Katrina Pierson, Dallas conservative and MAGA loyalist, splits with Trump in Texas governor’s race

Since her eventful role as a face of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Texas tea party provocateur Katrina Pierson has maintained her fierce loyalty to Trump and made it the key feature of her political image — in both the Lone Star State and Washington. But as the race for governor heats up in Texas, Pierson is breaking with the former president and using her experience as a national campaign spokeswoman and senior campaign adviser to back underdog candidate Don Huffines in his bid to replace Gov. Greg Abbott. Trump endorsed Abbott in June. “I am proud to support my former state senator in his run for Texas governor. Texas should never be in the shadows of Florida or any other states when our fundamental liberties and livelihoods are at risk,” Pierson said in an email Dec. 14. “Don Huffines will put Texans first, and that has been long overdue.” Pierson threw her political cachet behind Huffines, the former Dallas state senator and staunch conservative, when she endorsed him in August. The Huffines campaign has contracted her consulting services as well.

“He was a huge supporter of President Trump and did more than most any Texan to fight for his re-election. And I know because I was there on the front lines with him,” she said in a statement earlier this year. In Washington, Pierson’s ties to Trump are under a microscope. The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has subpoenaed Pierson, the Forney, Texas native, about any role she played in organizing rallies on Jan. 5 and 6 and to obtain any communication she had with the former president about the rallies. “According to documents provided to the Select Committee, press reports, and statements by Women for America First (”WFAF”), you assisted WFAF in organizing the rally held on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, in support of then-President Trump and his allegations of election fraud,” the chairman of the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in the letter to Pierson notifying her of the subpoena. The House panel, which said it was looking to gather testimony and records from “individuals tied to the events and rallies leading up to the January 6th insurrection,” sent Pierson the subpoena in September.