For three decades, the Bush name meant power in Texas Republican politics. Lately it has come to mean something else: a family that keeps lining up against the voters who make up the party’s base.
The record is public. It runs from a fight over the Alamo, to a 2022 primary blowout, to a September fundraiser in Dallas that left out the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. Here are five times the Bushes chose the establishment over the Texas grassroots.
1. The Alamo: Delegates Said No, George P. Bush Pushed Ahead
As land commissioner, George P. Bush oversaw the Alamo. His office backed a $450 million Alamo master plan, once branded as a plan to reimagine the shrine. All three of his 2018 primary opponents attacked his handling of the Alamo and cast him as a moderate, the Texas Tribune reported.
The plan called for moving the Cenotaph, the monument to the Alamo defenders, from its spot on Alamo Plaza to a site in front of the Menger Hotel, Texas Scorecard reported. At the 2018 state convention, Bush was booed by delegates, some of them angry over the Alamo.
Delegates answered with a platform plank: remember the Alamo, do not reimagine it, and do not move the Cenotaph. Platform subcommittee chair Ray Myers said 5,650 delegates voted for the plank, according to Texas Scorecard.
Bush signed the plan resolution anyway in September 2018, despite pushback from some Republican lawmakers.
It took the Texas Historical Commission to stop the move. In September 2020, the commission voted 12-2 to deny the permit to relocate the Cenotaph. Its chairman, John Nau, said the Cenotaph should be “located where the blood flowed,” TPR reported, and objected to moving it “outside the battle walls,” KSAT reported.
In 2025, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 3059, which moves the Alamo out of the General Land Office and under a new Alamo Commission by Jan. 1, 2028. The bill text also orders a state audit of GLO spending on the Alamo, including money that went through nonprofits the office contracted with.
2. Texas Voters Gave Their Answer in 2022: 68 to 32
In 2021, George P. Bush launched a challenge to Attorney General Ken Paxton for the 2022 Republican nomination. President Trump endorsed Paxton that July, passing over Bush.
Bush had wanted that endorsement badly. Trump had endorsed him for land commissioner in 2018, and Bush was the only prominent member of his family to support Trump in 2016, the Texas Tribune reported.
Once Trump chose Paxton, Bush responded by attacking Paxton’s legal troubles, the Tribune reported. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.
Republican voters settled it. In the May 24, 2022 runoff, Paxton beat Bush 633,223 votes to 298,577, roughly 68% to 32%. Former President George W. Bush had given his nephew’s campaign $125,000, according to the Texas Tribune.
3. George W. Bush Would Not Back Trump, Three Times
By his own account, George W. Bush did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. He told historian Mark Updegrove that he left the top of his 2016 ballot blank and voted Republican down the ballot, CNN reported. His father, George H.W. Bush, confirmed he voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In 2020, Bush told People magazine he wrote in Condoleezza Rice for president, CNN reported.
In 2024, his office told NBC News he had no plans to endorse anyone and had retired from presidential politics. NBC noted that Bush endorsed John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
That makes three straight presidential elections in which the former president from Texas would not back his party’s nominee.
4. Bush Money Flows to the Establishment
The checkbook tells the same story. In 2021, months after Rep. Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump, Bush agreed to headline a Dallas fundraiser for her, NBC News reported. Trump had endorsed her primary challenger. Former Bush aides Karl Rove and Karen Hughes were expected to attend.
On Dec. 31, 2021, Bush gave $2,900 to Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Federal Election Commission records show. Murkowski had voted to convict Trump at his February 2021 impeachment trial.
In March 2026, Bush gave $5,000 to Sen. John Cornyn’s campaign, FEC records show. It was his first federal donation in Texas since 2022, according to the Texas Tribune.
Texas Republicans went the other way. After Trump endorsed Paxton, Paxton beat Cornyn 888,196 votes to 503,438 in the May 26 runoff, roughly 64% to 36%.
Then came Dallas. On Sept. 21, 2026, Cornyn hosted a fundraiser for Maintain the Majority, a joint fundraising committee, with Bush listed as a “special guest,” ABC News and Fox News reported. The committee raises money for six GOP Senate candidates. Paxton, the Texas nominee, is not one of them.
ABC News framed it as a split between the party’s old guard and its new one. Cornyn has said he will support the Republican ticket but has no plans to campaign for Paxton, ABC reported.
Rove, a former senior Bush adviser, has gone further. He said he will vote for a Democrat this November for the first time since 1994, backing Democrat Jon Rosenthal over Republican nominee Bo French in the Texas Railroad Commission race after what the Texas Tribune described as French’s racist post about South Asian students at UT Austin, The Washington Post reported.
5. “The Bush Era in Texas Ends Today”
The family name surfaced again at Paxton’s 2023 impeachment trial. The Texas House impeached Paxton 121-23. The Senate acquitted him on all 16 articles on Sept. 16, 2023, CBS News reported.
In his closing argument, Paxton lawyer Tony Buzbee accused the Bush family, George P. Bush in particular, of being behind the impeachment, CBS reported. It was a defense argument, not a finding.
“Now, the Bush era in Texas ends today,” Buzbee told the Senate, in video of the closing published by WFAA. He reminded senators that Paxton had already beaten George P. Bush 68 to 32 in the 2022 primary runoff. The Senate acquitted Paxton the next day.
The Pattern
Taken one at a time, each episode has its own explanation. Taken together, they show a family that kept siding with party insiders while Texas Republican voters moved the other way.
The grassroots defended the Cenotaph. Twice, they nominated Paxton over candidates backed with George W. Bush’s money. The Bushes helped build the modern Texas GOP. In 2026, Texas Republicans are building it without them.
