Independent write-in candidate for Texas governor brings anti-establishment pitch to Texarkana

TEXARKANA, Texas – Jenn Mack Raphoon, a self-described “100 percent constitutionalist” running for Texas governor as an independent write-in candidate, said Texans who stayed home during the March primaries are sending a message the two major parties refuse to hear.

“They are exhausted. Disenfranchised,” Mack said in an interview with TXKtoday. “They’re tired of the mommy and daddy fighting. They want solutions.”

Mack, who campaigns under the name Jenn Mack, sat down with TXKtoday’s Stephen Parker while in Texarkana for an appearance on Zach Ratliff’s podcast. She is one of three candidates in the Nov. 3 general election, alongside Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, who is seeking a fourth term, and Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Unlike her opponents, Mack’s name will not appear on the ballot; voters must write it in.

A seventh-generation Texan who says she came from a military family and was once married to a Border Patrol agent, Mack said she decided to run because she believes the people of Texas have “relinquished their consent” to a government that no longer answers to them.

“It just built up to the point that it felt like our government declared war on us,” she said.

Homestead taxes, lobbying and the Constitution

Mack said her governing philosophy comes down to enforcing the state and federal constitutions as written rather than passing new laws. The measure of a legislator’s success, she said, should be “how many bills did we stop from coming through,” not how many passed.

Her most detailed policy position involves property taxes. Asked whether she would eliminate them outright, Mack clarified that her plan targets the homestead. Vacation homes, rental properties and commercial and corporate property would continue to be taxed, she said, and consumption taxes would continue to fund schools and emergency services. She cited Article 7, Section 3 of the Texas Constitution, which addresses school funding, and said homestead taxes could be abolished within three to five years.

“You should not be paying rent on something that you already own,” she said, describing her own grandmother, a widow, who she said could no longer afford the taxes on a house that had been paid off for more than 30 years.

She also said she would redirect tax abatements away from data centers and toward farmers and ranchers, and would end taxpayer-funded lobbying, which she called unconstitutional. She pointed to municipal utilities that hire lobbyists to argue for rate increases as an example.

Data centers, the grid and preparedness

Data centers have become a flashpoint in the Texarkana region, and Mack said she believes their real purpose is surveillance. She linked them to license plate reader networks, biometric collection and what she described as vehicle “kill switch” mandates, and questioned why lenders are extending what she said were more than a trillion dollars in loans to an industry she believes offers no financial return.

“I’m gonna ask the question of what data is being held, and for whom,” she said.

Mack said she is a strong supporter of nuclear energy, particularly small-scale reactors that could power microgrids, and pointed to a project between the military and the city of San Antonio as a model.

She also warned Texans to prepare for a grid failure, which she said is inevitable given the strain on the system, and urged residents to stock two weeks of water, food and medication before November. “This is not a scare tactic,” she said. “It’s just to say, let’s be prepared.”

Parker noted that most of Texarkana is not on ERCOT, the grid that failed during the February 2021 winter storm, but on the Eastern Interconnection. Mack said that grid is also vulnerable, and that the loss of a small number of transformers could take it down.

Border, family and faith

Mack said her views on border security were shaped by her marriage to a Border Patrol agent and by an encounter, while working in youth ministry, with a girl who had been trafficked. She described what she said is coordination among Mexican cartels, Hezbollah-linked groups and Chinese interests to move people and drugs into the country.

On what she calls protecting the family, Mack said no law or policy should conflict with the Bill of Rights, and she criticized gender-related medical procedures for minors. She also said the state should use castration or capital punishment for people convicted of sexually assaulting children, which she said would cause such crimes to “slowly start disappearing.” Texas law currently does not allow either penalty for those offenses.

Faith runs through her platform. Mack said Texas was once “unapologetic” about being the Bible Belt and that politics has itself become spiritual. “If we don’t understand that this is a spiritual and physical battle, then we are already on the wrong side,” she said.

Gambling and marijuana

Mack said she opposes expanding gambling in Texas, citing addiction rates in states like Pennsylvania and what she described as a link between casinos and human trafficking. She said the state has not yet properly managed the lottery it already has.

On marijuana, she said she would neither push to legalize more nor roll back what is currently legal, and she raised concerns about lab-manufactured Delta-8 and Delta-10 products. She said she is “on a rescue mission for Texas” and considers the issue “a neutral zone.”

Splitting the vote

Asked about the most common criticism she hears, Mack said it is the charge that she is splitting the vote or is “politically centric.”

“I’m an effect of the vote splitting, not the cause of it,” she said. She said she has been urged to withdraw but believes doing so would let Texas “fall.”

Mack described the write-in process itself as evidence of a system stacked against outsiders, recounting a court hearing involving the Secretary of State’s office in which she said the presiding judge had been replaced days earlier by an appointee of one of her opponents. TXKtoday has not independently verified that account.

Asked what one sentence she wants Texans to remember, Mack answered without hesitation: “End the era of the political dominance, give the nation back to the Lord and the power back to the people.”