Republican Allen West, the former Florida congressman and firebrand who rode into office on the tea party wave a decade ago, said Sunday that he will run for governor of Texas in a bid to again seize on restless anger from the right.
His odds are far longer this time around: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is up for a third term and may also be eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, has already locked up the endorsement of Donald Trump — whose voters West would need to have any shot at winning a GOP primary in Texas.
The hurdles don’t stop there. Abbott is the most prodigious fundraiser of any governor in America, having started the year with nearly $40 million already socked away, and West is shunned by powerbrokers in his own party. Last month, West stepped down as chairman of the Texas GOP after spending a year using the platform to antagonize Abbott and other Republicans who he deemed insufficiently conservative.
