THE WOODLANDS, Texas — This was supposed to be the peak of Kevin Brady’s career.

After biding his time for 19 years, the Texas Republican last fall clinched one of the most coveted perches in the House of Representatives: the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. With his friend Paul Ryan as speaker, he believed his time to accomplish big things had arrived.


Instead, with the political temperature rising — and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz on the march in Texas — Brady is in the fight of his political life.

He’s locked in a four-way primary here in the Houston suburbs, and stands a better-than-even chance of being thrown into an unpredictable May runoff in the toughest political climate in recent memory. Brady concedes it’s the stiffest challenge he’s faced in two decades — fueled by the overwhelming popularity of Cruz in the district, and the acute resentment toward everything Washington that Trump has harnessed so effectively.

Brady is one of the House GOP incumbents from Texas and other states, scrambling to fend off anti-establishment challengers in the season of Trump and Cruz. But the chairman’s situation is exceptional: Very rarely does a lawmaker so high in the House hierarchy have to sweat so hard to keep his seat.

The dynamics are eerily similar to when poorly funded Dave Brat came out of nowhere to topple former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia two years ago — one of Brady’s opponents called Brat an “inspiration.”

Brady’s three challengers — Steve Toth, Craig McMichael and Andre Dean — are running around East Texas saying the 10-term congressman has lost touch with the district. Brady’s name ID is high, but so are his negatives.

Brady’s challengers’ gripes are typical, but potentially potent — especially in this age of anti-incumbency.

They complain about the congressman’s votes for free trade and spending bills, and blame him for the government continuing to fund Planned Parenthood. Two major tea party groups armed with massive email lists are pushing Toth’s candidacy, as is Michael Berry, a popular Houston talk radio host. Brady’s voting record hews too closely to the Chamber of Commerce agenda, his opponents say. (As it happens, Brady is a former Chamber of Commerce executive.)

And they claim no one gives a lick that he’s chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee.

“No one cares about it,” said Toth, a former one-term state representative who is Brady’s most viable challenger. “The average person doesn’t know what Ways and Means is. I had someone come up to me and say, ‘weights and measurements? What do I care about that?’ I said, ‘Whatever.’”

“Nineteen years is too much,” Toth said, relaying the concerns he says he hears from voters. “We don’t like the way you’re voting anymore.”

The primary is on March 1, though Texas allows early, in-person voting for nearly two weeks leading up to Election Day. Should Brady fail to garner more than 50 percent, he’ll be forced into a May 24 runoff. The turnout will be decidedly lower then, but his opponents believe that if a majority of Republican voters oppose Brady in Round 1, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll come out to vote against him again.

Brady clearly senses the squeeze. In the first six weeks of the year, he spent an eye-popping $709,595, nearly nine times the amount he dropped for the same period before his previous primary.

Outside groups are already involved. In addition to nabbing the endorsements of two major local tea party groups, Toth has the backing of national conservative organizations Citizens United and the Madison Project. Earlier this month, Toth traveled to Washington and met with groups including Club for Growth and NumbersUSA, which focuses on curbing illegal immigration. A Club for Growth spokesman said the group is “watching the race.”

Cruz’s popularity here in Montgomery County, one of Texas’ largest, stands to benefit Toth, McMichael and Dean, so much so that Dean, a retired lieutenant colonel, plastered “I stand with Cruz” on his campaign literature — even though the Texas senator hasn’t endorsed him.

The theory of the case for all three candidates is that the district — the fourth most conservative in the nation, according to one index — won’t vote for Cruz or Trump, and Brady at the same time.

With one wary eye on the presidential race, D.C. Republicans have taken note of what’s happening here. Top GOP officials have said in recent days that the race is tightening and a runoff is likely.

But Brady isn’t the only House GOP incumbent on the hot seat in Texas. In Tyler, Rep. Louie Gohmert’s race is close. Rep. John Culberson, who represents the eastern part of Houston, has a tough contest, and longtime Rep. Lamar Smith, who represents a district that stretches from Austin to San Antonio, has reason for concern, sources familiar with the race say. Washington Republicans are less concerned about Rep. Pete Sessions, who also has a primary challenge in the Dallas area.

Republican primaries are raging in other states, too. Reps. Martha Roby and Bradley Byrne have intraparty races in Alabama, and North Carolina has a mess of Republican-on-Republican fighting, including a race between Reps. George Holding and Renee Ellmers.

But the dynamic here stands out. Toth, Dean and McMichael are practically working in concert to push the Ways and Means chairman below 50 percent. They won’t speak ill of each other, and have even arranged to campaign at different polling locations to ensure they aren’t fighting over votes.

“My ultimate goal when I started this was to beat Kevin Brady,” said the 38-year-old McMichael, a computer network engineer who ran against Brady in 2014, garnering 32 percent of the vote after spending just several thousand dollars. “So if someone else does it, I’m OK with that.”

Dean, who was parked on the side of Highway 105 in Conroe this week, his Ford Excursion covered in campaign posters, said, “If Steve Toth is in the runoff, I will spend the next three months campaigning to get him elected.”

Brady, who is in Washington this week because Congress is in session, acknowledged that Cruz’s support in his district is a big wild card in his race.

“That’s part of the unpredictability of the entire election season this year,” the genial 60-year-old lawmaker said in an interview. “And perhaps even more so in Texas, because obviously Sen. Cruz is our home-state senator, has a great deal of support in our district, and so yeah, there is that dynamic.”

Brady wouldn’t concede he was heading for a runoff or discuss his prospects in a potential May contest.

“Having four people in the race is always a challenge mathematically, but we have a strong base of support, so we’re pushing through [to] Election Day, expecting to maximize our votes — and we expect to win,” Brady said. Asked if he’d win March 1, Brady said, “Whatever the turnout’s going to be, we think it’s going to be a very strong showing and we got a very strong conservative message, so we’re going straight to Tuesday.”

Brady knocks his opponents as untested and lacking any governing record to speak of. He has a massive billboard on I-45 North between Houston and The Woodlands that declares him a “proven conservative.” He criticizes Toth for abandoning campaign promises while serving in Austin, only to fail later in his bid for a state Senate seat.

Brady seems to believe that Texans appreciate his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee and should keep him in Congress for that reason. He touted the first 60 days of his chairmanship, saying he cut taxes by $600 billion, a reference to a package of tax breaks for businesses approved late last year. He says he reined in the IRS, and “I stopped — just killed — President Obama’s $10-a-barrel gas tax.” That tax was never going to become law, whether Brady was chairman or not.

Toth owns his business and Dean is retired, giving them flexibility to campaign during the week. Brady, on the other hand, spends his weekdays in Washington, which has become an issue. He participated in just one debate in person and several by phone, allowing his opponents free rein to criticize his record without a response.

But the congressman’s wife, Cathy Brady, is a constant presence in the district. Wearing a “Brady for Congress” shirt and toting a campaign sign, she stood in the parking lot of the South County Community Center here Tuesday, with Toth and tea party opponents standing nearby. Many voters knew Cathy and stopped to hug her and chat. Two-thirds of the primary vote comes from Montgomery County, and 60 percent of that vote is cast at the center. Candidates set up tents, bring sandwiches and spend the day. It resembled a Grateful Dead tailgate more than a polling place.

“People may not agree on a vote, but for the most part, everyone knows who they have in office right now is honest and very effective. And he has such a position, it’s kind of crazy to even consider throwing that away,” Cathy Brady said in an interview, referring to her husband’s elevated stature.

Brady prides himself on coming home every weekend, and his wife brushed aside any comparison to Cantor’s primary.

“You just have to fight hard,” she said. “We have a lot of support. Kevin’s been in the community for so long. His schedule — he comes home on the weekend, goes to an event on Friday night, goes to events on Saturday morning bright and early, goes to an event Saturday during the day, goes to at least four or five every weekend. He just never stops. I don’t know how he gets his energy.”

But some prominent conservative leaders here appear unwilling to give him another chance. John Wertz, a co-founder of the Montgomery County Tea Party, said Brady lost him four years ago when he said former House Speaker John Boehner was a conservative. Julie Turner, head of Texas Patriots PAC, said Brady’s chairmanship means nothing to her.

“He talks about what he can do for our district since he’s chairman of Ways and Means,” Turner said. “I don’t want him to do something for this district. I want him to vote our values. The good ideas he has on tax policy are out there, and he’s been pushing them a long time. But if he’s not doing the work of this district. I think we need a change.”

Ryan English, a 34-year-old from The Woodlands, came here to vote for Toth on Tuesday, before snapping a photo with the candidate in the parking lot. He seems to typify how the presidential campaign is seeping into this House race.

English said he didn’t know much about Brady, besides the fact that he voted party line. He then added, “He’s lock step and barrel with the rest of the Republicans over there. I want to clean house.”

Asked why he supports Toth, he said he heard nice things about the challenger on conservative radio. “I’m a Ted Cruz supporter,” English added.

