[2] The Republican Party developed dramatically in Texas during the Reconstruction era, after constitutional amendments freeing the slaves and giving suffrage to black males.

Men such as William Madison McDonald in Fort Worth, Norris Wright Cuney in Galveston, and Henry Clay Ferguson worked for the black community and the state.

In the year 1876, Republicans had made gradual gains in Texas, earning nearly one-third of the statewide vote and electing a small number of candidates to the State Legislature (including several African Americans).

The Democrats passed disfranchising laws near the turn of the century requiring poll taxes be paid prior to voter registration; together with the party establishing white primaries, black voting dropped dramatically, from more than 100,000 statewide in the 1890s, to 5,000 in 1906.

By contrast, the Democratic primary in the same year drew 821,234 voters, as disfranchisement was well established, and Texas was essentially a one-party, white-only voting state.

He is credited as the "architect" of John Tower's successful campaign to fill Lyndon Johnson's vacant U.S. Senate seat, a victory that was a breakthrough in the party's attempts to gain a foothold in Texas politics.

[6] In 1966, two Republicans were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, including future President George H. W. Bush, for the first time since Reconstruction.

In 1984, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Phil Gramm led a GOP ticket that relied upon the party to provide a centralized network of communications.

Throughout the rest of the decade, the total Republican vote continued to increase, and the party made large gains in both the state legislature and in local races.

"[13] In 2022, Tony Gonzales was the only member of the Texas Republican delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote in favor of codifying the right to same-sex marriage into federal law.

[14] The party is responsible for a near-total prohibition on abortion in Texas, and has rejected attempts to codify exceptions for the pregnant individual's life or health.

"[citation needed] The convention included three screenings of 2000 Mules, a film by Dinesh D'Souza that falsely alleged an organized criminal "ballot harvesting" scheme by Democratic-aligned operatives to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump.

"[citation needed] The party rebuked longtime Texas senator John Cornyn for participating in bipartisan negotiations regarding guns, after a recent series of mass shootings.

[37] Reason called the "LGBT component" of the platform "a weird throwback" that is "reminiscent of how conservatives used to talk about gay marriage back in the 1990s.

"[29] The decision to exclude the Log Cabin Republicans from the convention was criticized by Donald Trump Jr., who said in a statement to Breitbart News that it amounted to “canceling a group of gay conservatives who are standing in the breach with us”.

"[38] According to the Houston Chronicle, "Measures adopted to the party's platform at the convention are not set laws, rather they act as a 'mission statement' of sorts for the party over the next two years",[39] and according to the National Public Radio "It remains an open question as to how closely the priorities outlined in the 2022 platform reflect the views of regular Republicans in Texas".

[28] Party platforms in Texas are non-binding on elected officials, a frequent source of frustration for the most hardcore partisan activists.