Texas Republican congressional candidate Michael Wood, backed by Never Trump Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, placed ninth in Saturday’s spring special election for Texas’ 6th Congressional District.
Kinzinger flew to Texas last week to campaign for Wood, who was running to replace Republican Rep. Ron Wright, who died earlier this year from complications with the novel Wuhan coronavirus.
“The Trump thing, it’s got nowhere to go but down. It’s not growing,” Kinzinger said at lunch with Wood, according to the Associated Press. “But it took a lot of time for the Republican Party to be what it is today. It may take a lot of time to bring it back.”
Kinzinger has been pursuing the same party transformation sought out by House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Yet Saturday put the party nowhere closer to the GOP of 2004, as Kinzinger hoped.
Wood placed ninth with just more than 2,500 votes in the Dallas-area district, capturing barely more than 3 percent in a race with 23 candidates.
Republican Susan Wright, Ron’s widow, will go on to compete in a runoff with Republican Jake Ellzey after neither candidate carried more than 50 percent. Wright won more than 19 percent of the vote, while Ellzey won nearly 14 percent.
