VICTIMS OF THE ALGORITHM
Social Media and it's consequences have been a disaster for this election.
There is a notable group of Texans who are shocked by the election results last night.
For some, a guy who lived in an RV was a shoe-in to become Governor of Texas:
Others, who spend their time almost exclusively talking about politics online, didn’t even know who all the challengers were in some races:
Political bubbles have long been a problem. But recently, many TXLege followers have fallen into drinking the Kool-Aid of whatever influencers or staffers are feeding them about the candidate they’re working for. This has left many in shock at last night’s election results.
Let’s break down a few notable races.
Texas Governor:
From the very beginning, anyone who was at least being honest with themselves, knew that Abbott was going to win in a landslide.
In 2022, Greg Abbott faced three notable opponents in his run for re-election. Despite these individuals spending around $25M against Abbott, they failed to trigger even a runoff.
This cycle, a man by the name “Doc” Pete Chambers, who nobody had ever heard of, had never voted previously, and lived in an RV, decided to really lean into the cowboy cosplay and declare his run against Greg Abbott.
Women ate the whole cowboy bit up. And Chambers really leaned into the cowboy thing, posing with playing cards and saddle bags. It was all very funny.
Chambers never raised money anywhere close to what his predecessors in 2022 had raised. In fact, I had a conversation with Chambers at the start of his run. He claimed he had raised more than Allen West. When I asked him to confirm he had actually raised more than $2M (what Allen West raised), Chambers began stuttering, saying he didn’t realize that West had raised that much, and said most of his donations were in-kind. Those in-kind donations would never be reflected in his campaign finance reports.
This didn’t stop influencers though. If elections were held on X, you’d think that Abbott really had a tough race ahead of him:
Despite all the influencers, e-girls, failed candidates, and staffers endorsing him, Doc would only secure 11% in his run for office. Meaning Greg Abbott actually performed better this year than he did in 2022. (Michelle Smith, you owe me a steak dinner now btw)
X users who supported Doc were left bewildered:
This sort of shock happens when you get your political news and opinions exclusively from influencers on X or Facebook.
At the time of publishing, Chambers has not released a statement on his loss to Greg Abbott.
And whatever you do, do not go to docpetechambers dot com.
Attorney General:
If elections were held on X, Aaron Reitz would have won by a landslide.
Political influencers pushed Reitz hard on social media:
Paxton staffers and influencers were running cover for polls that consistently showed Reitz under-performing:
However, despite the influencer push and despite the excuses for bad polling, Reitz secured around 15%. Reitz did not make the runoff.
Reitz released a very good concession note and nobody would deny he put in strong effort for his run.
Reitz likely has a promising future in Texas politics.
Senate:
I’m not going to even bother posting any of the screenshots of people glazing up Ken Paxton for the last several months. It was exhausting. You literally could not open up any form of social media without seeing someone, influencer or normie, going on about how amazing Ken Paxton is.
I also drank the kool-aid though. I too was shocked to see how badly Paxton under performed in his race against John Cornyn.
Paxton would essentially tie at 41% with Cornyn:
Even the betting markets had Paxton defeating Cornyn by a huge margin at one point:
Paxton would just barely beat Cornyn in his home county:
Influencers and Paxton supporters would remain silent about the results of this race, probably in shock that Paxton under-performed.
Cornyn and Paxton head to a runoff scheduled for May 26. So we all have to deal with this for around 3 more months.
Ugh.
HD67:
This was a notable race for DFW considering the hypocrisy and smack-talk that surrounded this race. A failed attempt was also made to remove the incumbent, Jeff Leach, from the Republican ballot.
Matt Thorsen, who ran as “NOT A RINO” despite taking money from liberal donors, ran against incumbent Jeff Leach for HD67.
Leach would face the same attacks by the same influencers throughout 2025:
Months ago, at his request, Matt Thorsen and I grabbed coffee, long before he announced his run for office. We had a decent conversation about politics and the landscape of Collin County races. At that time, I asked Thorsen if he was considering running for office, he told me he was not.
Later, Thorsen chaired an unsuccessful committee to have Rep. Leach removed from the Republican ballot. During this effort, Thorsen announced he was running for HD67.
This was pretty unethical, in my opinion. Running against a Rep while chairing a committee attempting to remove that same Rep from the Republican ballot.
It failed, of course. All the attempts to remove Reps from the Republican ballot failed, as I called months prior to it’s failure.
Thorsen would run with the campaign slogan “NOT A RINO” and even seemingly get assistance for his campaign from Attorney General staffers. You can read about this here:
At the recent Collin County Republican Party Lincoln Day Gala, radio-host Chris Salcedo was the MC in charge of moving the program along. Salcedo took it upon himself to announce to the room that he was supporting Thorsen in defeating Leach. This move by Salcedo actually angered a lot of dinner attendees:
Thorsen would also secure the endorsement of Ken Paxton, making sure to tag all the influencers and staffers in his post:
Despite attempts to remove Leach from the ballot, influencers promoting him, and getting endorsed by Ken Paxton, Thorsen would end up performing the same as Daren Meis who attempted to unseat Leach in 2024:
Leach would claim victory last night noting the failure by those who attempted to remove him from the Republican ballot.
Seems the “NOT A RINO” slogan didn’t work well for Thorsen.
At the time of publishing, Thorsen has not released a statement on his loss to Jeff Leach.
HD106:
This one is just funny because who thought it was a good idea to run a guy who once considered killing police?
Larry Brock, a pardoned J6er, was endorsed by RPT Chairman Abraham George:
This was despite the fact that Brock once hatched a plan for overturning the government, killing press, and killing police officers with poison gas:
You can read the court documents on Brock here.
Brock moved to HD106 and decided to run against Rep. Jared Patterson. For some reason, nobody told Brock this was a horrible idea.
Patterson of course had the easiest time creating mailers talking about Brock and his history:
Somehow people thought a guy like this made for a good political candidate:
Brock, like many of the others above, was propped up and promoted by the exact same influencers and characters during his run.
Unsurprisingly, Brock would lose his race against Patterson. Although, Patterson did under-perform and narrowly avoided a run-off.
Better luck next election, Larry.
At the time of publishing, Brock has not released a statement on his loss against Jared Patterson.
There are many more races like the ones above, all victims of the social media algorithm, which led others (and maybe even themselves) to believe they would perform better than they actually did.
It’s important, dear reader, to make sure you balance your social media followings with people who will challenge your thought processes and people you disagree with.
Avoid the political bubble. It isn’t good for you.
That pic of Larry Brook is the best. I can see what Abraham “Mumbai” George saw in him.
Thank you for this Reporting Tony.
This article made me realize I was far deeper into my far-right info-bubble than I thought.
I did think Chambers had a chance. I thought Paxton would do better.
I will work smarter and harder in May to get war-monger Cornyn fired.
At least we got rid of Traitor for Israel EyePatch McCain.