» Bexar GOP still eyeing vote fraud.
Many Bexar County Republicans who have supported President Donald Trump are still concerned about possible election fraud but were appalled by the violence at the U.S. Capitol and say it’s time for the nation to unite and move forward.
Trump, under a mounting threat from lawmakers to remove him from office prior to Presidentelect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, said Thursday that he will leave the White House peacefully after Congress affirmed the election results the night before. In a video, he condemned the violence a day earlier and acknowledged his presidency would soon end, calling for “healing and reconciliation.”
In Bexar County, a high-ranking elected official found Trump’s actions before the riot “reprehensible,” while a former precinct chair running for a school board seat doesn’t blame the president. Others saw both sides. Gina Castañeda, a Bexar County Republican precinct chair and local supporter of Latinos for Trump, said she was shocked by the infiltration of rioters inside the iconic government building. She wasn’t at the Capitol or at Trump’s rally at the White House but heard about the melee through news reports and firsthand accounts from friends while in Washington this week.
“One of them called me. She said it just went utterly crazy,” Castañeda said, recalling a conversation with a Republican from California.
“She just said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’” added Castañeda, 65, a South Side political operative.
Castañeda stands by Trump’s al
legations of voter fraud despite the president and his legal team losing more than 50 lawsuits seeking to overturn the November election results, some of which were rejected with sharp criticism by judges appointed by Trump himself. No evidence of widespread fraud was found.
“Trump was running the country like a business. Not a political business but as a business because that’s his background,” Castañeda said. “So you’ve got to understand he is not political. He is just a New Yorker, a Yankee straight-in-your-face man. He’s going to tell you what it is and how it is. Good in business, a novice in politics.”
Castañeda said she spoke to a contingent of about 40 Republicans from the San Antonio area, including Boerne and New Braunfels, before they attended the Washington rally.
“I told them, ‘No guns, no knives, nothing. I’m hoping that you will follow that.’ And they did. So I’m very proud of the San Antonians that were out there representing. But at the same time, I was very dismayed at what had been done,” she said. “I’ve never known Republicans to act that way.”
Although Trump accused Vice President Mike Pence of lacking the courage to delay Wednesday’s certification of election results by Congress, Castañeda said she’s not taking a side between the two top elected leaders.
“I don’t have a position because Pence is a very impeccable man,” she said.
Officially, the Bexar County Republican Party and many elected leaders in the GOP haven’t publicly commented on the president’s rally and the violence at the Capitol.
John Austin, Bexar’s Republican chairman, said the party would likely “still support Trump in general.”
Jake Kosiba, a former Republican precinct chair who is running for a seat on the Northside Independent School District board of trustees in May, said he’s disappointed in Pence and other Republicans in Congress for not voting to put the election certification on hold.
Although Biden had about 81.2 million votes, while Trump received 74.2 million, some Republicans insist irregularities in key battleground states cast a shadow on the electoral process. Extensive investigations haven’t turned up evidence of such irregularities.
“I feel that Pence had an obligation, he has that constitutional authority to set it aside. Let’s look into this. I feel like he did not do that and stepped aside, which angered about 75 million voters,” said Kosiba, 28.
He said he doesn’t blame Trump for Wednesday’s deadly attack on the Capitol.
“As of right now, I still support the president. I don’t know the full story of how it happened, what escalated for that protest to happen,” he said. “I may not have closure, but whichever side we’re on, we somehow have to come together as a nation. The last couple of years and the last two presidents, it’s been very divisive on both fronts, when we had Barack Obama and when we had Donald Trump.”
Newly elected Bexar County Commissioner Trish Deberry, the only Republican on the Commissioners Court, said she supports Pence for allowing the certification to occur.
“The president certainly had a right to be able to contest the election. But it became very clear over time that his claims could not be justified. So I think it showed courage on the part of Pence to stand up against somebody that he has followed and supported,” said Deberry, who represents Precinct 3 on the North Side. “What he was trying to do was stand up for America. He was doing the right thing.”
Deberry, who has shown support for Trump in the past, denounced his actions Wednesday.
“Inciting of violence of any sort is not presidential. Nor does it indicate any sort of diplomacy or leadership. And quite frankly, in a time of a global pandemic and the civil unrest that we’ve seen, his actions were completely unnecessary, unwarranted and reprehensible,” she said.
“His comments were very incendiary,” Deberry said.
She said the events this week, including Republican congressional losses in Georgia, signal a need for the party to return to communications grounded in “kindness, civility and something much less antagonistic than it has been.”
Castañeda, while far less critical of Trump, said she supports his call for healing and reconciliation.
“Weas a whole nation just need to stop, relax. Let’s put our heads together, start talking to someone. Nobody’s evil. I just think communication has been a total breakdown,” she said.