Texas GOP wary of Trump ‘suspense’

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s debate pronouncement that he might not accept the results of a “rigged” election touched off a nationwide debate Thursday about whether his stance represents a threat to American Democracy.

While many of his rank-and-file supporters said they agreed with the sentiment, the Republican Party establishment that has become fractured over his candidacy since he won the GOP nomination remained largely silent.

That includes many Republicans in Texas — along with GOP members of Houston’s congressional delegation, who nearly all declined or ignored the Houston Chronicle’s requests for comment Thursday.

One exception was Houston Republican John Culberson, who

released a statement saying, “I always support our Republican nominees and I always support the will of the voters.”

Trump’s defenders, including campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, said Trump’s remarks were aimed at a “corrupt system” and compared them to disputed 2000 presidential election recount in Florida between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Trump, meanwhile, did little to back away from his assertion, which many historians consider unprecedented. At a rally in Ohio, a critical battleground state where Trump is tied with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the real estate mogul reinforced the impression that it would take a victory for him to respect the results of the Nov. 8 election.

“I would like to promise and pledge … that I will totally accept the results of this great and presidential election — if I win,” he said.

Later, Trump said he would accept “a clear election result,” but would reserve his right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of “a questionable result.”

‘Silence is complicity’

That did little to mollify Democrats, who were eager to portray Trump’s equivocation as a threat to public confidence in the U.S. electoral system. They also sought to spread the damage to down-ballot elections across the nation, portraying the Republicans’ silence as tacit approval of Trump’s remarks.

“Silence is complicity,” U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. “Evasion is unacceptable.”

Pelosi specifically called out Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Texas Republican John Cornyn, the U.S. Senate majority whip, was not available for comment Thursday, according to a spokesman.

Democrats trained their fire specifically on vulnerable Republicans in swing districts, including Texas Republican Will Hurd, who represents a border district spreading west from San Antonio. Hurd’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Other Republicans staying out of the fray were Houston area U.S. Reps. Mike McCaul, Ted Poe, Randy Weber, Pete Olson, Brian Babin, and Kevin Brady. The Trump campaign issued a statement from Brady late Wednesday congratulating Trump on his debate “victory,” and praising the GOP nominee on his tax proposals.

But Brady, a committee chairman who helped engineer the GOP’s biggest House majority in decades, did not comment on Trump’s refusal to say if he would accept the election results.

Trump’s campaign minimized his remarks, saying they are confident about his chances. In a contentious post-debate interview on CNN, Conway said Trump was merely expressing his concerns about media bias and the possibility of widespread voter irregularities. Absent widespread fraud, she said, Trump will likely win the election and accept the results.

“Donald Trump will accept the results of the election because he’s going to win the election,” she said. “So it will be easy to accept.”

With less than three weeks until Election Day, Trump is significantly behind in most of the polls, including most of the battleground states that will determine the election.

As added evidence of possible fraud, Trump went on Twitter to say that even though he won, the debate was rigged. “Why didn’t Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions — she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary,” he tweeted.

Trump’s national campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for evidence that Clinton was given the questions, which debate sponsors said were known in advance only to Fox News moderator Chris Wallace.

Many debate analysts on both sides of the partisan divide described Trump’s statement about the election results as an unforced error that could prove disastrous for his struggling campaign. Many Republicans said his refusal to commit to the election results overshadowed what was otherwise one of his most substantial debate performances. But even as he came under intense criticism — especially from Democrats — some analysts said his remarks left room for interpretation.

“I will keep you in suspense,” Trump said in response to a question from Wallace about pledging to abide by the results.

“Like so many things with Donald Trump, the problem is he tends to state things in very broad, imprecise terms, and leaves a lot of ambiguity,” said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University.

Wilson noted that some voters will take his remarks as an expression of concern about possible voter fraud, while others will take it as a threat to delegitimize the election. “What he really meant is a matter of interpretation.”

‘The voters decide’

In the Houston area, some Trump supporters said they take the candidate’s warnings about rigged election seriously.

“What he said last night I think was right,” said Cooper Jackson, 30, founder of the Houston Area for Donald Trump Facebook page. “We’ve got to do everything we can to try to make sure this election is true. I’m thinking about taking a day off work on Election Day to do some poll watching.”

Trump activist Jeana Blackford, 43, said a vote recount will be “absolutely 100 percent” necessary if signs of voter fraud emerge during the election, which she expected will happen.

Visitors to the Texas Capitol on Thursday mostly chuckled at the suggestion that Trump’s comments were a threat to democracy.

“It’s an election. Someone wins, someone loses,” said Lanny Lawsen, 38, a registered Democrat from Houston. “Who really cares if Donald Trump wants to accept the results? The voters decide.”

Kim Reyes, 61, a Dallas Republican, said Trump is within his right “not to concede before the election is over. Al Gore didn’t accept the results when we elected George Bush, and no one got this upset. So what’s the big deal now?”

Some political experts dismiss the analogy, distinguishing between postelection recount demands — which are common in tight races — and a preemptive repudiation of an election by a candidate who is behind in the polls. But questions about the integrity of U.S. elections are not new, particularly in modern American history. John F. Kennedy faced suspicions that he benefitted from some voting skullduggery in 1960, particularly in Texas and Illinois, which could have tipped the race. His opponent, Richard Nixon, chose not to pursue it.

Few expect Trump to follow suit. While most election officials say that widespread voter fraud is

“I would like to promise and pledge … that I will totally accept the results of this great and presidential election — if I win.” Donald Trump on Thursday

a remote possibility, if not impossible, Trump has relied on a 2012 Pew Center study of the states chronicling millions of instances of ineligible or dead voters waiting to be purged from voter rolls. Despite the problems, the Pew study did not conclude that the problems were evidence of

actual voter fraud.

“It’s like with so many things with Donald Trump,” Wilson said. “There’s a kernel of legitimate concern here that has been blown out of all proportion.”