Gov. Greg Abbott won his Republican primary outright Tuesday, capping a year during which he faced vocal challengers from his right.

While largely expected, the decisive victory allows Abbott to fully focus on the general election, where he will face Democrat Beto O’Rourke.

“Tonight Republicans sent a message they want to keep Texas the land of opportunity and prosperity for absolutely everybody, the prosperity that we have delivered over the past eight years,” Abbott said at his election-night rally in Corpus Christi.

With an estimated 79% of the vote in, Abbott had garnered 68%, according to unofficial results. His closest competitor was former Texas GOP Chair Allen West with 12%. West earned 17% of the vote in Denton County, compared to Abbott’s 62%.

O’Rourke cruised to victory in his primary, with over 90% of the vote from Democrats. He celebrated the win with a rally in Fort Worth, the seat of the traditionally red county, Tarrant, that he flipped in his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign.

“Tell me there’s a more important place for us to be in Texas, more important place for us to win, than this one right here,” O’Rourke said.

Abbott’s primary had been much more competitive than O’Rourke’s, even if the election night carried little suspense. The third-place finisher, Don Huffines, conceded within an hour after polls closed.

For months, Abbott’s primary opponents hounded him over his response to the coronavirus pandemic, criticizing his executive orders in its early stages — which included a statewide mask mandate and business shutdowns — and alleging he had not fought hard enough against local mandates. They also accused Abbott of not doing enough to secure the Texas-Mexico border.

Polling long gave Abbott a wide lead over his challengers, though the primary continued to attract attention because it seemed at times that Abbott was governing in response to the criticism from his right. For example, in October, Abbott issued a ban on all COVID-19 vaccine mandates, including by private businesses, even though his office had previously said they should be able to decide on their own.

Still, Abbott publicly ignored his primary opposition, and his campaign dismissed the idea that the governor was tacking right because of them.

Huffines in particular claimed credit for pushing Abbott to the right, a sentiment he repeated as he bowed out of the race.

“For over a year our campaign has driven the narrative in Texas and forced Greg Abbott to deliver real conservative victories,” Huffines said.

A former Dallas state senator who served one term before losing reelection in 2018, Huffines tapped his and his family’s fortunes to self-fund his campaign to the tune of seven figures. He also received heavy financial support from some of the state’s top hard-right donors, like Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.

West, coming off a short tenure as Texas GOP chair that was fraught with questions about his political ambitions, was better known than Huffines and ran less of an explicitly anti-Abbott campaign. He still worked to position himself to the right of Abbott when it came to issues like pandemic management and border security.

The primary got a late jolt in December when, on the last day of the filing period, someone named Rick Perry threw his hat in the ring. It was not the former governor, but a man from Springtown who was working with a Huffines supporter.

It does not appear many voters were fooled, however. Perry was receiving about 3% of the vote early Tuesday night.

Abbott had tremendous advantages in his primary, including a war chest that at one point topped $65 million. And he put it to use, spending $15 million from Jan. 21 through Feb. 19, including on TV ads that pitched him as tough on the border. He barnstormed the state from early January onward, making 60 campaign stops across the state, including here in Denton County.

Abbott had the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who backed him in June for reelection.

A Missouri City man was sentenced to 45 years in prison for shooting two security guards with an assault rifle outside a club in southwest Houston while free on bond in 2019, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Saturday.

Landon Kenrie “Ken” Johnson, 40,  shot one security officer five times and the other once while running towards the club with an assault rifle, just 20 minutes after being forced to leave because he was fighting on February 1, 2019. He committed the offense in Harris County after a court in Fort Bend had freed him on bond for a separate shooting.

“He started a fight at a club, was chased off and then returned with an AR-15 rifle to shoot the security guards who had chased him off,” Ogg said. “We are incredibly lucky no one was killed.”

A Harris County jury Friday sentenced Johnson to 45 years in prison after two days of hearing evidence of his prior bad deeds, including convictions for two robberies, an armed robbery, two charges of assaulting of a family member and injury to a child. He also has pending cases in Brazoria and Fort Bend counties.

Assistant District Attorney Traci Gibson, who prosecuted the case with ADA George Lindsey, said he deserved at least 45 years.

“He spent the last two decades committing violence,” Gibson said. “Habitual offenders have gotten with re-offending in Harris County and this verdict made it clear that this will not be tolerated.”

The case was investigated by The Houston Police Department.