Former GOP congressman on Jan 6th committee supports Colin Allred

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that since moving to The Woodlands about two years ago, former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger — one of the most vocal GOP critics of Donald Trump — says he’s met several Texas Republicans who are just as uncomfortable with the direction of his party as him. Now Kinzinger is trying to convince them to do the unthinkable and vote for a Democrat. Kinzinger is leading a group of Republicans supporting U.S. Rep. Colin Allred’s bid against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the nation. It is the latest effort by Kinzinger, who served on the House committee that investigated Jan. 6, to target Republicans involved in the effort to delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. Cruz was a key figure in the effort, objecting to Arizona’s electoral votes just before the mob breached the Capitol that day.

“When I talk to Republicans, I say, ‘Do you like where the GOP is now?’” Kinzinger said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers. “There are some that do, and they’re going to vote for Ted Cruz,” he said. “But there are a lot that are embarrassed about where the Republican Party is that are holding onto this hope that, ‘Just after November, we’re going to wake up and come back to what we were.’ Well guess what, we’re not going to do that — particularly if Ted Cruz wins again, because he’s part of the reason we’re exactly in this position.” Kinzinger, who withdrew from his reelection campaign in Illinois after his district was redrawn to pit him against a Trump-aligned Republican congressman, slammed Cruz for going from Trump’s “nemesis” in the 2016 GOP primary to his “chief supporter.” He argued Allred has no similar allegiance to his party or anyone in it. “If the Democratic Party decided some day to go off the rails, similar to what the GOP did, I guarantee you, he would be like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney, saying this can’t happen,” he said. Cheney, a Republican who also served on the Jan. 6 committee and is a vocal critic of Trump and Cruz, has also endorsed Allred in the race.