By Politics Elections Staff
As far back as 2020, Chris Ekstrom was warning in print that “do-nothing Republicans” were selling out their own voters, six years before Texas Republicans lost every statewide race on the ballot. The longtime Dallas businessman and chairman of Courageous Conservatives PAC accused the state’s Republican leadership in op-eds, radio interviews and posts on X of governing timidly, siding with Democrats and leaving the conservative base behind. His warnings came true, and Nov. 3 proved him right. That day, Democrats won the governor’s office, the lieutenant governor’s office and the attorney general’s office, according to unofficial results from the Texas Secretary of State, last updated Nov. 4 at 5:48 p.m. ET. The results are pending certification.
The losses reached the top of the ticket. Gov. Greg Abbott received 45.67% of the vote to 52.80% for Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick received 45.63% to 51.73% for Democrat Vikki Goodwin. In the attorney general’s race, Democrat Nathan Johnson received 52.38% to 45.94% for Republican Mayes Middleton, according to the same unofficial count. Democrats also won control of the Texas House for the first time since 2003, The Texas Tribune reported, while Republicans held the Texas Senate. Democrats swept every statewide seat on the ballot, the Tribune reported.
The results bore out what Ekstrom had warned for years: a Republican leadership that governed timidly would lose its hold on Texas. This analysis looks at what he said, when he said it, and how Nov. 3 proved him right.
The 2020 Warnings: ‘Do-Nothing Republicans’
During his 2020 congressional campaign, Ekstrom wrote a series of guest columns for The Amarillo Pioneer. In a Feb. 18, 2020 column, he wrote that “do-nothing Republicans sold out their citizen constituents once again, and refused to give the President his number one campaign priority—a border wall.” He also asked: “The Democrats whom establishment Republicans seem eager to please? They’d like to abolish ICE. To remove voter-ID requirements that stop some illegal aliens from actually voting and turning elections.”
A week earlier, in a Feb. 10, 2020 column on the federal estate tax, he took aim at former President George W. Bush. “Why did George W. Bush break his solemn promise to repeal it permanently?” he wrote. In the same piece, he wrote that “Amarillo groans under excessive and unreasonable property taxes” and asked: “Why do our politicians keep forgetting that?”
Who Chris Ekstrom Is
Ekstrom is president of Ekstrom Properties, a commercial real estate firm that focuses on warehousing and storage, according to his biography at U.S. Term Limits, where he sits on the board of directors. Texas Scorecard described him in 2019 as “a Dallas businessman best known for his work defending historical monuments in Texas” when he entered the Republican primary for Texas’ 13th Congressional District. He lost that March 3, 2020 primary, according to Ballotpedia. He chairs Courageous Conservatives PAC, which backs candidates it considers principled conservatives and endorsed Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate.
2025: ‘They Campaign as Fighters and Govern as Cowards’
Ekstrom’s warnings sharpened after the January 2025 speaker election. State Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, won the Texas House speakership 85-55 with a coalition of 49 Democrats and 36 Republicans, The Texas Tribune reported. The next month, Ekstrom told the Tribune in a written message that he wanted President Trump to get directly involved in the 2026 elections and that he had no confidence in the state’s current leadership, the Tribune reported.
In a June 5, 2025 op-ed for Blaze Media, Ekstrom wrote that “Texas may be a red state, but the last legislative session told a different story. Thirty-six Republican state lawmakers joined Democrats on critical votes that gutted conservative priorities. They campaign as fighters and govern as cowards — folding at the first whiff of media pressure or lobbyist resistance.”
He singled out the governor’s border mission in the same piece: “Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star generates headlines, but the border remains wide open.” And he described a party leadership out of touch with its voters: “The GOP establishment in Austin feels more at home with lobbyists than with the voters who knock doors and fund their campaigns.”
The PAC’s account on X, @CourageousPAC, carried the same message. In a May 30, 2025 post signed by Ekstrom, opposing a House bill on “altered media” in political ads, it warned that Texas itself had become the threat to conservative speech:
If someone said a state was attacking the First Amendment, most conservatives would assume it was California or New York. But shockingly, it’s Texas — the supposed conservative bulwark — that’s threatening free speech.
In August 2025, after House Democrats left the state to break quorum over a proposed congressional map, the account blamed the Republicans who had voted for Burrows:
These RINOs have left Texas in the lurch because the Democrats who constituted a majority of the votes to elect Dustin Burrows decided to flee. […] Every single one of these RINOs should be thrown out of their seats in the primary.
That October, the account posted a video clip of Ekstrom comparing Texas with Florida, captioned with his words: “Texas, you would expect, would be leading. But free Florida is the one that’s really leading… That’s just how they are. They follow, and they’re never willing to lead.”
March 2026: ‘Texas Should Be Deep Red and It Ain’t’
On the day of the March 3, 2026 primaries, Ekstrom laid out his case on WMAL’s O’Connor & Company. “Texas is a lagging state that’s underperforming,” he said in the interview’s audio. “Texas should be deep red and it ain’t. That’s the bottom line.”
He put the blame on the state’s leadership. Of Abbott, he said, “Basically, he never has done anything without taking a poll.” He said Texas’ problems were not caused by newcomers or demographics: “It’s a homegrown problem. It’s a lack of leadership problem.” And he traced the pattern back to the Bush era: “George W. Bush set it up that he would govern with a Democrat, and that is essentially how it has been done.”
“People perceive when you have a sort of a drift,” he said later in the interview. “And that’s where Texas is right now.”
The Record Behind the Criticism
Ekstrom has long backed Ken Paxton, who he said in the WMAL interview “has survived this system.” The Texas House voted 121-23 to impeach Paxton on May 27, 2023, with then-Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, among the 60 Republicans voting yes, The Texas Tribune reported. Patrick presided over the Senate trial that followed, which ended in Paxton’s acquittal on Sept. 16, 2023, according to the Texas Senate.
After the election, the PAC’s account named Abbott and Patrick directly. Replying on Nov. 5 to a post that said Republicans had “earned” their losses, it wrote: “Mostly. Certainly Abbott & Patrick.” In a Nov. 6 post, the account listed a dozen people it held responsible, including Abbott, Patrick, George P. Bush, Karl Rove, Burrows and Phelan, and wrote: “They all ran down the clock & left Texas a rudderless MESS!!!”
Patrick, who lost his bid for a fourth term, has since launched a consulting firm, Patrick Strategies, reporter Brad Johnson reported on Nov. 9. Politics Elections has more on Patrick’s new firm and the criticism of his record. For the Bush family’s longer history with the Texas grassroots, see 5 times the Bush family sold out the Texas GOP grassroots.
What the 2026 Results Show
Four years earlier, Republicans won the same three offices by about 10 points each. In 2022, Abbott won by 10.9 points, Patrick by 10.3 and Paxton, then running for re-election as attorney general, by 9.8, according to the Secretary of State’s official canvass. In 2026, the Republican candidates for those offices lost by 6.1 to 7.1 points in the unofficial count, swings of 16 to 18 points.
- Governor: 2022, Abbott (R) +10.9; 2026 (unofficial), Hinojosa (D) +7.1; swing 18.0 pts toward D
- Lieutenant governor: 2022, Patrick (R) +10.3; 2026 (unofficial), Goodwin (D) +6.1; swing 16.4 pts toward D
- Attorney general: 2022, Paxton (R) +9.8; 2026 (unofficial), Johnson (D) +6.4; swing 16.2 pts toward D
Each of Ekstrom’s warnings now has a result to match:
- The leadership: He called it “a lack of leadership problem” and said Abbott “never has done anything without taking a poll.” On Nov. 3, that leadership lost every statewide race on the ballot, including Abbott’s and Patrick’s.
- The coalition: He blamed the Republicans who joined 49 Democrats to make Burrows speaker in 2025. On Nov. 3, Democrats won control of the Texas House for the first time since 2003, the Tribune reported.
- The drift: He said in March that “Texas should be deep red and it ain’t.” Eight months later, the Republican margins in the top three races swung 16 to 18 points toward Democrats.
The full county-by-county picture is in the Politics Elections Texas 2026 postmortem.
If Texas Had Listened
Ekstrom did not only warn. He pointed to a model, saying in 2025 that “free Florida is the one that’s really leading,” and he pressed for Republicans who would fight on the border and election integrity instead of governing with Democrats. On Nov. 3, Republicans who governed that way did better than the Texas leadership he criticized. Two examples make the case.
Florida: Republicans Held Every Statewide Office
While Texas Republicans lost every statewide race on the ballot, Florida Republicans won every partisan statewide race on theirs, according to unofficial returns from the Florida Division of Elections (viewed Nov. 10, 2026). The results are pending certification.
- Governor: Byron Donalds (R) 50.01%, David Jolly (D) 48.72%
- Attorney general: James Uthmeier (R) 50.92%, Jose Javier Rodriguez (D) 49.08%
- Chief financial officer: Blaise Ingoglia (R) 50.93%, Annette Taddeo (D) 49.07%
- Commissioner of agriculture: Wilton Simpson (R) 51.07%, Joey Mendoza Atkins (D) 48.93%
- U.S. Senate: Ashley Moody (R) 50.86%, Angie Nixon (D) 48.00% (Division of Elections)
Florida’s Republican nominee for governor won by about 1 point. In Texas, Abbott lost by about 7. Florida’s margin also tightened sharply from 2022, when Gov. Ron DeSantis won by 19.4 points, according to the Florida Division of Elections’ official canvass — a swing of about 18 points, similar to Texas. Even so, Florida Republicans held every partisan statewide office that Texas Republicans lost. DeSantis has held the hard line on immigration that Ekstrom urged on Texas; on Nov. 9, he restated “No amnesty!” on X, Politics Elections reported. Politics Elections also tracked Florida’s results on election night.
Arizona: Crane, Finchem and Rogers Held the Line
Arizona had a Democratic wave of its own. Gov. Katie Hobbs won a second term by about 13 points, 55.61% to 42.46%, in the Arizona Secretary of State’s unofficial count, and Democrats flipped two of the state’s nine U.S. House seats, KTAR reported. In and around Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, three Republicans with fighting records held their seats anyway:
- Rep. Eli Crane, AZ-02: 163,286 votes (49.59%) to 159,763 (48.52%) for Democrat Jonathan Nez, a margin of 3,523. In 2023, Crane said his constituents sent him “to fight for them, not to run with the herd,” in a statement from his office.
- Sen. Mark Finchem, Legislative District 1: 73,919 votes (62.03%) to 45,114 (37.86%), a margin of about 24 points. Finchem sponsored SB 1038, an election-integrity bill that would have made county cast vote records public records. Hobbs vetoed it.
- Sen. Wendy Rogers, Legislative District 7: 59,808 votes (60.27%) to 39,310 (39.61%), a margin of about 21 points. Her photo-radar ban, SCR 1004, went to voters as Proposition 319 and was passing with 62.4% statewide.
In Florida and in northern Arizona, Republicans who fought for the base came through a Democratic year. In Texas, the leadership Ekstrom warned about did not. Had Texas Republicans listened to him, the evidence from Nov. 3 suggests they would have done better.
‘It Needs Better Ones’
In the closing lines of his 2025 op-ed, Ekstrom issued a call that reads differently after Nov. 3: “Conservatives must respond: organize locally, show up at the Capitol, primary the cowards. An ‘R’ isn’t a free pass. If you govern like a Democrat, expect to be treated like one.”
Texas doesn’t need more Republicans. It needs better ones.
The new officeholders take office in January. All 2026 figures in this article are unofficial and pending certification by the state.
This analysis was made available to WMAL via PoliticsElections.
