The Republican Party has been infiltrated for far too long. Plenty in office may as well be Democrats.
And this RINO Republican got utterly humiliated by the last person he ever expected.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) narrowly won the Texas Republican primary runoff election on Tuesday, defeating a YouTube celebrity – barely.
“The future of America remains as bright as ever,” Gonzales wrote on X after his projected victory in the Texas 23rd Congressional District primary race. “Thank you #TX23 for continuing to place your faith in me.”
Gonzales was expected to win by less than 500 votes over Brandon Herrera, a digital entertainment creator known as “The AK Guy”.
In the huge, 800-mile-long district along the Texas-Mexico border, the 48-year-old incumbent earned 50.7% of the vote, while Herrara received 49.3%.
“We did an amazing thing,” Herrera wrote on X. “We looked down the biggest guns of the DC establishment to the tune of probably over $10 million, and told them they didn’t own us.”
“We made them fight for their lives,” he added.
Former President Donald Trump has not endorsed either contender.
Herrera, who said the former president couldn’t win the general election and criticized former first son Barron Trump on a Feb. 10 podcast, won endorsements from House Freedom Caucus members Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), as well as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
Gonzales received support from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who attended a fundraiser for the incumbent just days after Gonzales referred to GOP hardliners in Congress as “real scumbags.”
Gonzales comfortably defeated Herrera in the Texas GOP primary on March 5, but he fell short of the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff on Tuesday.
In the general election on November 5, he will compete with Democrat Santos Limon for the House seat in the generally moderate area.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan narrowly defeated Trump-backed candidate David Covey in his GOP primary runoff.
Phelan, who faced fire from the right for impeaching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on bribery and corruption allegations last year, defeated Covey by a margin of 52.3% to 47.3%.
Paxton was later acquitted in the state Senate, and on Tuesday, he advised Republicans against supporting Phelan for state speaker next year.
“My message to Austin is clear: to those considering supporting Dade Phelan as Speaker in 2025, ask your 15 colleagues who lost re-election how they feel about their decision now,” Paxton wrote on X, referencing Phelan-aligned Republicans defeated in the March 5 primary and subsequent runoff contests.
“You will not return if you vote for Dade Phelan again,” Paxton added.
In Texas’ 28th Congressional District, Republican voters selected retired Navy veteran Jay Furman to face troubled Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in November.
Cuellar, who has represented the 28th District in Congress since 2005, was indicted earlier this month together with his wife on charges of accepting $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani oil and gas company and a Mexican bank from 2014 to 2021.
The 68-year-old congressman, who went unchallenged in his primary race, has maintained his innocence.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
