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Next week's Republican midterm convention is being held in the same city that helped give rise to the Bush political dynasty. But that family's political influence is notably absent from today's GOP. KERA's Bill Zeeble reports from Dallas.
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GEORGE W BUSH: Ten years ago, when I first ran for governor, I had my last campaign rally in Dallas, and we won.
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BILL ZEEBLE, BYLINE: On the eve of being reelected to the presidency in November 2004, George W. Bush, in this C-Span video, stopped at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, tracing the importance of the city to his political career.
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BUSH: Tonight, after six other stops, I'm having my last campaign rally in Dallas, and we're going to win.
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ZEEBLE: Bush left what SMU political science professor Matthew Wilson calls a tremendous legacy nationally and specifically in Texas and Dallas, his current hometown.
MATTHEW WILSON: He did a lot for the Republican Party in Texas. In many ways, when Bush was president, those were the good old days for the Dallas GOP.
ZEEBLE: Dallas County shifted blue starting in the early 2000s. Even as the GOP is using the city to host its first ever midterm convention, the party's very different from the Bush era. Like his father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush, Wilson says George W. embraced the so-called three-legged stool of Reagan conservatism. He supported the use of American military power abroad, believed in free global markets with a liberal immigration policy and a faith-based social morality.
WILSON: What we have seen since - Trump and the MAGA movement seems ambivalent at best about all three of those.
ZEEBLE: George W. Bush also supported reducing taxes in government. While that GOP philosophy remains, there are programs Bush supported that have since been cut when it comes to funding, like the global distribution of HIV treatments. They've saved millions of lives. He mentioned what would be called PEPFAR in his 2003 State of the Union address.
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BUSH: And to meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight, I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
ZEEBLE: Last year, President Trump dismantled USAID, which distributed global disease prevention and nutrition programs, and moved PEPFAR to the State Department.
MICHAEL PHILLIPS: I think Bush's impact on the party has pretty much vanished.
ZEEBLE: That's Texas historian Michael Phillips. He says one Bush legacy Trump does benefit from is ongoing support from Christian evangelicals. Phillips says Bush locked in his GOP leadership because of his faith.
PHILLIPS: He could talk church. He had a conversion story. He was kind of lost, about substance abuse and alcohol. That kind of redemption story is a very critical part of evangelical culture, which really made him seem legitimate.
ZEEBLE: Trump retains that evangelical support. About 80% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2024, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Bill McKenzie is a longtime Dallas Morning News columnist and a senior editorial advisor at the George W. Bush Institute, which is housed within the Presidential Center. He says he wonders about the place Bush Republicans have in today's party.
BILL MCKENZIE: I still think that there are a number of compassionate conservatives who are there. Are they waiting for somebody to give voice to them? Are they voting someplace else? I don't know.
ZEEBLE: As for Bush, KERA requested an interview for this story but was told that he's retired from politics. He skipped the 2024 Republican convention, and when Republicans are in town next week, he'll be busy with events tied to the 25th anniversary of 9/11. For NPR News, I'm Bill Zeeble in Dallas.
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