'I Blame This on Greg Abbott': Comptroller Don Huffines Blames GOP Leadership for the Texas Democratic Sweep
The bluntest Republican verdict on Tuesday's Texas losses came from inside the administration. Comptroller Don Huffines - appointed by Greg Abbott in July, and beaten himself on election night - told a crowd it will be 'almost impossible to win this state back,' and named Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as the reason.
Texas Republicans have spent three days explaining how they lost every statewide office. The bluntest explanation came from one of their own incumbents. In a social-media post from election night reported by USA TODAY, Texas Comptroller Don Huffines pointed directly at the top of his party: 'It's gonna almost be impossible to win this state back,' Huffines said. 'I blame this on Greg Abbott. I blame this on Dan Patrick. I blame it on all of our leadership.'
Huffines, drawing cheers from the crowd, questioned Abbott's and Patrick's decisions to seek fourth terms, and said Republicans had failed to deliver on their promises and left the party with little to campaign on. 'People are tired of Republicans being in office,' he said, pointing to the screen behind him showing the night's Texas results. His charge went past tactics to contempt: 'They never cared about you - I served with them,' Huffines said. 'They laugh and make fun of you and the grassroots. They never cared about our party platform.'
The messenger sharpens the message. Huffines is a former state senator whom Abbott himself appointed comptroller in July - and on the same night he delivered this verdict, Huffines lost his own race, beaten by Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt as Democrats swept the statewide slate. His is not the only Republican voice raised: President Trump called Abbott a 'RINO' on social media on election night, and Sen. Ted Cruz, on his Nov. 4 podcast, called the losses a 'Watergate-level repudiation' - assessments this station has covered as they landed.
What Huffines adds is an insider's theory of the defeat: not a bad night or a strong opponent, but a leadership that ran out of promises kept. Whether the party treats that as sour grapes from a man who lost, or as the first honest sentence of its rebuild, is the argument Texas Republicans now have in public - with a Democratic governor-elect already naming her transition team while they have it.
