The fourth-term congressman, who lost decisively to state Rep. Steve Toth, said baseless attacks about his alleged insider trading and gun stances fueled the upset.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw blamed unfounded attacks and a culture of misinformation for his primary loss to state Rep. Steve Toth, saying in an interview that the “power of clickbait” proved too much to overcome.
Crenshaw, a fourth-term congressman from Atascosita, lost to Toth, one of the most conservative members of the Texas Legislature, by a decisive 15-point margin, according to unofficial returns.
His district, which includes Kingwood, Lake Houston and The Woodlands, is split between Harris County and Montgomery County, a hotbed of conservative activism where Attorney General Ken Paxton received twice as many votes as incumbent John Cornyn in the Senate Republican primary.
Crenshaw acknowledged that the “telling the truth thing” is viewed as “a real crime” among some voters. But he heaped most of the blame for his loss on what he said were baseless attacks over his alleged insider trading and stance on red flag laws — leaving Crenshaw, in his eyes, to fend off talking points that twisted the truth.
But then, why doesn’t that work to push the Democrats further left?
Because of a long, concerted propaganda campaign that has convinced progressives to never turn out to vote unless there’s a perfect candidate.
My experience is that the more leftist voters will sit it out unless they have someone they want to vote for, while the more rightward voters are very excited to go and vote against someone. We saw in 2024 that the Uncommitted vote has power. More people should show up in the primaries like that. It tells the nominee and the campaign strategists that there are active voters in that district who’s votes need to be earned still. And it’s public record that they voted in the primary so those voters can expect to be canvased to give their feedback on the issues.
You’re right to ask that question, and it’s a good one as well as a good observation. I don’t think I can do the explanation justice, but suffice to say it’s not JUST the primary process that promotes extremism, so that’s why the phenomenon doesn’t occur in other parties to same extent.
This is a complex issue, and I don’t have time or ability to explain it well. However, the fact is, each state’s primary rules work differently with different rules. Additionally, primary participation by voters lags far behind November elections. Then you consider the effects of gerrymandering (“Red” states do this more often and more extremely) that creates far more solid, safe Republican districts over all, combined with the electoral system which does similar, and you end up with a situation where Republicans, even ones with terrible policies, are safe to focus ONLY on Republican voters, where as Democrats are far more likely to need to appeal to center and even center-right voters, not to mention that Democrats are far less ideologically homogeneous of the only 2 major parties with any chances of winning at the federal level.
Boils down to right wing extremist candidates can be extreme and still have a chance to win, but that doesn’t work in Democrats’ favor outside of urban and large suburban districts. Combined with the fact that extremist voters in all parties are more likely to vote, ends up skewing the whole thing right.
I think it does, but if the effect is less for Democrats, it’s probably related to fundraising or strategic voting.