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It initially appeared that Springer had lost the 2012 Republican primary election, when his chief opponent, Trent McKnight, a rancher from Throckmorton County, backed by Governor Rick Perry, state agriculture commissioner Todd Staples, the Texas Farm Bureau, and the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.
In 1991, Waterfield, having relocated permanently to Austin, became the assistant to Democrat-turned-Republican Rick Perry, the future governor of Texas who in 1990 had unseated the Democrat Jim Hightower in a heated race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner.