New Republicans: There Are Always Bigger Nutters - Part Two

The Legislature Edition.

The previous installment: New Republicans: There Are Always Bigger Nutters - Part One

We started this series before the convention, and I have to admit I had so much fun with it that I was anxious to get back to part two. Because when you can’t cry, you have to laugh, and this new cast of Republican characters the GOP primaries have spit out has given us plenty of material. In part one, we learned that most of the new GOP hopefuls aren’t from Texas, Trump is their entire personality, and they all seem to have an AI death wish.

Today, let’s jump into the legislative races, where the GOP candidates are more likely to be Texan (not guaranteed), and also are more likely to be early readers.

We’re not looking at the Republicans running against Democrats in blue seats. We’re not expecting any seats in Texas to flip red this year. We’re only looking at the new Republicans who either primaried or replaced a retiring incumbent in this year’s primary. Hence, why they’re new Republicans, and depending on how big this year’s wave is, hopefully we can block plenty of them from reaching Austin.

Texas Senate.

SD04: Brandon Creighton ➡️ Brett Ligon. Brandon Creighton is a thorn in Texas’ butt who won’t go away and is still causing problems in higher education and with data centers. Creighton was a hillbilly lawyer from Conroe who hated Black people and loved billionaires. Being the previous District Attorney of Montgomery County, I was hoping for perhaps a little better from Ligon. I’m sorry to say, he’s basically a carbon copy of Creighton.

The Montgomery County Tea Party held an interview session with him (I watched, so you don’t have to). He frames his entire identity around prosecutorial toughness, then, in the same breath, admits he let a corrupt judge (Mike Syler) off with a forced resignation rather than prosecution, saying, “I liked Mike a lot.” Like Creighton, he also hates Black people and doesn’t think they should be given equal opportunity in employment or higher education. And he bragged about executing a classmate.

Ron Angeletti is the Democrat running for SD04.

Texas House.

HD01: Gary Van Deaver ➡️ Chris Spencer. Van Deaver may have been the last pro-public education Republican there was, and they chased him off. Calling him a RINO and harassing him until he finally retired. Chris Spencer is the Republican who prides himself on being a “conservative businessman.” What that means is he owns Crump Foods in Linden, and the employment reviews cite low pay, no raises for tenured staff, long hours, and demanding schedules.

“Conservative businessmen” are why 2/3 of Texans live paycheck-to-paycheck and nearly 25% of Texas children are affected by hunger. So, beware the men bragging about the evil that they do. HD01 borders Oklahoma, so, of course, Spencer’s number-one priority is protecting the southern border. On his website, he also lists in his priorities, “Protect Israel and 100% BEHIND PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP,” yes, in all caps.

Sean Huffman is the Democrat running for HD01.

HD03: Cecil Bell ➡️ Kristen Plaisance. We talked about Plaisance in the first installment. Vote for Democrat Nicole King.

HD09: Trent Ashby ➡️ Rocky Thigpen. Ashby left this seat to run for SD03. That’s a whole other story. The Republican’t who won the primary is Rocky Thigpen. Thigpen is an 80-year-old man, born, raised, and living his entire life in Lufkin, TX, with a population of 34,000. Now in his golden years, he’s ready to head down to Austin to fight against women’s healthcare, brown immigrants, and education.

Shelley Tatum is the Democrat running for HD09.

HD15: Steve Toth ➡️ Brad Bailey. The New Yorker pool boy, Toth, beat out Dan Crenshaw for TX02, leaving his seat to the wolves. Knowing that it’s been many years since an actual Texan has held HD15, I tried to do a little digging into Brad Bailey, and I’m sad to inform you that he does not brag about being an X-generation Texan anywhere on his website. And when a Republican doesn’t brag about having white ancestors in Texas when white people in Texas still owned people, that usually means he ain’t from here. Not that this is the most terrible thing in the world. But we always need ammo to make fun of them with.

Plus, all of Bailey’s family photos are in front of mountain ranges and beaches. Another transplant, I suspect. His whole deal is he wants to take more of our tax dollars and give them to the wealthy so they can send their kids to private schools, and further militarize low-income communities on the border.

Moniqua Scott is the Democrat running for HD15.

HD21: Dade Phelan ➡️ Ray Callas. After impeaching Paxton, Phelan could no longer take the heat. The rabid right showed up at his house and threatened his wife; they smeared him online, and they stripped his speakership. Tim Dunn and Ken Paxton took everything from him. Not like we care. Karma, or something.

Ray Callas is a former Greg Abbott appointee as the Commissioner for the Texas Commission on Licensing and Regulation, which probably means he’s corrupt as fuck. Abbott never appoints anyone unless he knows they’ll break the rules and look the other way. Callas is a doctor, so he became a Republican. Two things many of us find contradictory in nature. But he doesn’t even plan to launch his campaign until August 1, so he feels pretty secure about the job, even though I couldn’t tell you a single one of his priorities.

Jacqueline ‘Jacky’ Hernandez is the Democrat running for HD21.

HD71: Stan Lambert ➡️ Jay Hardaway. Stan Lambert retires this year. Jay Hardaway is the awesome Christian Conservative who won the GOP primary. Hardaway spent his whole life in the church, praying to smite immigrants and for the deaths of poverty-stricken mothers. His entire bio on his website boasts about how much of his life he has spent dedicated to the word of God, and then his priorities on his website boast about how much he wants to harm marginalized communities. But he goes to church every Sunday and puts a bible passage on Facebook. So that’s what really counts.

Diane Luna is the Democrat running for HD71.

HD85: Stan Kitzman ➡️ Dennis Geesaman. Kitzman was an embarrassment. Even the Republicans knew it, and they primaried him. But there’s always a bigger nutter. How big a nutter is Geesaman? Check out his ad:

On his website, he also says, “He then served 21 years as a fighter pilot serving throughout the US and with assignments in Europe and the Far East.”

The FAR EAST? Like it’s 1922, or something.

I’m trying not to call every Republican on this list a flat-out racist, but Geesaman seems to be basking in it.

Lawrence Brandyburg is the Democrat running for HD85.

HD86: John Smithee ➡️ Holly Jeffreys. Old-Man-Smithee finally retired. Peace out. The Republican who won the primary here, Holly Jeffreys, is a very confused woman.

On her website, she brags that she spent nine years on a school board “protecting kids.” From books. Not from hunger, not from gun violence, not from the lack of healthcare her party has systematically stripped from their families, but from books.

She trains the healthcare workforce at West Texas A&M, the very workforce that will be expected to navigate the impossible legal nightmare her party has created for medical providers in Texas. She is literally training nurses to practice medicine in a state where doctors are afraid to treat miscarrying women because they might go to prison. Does she see the irony? No, she’s confused.

Her brother fights drug cartels. Her party built the policy conditions that make cartels profitable. Holly Jeffreys is a woman who has dedicated her entire life to serving her community, and then decided the best way to keep doing that was to join the party that was actively dismantling everything she had built.

Cullin Knutson is the Democrat running for HD86.

HD93: Nate Schatzline ➡️ Alan Blaylock. Everyone in Texas is happy to say good riddance to Schatzline, although he will be fighting behind the scenes in the Christian Nationalist space to degrade our society. Alan Blaylock is a former Ft Worth city councilman who seems significantly focused on taxes rather than any culture-war nonsense. I don’t know who is going to break it to him that the reason taxes in Texas are messed up is because of Republicans and Republican solutions only make it worse, but the GOP is the literal definition of insanity.

Ericka Lomick is the Democrat running for HD93.

HD94: Tony Tinderholt ➡️ Cheryl Bean. Tinderholt is another one we wish would go away; he’s running for the Commissioner’s Court, though. Cheryl Bean doesn’t even live in Arlington, and she blocked me on Twitter a few years ago, before I quit it.

An interesting snippet from her website, “I also spent time in Israel as a manager for an Israeli-owned company working with members of their special forces.” She’s retired now, in her 70s, and a grandmother of 12. But where are these people coming from? All of these Republican state-legislator hopefuls pledged allegiance to Israel. It’s odd. It almost feels like a dog whistle.

Katie O’Brien Duzan is the Democrat running for HD94.

HD96: David Cook ➡️ Ellen Fleischmann. Cook is running for SD22. We’re all praying for his loss. I actually can’t tell you a lot about Fleischmann. I looked at her website and social media, and there isn’t anything standout or any issues with her campaign compared to any other Republican.

However, I can tell you that she has had an intake interview with the Gilead Wives Club in Austin, and an insider told me that if she wins her election, she’ll also be admitted to the Club.

A young Republican staffer risked her reputation, and maybe even her life, to leak these pictures.

Yikes, indeed.

Ebony Turner is the Democrat running for HD94.

HD98: Giovanni Capriglioni ➡️ Armin Mizani. Last year, after Capriglioni was embarrassingly caught paying for his mistress’ abortion, he retired from office. And it wasn’t the whole abortion thing that upset the GOP, it was the “don’t get caught” thing that made his buddies in office mad. You know, because they all do it.

Armin Mizani was the former mayor of Keller and gave the Islamophobic Queen Beth VanDuyne keys to the city. I really heckled him on social media when he did that, because what the hell? Van Duyne is a hater. She hates people and hurts people. So, why would he give her keys to the city? This district covers Southlake. Red, Republican, wealthy, Southlake. And that’s who won the GOP primary in the district that just lost the other guy to the abortion scandal.

On his website, it’s exactly the same as every other Republican. Protect the border, defend the unborn, end property taxes, school choice, wash and repeat, ad nauseam. Not one of them has an original thought or a clear plan to actually fix the problems that plague Texas. Not one GOP candidate addresses water, or data centers, or out-of-control corporate abatements, or the 25% of Texas children living in food-insecure households. But I digress.

Cate Brennan is the Democrat running for HD98.

HD118: John Lujan ➡️ Jorge Borrego. John Lujan ran for Congress this year and lost.

Maybe we won’t see him anymore. Jorge Borrego is the guy who won this GOP primary, but everyone expects this seat to flip, so maybe we won’t see him anymore either. Borrego, apparently, has worked for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is the Texas version of the Heritage Foundation, and is fascist-adjacent.

Kristian Carranza is the Democrat running for HD118.

HD126: E. Sam Harless ➡️ Stan Stanart. Harless retired this year. Stan Stanart won the primary here. Here’s how his bio starts, “Stan Stanart was elected Harris County Clerk on November 2, 2010 and reelected in November 2014 to a second 4 year term. In 2018 due to the over $15 Million spent by the Beto campaign, he and every countywide Republican lost their election.”

Haha. What?

Let’s call him “Mr. Personality.”

Stefanie Bord is the Democrat running for HD126.

HD128: Briscoe Cain ➡️ Tom Butler. Little, tiny Briscoe Cain isn’t gone. I know we all want him to be gone, but he isn’t. Call this instinct. He’ll be back next election cycle. In the meantime, Tom Butler won his seat when he ran for Congress. And this is just a weird coincidence, but Butler (left) is about the same height as Briscoe Cain (right in hat).

Shout out to the short kings, but I wonder if it’s time to start a conspiracy theory about the petrochemical companies in Deer Park yet.

Desiree Klaus is the Democrat running for HD128.

HD129: Dennis Paul ➡️ Scott Bowen. Paul is running for Magot Mays Middleton’s Senate seat, without the money. We’ll see how he does. Scott Bowen won his House seat primary. In some of the Facebook groups I’m in, in Harris County, they’ve talked about Scott Bowen a lot. He is not well-liked in the community. He’s a former member of the Clear Creek ISD Board of Trustees, but he lost his seat last year, after it was rumored he was paid to support vouchers.

Albert Wittliff is the Democrat running for HD129.

And those are your new Republicans of 2026, Texas.

A lot of these seats could flip. We’re expecting a wave this cycle, and the conditions are there. The question is how many Democratic voters actually make it to the polls.

Because the Republicans are going to show up. They always do. They’ll drag their uncles and their neighbors and their entire church congregation to the polls to vote for men who brag about executing classmates and women who ban books in towns with one stoplight. They are motivated by fear and spite.

So what are we motivated by? Because if this list hasn’t motivated you, I don’t know what will. These are the people who will be making decisions about your healthcare, your children’s schools, your property taxes, and your water. Not in Washington. Right here. In Austin. Close enough to feel it.

The wave is coming. How big it gets is entirely up to us.

Find your Democrat. Vote for them. Drag your friends. Tell your neighbors. Because the alternative has just been introduced.

• Who Will Be On The 2026 State Ballot?

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