Daly: Some Thoughts on Dan Crenshaw's Defeat

The congressman was primaried out of office for being insufficiently MAGA.

Last Tuesday marked the official start of the midterm election season, with three states holding their primaries. Nationally, most eyes were on Texas, where a number of controversial candidates were running for their party’s nomination for high office.

The results were… fairly disheartening — at least for us remnant conservatives who (perhaps foolishly) still hold out hope for a little bit of character and integrity in positions of public leadership.

Incumbent GOP congressman, Tony Gonzales, fared well enough to head into a runoff election in Texas’ 23^rd Congressional District. This, despite a number of lawmakers (including in his own party) calling on him to resign following allegations that he pressured a staffer into an extramarital affair with him. The staffer later committed suicide by setting herself on fire, but an endorsement from President Trump has helped keep Gonzales competitive in the race.

Also performing well enough for a runoff was Republican U.S. Senate candidate, and current Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton. Paxton is infamous for his numerous acts of professional corruption (met with both criminal indictments and impeachment), his bizarre legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and his serial philandering. If nominated over incumbent GOP senator John Cornyn, his baggage would all but assure the Democrats taking over the seat in November. Yet, unlike with Texas’ 23^rd, President Trump refused to endorse anyone in the race heading into March 3. This let Paxton run on his uniquely close relationship with (and devotion to) the president — and not much else. Paxton barely spent any time campaigning, and he and his allies put just $4 million into the race. Yet, it was enough to give him the lead in most of the polls heading into the election.

Conversely, Cornyn (who’s pretty MAGA in his own right, but can’t compete at Paxton’s comic bookish level on that front) campaigned like a mad man. He and his allies spent a whopping $71 million on the campaign, which resulted in a surprise one-point victory. Cornyn is hoping his narrow win will compel Trump to get off the sidelines, endorse his campaign going into the May runoff, and put him over the top.

But the real bummer of the night was Dan Crenshaw, the decorated former U.S. Navy SEAL, and four-term incumbent GOP congressman, losing his primary race. He did so by a wide margin to a Tucker Carlson-backed, anti-Ukraine, MAGA populist named Steve Toth.

I found it sad for a few reasons.

Not so long ago, Crenshaw was widely believed to be the future of the Republican Party. He was a young, patriotic war-hero with traditionally conservative values, who even enjoyed some brief celebrity status as a unifying pop-culture figure. But the Trump era has had a way of derailing the political careers of conscientious Republicans, and Crenshaw, as an elected leader, has often found himself walking a tightrope between serving his country honorably (as he did in the military), and abiding by the MAGA rules of Republican expectations.

To those outside of the MAGA-verse, Crenshaw sure seemed to do what was required of him to remain politically viable in today’s GOP, even if he didn’t always look comfortable doing it. He consummately fawned over Trump, slammed his opponents, and reliably voted for legislation Trump supported as president. Crenshaw also voted against both of Trump’s impeachments. But to Trump devotees, the congressman hadn’t surrendered enough of his soul to the cause. They deemed him insufficiently loyal to Dear Leader and the “America First” agenda.

Crenshaw’s cardinal sins included voting to certify the results of the 2020 election, and publicly criticizing Republicans and pro-Trump media figures who promoted Trump’s bogus “stolen election” claims. He also got into hot water for supporting bipartisan border-enforcement legislation when Joe Biden was president, which turned out to be a party no-no because Trump, in his effort to return to the White House, wanted to run on the issue of a porous southern border. Toth framed Crenshaw’s acts as a “betrayal” of their constituents, the party, and the country.

It’s sad to think that prioritizing the nation and U.S. Constitution over one man’s ego is akin to treason in today’s GOP, but it is, and Toth successfully presented it as such. So did Trump, for that matter; Crenshaw was the only incumbent House Republican in Texas who he refused to endorse, despite the congressman, as I said, serving us a reliable flatterer and pro-Trump vote. Crenshaw’s open support of Ukraine was the icing on the cake.

As expected, lots of people in the “America First” movement are celebrating Crenshaw’s loss. They’ve long mocked the congressman, who lost his right eye to an IED explosion while serving our country in Afghanistan, with the nickname “Eyepatch McCain.” In his defeat, they’ve continued to grossly lampoon his disability.

As stated in the Schadenfreude above, Crenshaw will finish out his current term in early January of next year — about ten months from now. It will be interesting to see how he’ll handle that time.

Maybe he’ll keep his head low, and try not to ruffle more feathers on his way out the door. Or… maybe he’ll go out with a bang, as Rep. Don Bacon and Sen. Thom Tillis have chosen to. Like Rep. Ken Buck before them, they’ve decided to end their political careers on their own terms, standing on principle and calling out the MAGA malfeasance that has largely defined the Republican Party, and corrupted the conservative movement, over the last decade.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that my job is to fight for the soul of our party, and defend our traditional, conservative, Reagan values,” Bacon told me last year.

That’s exactly what he’s been doing, and though I wish more Republican lawmakers would have chosen the tact earlier, at moments when it would have perhaps mattered more (like supporting Liz Cheney’s efforts after January 6), I still think there’s value in doing it now.

My hope is that Crenshaw will go the Bacon/Tillis route, both on rhetoric and policy, as he clearly knows the difference between right and wrong, believes in conservative principles, and is no longer bound by party considerations.

I guess we’ll find out soon.