Texas Republican Convention parts ways with corporate sponsors

Abraham George is poised to take over as leader of the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) at a time when the influential state-level political organization is abandoning its longstanding alliance with corporate America.

Instead, the RPT embraces a populist, anti-corporate, anti-elite agenda that is on the rise among Republicans across the country in the Trump era.

The annual Texas Republican Convention began Thursday in San Antonio and culminated with TKTK’s election as party chairman. The event has long enjoyed lucrative sponsorships from Fortune 500 companies. But this year, the names of its biggest sponsors were absent from the banners and calendars.

Verizon, Comcast And Union Pacific sponsored the 2020 Texas Republican Convention, according to the Texas Tribune. But they are not among the supporters this year.

Pepsi And Chevron were sponsors of the 2022 Texas Republican Convention, but they are not supporting this year’s event.

Spokespeople for Verizon, Comcast, Pepsi and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment. A Union Pacific spokesperson said only that the company’s “political donations are bipartisan and publicly disclosed in accordance with state and federal laws.”

The fight for corporate money also erupted in the election that George won Friday to lead the state party.

Veteran Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak was among the group of candidates vying to become the state’s next GOP chairman. In a memo announcing his candidacy, Mackowiak lamented that “party fundraising is virtually non-existent.”

Griffin Perry, a Texas businessman and son of former Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said earlier this week that it was time for the party to start working with business again.

“The next president needs to work with our businesses,” Perry told CNBC. “There is no reason why the Republican Party of Texas should not have corporate support.”

As for the lack of corporate sponsorship this year, Perry blamed the management team that was replaced Friday. This team “wears this as a badge of honor,” he said, ahead of the election of the state party’s new chairman.

Indeed, James Wesolek, RPT’s communications director, told CNBC that “the Republican Party is the party of hard-working Americans, not the party of woke corporations seeking to destroy the America we love.”

Wesolek denied that the disappearance of traditional sponsors had any impact on this week’s party convention.

“The party has fully financed our congress with sponsors who do not force us to compromise our values,” he said.

This year’s list of sponsors is almost entirely made up of political action committees and campaigns, and almost devoid of corporate sponsors.

As of Thursday, the only two publicly traded companies on the sponsorship list were the tobacco giant. Altria and a Houston-based electric and natural gas utility CentrePoint Energy.

Patriot Mobile, which bills itself as the nation’s only “conservative Christian wireless service provider,” was also on the list, as was Conn’s HomePlus.

But it’s not just the Texas GOP state convention that’s losing corporate sponsorships.

Corporate donations to the state party’s general fundraising account have fallen to their lowest levels in at least a decade, according to the Texas Tribune.

It’s been eight years since the tech giant Google contributed money to the Republican Party of Texas, according to campaign finance records.

It’s a similar story with more than half a dozen other companies, including BNSF Railway, the railroad giant headquartered in the Lone Star State. BSNF’s last donation to the Republican Party of Texas was in 2019 in the amount of $5,000, records show.

Since then, no money has appeared in the coffers of the state party, BNSF or Google, according to campaign finance reports. A Google representative declined to comment. BNSF did not respond to requests for comment.

Verizon and Union Pacific have each given at least $5,000 to the Republican Party of Texas this year, according to campaign finance records.

As the party continues to shift to the right, some businesses that were once regular supporters of the Republican Party of Texas are now withholding their money, according to state campaign finance records.

These former corporate sponsors are turned off, state political operatives and fundraisers told CNBC, by Texas Republicans’ increasingly anti-business rhetoric, vicious infighting and a number of policy positions increasingly conservative.

For example, a law enacted in 2022 bans all abortions in Texas except in rare and extreme cases and allows for the prosecution of doctors and medical professionals. In 2023, Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill banning gender-affirming medical care for minors.

Earlier this year, the Texas Public School Investment Fund withdrew $8.5 billion from its management in black rock, due to the company’s reluctance to invest in fossil fuels. BlackRock has denied the allegation.

“I can understand why businesses don’t want to attend a convention, because they seem to support a (Republican) organization that attacks Republican officials,” said Wayne Hamilton, a longtime Republican who once served as executive director. of the RPT.

Hamilton and other political consultants who spoke to CNBC highlighted how the state party took the extraordinary step of formally censuring the Republican Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dade Phelan, and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez, R- Texas.

Phelan was censured for his role in the impeachment of Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Gonzales was censured for supporting bipartisan gun safety legislation in Congress and for voting in favor of a bill codifying the right to same-sex marriage.

Although they have few tangible legal consequences, the censures have had real political consequences for Phelan and Gonzalez: both men face a runoff in the Republican primary elections on May 28.

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