines for censures under the party’s new Rule 44. The SREC wants the censures to be air-tight. Once the GOP blocks censured incumbents from the primary ballot, those members are all but certain to sue.
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