GOP candidates standing away from Trump

The predicament faced by Republicans in this year’s general election was encapsulated in a 20-second piece of video this past week.

U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, RAriz., was engaged in a televised debate with her Democratic challenger, former astronaut

Mark Kelly. Debate moderator

Ted Simons asked McSally if she’s proud of her support for President Donald Trump.

You could sense McSally’s political life flashing before her eyes as she summoned her nonanswer: “I’m proud to be fighting for Arizona every single day.”

Simons persisted, but McSally kept sidestepping the question.

At one point, McSally took Trump to task for his repeated insults directed at the late John McCain, the man McSally replaced in the U.S. Senate.

“Quite frankly, it pisses me off when he does it,” she said of Trump’s digs at McCain.

This is the same McSally who hugged Trump at a February rally in Phoenix and lauded him for an “amazing” State of the Union address that brought tears to her eyes.

“I’m flying on your wing, President Trump,” McSally said at that rally. “And we’re going to win in November!”

McSally, who trails Kelly in the polls with less than four weeks until Election Day, now appears, by choice, to be flying solo. Trump’s wing is a dangerous place right now for Republicans in battleground states or districts.

In San Antonio, we’ve got a few solo GOP fliers.

This past week, two Republicans locked in tough battles, 23rd Congressional District hopeful Tony Gonzales and incumbent state Sen. Pete Flores, participated in debates and barely mentioned Trump at all.

Back in June, when Gonzales was competing with Trump loyalist Raul Reyes in a fierce GOP runoff, he didn’t hesitate to spread the MAGA love.

A Gonzales campaign ad released at that time featured the former Navy cryptologist walking with a volunteer dressed up as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. It positioned Gonzales as a champion of Trump’s long-promised coast-tocoast wall on this country’s Southern border.

“Tony is running for Congress to stand with President Trump and fight for our conservative values, secure our borders, finish the wall,” the ad said.

In a Thursday night KSAT debate, however, Gonzales seemed determined to stand pretty far from Trump. He softened his stance on a border wall, saying merely that it could be useful in isolated spots.

Asked about Trump’s reported comments disparaging fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” Gonzales said: “I don’t always agree with the president, and I don’t appreciate the president attacking veterans.”

Gonzales is a dedicated socialmedia user, firing off multiple tweets per day. But over the past two months, he has mentioned Trump only once on Twitter, and it was a passing reference in a tweet commending Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Instead, Gonzales has concentrated on spreading a lie that his Democratic opponent, Gina Ortiz Jones, lives inWashington, D.C., rather than in District 23.

His basis for that allegation has been that Jones owns a D.C. condominium, which she purchased while working in the nation’s capital from2013 to 2017.

Despite evidence, presented in this column, that Jones rents out the condominium and has the tenant send monthly rent checks to Jones’ San Antonio address, Gonzales persisted with his lie in a Friday tweet.

The tweet offered a screenshot of the D.C. condominium building and falsely stated that Jones lives there. (Unsurprisingly, Gonzales neglected to provide a similar photo of the house he owns in Pensacola, Fla.)

District 23 is a heavily Latino piece of political turf that covers 29 counties and stretches from San Antonio toWest Texas. Flores’ district covers much of the same ground.

In last week’s KLRN debate with his Democratic challenger, state Rep. Roland Gutierrez, Flores defined himself as a bipartisan pragmatist. He avoided Trump, in the same way he has avoided any reference to the president on Twitter since late July.

Flores won the consistently Democratic Senate District 19 in 2018 under the peculiar circumstances of a special-election runoff. The expected heavy turnout during this general election puts him in a precarious position. Trump’s tattered coattails won’t help him.

In the Precinct 3 Bexar County commissioner race, Republican candidate Trish DeBerry has the benefit of a suburban North Side electorate that leans heavily GOP.

During a Sept. 30 Texas Public Radio forum, she and her Democratic opponent, attorney Christine Hortick, each were asked if they supported their party’s presidential nominee.

Hortick wholeheartedly endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

DeBerry talked about what a strange election cycle we’re in and declined to mention Trump by name.

“Yes,” DeBerry said. “I’ll be supporting the Republican nominee.”

Like McSally, she didn’t seem too proud of it.