6 takeaways about Alex Fairly’s journey into Texas GOP politics

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Alex Fairly, an Amarillo businessman, is the newest Republican megadonor making waves in the Texas capitol.

Last week, The Texas Tribune published a story about his sudden rise as a major powerbroker and one of the most prolific donors to GOP legislative candidates.

The story details Fairly’s involvement in last year’s turbulent Republican primaries through this year’s contentious race for House Speaker. Initially, Fairly aligned with ultraconservatives in an ongoing GOP civil war challenging more establishment Republicans. Fairly spent heavily to try and oust former House Speaker Dade Phelan — who critics labeled a Republican in Name Only, or a RINO — from the Legislature. Fairly also advocated against current Speaker Dustin Burrows in the race for House leader and spent millions supporting hardline conservative candidates for 19 House seats across the state.

But Fairly told The Texas Tribune in an interview that once he started digging into the speaker race, he didn’t like what he saw. He concluded that he had been misled about much of Texas Republican politics by the well-organized political operation funded largely by oil billionaire Tim Dunn, one of the most feared and influential conservative figures in Texas politics.

Here are six takeaways from our coverage:

Fairly was the 10th largest single contributor to Texas legislative races in 2024

Fairly spent most of his life being apolitical. He didn’t register to vote in Texas until he was 37.

Before 2024, Fairly’s political contributions included only a few big checks to statewide officials, including Attorney General Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov Dan Patrick. He was also a major supporter of U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo.

By the end of that year, Fairly would be the 10th biggest donor in legislative races, giving $2.2 million to 19 House candidates and one Senate candidate across the state, according to a Tribune analysis.

Fairly gave the most money to Phelan’s primary challenger David Covey, funnelling $700,000 to Covey’s campaign, most of which was sent after Covey pushed Phelan into a primary runoff. Overall, Fairly’s giving made up more than a quarter of all of the money Covey raised. The majority of other donations were between $50,000 and $100,000. However, in local House races, that could be a significant contribution. For instance, Fairly’s $150,000 donation to Rep. Denise Villalobos, R-Corpus Christi, accounted for 12% of her total haul. His donations to his daughter’s race — $525,600 — accounted for 43% of her contributions.

Fairly turned down an offer to partner with Tim Dunn

As Fairly’s support for hardliners became more prolific, he got an invitation to meet Dunn at his political headquarters outside Fort Worth.

Fairly said he got a tour of Dunn’s operation, including the network of consulting, fundraising and campaign operations. For years, this operation has worked to support extremely conservative candidates and target those who they deem too centrist in an effort to shift the state further to the right.

Dunn asked Fairly if he’d be willing to partner with him. At the time, Fairly seemed well positioned to be a second Dunn-like figure, who could add pressure and funding to Dunn’s political aims.

Fairly eventually turned down Dunn, saying it wasn’t the right time. He would later come to the conclusion that he opposed what he called dishonest and bigoted attacks used by Dunn’s network, entirely.

A few months later, Fairly went back to Dunn in an effort to try and get him to change the way they try to achieve their common conservative goals.

After trying to oust Phelan, Fairly asked him to meet 

A few months after Phelan hung onto his House seat by 389 votes, Fairly asked him to meet. Fairly said it wasn’t a peace offering, but if Phelan was going to remain House speaker, he wanted to see if he would run the House in a different way.

During the tense meeting last August, Phelan and Fairly discussed the best way to manage the lower chamber. Phelan told Fairly was naive about Texas politics.

At one point, Phelan accused Fairly of paying for the ugly tactics used in the campaign against him — including accusing him of supporting Sharia law because he supported a resolution commemorating a Muslim holiday. Fairly ended up apologizing.

After the party’s far-right flank continued to attack Phelan in his quest to be speaker for a third session, he eventually dropped out of the leadership race. A new battle would emerge between Phelan-ally, Dustin Burrows of Lubbock, and Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, who would challenge the establishment Republicans in the House.

After Fairly launched a $20 million PAC with a threat to oust lawmakers who didn’t align Cook, he changed direction

In mid-December, the Texas House was embroiled in an ugly fight over who Republicans should support to lead the lower chamber. The House Speaker is the leader of the lower chamber who plays a key role in what bills are passed. More establishment Republicans had aligned behind Burrows while many in the GOP caucus were behind Cook who campaigned on reforming the House to reduce the power of Democrats.

The far-right groups behind Cook, including Dunn’s PAC and the Republican Party of Texas — which is largely funded by Dunn’s PACs — accused Burrows of being a secret liberal. Fairly believed this to be true, and felt Republicans needed to come together behind Cook.

He announced he was pouring $20 million into a new PAC “out of concern that the Texas House still lacks a united Republican majority.”

“These funds will be available to help expand a true Republican majority,” Fairly said. “My strong hope is that we can focus them on expanding victories in the next general election."

But after a series of meetings with lawmakers, including Burrows supporter and incoming freshman John McQueeney, Fairly started to see how lawmakers were being harassed and targeted by dishonest attacks.

A few days before the start of the Legislature, he released a new statement reversing his stance on the speaker race.

“The vote for Speaker belongs to the members,” Fairly wrote in his statement.

Fairy’s daughter, Rep. Caroline Fairly, had a parallel change of heart about the speaker race.

In the months leading up to the legislative session, Rep. Caroline Fairly was struggling with her own decision over who she would support for House speaker.

She originally sided with Cook, but didn’t agree with the characterizations of Burrows as a liberal, and thought it was hypocritical to attack Burrows for making deals with Democrats when Cook had openly courted Democrats for votes, too.

But she felt she needed to stick with Cook at the risk of being attacked as a RINO. When her dad changed directions with his PAC, she felt she pressure to remain with Cook to avoid criticisms that her father, who was her campaign’s top financial supporter, controlled her seat.

But the morning of the speaker race, Caroline Fairly woke up and said she couldn’t stick with Cook.

“I won’t start my tenure as your representative capitulating to outside pressures to place a vote I disagree with,” she wrote in her statement announcing her decision to switch sides.

Fairly has appealed to Dunn — and Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George — to change their political tactics 

Once the legislative session was underway, Fairly went back to Dunn to see if he would consider changing how his operation works.

Over a span of a few months, the two men met multiple times to discuss if there were better ways to achieve conservative goals in the state that didn’t require eviscerating fellow Republicans. He commended Dunn for having a candid and difficult conversation, but wasn’t optimistic anything would change.

Last month, after Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George posted on social media a threat to primary Republican lawmakers who don’t pass all GOP priority bills, Fairly called him and tried to get him to stop.

“[Dunn’s network] is the place where you can get money, whether it's their money or their friends' money,” Fairly said he told George. “But … the thing that you live on is choking the life out of you.”

Fairly still hasn’t spent his PAC money. He remains a deeply conservative Republican and is still aligning with hardliners like Paxton. As Fairly considers his next move on the state stage, he says he’s intent to remain his own person, rather than committing to join any specific political faction.

“Everyone puts people in a camp, and because I don't really just fit in one, it feels it doesn't make that much sense to people,” Fairly said. “That's just who I am, and I think I'm really comfortable with it.”

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