Texas House Speaker who tried and failed to impeach Ken Paxton forced into election runoff after coming in second in primary race

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan came in second in his race on Tuesday night after staging an impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton last year, and failing to oust the popular AG. David Covey, who had been endorsed both by Paxton and by presumed GOP nominee President Donald Trump, took 46 percent of the vote to Phelan's 43 percent. 

Phelan and Covey will face a run-off election in May, but things are not looking great for the Speaker after his attacks on Paxton did not land, Just the News reports. 

Paxton has fought tirelessly to secure the state's national border with Mexico, has sued Pornhub over age verification, has been preventing child sex changes in the state and worked diligently to protect the sanctity of life, among other hot button causes.

Paxton was acquitted on all impeachment charges brought against him in September. He was brought up on 16 charges, and a conviction on just one article would have spelled impeachment for him. Paxton said that the Biden administration had a role to play in his impeachment. 

"We were causing a lot of trouble for the Biden administration. Even if we didn’t, we slowed them down. We were winning. Like, I think our number is 77 percent of our cases," he told Tucker Carlson. Many of the lawyers working to impeach him came from Biden's DOJ.

The impeachment trial opened on September 5, and was launched when Paxton asked the Texas House to approve a payment of $3.3 million to former staff who had accused him of workplace abuse and were fired. The House didn't fund that settlement, and impeachment charges were brought.