Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan emerged from Tuesday’s bloody GOP primary runoff with a wafer-thin victory, but the dominant forces in the Republican Party who have been gunning for him for more than a year showed no signs of backing away from their all-out effort to put the Legislature’s lower chamber under new management in January.

Phelan — who will get a fifth term in the House as there is no Democrat on the November ballot for House District 21 anchored by Jefferson and Orange counties in Southeast Texas — is not certain to get a third term as the chamber’s presiding officer.

When all the ballots were tallied in Tuesday’s runoffs, six of eight Republican House incumbents were sent packing by voters across Texas. In the March 5 primaries, eight other GOP incumbents were ousted in a widespread far-right insurgency that will likely upend whatever semblance of bipartisan deference that was left in the Legislature.

“The establishment pressed hard to save Phelan,” said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. “It worked, but at the high cost of losing several other seats.”

The establishment Rottinghaus referred to is made up of old-guard Republicans such as former Gov. Rick Perry and former House Speaker Joe Straus, who nurtured an alliance between traditional low-tax, pro-business conservatives and officials. Perry, whose three-plus terms in office ended almost a decade ago, was quick to embrace the then-emerging tea party social conservative movement that was instrumental in Straus’ decision to retire from the House in 2019, but he now represents the Texas Republican Party’s center of gravity.

Phelan, in his victory statement Tuesday, made no mention of the coming House speaker race in which one of his onetime allies, state Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, has already announced his intention to run.

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“Last night’s results made clear that Dade Phelan will be returning to the Texas House as a member,” Oliverson said in a news release. “The only thing left to decide is whether he will be returning as Speaker. The conservative Republican majority in Texas have spoken. They want the Texas House to move in a different direction. They are fed up with the status-quo and are clamoring for change.”

State Rep. Brian Harrison, a second-term Republican from Midlothian who is part of a bloc of hard-right Republicans, said a third term as speaker for Phelan is a non-starter.

“Under no circumstances will I vote for Dade Phelan to be Speaker next January,” Harrison said in a social media post.

Still, other Republican House members have signaled their continued support for the embattled speaker, and a handful of them joined Phelan’s victory celebration in Beaumont.

“Speaker Phelan’s steadfast and steady leadership of the Texas House has resulted in resounding, remarkable and historic conservative victories that have strengthened the Texas of today and paved the pathway for an even stronger Texas of tomorrow,” state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, said in a statement released while he was at Phelan’s post-election party.

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Several GOP activists and officeholders saw Phelan’s 366-vote margin of victory in an election that drew about 25,000 voters as being driven by Democrats. At their state convention over the weekend, Texas Republican delegates made clear they want to end Texas’ open primary rule and to make voting in their primaries and runoffs off-limits to Democrats.

“Last night made a strong argument for the righteous of the @TexasGOP delegate’s overwhelming decision to CLOSE the 2026 Republican Primary,” conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan said on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, and urged officeholders to follow the lead of convention delegates.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick signaled a willingness to do just that. “Having to count on Democrats to win a Republican Primary is selling out the GOP,” Patrick said on X.

A statement by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was more explicit: “The Republican Party of Texas must take immediate action to secure our Republican Primaries.”

Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor, said it is premature to both write Phelan’s obituary as speaker and to consider a closed primary system a done deal.

“Actually, I think he’s in a very good position to remain as speaker,” Jones told the Statesman of Phelan. “I think he retains the support of somewhere close to half of the Republican House members. And from a Democratic perspective, it’s (Phelan’s reelection) their best option because any other speaker is going to be a more conservative Republican.”

And if Phelan is returned to power, he’ll likely bottle up any legislation to limit who may vote in the primaries because otherwise he’d be “essentially signing his own death warrant.”

Both Patrick and Paxton campaigned energetically for Phelan’s runoff opponent, former Orange County Republican Chairman David Covey, and made clear their intention to pressure returning GOP House members to deny Phelan a third term as speaker. Paxton went so far as to warn House Republicans he’d campaign against them in 2026.

Rottinghaus, the University of Houston professor, said the runoffs that produced the Phelan victory and the defeat of so many other House Republican highlights the unabated tension within the Texas GOP.

“It’s going to be a lonely session for Phelan if he wins the speakership,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Primary runoffs are over, now race for Texas House speaker begins