The United States successfully eliminated measles decades ago by taking measures to ensure the virus stopped spreading consistently within the country — but now, it’s likely that measles is back.
Toward the end of 2025, experts cautioned that the U.S. could lose its “measles elimination status” within months as various outbreaks raged across the country. If the U.S. does officially lose this status — meaning the country will have experienced sustained measles spread for over a year — it would join a list of countries, including the U.K. and Canada, that have also seen local resurgences of measles as their vaccination rates have declined.
An assessment of the United States’ elimination status is scheduled for November. In the meantime, experts have issued a progress report for the nation. Live Science spoke with two authors of the report from Boston Children’s Hospital — Dr. Anne Bischops, a pediatrician and postdoctoral research fellow, and Maimuna Majumder, a distinguished scholar in the Computational Health Informatics Program — to understand where America’s elimination status stands and what to expect in coming months.
Nicoletta Lanese: We saw measles cases start to rise in the U.S. around January 2025. Were you concerned at that point about the country losing its elimination status?
Maimuna Majumder: I’ve personally been working on measles for over a decade, and given that, what I will say is that my concerns around elimination status far predate even January 2025.
When January 2025 picked up, I felt like this might be the point of no return. But it was not in any way the first red flag. I do want to just stress that measles elimination has always been a tenuous prospect, and it is, by design, tenuous. Maintaining elimination status is, by design, difficult.
When you start to see these clusters turn into outbreaks that threaten to spill over into neighboring states, when you see the rapidity with which small outbreaks become larger outbreaks — those tend to be the signals that [say] “I don’t think that we’re going to be able to get the cat back in the bag here.”
Dr. Anne Bischops: The trend of the increase of vaccine-preventable diseases has been ongoing for several years already, and it’s something that has spilled into the daily life working in the ER. We’ve seen increasing cases of measles. And especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, we have this increase of vaccine fatigue adding to that.
This has been, globally, an increasingly important topic. For the current outbreak in the U.S., our study team has been closely monitoring that from the beginning.
NL: What factors set our current situation apart from past measles outbreaks?
MM: My very first domestic measles response was during the Disneyland measles outbreak in [late 2014 and] 2015. It was a different time. It was a radically different political administration; it was a radically different time, culturally, for how the United States felt about vaccines. It was an optimal time to make strides in policies that would help ensure that we didn’t lose our elimination status.
In response to the Disneyland outbreak, we ended up passing SB-277 in California and a number of other important vaccination bills across the United States that allowed us to get rid of personal belief exemptions, for example. That really led to fantastic strides in reclaiming our measles protection, as a whole.
Now, in the 10 years that have since passed, a lot of things have changed. We are now in the second Trump administration, and there has been a massive pandemic in between that eroded the public’s trust in public health and vaccines. A lot of that is driven by the pervasiveness of misinformation that’s run rampant.
When the Disneyland outbreak happened, we largely had a feeling of hope that, “We can use this opportunity to pass bills that are going to protect the American people.” What happened when the [2025] Texas outbreak started was the opposite of that. That’s when the likelihood that you’re going to lose your status becomes imminent, because the levers that you would typically use to rescue elimination status are no longer viable.
NL: In your report, you describe seven indicators that should be met for a country to achieve elimination status, noting that the U.S. has now missed — or essentially, failed — four out of seven. Why is it useful to define these indicators?
AB: The Pan American Health Organization [PAHO] has these recertification meetings [such as the one planned for November] where very detailed, granular data for every single transmission chain are presented, and this is very time-intensive.
We saw that the meeting had been moved from April to November, so our goal with the seven indicators was to provide an early warning framework ahead of that decision, using readily available data that we can use now. We have looked on the broad national level, using only national estimates. We really see it as a rapid assessment before then, in November, when a very detailed analysis will be done on the transmission-chain level, where every single transmission chain will be followed.
NL: For the indicators that haven’t been “missed” yet, do we suspect they’ve been missed but just don’t yet have the data to show that?
AB: Exactly. For example, for the genotyping criteria, we have some samples where we can already see that they all share the same genotype, but we are lacking the detailed genotyping data for every single transmission chain. So we can assume that this has been missed, but we need to confirm with the detailed analysis.
For vaccine coverage, we only have the kindergartners’ estimates [regarding the percentage of kindergarteners who are up to date on measles vaccination], and we don’t have immunity data. But based on the data available, we could think that has already been missed.
NL: Experts have said we’re likely undercounting our current measles cases. Is that a fair assessment?
MM: I personally agree that it is very likely an undercount. One reason is that measles in general does not have to be super severe in pathology. So sometimes, kids will get sick and their parents may not take them in to get looked at. When we think about the way that infectious disease surveillance is done in the U.S., in order for mandatory reportable diseases like measles to be reported, there needs to be an encounter with the healthcare system. If you have a disease where that may not always happen, then certainly, by default, you’re going to be undercounting the disease.
Our best indicator is wastewater surveillance [where germs are screened for in wastewater], and right now, we don’t do a ton of wastewater surveillance for measles. The next question would be, how do we track this better? That is perhaps one of the better solutions.
NL: Do you think wastewater surveillance is something that could be feasibly expanded? I know our current coverage differs state to state.
MM: The technology is there, so this is possible. What is challenging — and this is true for all wastewater surveillance, not just measles — is that our interpretability of wastewater signals is, mind my language, still very much in the shitter.
We see numbers go up in the wastewater, so we know that numbers are going up in the community. To what degree that scaling factor is true is dependent on so many things that it’s really difficult to have kind of a 1:1 [translation] based off of what the wastewater signal says — just how many cases there are in a given community at the time.
One of the big factors, of course, is that wastewater is very, very vulnerable to rainwater fall [in that rainfall dilutes wastewater and must be taken into account to interpret the results]. So there are a lot of physical engineering components to this that we have not fully figured out yet. It’s harder to say, “Oh, there are exactly this number of cases because there’s this much wastewater indication of this disease in this location.” We can’t do that yet, not in a meaningful way.
What we can do is use wastewater to predict when hospitalizations for respiratory disease will increase, when we might expect upticks and people seeking PCP [primary care provider] care for a given disease — this is something that the wastewater is very, very useful for. That is where I do believe that there is room for improvement, and this is something that can be done.
Massachusetts is one of the leaders in wastewater surveillance, and we have our own dedicated wastewater surveillance teams. So if I were to think of states that would probably be leaders in this, states like Massachusetts would probably be the most likely to pilot a measles wastewater program.
NL: Your report indicates we’re on the brink of losing elimination status, and getting vaccination rates up is a key solution. Will that effort mostly be at the state and local levels, given the federal government’s stance?
MM: All of our states operate as their own little entities that manage their own state’s health, so we don’t have a ton of programs that are universal, national. Even if Trump were not in office, we would expect most vaccination campaigns to happen at a more localized level. That has always been the case.
However, now you have a federal government that is pretty staunchly anti-vaccine, even when RFK Jr. is reneging and saying, “Actually, vaccines are alright.” There’s quite a bit of waffling even at the federal government level that we should acknowledge. I would not call it vaccine hesitancy at the federal government level; I would call it skepticism. What that does is that it seeds doubt. That has a trickle-down effect to the individual who is living in a given state.
The public discourse around vaccines is very, very heavily influenced by federal discourse.
While federal discourse does not affect states’ rights to pass bills that are going to protect their public by encouraging more vaccination, what it does do is affect the way that individuals in those states perceive vaccines. The vast majority of people in this country are more aware about federal politics than they are about state politics; that is the reality of the situation that we live in.
You end up with a situation where, even though the federal government does not really have much control over what the state will mandate is required for a child to enter public schools, there is a control that is exerted through the communication strategy that is used by the federal government to reach individuals across the United States.
AB: From the pediatrician perspective, we can see day to day, there can be 10 positive vaccine-promoting campaigns, but it only takes one short online comment to spread doubts everywhere. So, for me as a pediatrician, it’s very important to be very careful with health communication about that — I think we need efforts on all levels.
NL: Is there anything else you hope people take away from your progress report?
MM: Because we see this global resurgence of measles and we have a bunch of other countries that have also lost their status or who are also on the brink, we think that this [framework] might also be applicable to other countries who could use it as an early warning.
It’s not just the U.S. that is dealing with this problem; it’s not something that’s happening in a vacuum.
The politics across most high-income countries are exhibiting similarities across the board that are absolutely influencing the pervasiveness of this issue, and the fact that many high-income countries have lost their measles elimination status in the last year is a very, very good indicator of that. But I’d like to stress that it’s not entirely politics, either. Part of it is system memory.
What I mean by that is, the people that are having kids right now are people who have never known a person who has been gravely affected by measles. They have no clue that in previous generations, people died from this disease or were left with terrible post-acute conditions that have plagued them for the rest of their lives. That lack of exposure makes it seem like it’s not that serious.
When public health works, nobody knows that it’s working — that’s a statement that we often make in this discipline. The reason nobody died from measles when I was a kid is because everybody was vaccinated. This particular thing is very difficult; it’s very human to start questioning the severity of something when you haven’t seen that severity yourself.
NL: To date, all signals seem to point to the U.S. losing its status in November. Would you agree?
MM: I would be very surprised to see it turn out otherwise. I would be delighted if we can turn it around, but it is unlikely.
Why that might happen is if we as a society decide that the strict criteria that we have been using to date are no longer the criteria we want to use. We could say we still have elimination status because we’re changing what the criteria are; we’re moving the benchmark. If that happens, I will be extremely unhappy.
Either we lose the status because we kept the criteria the same and nothing changed, which seems like the most likely circumstance, or we don’t lose status because we changed the criteria, because we don’t want to be seen as failures. The least likely but the most positive option is somehow we manage to get it together in the next six months and we don’t change the criteria.
AB: There’s no standardized criteria or cutoff points for deciding elimination status. In the end, it’s completely up to the expert panel in November, so we don’t know what exact cutoffs they will use. But based on the data we saw, for now, I think it’s highly likely that we will, sadly, lose status.
NL: Could the expert panel move the benchmarks, like you said?
AB: So, the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has determined an expert panel that runs the analysis and will then present to the Pan American Health Organization meeting in November.
MM: That’s why I’m saying that that second option is a possibility. There are people [on the panel] that can decide that the criteria are different.
NL: But if the PAHO doesn’t think the presented data is valid, could they say that?
MM: They can do it — will they do it is a different question. The World Health Organization [WHO] and its ancillary branches [like the PAHO] are not typically shy about making statements when they believe that certain governments are not being truthful. This tends to happen in highly politicized situations where you are expecting that the data coming out of the country are not fully viable.
So the WHO has absolutely made statements in the past to this effect. The U.S. is a different type of entity though, right? I think that we’re now getting into the question of “Does it harm the WHO and PAHO too much to take a stand against the CDC?” It’s a very interesting question that I don’t think that there is a very clear answer to yet.
To answer that question, can they do that? They can. There is precedent for other countries. But the U.S. is not just any country, and we need to acknowledge that.
As a region, we’ve already lost that status [given that Canada lost its elimination status already]. My hope is that that would make everybody more honest. I do feel that the situation would be significantly more tense if the U.S. was going to be the “make or break” for whether or not the Americas lost their elimination status.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Live Science spoke with Bischops and Majumder in May, so the text may not reflect more recent developments.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said it has cleared Paramount Skydance Corp’s planned $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying it ​was unlikely to harm competition or consumers.
The DOJ said it spent eight months evaluating how the transaction would affect streaming video services, traditional television and the film industry, weighing input from across the entertainment industry.
“The extensive investigatory record reviewed by the division suggests that the impact of ‌the transaction will be to increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers,” the Justice Department wrote in a statement released on Friday.
Paramount CEO David ⁠Ellison’s father, billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has cultivated ties with President ​Donald Trump, and the company has hired former Trump officials.
Assistant Attorney General ⁠Omeed Assefi had said that politics would “absolutely not” drive the DOJ’s review of the transaction.
Competition for audience, talent, investment
Paramount issued a statement thanking the DOJ ‌for its review of the transaction, which ‌it said would allow the company to better compete in an industry defined by an intense scramble for audiences, talent, ⁠technology and investment.
“We remain focused on completing the transaction as soon as possible and delivering its ⁠benefits to consumers, creators and the entertainment industry as a whole,” Paramount said.
The Federal Communications Commission has not yet approved a petition seeking approval for foreign interests, including Gulf sovereign wealth funds, to own up to 100% of the debt in the proposed $110 billion deal.
Democratic senators raised concerns about Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and Chinese companies taking part in the deal. They noted that it involves sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi investing in a company that would control CBS stations, as well as major cable news operations ‌including CNN. They also cited media reports that China’s Tencent may take part.
The family of Paramount CEO David ​Ellison will continue to control voting shares. Paramount said in a filing on Thursday that the “new foreign investors, which will receive only non-voting equity, will not have any ability to influence the company’s editorial decision-making.”
The DOJ said it reviewed more than 2 million documents obtained from 80 sources in evaluating the deal’s impact on various segments of the entertainment industry.
It concluded that a combined Paramount+ and HBO Max would create a stronger alternative to larger streaming services, and increase competition in a way that would benefit consumers.
The deal is unlikely to harm the traditional television business, where there is vigorous competition for live sports, news and political commentary, the DOJ found.
The theatrical business is similarly seeing more robust competition, ​as Paramount and Warner Bros compete not only with traditional Hollywood rivals, but with smaller independent studios such as A24 and newcomers such as Apple and Netflix, which have signaled continued ‌interest in theatrical ‌releases, wrote the DOJ.
Since the ⁠deal was announced, theatrical production has increased, it found.
The DOJ dismissed comparisons to the $71 billion merger of Walt Disney and 21st Century Fox, which closed in 2019, a year before the COVID-19 outbreak triggered dramatic changes in audience consumption patterns. Disney has substantially increased its spending on content in the years since, the DOJ found.
However, several in Hollywood, including actors, directors, writers and producers, have expressed concern that the merger would result in fewer jobs and less diversity of ‌storytelling.
California, New York and other U.S. states ​are preparing a lawsuit to block the deal, sources familiar with the matter told ‌Reuters last week.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta ⁠posted on X that the proposed ​merger of Warner Bros and Paramount “remains under investigation by my office.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used SpaceX’s historic IPO — and founder Elon Musk’s newly minted status as a trillionaire — to push policy.
“Reason #1,000,000,000,000 why we should tax the rich,” Mamdani wrote on X in response to Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire on Friday.
Musk reached the financial milestone after SpaceX stock popped upon hitting the market on Friday, trading at $150 per share, above the company’s initial offering of $135.
Already the world’s richest man, the windfall put Musk leagues ahead of the next richest person, Google’s Larry Page, who now has a quarter of Musk’s wealth.
Mamdani’s response was in line with his politics. The progressive New York City mayor campaigned on taxing the rich, and the city’s new pied-à-terre tax on multimillion-dollar second homes sparked backlash from some rich residents.
Musk has spoken out against Mamdani and backed his challenger, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in the New York mayoral race last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith came to the Senate at a very different moment for Democrats.
Appointed in late 2017 to replace Sen. Al Franken after fellow Democrats demanded his resignation amid allegations of unwanted touching and kissing, Smith entered Washington during the height of the #MeToo movement. Democrats were pushing members from office and contrasting their approach with Republicans’ willingness to stand by Donald Trump through scandal and controversy.
Nearly a decade later, Smith says Democrats are focused on something simpler.
“Democrats want to win,” she said.
As the party aims to flip both chambers of Congress in the midterms, Smith and other Democrats have backed Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner despite a growing list of controversies, including a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, sexting with other women shortly after he married and allegations, which Platner denies, that he locked an ex-girlfriend in a room and forcefully twisted her arm. Platner cruised to victory in this week’s primary after Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign.
The support for Platner is about more than one candidate. It reflects a Democratic Party increasingly willing to overlook behavior it might once have deemed disqualifying, and instead judge candidates by whether they can energize voters and help the party regain power.
“Voters are looking for candidates that are speaking their language and talk about the things that matter to them,” said Smith. “That’s the standard that we have to hit in order to win.”
Democrats grapple with the reality of a big tent
The support for Platner comes at a fraught moment for Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers of Congress while Trump once again occupies the White House.
In the wake of their sweeping losses in 2024, many Democrats argued the party needed a bigger tent with fewer purity tests and more room for candidates and voters who don’t fit neatly within the party’s traditional coalition.
But expanding that tent has raised difficult questions about where Democrats should draw the line. In Virginia, Democrat Jay Jones won election as attorney general after reports surfaced during the campaign that he had texted a fellow delegate suggesting the then-House speaker should get “two bullets to the head.”
Some in the party also condemned Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed for appearing with progressive streamer Hasan Piker for a campaign event. Piker, a 34-year-old streamer with 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube, has made many controversial remarks, including that “America deserved 9/11.”
Platner’s candidacy has become one of the clearest examples. While some Democrats view his controversies as disqualifying, others argue that voters made their choice.
“He won the nomination. That was the decision of Maine voters. And I respect that decision,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who has endorsed Platner, agreed the decision lies with voters.
“It’s not up to the politicians to decide,” he said.
For some Democrats, the shift reflects lessons learned during the Trump era. Republicans stood by Trump through scandals, impeachments and criminal convictions, often without paying a lasting political price at the ballot box. Many Democrats now argue voters care more about whether a candidate speaks to their concerns than whether they meet traditional expectations for personal conduct.
“I think what the people of this country and the people of Maine are interested in is how we’re going to have a government that represents all of us and addresses the many crises we face. Not the marriage problems of a campaign,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an early Platner supporter.
The voters decide
Progressives who have long argued that Democrats spend too much time policing candidates and not enough time channeling voter frustration see Platner’s victory as evidence that the party’s base is hungry for something different.
Maine voter Elizabeth Massey, a Platner supporter from Penobscot, said she took the allegations seriously and remains troubled by parts of Platner’s past. But she said his willingness to apologize and the issues facing the country ultimately mattered more to her vote.
“So do I care more about texts that he sent or the war in Iran and what that’s doing to gas prices?” Massey said. “Pretty clearly the latter.”
Massey said Platner’s appeal is that he speaks directly to voters’ concerns, not that he is without flaws.
“He owns them. He has apologized for them,” she said of the allegations.
Other supporters argue that Republicans are holding Platner to standards they have not applied to Trump.
“The Republicans don’t have much moral high ground to stand on when they’re criticizing him for what he’s done when Trump is a convicted felon,” said Annette Babcock, who is from Platner’s hometown of Sullivan.
The willingness to embrace candidates with baggage comes as many Democrats remain deeply dissatisfied with their party.
Only about two-thirds of Democrats had a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of their party in an April AP-NORC poll, a decline from 85% in September 2024. In a separate AP-NORC poll in August 2025, many Democrats described their political party as “weak” or “ineffective.”
But while Platner may fire up the base, questions linger about whether that will translate to general election wins. Platner now faces Republican Sen. Susan Collins, one of the GOP’s most durable incumbents and a politician with a long history of attracting independents and crossover Democratic voters.
“The test is never going to be who wins the primary,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who led the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm in 2022 and 2024. “It’s going to be who wins the general election.”
Not everyone is on board
Many Democrats have not given full throated support of Platner’s candidacy.
Among them is New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, who has primarily focused on defeating Collins rather than embracing Platner. Gillibrand helped lead the push for Franken’s resignation, saying “enough is enough” and that she believed the women who accused him.
Other Democrats have been more openly skeptical. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer have spoken out against Platner, while some lawmakers have offered only qualified endorsements after his primary victory.
“Well, Maine supports him. So yes,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., responded when asked if he supports Platner.
Emily Cherniack, the executive director of New Politics, an organization that recruits military veterans and national service leaders to run for office, said she has been “stunned” by some Democrats’ willingness to downplay allegations of aggression and volatility against Platner.
“Democrats are saying, we think it’s actually more important to win the majority and protect democracy, regardless of what he did. That to me is what the message is,” Cherniack said.
“Just be honest and explicit about that choice.”
___
Associated Press reporter Patrick Whittle in Maine contributed to this report.

HOUSTON — Republican Party of Texas Vice Chair D’rinda Randall became the party’s new leader Friday after defeating her former running mate, incumbent Chair Abraham George, shaking up the top of the state’s majority party ahead of the fall midterm elections.
Randall, who first became involved in GOP politics nearly two decades ago, campaigned on her accomplishments as the party’s second-in-command during the last two years, touting financial wins like the return of certain convention corporate sponsors and her support for grassroots members, pointing to volunteer training she led.
George conceded in a social media post shortly before Friday’s general session at the convention began, after delegates overwhelmingly backed Randall in an initial round of votes among each Senate district caucus.
“While this race has come to an end, our mission continues,” he said. “Now is the time to come together, unite behind our Republican nominees, support the entire Republican ticket in November, advance our legislative priorities in the next session, and continue standing firmly for the conservative principles outlined in our platform.”
George’s tenure came to an end after a memorable two-year run that saw the party claim long-sought legislative victories in Austin, including private school vouchers and a variety of socially conservative new laws. That productivity, driven by a hard-right turn in the Texas House, reduced the infighting that has plagued the Texas GOP in recent years. Attorney General Ken Paxton led a long list of elected officials and activists lining up behind George, while Randall touted a much narrower stable of backers.
Yet as the convention kicked off in earnest Thursday, the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston remained sparsely populated, with many of the over 7,000 registered delegates appearing to skip the event despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s incentive program for county parties to fill their allotted delegate seats. The convention also fell just before FIFA World Cup games kicked off in Houston, driving up the cost of lodging in a city that was hundreds of miles from many would-be delegates’ home towns.
Amid the grassroots apathy, George also faced criticism earlier this week from a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, the party’s governing board, who claimed the party was taking a $651,000 loss to run the convention. In a response, George said the deficit was closer to $100,000 and would end up in the black “when you factor in the registrations that will be paid over the next couple of days.” But that did not appear to allay concerns about the state of the party’s finances heading into the fall midterms.
Randall’s victory arrives at a crucial juncture for the party, as it tries to write its next chapter and unite voters behind Paxton, the Senate nominee who defeated incumbent John Cornyn after a bruising primary that has left behind scars within the GOP.
Trey Trainor, a longtime GOP operative who was tapped to lead the convention’s platform committee, which drafts the party’s planks, said George’s ousting stemmed from financial woes and a struggle to engage members.
“Look, I think everybody’s incredibly nervous about what happened during the primaries,” Trainor said. “They see that the Democrat Party is incredibly engaged. I think the low turnout that you see here shows some apathy of Republican voters, and they really look to the party leadership to create that enthusiasm and drive people to the polls.”
The removal of George, the Texas GOP’s first Indian American chair, also arrived at a time when the party is experiencing a wave of anti-Indian sentiment, particularly in George’s backyard of North Texas. Much of the same faction that has targeted Muslims for what they see as the proliferation of Sharia law is also raising alarm about the state’s fast-growing Indian community, urging a halt to legal immigration to combat alleged H-1B visa exploitation and labor competition.
George regularly draws racist replies to his social media posts, even when pushing for conservative priorities such as abolishing the H-1B visa program; yet, delegates at the convention did not indicate that topic surfaced in deliberations about the chair election.
The mix of headwinds facing George created the opening for Randall and her running mate, David Covey, a hard-right activist who previously served on the state party’s governing board and unsuccessfully ran against former House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont in 2024. Covey also previously ran for party chair in 2021, finishing as the runner-up to George’s predecessor, Matt Rinaldi.
Some of Randall’s supporters also charged that the incumbent chair has been too welcoming to establishment Republicans, after he warmed up to Phelan’s successor, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, following initial reservations over his election aided by Democrats. That line of criticism laid bare the challenge faced by party chairs, who must balance the delegates’ appetite for a grassroots fighter while also raising money from the party’s establishment ranks.
Burrows was set to address the convention — the first sitting speaker ever to do so — Friday afternoon.
In a statement, Burrows congratulated Randall and Covey and said he looked forward to “working together to strengthen our party and advance the conservative principles Texans value.”