Plainview, TX – An ambush is next to impossible to carry out on the South Plains of the Texas Panhandle, where the land is flat and the wind howls endlessly.
A political one has still managed to play out this election cycle, reviving rivalries between right-wingers and House leadership that, for the most part, have been dormant for the past year.
State Rep. Ken King, a Canadian Republican who serves as chairman of the powerful State Affairs Committee, is on the ropes as he seeks a seventh term to the Texas House after millions in late spending have been thrown at the race.
Those dollars have opened the door to a possibility that, just over a month ago, seemed far-fetched: King may be the first, at least in recent memory, high-profile House chair to be ousted from office as he fends off a well-funded challenger in John Browning, who has been embraced by a faction of the Texas GOP that’s long sought to unseat Republicans like King from political office.
This clash in House District 88 is unique this cycle in that it pits establishment forces against the machine of conservative West Texas billionaire Tim Dunn, a storyline that has defined much of the Texas Republican election sphere over the past decade.
In HD-88, which encompasses 19 counties, the voter base is sprawling and the ad time is cheap. That has created a bombardment of campaign advertising through broadcast television, countless mailers in voters’ mailboxes, and text messages to constituents out the wazoo.
In a part of the state that isn’t used to this much attention, there’s nothing but the white-hot spotlight. And King and Browning, two ranchers from a part of Texas that is often an afterthought of big city political machines, find themselves at the epicenter of one of the biggest electoral scraps this cycle.
Neither side knows which way this domino is going to fall Tuesday night.
Late Bloomer
During the first two weeks of January, almost nothing had been spent from either campaign on television and neither candidate had raised significant money.
Browning — a farmer, rancher and Plainview native — had brought in a measly $22,000, according to campaign finance reports filed at the time with the state. King, a longtime incumbent, had more in the bank — but from Jan. 1-15 only brought in $21,500.
Then something changed during the third week of January.
That same week, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the most powerful political groups in Texas, receded from races against anti-tort reform Republican incumbents, a move that shifted the chessboard substantially.
Whether that timing was causal or incidental, it marked a turning point in what had been an otherwise sleepy primary. People in the political orbit of Dunn have contended that they planned to ambush King late anyway, a deliberate strategy to catch the incumbent flatfooted.
“When he started to get hit, it became clear that Ken’s support was a mile wide and an inch deep,” a conservative operative opposed to King told Texas Bullpen last month.
That flood of action came on fast and hasn’t let up.
The first ad came from Protecting Texas Children, an activist group run by Vanessa Sivage, a former nurse-turned-whistleblower at Texas Children’s Hospital who was fired after accusing the hospital of using Medicaid funding to finance gender modification procedures.
That group’s ad featured retiring state Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington), who referred to a vote from King in 2023 against an amendment to a hospital grant funding bill. The amendment, viewed as hostile to terms negotiated by the author and which ultimately was not tacked onto the legislation, would have precluded institutions that provide gender modification services from receiving the funding.
Then came another spot by Texans for Fiscal Responsibility — a subsidiary of the Dunn political apparatus that is largely aligned with lawmakers like Tinderholt — attacking King over Texas GOP priority legislation that didn’t advance through his committee.
That prompted Browning’s campaign to run its own ad that hit King for scoring poorly on TFR’s scorecard. American Values First PAC, an obscure group that cropped up in 2024 with an odd set of electoral targets, also started running its own advertising in HD-88, knocking King along the same lines as the Tinderholt ad.
State Rep. Wes Virdell (R-Brady), was featured in an ad from the Browning campaign, in which the lawmaker hit King over “killing conservative bills” as State Affairs chairman.
But King, after voting for last year’s education savings account bill — something he opposed in 2023 — now benefits from a Trump and Abbott endorsement.
This score of negative messaging drove down King’s ratings in the district. Eventually, King responded, filming the kind of face-to-camera video that typically indicates negative attacks are working during a political campaign.
In King’s corner are groups like the pro-casino legalization Texas Defense PAC; the pro-establishment Associated Republicans of Texas and Defend Rural Texas PAC; the new House leadership-aligned Texas Conservative Majority PAC; a couple of anti-tort reform groups like Texans for Truth and Liberty PAC and Coalition for Working Families PAC; and a collection of traditional industry groups.
On Browning’s side is Dunn’s Texans United for a Conservative Majority and the various aligned independent expenditure groups.
Throughout this race, one name has been noticeably absent: TLR, an embattled business community group that operates the largest PAC in Texas and was more responsible than most for flipping the state to red around the turn of the century.
King was absent during consideration of one amendment to Senate Bill 30 last year, TLR’s top tort reform priority bill, though he voted for the bill on second and third reading after the amendment had already gutted the proposal. That amendment was tacked onto the bill by two votes.
King was one of the few rural, moderate Republicans who stuck their finger in TLR’s eye on this bill because the group played a part in the pro-school choice push that took out multiple rural lawmakers during the 2024 election cycle.
The eye-for-an-eye circle is now complete, though neither King nor TLR are likely to soon forget these slights.
Slights That Cut Deep
Tinderholt and Virdell have campaigned for Browning in the district, while Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, and other members were in Plainview last week supporting King.
King’s role as chair of the House State Affairs Committee has rubbed members like Tinderholt the wrong way. State Affairs is often a killing field for all kinds of legislation.
“I watched Ken do things to members, take bills away from members that have worked on for four or six years and give them to other members because he was frustrated that they didn’t vote for his bill on the floor,” Tinderholt told a small collection of voters in Plainview at an event last week supporting Browning. “I mean, come on, how petty can we be?”
And Virdell, who was first elected to the House in 2024, told Texas Bullpen last week of his involvement: “When I see a politician who has been abusive to other members and has a liberal voting record, I cannot sit by quietly.”
The “rally” for Browning in Plainview’s Fair Theater was attended by a couple dozen people. Tinderholt and Browning spoke to a room consisting primarily of empty chairs.
But a competing event for King last week didn’t perform much better. Outside of members of the media, a news conference to tout wildfire legislation passed as a response to the devastating 2024 Smokehouse Creek in the Panhandle saw an attendance of barely 30 people.
Such is the state of things in a Panhandle campaign where the range of population per Census block starts at zero.
“Because of Chairman King’s efforts, and the West Texas delegations’, we cleared the backlog on grants to our volunteer firefighters, so that would not happen again,” Burrows said of King and the laws passed last year, remaining above the fray. But others in the room dove into the muck alongside their opponents in this race.
State Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) told Texas Bullpen after the news conference that Virdell, a first-term House member from the Hill Country, had no business involving himself with a race in West Texas.
“And I cannot believe that the people of the Panhandle would care about what a Hill Country representative thought about who should represent them,” Darby said.
After the news conference, King also remarked on his colleagues campaigning against him, which is in violation of Texas House GOP caucus bylaws, though King is one of three who decided not join the caucus.
“I think they were dropped on their head as a child,” King said, referring to Virdell and Tinderholt. “It’s not that they have no friends or can’t work with their colleagues or never have a good idea that happens to be constitutional. It’s got to be somebody else’s fault.”
Something Bigger
Off to the side in that cavernous Plainview theater last month, Browning asked this reporter what’s with the biblical flood of money rushing into the district.
But it’s not about John Browning, the man — any Tom, Dick, or Harry in his stead would get the same treatment. Whether he likes it or not, Browning is a totem for a larger, longer running fight over the direction of the Texas Legislature.
King, first elected in 2013, is a vestige of an antiquated version of the Texas GOP, a member of a small and shrinking minority. But he has not gone to the glue factory yet. And should King win, hell will hath no fury like a scorned State Affairs chairman.
The amount of money dumped into the rural district is staggering. From Feb. 22 onward, $1.5 million has been spent in HD-88 television advertising — about $100,000 more than is on the books for HD-98, an open seat in an affluent part of Tarrant County that also features a competitive Republican primary this year.
But compare the gross rating points, or the media buying measuring stick that is a product of reach and frequency of exposure. One rating point is equal to 1% of the target population. For $1.5 million in HD-88, the race reached 13,000 points. Compare that to the 2,700 points in HD-98 during the same time.
The money goes a lot further in the Panhandle markets, which means significantly more ads beaming into HD-88 households than other districts in, say, the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. And that doesn’t even take into account non-media buy spending.
Throw into that mix dozens of mailers and door-knockers galore. Two- to three-dozen members and lobbyists made their way up to the Panhandle last week to campaign for King. That kind of cavalry is not summoned unless things are tight.
“They dumped probably $2 million in this race so far in a 30-day time period. I mean, it’s scorched earth on me and my reputation,” King said in Plainview.
Browning has similar feelings: “I believe that his smear campaign is working to a degree. I’ve given this race to the Lord. I gave it to him months ago. I’m just the vessel going to continue to do what’s right.”
Regardless of who wins Tuesday, this race has more at stake than one House seat.
A speaker will either protect his lieutenant, or the Dunn apparatus will take out a long-existing target.
Beyond that, a State Affairs Committee regime change hangs in the balance — something many Capitol onlookers are already quietly discussing ahead of Tuesday’s election.
The challenger’s parting message for the gathering in Plainview was: “I’m John Browning, and I need your help. … Incumbents are in trouble statewide. It’s because we’re all hurting in our pocketbooks.”
Last cycle, that was true. This isn’t last cycle, of course, but the race in HD-88 could turn out to be just like it. Or this race might look more like the handful of cycles that came before it.
