Mike Collier Thinks Republican Legislators Would Be Relieved If He Beat Dan Patrick
At sixty, Mike Collier has twice been a Democratic candidate for statewide office in Texas. In 2014, making his first foray into elective politics, the certified public accountant, who had been a Republican, ran for comptroller as a Democrat against Glenn Hegar and lost by more than twenty percentage points. In 2018, he came within five points of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the strongest performance by a Democrat running for the seat since 1998, when Comptroller John Sharp lost to future governor Rick Perry by fewer than two points. In April, Collier announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to consider another run at Patrick. He’s now done exploring.
On Monday, Collier is officially launching his candidacy and a statewide campaign swing with 45 events in 26 days. The tour, in his 2018 Ford F-150 pickup truck, will take him through the state’s largest counties—Dallas and Houston’s Harris—and among its smallest—Foard, located on the rolling plains just east of the base of the Panhandle, and Throckmorton, midway between Wichita Falls and Abilene. There will be a roundtable with ranchers and a wind farm visit in West Texas, neighborhood parties in the Rio Grande Valley, and a listening tour that will take him to Black churches in East Texas. In 2018, when Beto O’Rourke challenged Ted Cruz for senator and captured the headlines, Collier, with his business background and unassuming manner, was the Democratic’s top performer in rural Texas, where the party is weakest.
But before he can get his rematch with Patrick, Collier will have to get past Matthew Dowd, a former chief strategist for George W. Bush who stole a lot of attention Wednesday with his announcement that he will run for lieutenant governor as a Democrat. While Dowd is clearly a flashier presence, Collier, who has the sizzle of a CPA, has been plowing this ground for years now. He promises to bring business sense and an auditor’s rectitude to problems such as reining in property taxes, fully funding public schools, job creation, and “fixing the damn grid.”
The filing deadline for Democrats closes in December. Whoever in the party prevails in the primary will have an uphill battle challenging Patrick, who had more than $23 million in his campaign account according to his July filings. By contrast, Collier, who bragged about raising more than $1 million in his exploratory phase, has $200,000 in the bank, while Dowd is starting from scratch.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/mike-collier-dan-patrick-2022/
= new reply since forum marked as read
