Obama congratulates governor-elect who sued him

Greg Abbott hasn’t shied away from taking President Obama to court, but that didn’t stop the two from sharing a chat after Abbott’s resounding victory in the Texas gubernatorial election.

The White House said that Abbott was among the winning candidates Obama called the day after the midterm elections. Abbott’s campaign told the Houston Chronicle that it was a “brief congratulatory call.”

{mosads}Abbott hasn’t been shy about his distaste for President Obama’s policies. He has sued the federal government more than 30 times, most notably as part of a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas rules that lost in the Supreme Court.

“I go into the office in the morning … I sue Barack Obama and then I go home,” he told supporters last year.

Abbott defeated Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis with an emphatic 20-point margin in a year Democrats hoped would build momentum towards turning the state blue. But Democrats were soundly defeated across the statewide ticket despite what the party touted as the strongest field in years.

The president called 18 other candidates after an Election Day that handed the Republicans a slew of victories.