Robert Howden, a senior adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott, will be Texas’ interim secretary of state, Abbott announced Friday. Howden is a longtime Texas politico who worked for GOP governors going back to Bill Clements, serving as Abbott’s legislative director since 2024.
Howden is replacing Jane Nelson, who left her post Friday as Texas’ top election official after three and a half years. Nelson’s resignation, announced in early June, set off a flurry of speculation about why she was leaving and who would replace her ahead of the contentious midterm elections in November.
Howden will need to be confirmed by the Texas Senate when the Legislature returns in January, but can serve until then without legislative approval. Nelson’s three immediate predecessors in the role resigned before the Senate got a chance to approve them.
“Robert Howden has served Texas with distinction in four Republican governors’ administrations,” Abbott said in a statement. “His experience in the legislative process and extensive public service have prepared him to protect the integrity of Texas elections and represent our state with strength on the global stage.”
Nelson has not commented on her departure, other than to say she worked hard “to ensure that voting in Texas is secure, accessible and fair.” Abbott praised her as an “extraordinary” secretary of state.
Nelson was the longest-serving Republican woman in the Texas Senate, and the first woman to lead the Senate Finance Committee. She presided over seven statewide elections and disbursed millions in grants to county election officials, according to a press release from her office.
But she clashed with GOP leadership toward the end of her tenure over closing the primaries, which would require voters to register with a specific party to vote in the primary. Last year, the Texas GOP filed a lawsuit arguing they had the legal right to close their primaries. Attorney General Ken Paxton, rather than defending Texas law, joined the party in its suit, which Nelson called “brazen and misguided.”
Nelson said in a filing that Paxton’s office gave her less than an hour’s notice about their plans, and said it was up to the Legislature, not the courts, to change the law. Abbott, who has joined the call for closing the primaries, has agreed, telling Texas Scorecard that lawmakers “can and should be more responsive to Republicans than a judge may be.”
As chief elections officer for a state whose leaders are heavily focused on election integrity and the threat of voter fraud, Howden will have more to manage than just the November elections. Nelson often found herself facing competing demands from the Trump Justice Department, state leaders, county elections officials and voting rights groups.
During her tenure, Texas was one of just 15 states that gave the U.S. Department of Justice access to the state’s full voter roll, including identifiable information about 18 million registered voters. The state also began using a federal database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, last year, to verify voters’ citizenship, leading to at least two lawsuits by voting rights groups.
Nelson raised concerns about that system in a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in April, Votebeat reported Wednesday.
