For reaction from the GOP, the Standard spoke with two prominent Republicans: one, a former national party leader, and the other, a current representative.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former senator who served for two decades, says Trump’s election was a surprise.
“I don’t think anyone – with all of the pundits and the pollsters and the Las Vegas gamblers – would have predicted this outcome,” she says. “So all of us are looking at, Where do we go from here? and trying to make sure that we keep America together.”
Statistics show there was an “avalanche” of people who had never voted before, Hutchinson says, and people who hadn’t voted in the primary.
“That’s a good thing,” she says. “The people have spoken and even if it was a surprise, what they were hearing … we have to listen. We have to try to work with them. I think the Republican Senate will be very constructive and helpful.”
U.S. Rep. Bill Flores, from Texas’ 17th district which includes both Waco and College Station, won re-election last night in a landslide, with 61 percent of the vote.
Trump won by a slimmer margin than Republicans have won since 1996, but Flores says it doesn’t worry him.
“I think a 9 percent margin is actually a pretty good margin,” he says. “It shows that Donald Trump had a great deal of strength among a state that’s as large and diverse as Texas. The American people basically flipped a middle finger to Washington, and to the leftist media and to George Soros and said, We want to go a different direction. We don’t want the Obama agenda anymore.”