Abbott last year signed into law the six-week abortion ban that became a model for red states that wanted to restrict access to the procedure. Republicans hailed the measure as a win for life in a state that used to have 50,000 abortions a year.

The governor’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the video targeting him.

Not yet a year old, the organization — the other “MAGA,” as some know it — has snowballed into a major Texas activism hub boasting more than 50,000 members on Facebook. Their recent online hits, including the “Whose Choice?” ad and another targeting Abbott’s views on education, guns and transgender youth, have garnered national headlines and thousands of dollars in donations.

The group now plans to expand ahead of the November midterm elections, when Abbott runs for a third term against former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke. By mid-August, Mothers Against Greg Abbott will establish about a dozen chapters across the state, including posts in major cities such as Houston and San Antonio and regional outfits in the Rio Grande Valley and Texas Panhandle.

“After school starts and everybody comes back from vacation, we can hit the ground running,” said Thompson, a 52-year-old mother of three. “From the middle of August until November, it's going to be crazy. We've been trying hard to build up our group, build out the community, start producing content, line up the content for the fall, line up the webinars, line up the messaging.”

Thompson, who lives in Austin, founded Mothers Against Greg Abbott in August 2021, dismayed over the governor’s work to ban mask mandates in public schools. Her youngest son had been in the hospital, and she feared his return to a classroom where children could easily spread COVID-19. She couldn’t sleep, unsettled by the feeling that she couldn’t protect her child.