Former President Trump is scheduled to visit Texas on Sunday. It is described as an official state visit and he will meet with Governor Abbott in the border city of McAllen. Will Governor Abbott use this visit as an opportunity to officially endorse Trump in the Republican primary?
Typically, Governors remain on the sidelines during the Republican primary. It was a big deal when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds endorsed Ron DeSantis. Both are extremely popular governors and Reynold said earlier in the primary that she didn’t plan to endorse anyone. She is said to have a friendship with DeSantis and his wife, Casey, developed throughout their time as governors. The same is true of Governor Abbott and DeSantis. Abbott and DeSantis have worked closely together on border security issues and DeSantis is always at the head of the line to answer Abbott’s calls for help to other red-state governors. An endorsement of Trump by Abbott will be a win for Team Trump.
Both Trump and Abbott have come under fire for supporting strong border security measures.
Trump has escalated his sharp immigration rhetoric in recent weeks. The GOP front-runner has publicly said he wants to revive many of his first-term immigration policies to restrict both legal and illegal immigration — including reinstating and expanding a travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries and bringing back a Covid-era policy known as Title 42 to further restrict immigration into the country, though this time it would be based on the assertion that migrants carry other infectious diseases.
CNN reported on Saturday that he is planning a widespread expansion of his first administration’s hardline immigration policies if reelected in 2024, including rounding up undocumented immigrants already in the US and placing them in detention camps to await deportation, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Abbott and Trump worked well together during Trump’s presidency. Abbott is said to be weighing an endorsement of Trump. Team Trump is working to coordinate a trip to the border with an annual Thanksgiving tradition of Governor Abbott’s.
Critics consistently describe Trump’s border security policies from his time in office as extreme and even cruel. Trump pledges to do the same in a second term and that has progressives worried.
Trump’s proposed Texas visit, which is still in the planning stages, is scheduled to coincide with Abbott’s annual pre-Thanksgiving tradition of serving tamales to Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Texas National Guardsmen who are deployed along the southern border under the state’s Operation Lone Star program to stop illegal immigration, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
The trip also highlights the importance of immigration to both Republicans. The Texas Legislature, amid a special session called by Abbott, on Tuesday passed a strict and controversial bill allowing state law enforcement to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants. Trump has ratcheted up harsh immigration rhetoric and is floating crackdowns that have prompted Democrats to call him racist and cruel.
The facts show Trump’s policies and agreements during that time worked. When Biden took office, he was handed a southern border with historically low illegal immigration. On his first day in office, Biden signed executive orders that ended Trump’s policies and agreements and opened the U.S.-Mexico border. Since that time, almost 8 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border. Joe Biden was not kidding when he promised to fundamentally change America.
The question is whether or not a joint trip to the southern border is the right time to endorse Trump if that is what Abbott has decided to do. The trip is planned for Sunday. If Abbott goes through with an endorsement it is a way to show his gratitude to Trump for endorsing him in his 2022 reelection campaign. It would be returning a favor.
Perhaps Abbott rationalizes that Trump is maintaining a solid lead in Republican primary polls and looks to be moving toward becoming the Republican nominee. That is before a vote has been cast, though. Polls reflect national numbers, as a rule, and presidential elections are won state by state. It is unknown if anything changes when voters go to choose a candidate in a caucus or primary.
Trump is dominating the rest of the Republican field in polls of the early primary nominating states as well as the Texas presidential primary, which is scheduled for March 5. In hypothetical general election matchups against President Joe Biden, battleground state polls show Trump with marginal leads over the Democratic incumbent, who has strong disapproval ratings when it comes to handling immigration.
James Henson, a pollster with the University of Texas’s Texas Politics Project, a liberal-leaning poll, said that Trump has such a strong lead that a move to endorse Trump would be a safe one for Abbott, especially highlighting the illegal immigration issue.
The timing of Trump’s visit during the special legislative session, he said, was politically advantageous for both Republicans.
“In our polling, when we ask Texans the most important problems facing the state, immigration and border security for Republicans accounts for 60% of the responses and it never falls below 50%,” he said. “Immigration is salient to both of their political brands because immigration and border security is both salient and unifying to Texas Republicans.”
Abbott is articulate and passionate about border security and legal immigration. He strongly supports a working Texas-Mexico relationship. His wife, Cecilia, is the first Hispanic First Lady of Texas. Abbott began the Operation Lone Star initiative in March 2021 when he saw what was happening on the Texas border when Biden took office. The Biden administration has been fighting Abbott from the beginning of the initiative. This administration has left Texas on its own to secure the border. Yet, when Abbott moves to do so, the DOJ steps in to shut Abbott down.
We’ll see if Trump visits Sunday and what Abbott does when the two meet. Immigration and border security are big issues for Texas voters. Both men are looking to use voters’ concerns as 2024 election issues. If Abbott does endorse him, the governor would be a good surrogate for Team Trump.
