Will Hurd, a former congressman from Texas who was part of a bloc of Republican moderates in the House and was the only black member of his caucus when he left office in 2021, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday. with a video message who attacked GOP front-runner Donald J. Trump.
“If we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump, who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden is going to win again,” he said, referring to Republican losses in the midterms. mandate of 2018 and 2022. elections, in addition to the defeat of Mr. Trump in 2020.
Hurd, 45, represented the 23rd District for three terms before deciding not to seek re-election in 2020, when a number of GOP moderates in Congress opted to retire rather than run in a ticket led by President Trump.
His district was larger than some states, stretching from El Paso to San Antonio along the southwestern border.
Mr. Hurd, who also made an appearance in “CBS mornings”, he stressed in his video that Republicans needed to nominate a candidate with a vision for the future who could unite the party and the country.
“I will give us the common sense leadership that America so desperately needs,” he said.
A formidable game awaits Mr. Hurd, a long-shot candidate in a crowded GOP field. To qualify for the party’s first debate in August, candidates must garner support of at least 1 percent in multiple national polls recognized by the Republican National Committee. There are also fundraising thresholds, including a minimum of 40,000 unique donors for individual campaigns.
Before entering politics, Mr. Hurd was an undercover CIA officer, and his nearly decade-long tenure with the agency included work in Afghanistan.
In Congress, he developed a reputation for working across the aisle and drew attention in 2017 when he carpool from Texas to Washington with Beto O’Rourkea fellow Democrat and from the House.
Although Mr. Hurd largely toed the Republican line, he was also known to oppose Mr. trump During his last term in the Chamber, Mr. Hurd voted more than a third of the time against Mr. trump
Mr. Hurd was a particularly harsh critic of the president’s push to build a wall along the entire southern border, a cause famously for Mr. Trump with whom he participated in 2016. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Hurd called Mr. Trump’s border wall initiative a “3rd century solution to a 21st century problem”.
It was not the first time that Mr. Hurd spoke so forcefully in opposition to some of Mr. trump
When Mr. Trump signed an executive order in January 2017 blocking entry to the United States to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, one of the first acts of his presidency, Mr. hurt he condemned itsaying the policy “endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our military, diplomatic and intelligence services.”
And when Mr. Trump attacked four freshman Democratic congressmen of color in 2019, Mr. Hurd denounced the president and criticized the leadership of the Republican Party.
“The party is not growing in some of the biggest parts of our country,” he said in a June 2019 speech to Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBTQ group. “Why that? I’ll tell you.”
“Don’t be racist,” continued Mr. Hurd, second The Washington Blade. “Don’t be a misogynist, will you? Don’t be homophobic. These are real basic things we should all learn when we were in kindergarten.”
But although Mr. Hurd broke up with Mr. Trump on some notable occasions also dismayed critics of Mr. When Trump voted with House Republicans against impeaching Mr. Trump for the first time in December 2019. Mr. Trump was impeached on a party-line vote in the House for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but acquitted by the Senate.
