Schoolchildren in Texas won a major victory on Tuesday, as voters in the nation’s second-largest state backed candidates who support educational choice.

Credit goes to Governor Greg Abbott, who backed ten primary challengers to state house Republicans after they killed his signature bill to establish universal education-savings accounts. The Gunfight at the Teachers’ Union Corral ended in a decisive victory for school-choice supporters, and the odds are that Abbott’s bill will become law next year.

Of the 16 anti-choice incumbents who ran for reelection, six won and four were forced into May 28 runoffs. Traditionally, incumbents enter runoffs as underdogs because a majority of voters have already expressed themselves against them.

Five other incumbents lost outright to Abbott-backed challengers. They included Travis Clardy and Hugh Shine, who were caught begging school administrators to provide staff to turn out the vote for them.

An additional five seats were vacated by anti-choice incumbents who chose to retire. Abbott-backed challengers have won two of them and forced three others into runoffs.

The Abbott surge even saw Dade Phelan, the powerful Texas house speaker who has often cooperated with Democrats in slowing down school choice, trail a conservative opponent. He will face a runoff. In addition, several GOP incumbents on the state board of education lost or now face a runoff.

Overall, Texas Monthly concludes, Abbott had “a pretty good night” and is much closer to passing his plan in the next legislative session.

Incumbents who lost aren’t taking the news well. State representative Glenn Rogers, who has received at least $22,500 from teachers’ union PACs since 2018, is especially bitter. “Kiss my ass!” he recently wrote to state agriculture commissioner Sid Miller after he endorsed his opponent. “You are a bought and paid for, pathetic narcissist,” he texted. “If you had any honor, you would challenge me, or any of my Republican colleagues to a duel.”

Well, it appears that Rogers got his duel, but it was with Republican primary voters, of whom over 80 percent voted in favor of school choice in a nonbinding referendum in 2022. The result was clear: Rogers won only 37 percent of the vote, and his teachers’-union-paid popguns fired only blanks.

As for Governor Abbott, he still has to push several choice supporters over the finish line in May runoffs, but his bold move has dramatically shifted state politics.