BEAUMONT — The speaker of the Texas House is one of the most powerful Republicans in Texas, but potent factions from within his party have declared Dade Phelan to be Public Enemy No. 1 among those not named Joe Biden.

Legislative victories on abortion, guns and border security have not protected Phelan from being labeled as an insufficiently conservative “RINO” — Republican in name only — by former President Donald Trump, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and some of the most far-right members of the Texas House.

After nine years in the House, the last three years as its speaker, or presiding officer, Phelan is competing in his first primary as an incumbent.

It’s been a cutthroat campaign and during a recent rally in a Beaumont airplane hangar, Phelan angrily accused his political opponents of dirty tricks and lies.

“I need your vote. I need your family and friends out,” Phelan, his voice rising and his face reddening, told the crowd of about 400.

“This is a war.”

Phelan has two opponents in the March 5 primary — David Covey and Alicia Davis — but most of the attention has focused on Covey, a consultant for the oil, gas and petrochemical industry who is making his first run for office.

Covey, 34, has the support of Patrick, who has repeatedly blamed Phelan for the demise of Republican priorities in the House, particularly school choice initiatives that failed in the regular and special sessions last year.

Trump, who is close to Patrick and Paxton, also has endorsed Covey, criticizing Phelan as an “Absolute Embarrassment” on his Truth Social media platform after the House voted last year to impeach Paxton, only to watch the Senate, led by Patrick, vote for acquittal.

Covey, running to the right of Phelan, would end the practice of appointing Democrats to chair committees, a custom followed by Phelan and previous Republican speakers, who sought to reward expertise over strict party affiliation. Covey also would support school choice legislation and eliminate “gun-free zones,” according to his campaign.

“We have a speaker who is selling out our state,” Covey said at a January campaign event, where he was joined by Paxton.

The Phelan primary, confined to voters in his Beaumont-area district, has drawn statewide attention for its potential to change the political direction of the Texas House and the Legislature overall.

House speaker is a powerful position. Phelan names committee chairs and assigns lawmakers to each panel — clout that becomes most apparent in the makeup of the Calendars Committee, which has the power to make or break legislation by scheduling bills for a floor vote. The speaker also rules on procedural questions that can kill legislation and recognizes which legislators can make motions from the House floor.

The speaker’s office is a prize ultraconservative Republicans have long coveted without success. Speakers are elected by all 150 House members, Democrats and Republicans, at the start of each regular legislative session, and the process has rewarded those with moderate pedigrees.

Unable to overcome Phelan’s support in the House, those opposing him have put their efforts into defeating him in the primary.

Phelan has responded by going on the offensive, attacking Covey as a puppet of large donors working to move Texas further to the right.

He has defended his priorities as speaker, highlighting Republican policies passed under his leadership while standing by the impeachment of Paxton, calling the attorney general unfit for office.

Mostly, Phelan is banking on his long relationship with voters in his district.

“I’ve delivered on conservative policies. I’ve delivered on local issues,” Phelan said. “Voters know that, and that’s going to be prevalent on March 5.”

Covey did not answer a list of questions emailed to his campaign, instead issuing a statement highlighting Trump’s support.

“President Trump trusts me to do the job, and the Southeast Texas community should too,” he said.

‘Dirtiest campaign I’ve ever seen’

The February campaign event at Jack Brooks Regional Airport drew several of Phelan’s closest Republican allies in the House, including Reps. Jared Patterson of Frisco, Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi and Tom Oliverson of Cypress.

Security was tight, with at least three Texas Department of Public Safety troopers visible and private security personnel stationed along the perimeter.

In January, DPS troopers arrested an Orange County man on charges of making terroristic threats against Phelan on social media. In February, two men posing as Phelan campaign volunteers knocked on Phelan’s door when he was not home and, according to Phelan, harassed his wife. Beaumont police and DPS troopers were called to the house but no arrests were made.

“It’s been the dirtiest campaign I’ve ever seen,” Phelan said.

A notable attack has come from Trump, who dismissed Phelan as a RINO and praised Covey as “an America First Conservative who will Secure the Border, Restore Election Integrity, Protect our Families and Military/Vets, and Defend our under siege Second Amendment.”

That Jan. 30 endorsement on Truth Social came days after Phelan endorsed Trump’s bid for president.

Patrick quickly shot a TV ad proclaiming Covey as “the real conservative in this race” and questioning the legitimacy of Phelan’s support for Trump. “Dade’s in trouble with voters and he’s desperate,” said Patrick, Trump’s Texas campaign chairman in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He said he never saw Phelan at a Trump rally.

Phelan fired back at his campaign event, saying he attended a 2015 Trump rally in Beaumont — when Patrick was backing U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Patrick later switched to Trump after Cruz dropped out of the presidential race.

Paxton also appeared in an ad for Covey, saying Phelan is “more beholden to the Democrats who elected him speaker than the people who elect him to fight for them.”

The House voted 145-3 to select Phelan as speaker in 2023 with support from all Democrats and most Republicans. State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, an Arlington Republican running as the alternative to Phelan, received three votes.

After Paxton’s ad debuted, Phelan punched back, launching his own ad based on an article of impeachment that accused the attorney general of accepting a bribe from a friend and political donor in return for facilitating Paxton’s extramarital affair.

“If Paxton would break an oath to his wife and God, why would he tell you, or Trump, the truth?” Phelan asked the camera.

Phelan predicted the attacks will not work in a district that has supported him in elections since 2014.

“They’re going to regret every damn dime they’ve spent,” he told reporters near the end of his Feb. 15 campaign event.

The high-stakes election has drawn outsize attention to a district comprising Jasper and Orange counties and part of Jefferson County.

“You’ve got these political actors who are pretty far removed and don’t really have much connection with what’s happening in [this district],” said Bianca Easterly, a political science professor at Lamar University in Beaumont. “So yes, this is very rare.”

James Nelson, also a political science professor at Lamar University, believes the race will depend on Phelan’s approval among voters and whether he has passed legislation that is important to his district. Covey supporters will likely focus on cultural issues.

“Will it be (Phelan’s) support for disaster relief and what people see as his ability to deliver on certain issues … that are of local relevance versus whether he’s seen as sufficiently devoted to a culturally conservative movement that really goes beyond the boundaries of the district?” Nelson said.

Phelan well known in his district

Drive around Beaumont and you will see the Phelan Audiology Hearing Center, run by Phelan’s uncle. It sits blocks away from Phelan Boulevard, named for the speaker’s great-grandfather, a renowned oilman and philanthropist.

Phelan is the third of seven children and works for his family’s fourth-generation real estate business. He ran for the House in 2014 and won, replacing former state Rep. Allan Ritter, who retired. Phelan became the first elected official in his family’s history.

“A maverick,” his father, Michael Phelan, called him.

Dade Phelan rose rapidly in House leadership, becoming chairman of the influential State Affairs Committee in 2019 and gaining the speaker’s gavel in 2021.

The two legislative sessions Phelan has served as speaker have produced conservative victories, including a law that effectively banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy — almost one year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade. Other new laws allowed handguns to be carried without a state-issued permit, banned gender-affirming health care for minors, and authorized state and local law enforcement to arrest migrants believed to be in the state illegally.

Even so, the Republican Party of Texas’ executive committee voted 55-4 to censure Phelan on Feb. 10 for a “lack of fidelity to Republican principles and priorities,” particularly by promoting the impeachment resolution against Paxton and by appointing nine Democrats to committee chairs.

Covey has blasted Phelan for killing a bill that would have banned critical race theory — an academic concept that studies how racism is embedded into the fabric of society — from colleges and universities in Texas. The bill died in the House after missing a legislative deadline.

Covey also says the property tax cut passed by the Legislature, and later approved by voters as a constitutional amendment, did not go far enough. He supports eliminating property taxes within three years.

He routinely attacks Phelan for following tradition by appointing Democrats to lead some committees.

“Friends, at one time slavery was a tradition here,” Covey said to applause during the January town hall in Beaumont.

Davis, the third Republican in the primary, is running a much smaller campaign, collecting about $500 in donations. Covey has raised close to $400,000, while Phelan’s campaign raised more than $3.2 million from July 1, 2023, through Feb. 5, according to campaign finance reports with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Phelan has focused on campaigning within his district. The morning after his rally at the airport, he woke up at sunrise to go for a run. Then it was off to a neighborhood in Northwest Beaumont to knock on voters’ doors.