Joe Scarborough Warns ‘Person Republicans Feared the Most’ Won TX Primary After GOP’s ‘Stupid’ Mistake

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough argued that the “person Republicans feared the most,” Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D), could credit his primary win over Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) to the GOP’s “stupid” attempts to “game the system” by leaning in on his Stephen Colbert interview “controversy.”

Democrats chose Talarico as their Senate nominee Tuesday night after he defeated Kamala Harris-endorsed Crockett in a closely watched primary.

He will now face the winner of the Republican runoff between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, after neither candidate secured a majority in the GOP primary.

The vote came just weeks after Talarico made national headlines when The Late Show’s Colbert claimed that his network, CBS, prevented him from airing an interview with the candidate. CBS denied Colbert’s allegations, arguing it had merely given the show advice on Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr’s “equal time rule” reading, but even this opened up accusations that the network was complying in advance.

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, the host compared Talarico’s rise to the national stage to that of former President Barack Obama, but went on to frame the primary win as an indictment of the Republican Party’s attempts to shut down interest in the state lawmaker during his campaign, squarely blaming conservatives for having “helped” the Texan “win” his race.

“I swear, I just wish these Republicans weren’t so stupid. I wish they’d listen to me. I’m trying to help them out a little bit here, just to make it a fair fight in the fall,” he began. “But what did we say? What did we say? First of all, when they took Colbert off the air? You’re going to pay for it. They did pay for it with South Park 3 or 4 days later, deciding they’re going to lean in even harder. Right?”

He continued: “And so here they try to keep Talarico off the show. What happens? They give him a boost. If you talk to Jasmine Crockett, she’ll say the same thing – ‘I was ahead until that controversy.’ So the very person they were trying to defeat, the very person whose message scared them, is the very person who they helped win this race!

“It just keeps happening over and over. They think they can game the system. They think that somehow, they’re going to be able to win. In the end, voters have the final say,” he added.

The host then flagged the “confusion” caused by the Texas Supreme Court overruling a lower court judge’s extension of voting hours. He said that the incident was something “the Democratic Party needs to be ready for” in the midterms and Republicans would “try to do whatever they can” to stop Democratic voters from turning out.

“It’s a good test run,” he said. “But at the end of the day, Talarico wins, the person Republicans feared the most, and may, possibly, especially if Ken Paxton wins his primary, may set up the Democrats’ first decent chance of getting competitive in Texas in decades.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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