Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) greeted the news of the historic shake-up at the top of the Democratic ticket with threats to increase his state’s operations at the Mexican border.
“Joe Biden has now endorsed and fully supports his ‘Borders Czar’ Kamala Harris to be the Democrat candidate for president,” Abbott wrote on the social platform X.
“I think I will need to triple the border wall, razor wire barriers and National Guard on the border.”
Abbott was one of a long list of Trump allies to unload on Harris after Biden’s withdrawal from the race Sunday, as The Hill reported.
That criticism has frequently — and inaccurately — referred to Harris as a “border czar,” a position she did not hold.
Since Abbott began a campaign to intensify enforcement along Texas’s southern border in 2021 — in open challenge to federal authority — the state has spent more than $11 billion on razor wire, base construction and shipping migrants to northern cities.
State lawmakers approved another $5 billion last session alone to keep immigrants out of Texas.
While migration flows surged through 2023, they are currently at a three-year low, CBS reported. Immigrants in Texas contribute $34 billion to the state economy, according to Juan Carlos Cerda of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
Along with the conservative criticism she has faced on immigration, Harris has drawn fire from progressives for a 2021 speech in which she told potential migrants “who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: ‘Do not come. Do not come.’”
Texas state leaders also baselessly argued in their attacks on Harris and Democrats that left-wing Democrats used the June debate to force Biden out and replace him with a more pliable candidate.
Former President Obama “is seeking his 4th term as president,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) wrote on X. “The June debate was a hit job on Biden by his own party; humiliating him was step one to run him out.”
“Obama has been running the White House and will continue to run it with Michelle or Kamala,” Patrick added. “They picked Biden in 2020 so Obama could serve a third term, and now Obama seeks a fourth term.”
Patrick has voiced similar theories, without evidence, since the debate, which he said at the time was “a ploy to make it absolutely clear that Biden had to be replaced.”
State leaders are attempting to beat back a well-funded Democratic challenge against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), whose opponent, Dallas congressman and former NFL player Rep. Colin Allred (D), raised more money than him this spring.
Allred outraised Cruz in the second quarter of 2024 — $10.5 million to $7.9 million — although the Republican still has about $1.7 million more in the bank, as well as a 6 percentage point lead.