Representative Wesley Hunt, a second-term congressman from Houston and a cable news regular, is one of three top contenders in the Republican primary for Senate in Texas on Tuesday.
Here are five things to know about Mr. Hunt, 44.
1. He was a late entrant. Mr. Hunt did not join the primary until October, turning an acrimonious contest between Senator John Cornyn and the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, into a chaotic three-way battle. Mr. Hunt said at the time that he was running to offer an alternative to a “blood feud” between Mr. Paxton and Mr. Cornyn. Public opinion polls have generally shown Mr. Hunt running in third.
2. He has urged the Republican Party to diversify. Mr. Hunt, a Black man representing a majority white district, has pushed his party to pitch a broader tent. “If you don’t have people like me, and women, step up and say, ‘Actually, it’s OK to be a person of color and to be a Republican,’ then we’re going to lose the next generation,” he said in 2022.
3. He was an early endorser of President Trump’s 2024 campaign. Mr. Trump announced his presidential run exceptionally early — on Nov. 15, 2022 — and at a moment of apparent weakness. Republicans had just experienced a poorer-than-expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections, and some in the party blamed Mr. Trump, whose handpicked candidates had stumbled to defeats in key races. Mr. Hunt’s faith in Mr. Trump did not appear to be shaken. The night of his announcement, Mr. Hunt issued a statement saying that he was “enthusiastically” endorsing him.
4. He has said his top priority would be securing the repeal of a gun control law. The measure, negotiated by Mr. Cornyn, passed on a bipartisan vote after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers. “You cannot author gun control legislation in Texas,” Mr. Hunt said as he began his campaign.
5. He is from a military family and spent eight years in the Army. As a helicopter pilot, Mr. Hunt flew 55 combat missions in Iraq, according to his campaign. At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he lived in barracks named after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee, he has said, and would not support a renaming. “I loved walking in there and thinking to myself, there was a time when this general fought against the rights of people that looked like me, yet here I am,” he said in 2022.
The post 5 Things to Know About Wesley Hunt appeared first on New York Times.
