Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the former White House physician with no political experience who ran a campaign based on his close relationship with President Trump, won a Republican runoff election for a House seat in Texas on Tuesday night, effectively stamping his ticket to Congress next year.
Dr. Jackson’s victory in the 13th Congressional District over Josh Winegarner, a lobbyist who had the backing of the cattle industry he represented and the man he’s seeking to replace, was hailed by the Trump campaign as a triumph for the president who endorsed him and for the Trump re-election campaign that propped him up.
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, called the victory “a clear testament to the power and value of President Trump’s endorsement and support.”
It was something of a comeback for Dr. Jackson, a retired Navy rear admiral who is now likely to represent one of the most conservative districts in the country. He left the West Wing in December after becoming Mr. Trump’s unlikely choice to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, but he had to withdraw his name from consideration amid allegations related to his professional conduct.
After serving for 25 years in the military and moving home to Texas, Dr. Jackson hoped to leverage his Washington connections to win elected office and make a fresh start, running in a crowded Republican primary to replace Representative Mac Thornberry, who announced last fall he would not seek re-election after holding his seat for more than a quarter of a century. But Dr. Jackson made a series of novice mistakes that could have derailed any congressional campaign.
Dr. Jackson relied on a “horse doctor” with a full-time job to run his campaign. The candidate’s wife, Jane, doubled as his chauffeur, driving him around the Panhandle-encompassing district, and she even took on the job of putting up lawn signs and replacing them after they were defaced. Before the coronavirus put a stop to face-to-face campaigning, the couple wasted hours knocking on doors during work hours, when no one was home. And they agreed to attend events where the majority of the crowd was from neighboring Oklahoma and couldn’t vote for Dr. Jackson even if they were impressed with his pitch about his rare access to the Oval Office.
But after Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, his girlfriend and a top fund-raising official for the president’s re-election campaign, realized that Dr. Jackson’s campaign was in trouble, they asked two senior members of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, Justin Clark and Bill Stepien, to step in.
Mr. Clark and Mr. Stepien, two former White House officials who now run the nuts and bolts of the president’s re-election bid, set Dr. Jackson up with an online fund-raising operation and helped him hire a Washington-based fund-raiser, who channeled Dr. Jackson’s Rolodex into donations. In the primary campaign, Dr. Jackson raised just $280,000. Since making the runoff in March against Mr. Winegarner, Dr. Jackson has raised about $788,000 from more than 10,000 donors, according to the campaign.
Donors to Dr. Jackson’s campaign now include Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics billionaire and one of Mr. Trump’s oldest acquaintances, who gave Dr. Jackson $2,800 for the runoff race and another $2,800 for his general election campaign, according to campaign finance reports. Others who donated to Dr. Jackson’s campaign included former West Wing colleagues of his like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary; Hope Hicks, a senior adviser to the president; Raj Shah, a former top White House spokesman; and Mr. Clark.
The Trump operatives also helped Dr. Jackson hire Jeremy Sheftel, a Florida-based operative with field experience, to run the campaign. And they worked with the White House to ensure that Mr. Trump endorsed Dr. Jackson, even inviting him aboard Air Force One when the president visited Dallas last June. And Dr. Jackson benefited from the runoff election’s being delayed by a month because of the coronavirus, giving him more time to catch up.
His opponent, Mr. Winegarner, however, tried to diminish Dr. Jackson’s interest in the district, to which he had only recently returned. He aired an ad that told voters, “We are Ronny’s backup plan,” a reference to his dashed hopes of becoming the secretary of veterans affairs.
Dr. Jackson’s advisers, in turn, framed his campaign as another example of a Trump-backed candidate seeking to drain the swamp, depicting Mr. Winegarner, who used to work for Mr. Thornberry, as part of a broken system in which a lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staff member becomes the immediate favorite to take his old boss’s job.
Playing into the role of marauding outsider, and aided by the political advice of Mr. Clark and Mr. Stepien, Dr. Jackson also leaned into national political controversies. Despite serving as President Barack Obama’s physician before Mr. Trump took office, he backed a conspiracy theory promoted by Mr. Trump that his predecessor had spied on his campaign — an accusation Mr. Trump has made while offering no evidence to back it up.
“President Obama weaponized the highest levels of our government to spy on President Trump. Every Deep State traitor deserves to be brought to justice for their heinous actions,” Dr. Jackson tweeted in May, drawing a rebuke from former Obama administration officials who called his statement “truly shameful” and an example of his “lying for Trump” in order to win a congressional primary.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
