Actor Matthew McConaughey, who has starred in movies like Dallas Buyers Club, Magic Mike, and Interstellar, is planning to run for governor of Texas. McConaughey, 51, was born in Uvalde, Texas. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and children. In March, he said on a Texas podcast that running for governor was “a true consideration.”
“I’m looking into now again, what is my leadership role?” he said. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”
Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based Republican strategist, says that he was “a little more surprised that people aren’t taking him more seriously, honestly. Celebrity in this country counts for a lot … it’s not like some C-list actor no one likes. He has an appeal.”
The current Texas governor, Greg Abbott, is running for a third term in 2022. He is still a force to be reckoned with, even though he has faced controversy “over his handling of a winter storm earlier this year which crippled the power grid, left 125 Texans dead and made state Republicans a national laughing stock” according to The Guardian.
It is unclear under what party McConaughey would run. He considers himself a centrist, but some fear that McConaughey would run as an independent, which would split the vote and put Abbott back in power. According to Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, “Texas doesn’t need a third party, Matthew! We need a second party.” A hint about McConaughey’s political leanings comes from Politico's Meredith McGraw who has said that he had a call with "a deep-pocketed moderate Republican and energy CEO."
State Republicans are not worried about an election between McConaughey and Abbott just yet. "If he starts a PAC, gets a website, that would be a real signal,” an Austin-based Republican operative said, according to McGraw. “A lot of this seems like telephone chatter — one person passing it to another person.”
McConaughey would not be the first celebrity to run for office. Ronald Reagan was a movie star before becoming governor of California and later on president, where he won against incumbent Jimmy Carter. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a bodybuilder and actor, became governor of California. Wrestler Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota. Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. He was well-known for his reality show The Apprentice.
Texas currently does not have a Democratic candidate who is officially running yet. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said that he would “welcome him” if McConaughey wanted to run as a Democrat. “He’s young, good-looking, smart and has a little wildness — but this is Texas. We like that stuff,” Hinojosa said. “He has not reached out to the party that I know of. It’s absolutely up in the air.” However, Hinojosa says that if McConaughey runs as an Independent, he would basically guarantee that Abbott gets reelected.
“Everybody loves you until you take a position. Right now you have a blank slate. You could go to a campaign event with him and get to meet a movie star but it’s a little different when he says he’s pro-life or pro-choice and there’s 50 other issues you could pick on that would have the same effect,” said a senior Texas Republican operative. “There’s a difference between asking if it’s a good idea or really running.” McConaughey has not made any type of contribution to a candidate and has not voted in a Texas primary since 2012.
If McConaughey ran and he won, then he would join a long list of celebrities-turned-politician.
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