San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Sen. Cruz pulls a surprise in District 23 runoff
If endorsements were votes, Tony Gonzales would have locked up the District 23 Republican race months ago.
The affable former Navy cryptologist almost immediately established himself among party leaders as the Republican candidate most likely to thread the needle and keep this sprawling, heavily Latino congressional swing district in GOP hands.
Gonzales got the backing of outgoing District 23 Congressman Will Hurd, Land Commissioner George P. Bush, former Gov. Rick Perry, former U.S.
Sen. Phil Gramm, Houston Congressman Dan Crenshaw and the two top Republican leaders in the U.S. House: Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise.
By comparison, Gonzales’ runoff opponent, Raul Reyes Jr., has been treated like a party crashing rogue by GOP leaders.
Up until Tuesday, the biggest endorsement Reyes could claim was from Ted Nugent, the celebrated composer of “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang.”
That all changed with the bombshell announcement that Ted Cruz, the biggest star in the Texas Republican constellation, not only was endorsing Reyes, but launching an ad buy featuring a 30-second video testimonial from Cruz.
Jobs, Freedom and Security,
Cruz’s leadership political action committee, spent $109,788 for media/production on the pro-Reyes ad, according to a campaign finance report filed June 30.
“Texans don’t back down from a fight, and we don’t surrender,” the senator said in the ad. “That’s why we need to send conservative warriors to defeat Nancy Pelosi’s agenda and show some of our Republicans what a backbone is.”
Reyes, Cruz insisted, is just such a conservative warrior.
Cruz’s late-June surprise — two days into early voting for the runoff — had two discernible effects:
It sent Republican Party veterans into private fits of consternation, because they view Reyes — a blunt border hawk and social-conservative crusader — as someone who would have no hope in a District 23 general election.
The Cruz endorsement also sent staffers at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee into spasms of giddiness, not only because Reyes looks like an easier candidate for Democratic nominee Gina Ortiz Jones to beat, but also because Cruz is forcing Gonzales to deplete resources he otherwise could have saved for the general election.
Matt Mackowiak, Gonzales’ campaign spokesman, called Cruz’s move a “catastrophic” and “strategically indefensible” endorsement of a candidate “who cannot win” in District 23.
One thing Cruz couldn’t achieve with his endorsement, however, was blocking President Donald Trump from backing Gonzales.
According to the New York Times, McCarthy lobbied for Trump to endorse Gonzales, but Trump hesitated after Cruz called the president and urged him not to oppose Reyes, an ardent supporter of Trump’s long-promised border wall.
On Friday, however, Trump tweeted out his “complete and total” endorsement of Gonzales, calling him “Strong on the Economy, Life and the Second Amendment.”
These dueling high-powered endorsements will only intensify the divisiveness of what has been a remarkably vitriolic GOP match-up.
Reyes, a retired Air Force officer, has described Gonzales — a former Defense Department legislative fellow in the office of U.S. Sen. Marco, Rubio, R-Fla. — as someone “in bed with socialists,” because Gonzales’ foundation donated $600 last year to the League of United Latin American Citizens’ scholarship fund.
For his part, Gonzales has said of his opponent: “You know Reyes is lying when his lips are moving.”
The two candidates never could agree on when and where to debate. They argued over whether Reyes got booed off the stage at a recent luncheon. Gonzales’ mother accused Reyes’ campaign of spying on her son.
Otherwise, these two guys get along great.
Cruz’s endorsement was a throwback to his early days in the U.S. Senate, when he seemed to go out of his way to irritate and castigate the leaders of his own party.
In 2014, Cruz pointedly refused to endorse his Senate colleague, John Cornyn, in the Texas primary. That same year, he also praised tea party insurgent Katrina Pierson, who launched a primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions.
Since losing the 2016 presidential nomination to Trump (and getting grief from fellow Republicans for initially withholding an endorsement for Trump), Cruz has tried to redefine himself as a team player and legislative deal maker.
His Reyes endorsement flies in the face of that effort, but it makes sense if you think of this runoff as the preview of a looming clash between Cruz and Hurd, both of whom are pondering a 2024 presidential bid.
Another throwback aspect to this weird situation is that we now have Cruz and Trump, just like in 2016, on opposite ends of a bitter political battle.
Among other things, the results will tell us something about how much a Trump or Cruz endorsement is worth in the summer of 2020.