DALLAS — Democrat Mike Collier is ready for another run in 2022. And this year he says he has the resources to not only win the primary, but also defeat incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. And Collier says it doesn’t matter he’s never been in office or served in the Texas Senate. The real skill needed in the Lieutenant Governor, he says, is the ability to set the right agenda to solve complex problems.
“The property tax problem is complicated. Fixing the grid is complicated. Finding permanent funding for education is complicated. The politics of getting people to agree to expand Medicaid is complicated. I think that’s the skill that we need,” Collier said on Inside Texas Politics.
And it appears the Houston-area accountant is off to a strong start in terms of fundraising. The most recent figures are due to Federal Election Commission by the end of this month. And while Collier says he’s not allowed to divulge specifics before that time, he is happy with the campaign’s fundraising haul in the fourth quarter of 2021. He says more than 10,000 individual Texans donated. And he promised on Inside Texas Politics not to take any money from corporate PACs (political action committees).
“You’ll see that it’s multiple, many times where we were at this point in the election cycle four years ago,” said Collier.
And four years ago, Collier came close to defeating Dan Patrick in this same race. Collier lost by five percentage points, around 400,000 votes or so. And he says that was on a shoestring budget. Collier says his campaign is more sophisticated this year. And while he says his last campaign was almost exclusively digital, in 2022 they have resources to layer in other forms of communication.
All of those tools will be needed to help increase the Democrat’s exposure across the state. A recent statewide poll showed that around six out of 10 Texans don’t even know who he is. But he says the infrastructure he now has in place and the fact he’s been helping Democrats for years will serve him well.
“Imagine how those numbers would look if I hadn’t been working to help Democrats win and to help myself,” he said.
Collier says one of his main priorities would be to lower property taxes. But that is easier said than done as property values continue to skyrocket all across Texas. Collier says the key is to make the system fair again. He says large commercial and industrial properties are not paying taxes on these inflated appraisals, instead paying less than they should due to breaks provided by government.
“To solve the property tax problem we must deal with it honestly. We have to deal with the state not collecting taxes from the owners of large, commercial/industrial properties. Otherwise, they are just mocking us,” said Collier.
The Texas Primary is currently scheduled for March 1, 2022.
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