Donald Trump’s spokeswoman made the former president’s preference in Texas’s attorney general runoff race clear when she compared candidate George P Bush to his father Jeb Bush on Tuesday.
Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington tweeted a graphic showing the former president and current attorney general Ken Paxton on one side and the former Florida governor, whom Mr Trump beat to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and his son, the current land commissioner.
“I know whose side I’m on!” Ms Harrington tweeted.
The younger Bush, who is also the nephew of former Texas governor and president George W Bush and former president George HW Bush, aggressively tied himself to the former president despite Mr Trump’s bashing his family. At one rally, Mr Bush had beer koozies with images of him and the former president shaking hands.
Mr Trump famously bashed his father in the 2015 as “low-energy” and retweeted someone saying the former Florida governor “has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” Columba Bush, who is George P Bush’s mother, migrated from Mexico. Mr Trump later deleted the tweet. Initially the frontrunner in the Republican primary, Jeb Bush would later drop out after the South Carolina primary.
The youngest Bush hoped to challenge Mr Paxton, who is facing federal indictments, in the general election. But Mr Trump backed Mr Paxton, who had spoken at the “Stop the Steal” rally before the January 6 riot and had filed lawsuits trying to discard votes from swing states.
Mr Bush and Mr Paxton faced off in the primary election earlier this month. Mr Paxton failed to beat Mr Bush outright and only won 42.74 per cent of the vote, below the needed majority vote to avoid a runoff. But Mr Bush only won 22.78 per cent of the vote due to a crowded primary with Mr Paxton, former judge Eva Guzman and Rep Louie Gohmert.
The runoff for Texas’s attorney general race is on 24 May.
