The Freshman Lawmaker Working to Build Republicans’ Bench

AUSTIN, Texas — Rep. Brian Jack has been in Congress for just a little over a year, but the freshman from Georgia has quickly become one of the lead recruiters for House Republicans — crisscrossing districts to meet with candidates who could help the GOP hang on to its slim majority.

Republicans have grappled with messaging over the past year and have their backs up against the wall ahead of the upcoming midterms, when the party in power historically struggles, leading to members fleeing for the exits.

Now, between retirements and Republicans’ mid-cycle redistricting in the state, Texas has a number of new and open districts. And it’s up to Jack — who takes his role as deputy chair of the campaign arm for the House GOP deeply seriously — to help find the best of the bunch.

NOTUS joined Jack for part of a recent six-day swing through Texas, where he met with more than 10 candidates to learn who they are and determine whether they’re the right fit for their respective districts. He then takes the information he gathers to President Donald Trump and House Republican leadership to keep them informed and help them make endorsement decisions.

As he’s in these meetings, Jack says he’s looking for three specific things.

“First and foremost is electability,” Jack said. “Ultimately, this is a game where there are literally winners and losers. So you want to recruit people who can help support that.”

Next: Is the candidate a good fit?

“I’m big on ideological fits for the district,” he said. “Some districts, there’s a different ideological bent; other districts, there are other ideological fits. And I think it’s important to travel, frankly, to understand that. When you’re in a certain area, you could feel what that community wants and needs.”

And the third is determination and drive, because “rarely will you have a scenario in which you’re the only game in town, and everyone’s paying attention to the race. So you’ve got to be very creative, crafty and innovative to get your message out.”

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Jack’s fast rise in the House didn’t come out of nowhere. He started his career at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, then worked on Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign before transitioning to the Trump campaign and eventually with the political team in the White House.

In 2023, Speaker Mike Johnson, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson and Jack, in his capacity as the former president’s political director, would brief Trump on races and what they were seeing on the ground. Fast forward a couple of years, and those three are still briefing Trump on races — the only difference is that Jack’s now a member.

Jack considers himself a student of politics. He studies the background of the candidates he meets with. Questions for them are often just a formality — he knows many of the answers already, but wants to get a sense for who the person is, their social skills and if he could envision them representing that district.

“Have you ever read ‘The Ambition and The Power’?” Jack asked this reporter after the third candidate meeting of the day, as Nicki Minaj’s “Chun Swae” played over the car’s stereo. “It’s a great read.”

The book, authored by journalist John Barry and published in 1989, chronicles the rise of former Speaker Jim Wright, his view of politics, how he built strong allies and his time as speaker. Wright gave Barry unfettered on-the-record access to every meeting, conversation, and event he attended.

And what Jack tries to put into action is what’s established in the book’s opening pages: how important relationships were to Wright and how he established and nurtured them.

“Any member of Congress could help a colleague legislatively,” Barry wrote. “But sacrificing one’s own time and visiting a colleague’s constituents — well, that was special.”

NOTUS spent four days with Jack in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin and was able to watch him interview eight candidates: Abraham Enriquez, Tom Sell, John Lujan, Jace Yarbrough, Ryan Binkley, Chris Gober, Mark Teixeira and Carlos De La Cruz.

Many came prepared with campaign literature, a list of endorsements, and fundraising numbers. Others came with opposition research on their opponents and a stump speech for why they’re the best candidate to run in the general election.

One of his main goals while traveling throughout Texas was to get a pulse of the districts, who the constituents are and what issues matter most to them.

“Some of these districts don’t yet have that full identity, because it’s a new district that’s been assembled by bringing different districts together,” he said.

Which is why “it’s helpful to get out into the districts and feel directly from the people what they want to see in their candidates,” he added.

“I want to see from where the votes are coming,” Jack said. “If it’s from a more rural county that may have a more conservative bent, I think that informs the direction of the race. Do we have multiple candidates in certain areas that are going to split the vote from a specific county?”

Jack opened the meetings with a short speech explaining who he was and what he was there to do, and then the floor was open.

Some candidates impressed him more than others. But he never let that on.

One, when asked what committees he would like to serve on, responded with full confidence: “Main Street, Foreign Affairs and the Republican Study Committee.” Only one of those is an actual committee; the other two are caucuses, but Jack just nodded his head and carried on.

Another candidate was concerned that if he were to win, he would have to spend all his time in Washington and not get to come back home to the district and spend time there. Jack assured the candidate that would not be the case.

“There are some members who opt to spend a lot more time in Washington; they want to build relationships, and they want to leverage those relationships to advance the ball forward,” Jack said. “But then there are others who it seems like you’re going to be prime for, that want to get back to the district as soon as possible, get back to your wonderful family and just concentrate on all the wonderful things that you started as state representative and continue them as a member of Congress. You have a license to do that.”

He often emphasized to those he met with that his role was not to express support for a specific candidate, but to get a pulse of the race and report back to House leadership, Hudson and Trump about what he saw on the ground.

After they would leave, Jack would usually make one or two observations, but the most important one was whether they were a fit for the district.

“We saw yesterday the district in southeast San Antonio, that’s a different district than the district in Lubbock that Chairman [Jodey] Arrington is retiring from,” Jack said. “So meeting the candidates is important, but also understanding from the candidates through our own analysis from where the votes are coming, helps me understand a little bit more about the identity.”

For example, while eating dinner in Texas’ 12th Congressional District, home to Rep. Craig Goldman, Jack was still analyzing the makeup of the district.

“This was the home of Speaker Wright, and his influence is everywhere in this area,” Jack said. “So, it wouldn’t surprise me if people want to see people that have that potential to be leaders, like Craig Goldman.”

Jack thought he wanted to go into a policy lane, like tax. (AP Photo, Jeff Amy, File) Jeff Amy/AP

When he was new to elected office, Jack thought he needed to specialize in a policy area. He looked at people like Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, a tax expert, and thought he needed to find a lane similar to Smith’s.

It wasn’t until a dinner with a former colleague, Shahira Knight, that everything changed. Jack asked Knight — the former director of legislative affairs at the White House in Trump’s first term — what policy lanes she thought he should approach and specialize in.

She responded, “You already have your lane. It’s politics, and you should use that to help the party,’” Jack recalled.

“And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” he said.

He has leaned hard into the lane — and is beloved by leadership as a result.

“He’s got one of the sharpest political minds that I’ve ever encountered, very sound judgment, and he’s a very likable guy,” Hudson, the NRCC chair, told NOTUS. “It was an easy choice for me to make him my deputy, just because I trust his judgment, I trust his intellect and his knowledge of the districts.”

Speaker Mike Johnson called Jack an “exceptionally talented, effective, and dedicated Member of Congress.”

“Few of our colleagues are respected and trusted more,” Johnson said in a statement to NOTUS. “Brian combines a tireless work ethic and a servant’s heart to everything he does, and it is noticed and appreciated by all. He is a work horse, and not a show pony, as evidenced by his willingness to volunteer for difficult, low profile, but very important assignments.”

“Brian is quickly proving himself to be an indispensable man in our Republican Conference. I could not be a bigger fan,” he added.

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Apart from wowing Jack, each candidate wanted to know what it would take to receive Trump’s endorsement. Jack gave each person the same advice.

“The three things the president looks at are very simple,” Jack told a candidate in Dallas. “It’s polling, fundraising and who has endorsed who.”

“You want to be able to show the White House, ‘Hey, you know, yes, I’m a stalwart supporter of you, but I also have a clear trajectory to win. And look what I’ve already done so far.’ That’s, I think, what you want to convey to him,” Jack said.

Four of the candidates who met with Jack received a Trump endorsement shortly afterward — a clear indication that even Trump, who is known to eschew political advice and trust his own instincts when it comes to endorsements, also trusts what Jack has to say.

Mark Teixeira, the former Major League Baseball star, is the clear frontrunner in the race to replace retiring Rep. Chip Roy. He has raised a lot of money, and polling has him ahead of the rest of the field. He met with Jack, inviting him to a fundraiser for a local organization that assists underprivileged youth through baseball.

About a week after the fundraiser, Teixeira received a call from Jack.

“Brian was the one who called me,” Teixeira told NOTUS. “And he said, ‘I have the president in the Oval Office. He’d like to speak with you.’”

Shortly after, Trump posted on Truth Social, giving Teixeira his “complete and total endorsement.”

While the main purpose of these trips is to interview candidates, Jack is also adamant about finding time to meet with his current coworkers. That effort toward relationship building does not go unnoticed by his colleagues, who put him in the category of members who will eventually be in leadership.

Following a full day of candidate meetings one day, Jack called up fellow freshman Goldman and asked what he was doing for dinner. The two met up at Joe T Garcia’s, a Tex-Mex restaurant that’s considered a Fort Worth staple.

Immediately after it was off to Texas Christian University for a basketball game with Rep. Roger Williams, the chair of the Small Business Committee, which Jack also sits on.

Jack made a pitstop in Waco to visit the district office of Rep. Pete Sessions, who wasn’t even there, but Jack still spent over 45 minutes at the office talking with his staff.

Even before he was sworn in to Congress, his name was circulating as a potential NRCC chair should Hudson choose not to seek the position again.

While that didn’t happen, members believe it’s only a matter of when, not if, he rises in the leadership ranks.

“I think his future in Congress is unlimited,” Hudson said of Jack.