Before he was a candidate for Congress, Christian Collins was like a lot of Republicans: Wondering if his party’s anti-immigrant message was slowly strangling its future.
On the heels of Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election, Collins wrote a thesis for his graduate program at Liberty University that dissected how the GOP’s rhetoric toward Hispanic immigrants affected their view of the party.
“He neglected to make Hispanics feel included in his vision for America,” Collins wrote of Romney. “Republicans obviously need to do something, because what they have been doing is not working.”
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Republicans, of course, did something: The opposite. Donald Trump later won the presidency by pouring gas on the “nativist drift” that Collins had decried in his thesis.
Meanwhile, Collins himself has totally rejected his own advice from 2013. Now claiming the mantle of a MAGA warrior, he’s running a campaign for a Houston-area congressional seat using anti-immigration rhetoric that makes Romney’s comments look quaint.
In this competitive GOP primary in a ruby-red district, that’s hardly a liability. What is a liability is the fact that Collins once advocated the position that Republicans should moderate their tone on immigration.
Collins has acted accordingly.
His paper, for instance, is not available on Liberty’s website—a notice on the thesis page says it has been “withdrawn.” And in January, Breitbart News ran a story on how Collins had “ditched” his “pro-amnesty thesis” in favor of a “hardline immigration agenda,” featuring quotes from the candidate distancing himself from those ideas.
Such are the moves necessary for an ambitious candidate to succeed in today’s GOP. And in the primary in Texas’ 8th District—one of the party’s most hotly contested internal contests anywhere—the entire Trump-era Republican playbook is on display. On steroids.
“It’s a national primary, despite the fact that it’s in a sleepy little part of East Texas,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.
“Especially given where it is in this very red part of Texas, you have to give an edge to the candidate who can appeal to the most conservative issues,” he continued. “They’re looking for a bomb-thrower, they’re looking for the next Ted Cruz.”
The two leading candidates in the crowded primary field are Collins and former Navy SEAL Morgan Luttrell, and they are racing to win over the district’s GOP base ahead of the March 1 primary, which observers like Rottinghaus are calling a toss-up contest.
With very little daylight between the two frontrunners on ideology, or on the most important thing in today’s GOP—fealty to Trump—the contest in Texas’ 8th District has become an increasingly personal and bitter fight over what constitutes a real Republican these days. And the choice that primary voters make could actually signal what kind of Republican that safely red seats like this one will send to Congress this year.
Both candidates have solid credentials. Collins is a conservative political operative who has worked for notable Texas Republicans, like Cruz. Aside from his time in the Navy, Luttrell—whose brother Marcus’ service in Afghanistan inspired the film Lone Survivor—worked for former Energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the Trump administration.
The respective Twitter feeds of both candidates feature separate grip-and-grin photos with Trump during his recent visit to the district for a rally. They both feature invocations of the “Let’s go Brandon” mantra that the right uses as a not-terribly-clever-but-politically-correct stand-in for “Fuck Joe Biden.” At a recent candidate forum, both denied the reality that Biden actually won the election. Trump has not endorsed in the race so far.
But in important matters of signaling and strategy, the two have come across differently to observers—and those differences have helped make this campaign for a safe Republican seat into a bruising, and potentially expensive, intra-party battle.
Perhaps the defining point of contention between the two in the homestretch of the race involves not any pressing local issue or policy difference, but whether Luttrell deserves the toxic RINO label—a “Republican In Name Only”—because he reportedly solicited a campaign contribution from Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the GOP’s few remaining Trump critics in office.
Luttrell has denied this, but Collins has played this up ruthlessly on social media and at candidate forums. At a recent debate, Collins charged that Kinzinger was a “traitor to our country;” Luttrell responded by saying he doesn’t agree with Kinzinger but highlighted the congressman’s military service. “He fought in a war for his country. Did you?” Luttrell said. “No, you didn't."
Luttrell’s supporters are watching the mudslinging through gritted teeth. Matt Wiltshire, a local Republican activist who formerly advised Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a prominent Luttrell backer, says Collins is trying to make the race into “this RINO versus Establishment idiocy.” To start calling lifelong conservatives like Luttrell RINOs just “to score political points is just really silly,” he said.
What’s more, Wiltshire told The Daily Beast, he has known Collins for three years through conservative politics in the Houston area, and he feels the current “America First” posturing is hollow. “It’s not the man that I thought I knew three years ago,” he said. “Everything I’ve seen feels calculated.”
Asked to respond, Collins, through a spokesman, said, “I am not surprised these things would come from Matt Wiltshire” and called him an “anti-Trump activist hack.” He did not comment further on his past support for immigration reform, but called The Daily Beast “fake news.”
Collins would hardly be the first Republican in recent years to have abandoned moderate principles to seek the favor of the party base. But these days, GOP diehards have seemed more concerned with things like the alleged support of an Illinois congressman deemed a “traitor” than past support for policy positions that are anathema.
Not only has Collins won over the base, he has put icons of the Trumpian far right at the heart of his campaign.
Among Collins’ endorsers are Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). On Feb. 19, his campaign is hosting a rally with that duo and a number of MAGA movement heroes, including some of its most fringe characters, such as Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers. He has also appeared frequently with Cruz at campaign stops in the district.
Neither Greene nor Cawthorn responded to a request for comment on Collins’ past support of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. But on Tuesday, Greene did name-check Collins in an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast, an influential platform for the fringe.
If Collins is aligning with a GOP caucus seemingly more fired-up about posting than policy, Luttrell has positioned himself as a more traditional leader. Although his political stances hit the high notes for today’s GOP base—vaccine mandates, “election integrity,” and the like—he has aimed to look and sound more like a serious officeholder by emphasizing certain local issues.
Rottinghaus, the University of Houston professor, said Collins is presenting himself as a “Cruz-style pugilist,” while Luttrell brings a “modest nuance to conservative politics, edging more toward base concerns for people.”
Luttrell’s endorsements also reflect how the race has become a proxy battle between competing power centers in Trump’s Republican Party. Perry, a close personal friend as well as a former boss, is an enthusiastic backer. So is Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is personally very close to the ex-president, and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), the former White House doctor turned MAGA firebrand.
Especially prominent among Luttrell’s endorsers is his fellow Navy SEAL and neighboring congressman, Crenshaw. During the campaign, Crenshaw has highlighted Collins’ about-face on immigration, telling the Texas Tribune that “his opinions change with the political winds.”
Crenshaw has been a loyal backer of Trump’s, but in recent months, he has openly swung at Republicans, such as those backing Collins. At an event in December, Crenshaw called out “grifters” and “performance artists” within the House GOP. Luttrell happened to be present. In a subsequent spat, Crenshaw called Greene a “Democrat, or an idiot” as the Georgia congresswoman attacked him for supporting the use of FEMA resources for COVID-19 testing.
But Crenshaw himself has become a factor in the race, with some of Collins’ backers putting up billboards reminding voters of his support for Luttrell.
Ultimately, whoever wins this seat is guaranteed to be far Trumpier than its current occupant, retiring Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), a wonky lawmaker who is better known for his views on tax policy than, say, the efficacy of the COVID vaccine or the integrity of the 2020 election.
Nine other candidates are in the race, but the only one with significant resources is another veteran, Jonathan Hullihan, who touts the backing of far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ).
Across the country, other longtime Republicans in the House and Senate are on their way out of office this year, and in many places, GOP primary voters will have the definitive say about who replaces them. It’s why a number of Republicans and other political observers are closely watching the race in Texas’ 8th.
“The issues are less important than the trust that people put in these candidates,” Rottinghaus said. “Anything that undercuts the message that they’re true believers is troublesome for those candidates.”
