Victory is a Republican success without Trump
There are several reasons to have high hopes for U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, a Republican from Ellis County who was sworn in to represent Texas’ 6th Congressional
District on Friday after winning a special runoff election for the seat.
Chief among them is this: Unlike some of his peers, he isn’t afraid of Donald Trump and doesn’t owe the former president anything.
Indeed, Trump had backed Ellzey’s opponent, Susan Wright, in the special election to fill the seat previously held by her husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, who died from complications of COVID-19 in February. Ellzey’s election was considered something of an upset, as well as a setback for Trump, whose endorsement has been coveted in GOP primaries.
Still, according to Ellzey consultant Craig Murphy, Trump didn’t appear to have any hard feelings. The former president spoke with Ellzey on Wednesday, joking with him and sharing his number, saying the new congressman could call him anytime. Trump has talked of running again for president in 2024.
“I think Trump was a huge help to Wright, there’s no doubt about it,” Murphy said, noting that complete data on the race won’t be available for a couple of weeks. “But Jake Ellzey’s just a really good candidate — his life experience, all the stuff he’s done.”
Ellzey, 51, is a fighter pilot by background, who served in the Navy for two decades; he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2020. He had the backing of a number of highprofile Texas Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Harris County and longtime
Gov. Rick Perry, who has otherwise kept a low profile since leaving the Trump administration.
Trump has disavowed any responsibility for Wright’s defeat, and most Republicans are declining to lay the blame at his feet. They point instead to Wright’s consultants, who attacked Ellzey in a flurry of negative ads, and the D.C.-based Club for Growth, which financed most of the mailers.
“All of them were, like, beauti
ful works of art,” Murphy said, reflecting on that aspect of the campaign. “They would take Ellzey and draw him in some demonic shape and have somebody above him as a puppeteer, and stuff like that. But they just advertised themselves as negative advertising. … I think that really hurt them.”
Insert the usual caveats here: This was a special election runoff, and so turnout was low, but not bad for a special election. There’s also anecdotal evidence that Ellzey was the beneficiary of crossover votes from Democrats, who — perhaps in light of Trump’s endorsement of his opponent — deemed him the lesser of two evils.
All the same, there’s no reason to put an asterisk on Ellzey’s victory or to question his conservative bona fides. He illustrated that a respected mainstream Republican with a solid record can still prevail at the ballot box even if Trump backs the other candidate.
By contrast, consider what’s happening in the GOP primary fight for attorney general. Trump last week announced that he had decided to endorse the embattled incumbent, Ken Paxton, rather than Land Commissioner George P. Bush — who had backed Trump and sought his support despite a history of friction between “45” and members of the
Bush family.
“It is going to take a PATRIOT like Ken Paxton to advance America First policies in order to Make America Great Again,” Trump said in a statement announcing that Paxton had won his “complete and total” endorsement. “He is a true Texan who will keep Texas safe — and will never let you down!”
In reality, Paxton lets us down on a regular basis. He remains under indictment for securities fraud and faces an FBI probe of alleged abuse of his office; he has denied the allegations. In December, he did Trump’s bidding when he filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election in four battleground states. The Supreme Court quickly rejected it.
Still, Trump’s endorsement of Paxton, while not totally unexpected, couldn’t have been the news Bush was looking for.
The only person who came out of this mini-saga looking good is former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who launched her own campaign for attorney general last month. She was appointed to family court in Harris County by Gov. George W. Bush in 1999, and two years later was tapped by
Gov. Rick Perry for the 14th District Court of Appeals. She served on the state Supreme Court from 2009 until this year.
While Guzman has been generally supportive of Trump, she didn’t grovel for his endorsement or otherwise indicate that she considered it crucial to her prospects in next year’s GOP primary.
For Republicans to continue to seek Trump’s endorsement makes sense, say many political observers. His appeal to primary voters may be waning, but it’s still considerable. And the anti-endorsements Trump occasionally doles out tend to leave a mark, even now that they emanate from a remove, as Trump remains banned from Twitter and has to issue statements from his Mar-a-Lago bolthole.
Still, Ellzey’s victory should serve as a reminder that there’s another path to victory even as most congressional Republicans continue to support the “Big Lie” and refuse to hold Trump accountable for his actions Jan. 6.
Let’s hope more Republicans follow this alternative path, for the good of their party — and the country.