Allen West will challenge Texas Gov. Abbott in GOP primary

 AUSTIN, Texas — Republican Allen West, the previous Florida congressman and firebrand who rode into office at the tea party wave a decade ago, stated Sunday that he will run for governor of Texas in a bid to again capture on restless anger from the right.

His odds are a long way longer this time around: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who's up for a third term and might additionally 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 prevailing a GOP primary in Texas.

The hurdles don't prevent there. Abbott is the maximum prodigious fundraiser of any governor in America, having started the year with almost $forty million already socked away, and West is kept away from through powerbrokers in his own birthday celebration. Last month, West stepped down as chairman of the Texas GOP after spending a 12 months the usage of the platform to antagonize Abbott and other Republicans who he deemed insufficiently conservative.

Still, West's superstar in the grassroots that lingers from a combative one time period within the U.S. House makes him the maximum distinguished number one undertaking Abbott has faced on the grounds that turning into governor in 2015. Already there have been signs of Abbott transferring to shield his proper flank, passing ever-looser gun legal guidelines in Texas that he never previously recommended and selecting up Trump's immigration mantle along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Let's arise for God, for united states and for Texas,” West advised those amassed Sunday at Sojourn Church within the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, in which he made his statement.

He later tweeted video of the carrier.

Democrats, who continue to peer Texas as a budding battleground even as their dropping streak maintains, have yet to position up a challenger to Abbott in 2022 despite the fact that former congressman Beto O'Rourke isn't ruling it out.