Less than a year ago, Donald Trump's political strength was waning among Texas Republicans.
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He was being blamed for an underwhelming midterm election, he was facing mounting legal problems and many prominent Texas Republicans were hesitating to endorse his comeback bid.
But not all of them.
US Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston endorsed Trump in a statement sent out to reporters before Trump had even finished his November 2022 speech at Mar-a-Lago, announcing his campaign to take back the White House.
Loyalty was Hunt's main motivator, he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. Trump backed him in both his 2020 and 2022 primaries. Perhaps more importantly, his constituents "wanted President Trump, and it was n't even close."
What happened next in Texas is much like what happened elsewhere: Republican officials started 2023 open to a Trump alternative but ultimately came around as DeSantis underwhelmed and Trump seemed increasingly inevitable. Those endorsements — their order and intensity — could prove to be consequential for those Republicans in the country's biggest red state as the famously transactional president and his allies look to the future.
"They're a complete joke," Hunt said of Trump's Texas endorsers in recent months. "If you're endorsing President Trump for the time he's up 60 points, you're not a serious person."
While polls once showed Trump and DeSantis tied in Texas, they now suggest the primary is all but over here. A survey released last month by the University of Houston found Trump leading former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 80% to 19%, with just 1% undecided.
It has been sweet vindication for Trump's earliest backers in Texas, like Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Miller declared himself the first statewide official to endorse Trump for 2024 — at a Trump rally two years ago in the Houston suburbs.
“Eventually [other state GOP leaders] just kind of saw the writing on the wall,” Miller said in an interview. “Trump was gonna be the nominee, he might as well get on the train before it leaves the station.”
Perhaps the most revealing Texas endorsement came shortly after Trump won the New Hampshire primary last month. Two minutes after NBC projected Trump the winner, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and lent his support to him.