Houston businessman Andrew White launches Democratic challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott

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Andrew White, a Houston businessman and son of former Gov. Mark White, launched his bid for governor Wednesday, vowing to run as an independent in the Democratic primary.

“Texans are tired of the culture wars,” White said in an interview. “They want a governor who will focus on the things that matter: Schools, hospitals and infrastructure.”

White, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2018, said he decided to run again after the catastrophic Independence Day floods in the Hill Country. His 18-year-old son, Thompson, was a counselor at Camp La Junta off the Guadalupe River during the flood. Along with three other counselors, Thompson helped dozens of eight- and nine-year-old campers move up to the cabin rafters as the river surged in and rose until just a few feet of air remained. Thompson, along with the rest of the cabin, emerged uninjured.

“What makes me mad is that this was avoidable,” White said. “I’m not blaming it on one person. I’m blaming it on all of them. I was super excited to run eight years ago — I’m 10 times more excited to run this time. We need a change at the highest level.”

He argued on his website that Gov. Greg Abbott “answers to extremists” and has left billions of dollars of federal funds on the table in opposing Medicaid expansion. He also accused Abbott of costing Texans billions more in electricity bills after Winter Storm Uri and through the private school voucher program he pushed lawmakers to enact earlier this year.

“It’s time for a new approach,” White said on social media, adding that Democrats needed to expand their base, including independents, to defeat Abbott.

White joins Bobby Cole, a rancher and retired firefighter, and Bay City Councilman Benjamin Flores in the Democratic primary to challenge Abbott, who is running for a fourth term.

In his 2018 bid, White fell short in the Democratic primary to Lupe Valdez, a former Dallas County sheriff, who went on to lose to Abbott by more than 13 percentage points.

But since then, White argued, the “political winds have shifted substantially.” While the Democratic Party in 2018 was primarily occupied by identity politics and movements such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too and more permissive immigration policy, he said, today, “Democrats just want a candidate who can win.”

“It’s no longer time for the candidate who can pass all the purity tests,” he said. "It’s time for a candidate who can beat Greg Abbott.”

As an “independent Democrat,” White said he would unite the party’s progressive and moderate wings, while also inviting independents into the base.

As of mid-July, Abbott reported that he had raised almost $90 million in campaign contributions, an enormous sum for any challenger to counter. In 2018, White loaned his campaign $1 million. He said he was “all in” this time, and was committed to personally covering his campaign’s overhead costs.

He drew on his Christian faith to describe the “servant leadership style” he hoped to embody, and he referenced a quote by Sam Houston that guided his father’s governance approach as his own north star.

“If I’m going to make him and his legacy proud,” White said about his father, “it’s going to be as a ‘do right and risk consequences’ governor.”

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