Over the weekend, just three days before Election Day, the Dallas Morning News ran an op-ed (archived) by a rural newspaper publisher and former Republican staffer Suzanne Bellsnyder.
The article by Bellsnyder highlights her support for Democrat Gina Hinojosa for governor over Republican Greg Abbott, despite Bellsnyder saying she is a longtime Republican. She makes sure to mention that she is a former Greg Abbott staffer who is now supporting Democratic candidate for Texas governor Gina Hinojosa.
The article was propped up by a legacy media outlet as one of the many examples of Republicans now supporting Democratic candidates. Oftentimes the “Republicans” being highlighted in the media are well known to be anything but, or in some cases, Republicans who keep accidentally voting in Democrat primaries:
That isn’t the case here. Bellsnyder is a Republican. Her voting record shows twenty years of Republican primary ballots.
What is important about this op-ed is what was not disclosed. Bellsnyder’s company, Bellsnyder Group LLC, was paid $57,000 by Gina Hinojosa’s campaign before her op-ed ran in the Dallas Morning News.
The Hinojosa campaign’s reports show four payments to Bellsnyder’s company, misspelled “Bellsynder.” The payments are from June 3rd to October 1st.
Current Revolt (CR) called Bellsnyder to ask about the payments and her consulting work for the Gina Hinojosa campaign. Bellsnyder told CR that her company runs rural outreach for the Hinojosa campaign to “talk to voters about Gina.” Bellsnyder said it started as a “diagnostic program, basically to test whether there was any ability to move voters in rural Texas.” The work, Bellsnyder says, eventually included a full field team in September.
Bellsnyder told CR that the op-ed was her own and outside the paid work: “not within the scope of that project.” Bellsnyder confirmed that the Hinojosa campaign knew she was working on the op-ed for the Dallas Morning News (DMN). She could not confirm whether or not the Hinojosa campaign reviewed her op-ed before she submitted it to the DMN.
“They knew I was writing it.”
-Suzanne Bellsnyder on whether the Hinojosa campaign knew about her piece for the Dallas Morning News.
Current Revolt reached out to the Hinojosa campaign for comment. No response was received in time for publishing.
Bellsnyder stated she did not tell the Dallas Morning News about the $57,000 her company got from the Hinojosa campaign before the op-ed ran: “I’m assuming that they knew.” She added, “I did not even see it as an issue.”
The Dallas Morning News did.
To be fair, Bellsnyder does know how to write a disclosure. She wrote one on Aug. 1, in a column on Hinojosa’s pitch to rural Texas, after she was invited to join Hinojosa and her campaign team one Sunday. By then the campaign had already paid her firm $6,000!
She’ll disclose her support for a bill from last session, but the $6,000 apparently didn’t come up.
“If Abbott wins and Gina loses, $60,000 is flat to me, because I’m gonna be having to move to a different state.”
- Suzanne Bellsnyder
On a second call, she corrected the number herself: “For being really accurate, $57,000.”
Current Revolt reached out to The Dallas Morning News about Bellsnyder’s op-ed and her lack of paid-consultant disclosure. DMN provided the following comment:
We were unaware Suzanne Bellsnyder was working for the Hinojosa campaign. We believed her column to be her independent opinion as a journalist and voter. Had we been aware of her work for the campaign, we would have declined the column. As you know, Republican and Democratic campaigns commonly submit op-eds to newspapers. That, however, was not the case with this column.
- The Dallas Morning News
The Morning News has since put an editor’s note at the top of the column. It says she confirmed she’s a paid consultant for the Hinojosa campaign, and that the paper “would have declined to publish this piece.”
The piece is still published.
The Kalshi market shows Abbott at 60% over Gina Hinojosa.
Kalshi is a sponsor of Current Revolt.
See how easy that was Suzanne?
You can sign up for an account with Kalshi to give your own prediction here.
I am obviously not in it for the money. Not out of principle, out of lousy business skills.