Anti-Trump group started by Rep. Adam Kinzinger faces 1st test in Texas special election

Rep. Adam Kinzinger's group could provide a blueprint for other anti-Trump Republicans -- if his candidate turns out support in a May 1 House race.

When House Republicans gather in Florida this week for their annual policy retreat, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., will be a thousand miles away in Texas, campaigning for Michael Wood in the upcoming special election in Texas' 6th Congressional District. Wood, a Marine Reserve major, is one of 23 candidates running in the May 1 election to succeed Rep. Ron Wright, R-Texas, who died in February from COVID-19 and complications from cancer. The crowded field includes Wright's widow, a former wrestler, and several Republicans who served in the Trump administration. But Wood is the only openly anti-Trump candidate in the race -- and hopes voters in the sprawling district that includes diversifying swaths of the Dallas-Forth Worth suburbs -- where Trump won by three percentage points in 2020 after winning by 12 in 2016 -- will help push him through the field and into a runoff should no candidate receive a majority of votes. "The Republican Party has lost its way and now is the time to fight for its renewal," Wood says on his campaign website. "We were once a party of ideas, but we have devolved into a cult of personality. This must end, and Texas must lead the way."