An organization affiliated with the Koch brothers political network and supportive of granting legal status to illegal immigrants is putting its financial and organizational muscle behind Republicans in three key Senate contests.
LIBRE Initiative Action PAC, a group that urges Hispanic voters to embrace conservative domestic policies, has endorsed Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, two of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents on the 2020 ballot. The PAC also endorsed Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, pledging to deploy field staff to engage in virtual voter turnout activities on behalf of all three candidates in races that could determine the balance of power in the Senate.
“We feel we can make a difference in these three Senate races given the numbers of Latinos in those states and, of course, how close the Senate races are going to be,” LIBRE Initiative senior adviser Daniel Garza told CBS News, which first reported the organization’s plans for the fall campaign.
With President Trump’s prospects uncertain, Senate Republicans are bracing for an increasingly difficult battle to defend their three-seat majority. The GOP is on the defensive in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Montana, and North Carolina, with seats in Iowa and Georgia also of concern. Republicans are only on the offense in Alabama and Michigan. So, assistance from LIBRE Initiative Action PAC is surely welcome, especially because Colorado, North Carolina, and Texas have significant Hispanic voting blocs.
The endorsements of Gardner, Tillis, and Cornyn are notable for other reasons.
The Koch network has relaxed its political activity on behalf of Republicans from what it was during Barack Obama’s White House tenure and the first couple of years of Trump’s term. LIBRE Initiative, opposed to much of Trump’s immigration agenda, has been more choosy with its endorsements in recent years.
In September 2017, after Trump canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that granted legal status to illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children, Garza, who has been critical of the president in the past, warned that there would be political repercussions.
“There will be some political fallout for the party, the brand of the party, as a result of this decision,” Garza told the Washington Examiner at the time.
