Anti-Trump Republicans may play a key role in Texas in the fall
Houston immigration attorney Jacob Monty is a Republican who is supporting former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for president in 2020.
Some of his fellow Republicans might find that puzzling, if not seditious. But the presumptive Democratic nominee is facing off against a president, Donald Trump, who has led the GOP away from the priorities that once defined the party in Texas, at least.
“I became a Republican because of the Bush family,” Monty said last week. “When I met the Bush family in Houston, it was very natural for me.
“I never had to apologize for them,” he continued. “I always felt welcome. I never had to explain, ‘Oh, what Bush meant was …’ It was very easy to be a Republican.”
Times have changed, clearly. “The fundamental policies that make people a Republican — American exceptionalism, limited government, free trade, free enterprise — no one’s talking about those,” Monty said. “Those aren’t Trump values, for sure.”
He briefly supported Trump in the summer of 2016, serving on his National Hispanic Advisory Council, after the New York businessman became the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. But Monty left the Trump campaign in August that year, after Trump gave a draconian immigration speech in Phoenix in which the candidate promised to get rid of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, among other items.
“His whole persona is white nationalism,” Monty said. “He’s not going to ever adopt the mainstream Republican position. What’s scary is there is no mainstream Republican position, because he’s kind of co-opted the party.”
Many Republicans would agree, and some of them are organizing accordingly. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for example, is expected to speak at the Democratic National Convention next month. The Lincoln
Project, a political action committee led by Republicans and former Republicans, is running ads blasting Trump — to the latter’s apparent annoyance.
“Most of the money raised by the RINO losers of the so-called ‘Lincoln Project’, goes into their own pockets. With what I’ve done on Judges, Taxes, Regulations, Healthcare, the Military, Vets (Choice!) & protecting our great 2A, they should love Trump,” the president tweeted in May. “Problem is, I BEAT THEM ALL!”
The Lincoln Project this month announced its
Texas leadership team, which includes a number of longtime Republican activists and operatives in Texas, including Monty.
“Millions of people are out of work, the economy has tanked, corruption in the executive branch is rampant and people are afraid,” one of the Texas team members, Jenny Willis Beech, said in a statement. “It’s time to put an end to this president’s failed leadership.”
“Trump has been emboldened to normalize bigotry and use it as a strategy for his benefit,” said another, Abel Guerra. “It is our duty to stop him.”
It’s impossible to be sure how many Republican voters in Texas feel the same way — and how many are willing to cross the aisle for Biden, as The Lincoln Project is urging.
But with less than 100 days to go before the election, the evidence suggests that even a small number of disaffected conservative voters could have a decisive impact on the outcome in the state.
Polls for some months have found Trump virtually tied with Biden in Texas.
A Quinnipiac University poll released this month, for example, found Biden winning the support of 45 percent of registered voters, compared with 44 percent for Trump.
That same poll found U.S. Sen. John Cornyn leading Democrat MJ Hegar in this year’s Senate race by 47 percent to 38 percent — suggesting that Republicans running down ballot from the embattled president this year may be insulated, to some degree, from his travails.
But the Republicans organizing against the president aren’t worried about that, they say.
At this point, getting rid of Trump is their top priority.
“The nightmare that I’ve been preaching and worried about, that we could lose Texas — if that happens, the party will become a regional party. We’ll never have another Republican president. I certainly realize that,” Monty said. “Maybe we need to go into the wilderness and rebuild — and we’ll come out stronger, I believe.”
What’s interesting is that although Trump may deride his conservative opponents as “LOSERS,” that line of criticism may not resonate with Texas Republicans — who were, after all, in the habit of winning before his arrival on the scene.
“In 2000, 2004, I wanted to win, I cared,” Monty said. “This time, it feels different. I’m worried about the country more than I am about just winning it from a partisan perspective.”
It’s hard to find fault with the Republicans who feel that way.