Leaning heavily into his identity as a state leader on the front lines of a national border crisis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott delivered a fiery rebuke of President Joe Biden to delegates Wednesday at the Republican National Convention in a speech playing up his public image as a lone ranger in the fight over illegal immigration.
“As governor of the largest border state — the great state of Texas — I can tell you, America needs a president who will secure our border. America needs Donald J. Trump,” Abbott said to an enthusiastic crowd in his 7-minute keynote, a few hours before vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, was set to take the stage. “The president’s most sacred duty is to secure our country. Donald Trump fulfilled that duty by eliminating illegal immigration… By contrast however, Joe Biden deserted his duty.”
In remarks focused entirely on border security, Abbott cast himself as a defiant leader unafraid to battle with the Biden Administration.
“When Joe Biden and his border czar, Kamala Harris, refused to come to Texas to see the border crisis they created, I took the border to them,” he said on Day 3 of the four-day event. “I bused illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., and sanctuary cities across the country. And we will keep those buses rolling until the border is finally secure.”
He described his actions during fights with Biden over a migrant processing center along the border and the president’s attempts at quashing Abbott’s plan to put razor wire along parts of the Rio Grande.
“I deployed thousands of [Texas] National Guard [members] to build hundreds of miles of razor wire to stop illegal crossings,” Abbott said to raucous cheers led by the Texas delegation in front of the stage. “When Joe Biden ordered them to cut that razor wire, I ordered the National Guard to triple it.”
Abbott built on the immigration-related messages earlier this week of Texas speakers, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, who spoke Tuesday about violent crimes committed by immigrants who had entered the country illegally.
Abbott was preceded by a ranching couple from Arizona who described migrants dying on their property and breaking into their homes, saying the situation was better under Trump.
Critics of the GOP focus on those crimes cite research indicating undocumented immigrants have lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants.
Abbott doubled down Wednesday, describing the “rapists, murderers and even terrorists” Biden has “welcomed into this country.”
“Fortunately, I see hope on the horizon. On Nov. 5th, Joe Biden will be fired. And come January, Donald Trump will again be our president ,” Abbott said. “He will enforce our immigration laws. He will fight the Mexican drug cartels. Most of all, he will arrest criminal illegal immigrants and put them behind bars or send them back.”
His speech did not touch on any other issue, although Abbott had said in an email to supporters earlier in the week that he planned to also speak about school choice and personal liberties.
Abbott’s spot in the week’s lineup — on Wednesday, the same night as Vance — reflects where his political value lies, both within the national party and in his ability to energize and unite the Republican base.
Abbott is a natural choice to help boost Republicans’ morale as they grapple for unity and focus after an attempted assassination of the party’s nominee and months of raucous infighting in Congress, said Joshua Blank, research director at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
The governor is no stranger to intra-party factions and fractures, having grappled with them in Texas over the issue of school choice, property taxes and other rifts in recent years, Blank said.
“The thing about Abbott is that he regularly speaks to all of those groups as he’s leading Texas, and he’s able to focus on this one topic that unites all Republicans,” Blank said. “And it puts him in the position to be one of the more unifying voices among Republicans.”
Abbott has been able to corral his party colleagues on his immigration initiatives, securing billions of dollars in state funding for Operation Lone Star and other border programs.
“One of the things that’s always separated Gov. Abbott from almost any other Republican governor in the nation is the 1,200-mile border with Mexico,” Blank said. “He is in a very unique position because he can talk about the most important issue to the Republican electorate from a position of authority. That’s a huge political asset.”
Texas has for decades had strong representation from governors on the keynote stages at both parties’ national conventions. Former Govs. Rick Perry, George W. Bush, both Republicans, and Ann Richards, the last Democratic governor of Texas, all took the national convention stage at some point in their political careers.
“Texas is certainly important to the Republican party,” said Renee Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. “If they were to ever lose Texas, it would be extremely hard to carry the presidency. … It’s a good idea for them to continue to showcase the future stars from the state of Texas.”
And if he is eyeing a higher office — although Abbott has not publicly suggested that so far — both the speech and his position as Texas governor can only help those efforts, Cross said.
“I think it’s certainly a good strategic move,” she said. “Of course, we remember not that long ago a little-known senator from Illinois was featured during the Democratic National Convention and that person ended up being president a few years later, so I could certainly see the case where people may be looking to Abbott to do something similarly, potentially join the federal government on the national stage.”
Other Texas officials invited to speak at the convention included Cruz, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, and U.S. Reps. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo, Monica De La Cruz of Edinburg and Wesley Hunt of Houston.