one-on-one interview<\/a> as he battles Sen. Mayes Middleton in the GOP runoff to replace outgoing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.<\/p>\nThe race has shattered spending records and drawn national attention, with both candidates aggressively attacking each other in the final stretch.<\/p>\n
Roy says his campaign comes down to one key issue: experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m looking at resumes, I just would not hire somebody with his lack of experience,\u201d Roy told KHOU 11, referring to Middleton. \u201cHe\u2019s never been in the courtroom. He\u2019s never practiced law in a meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roy has made that contrast central to his campaign, arguing Texas needs someone with legal experience to run one of the most powerful offices in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, you want somebody who\u2019s a trained lawyer to be the attorney general of the state of Texas,\u201d Roy said.<\/p>\n
Roy previously worked in the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office before being elected to Congress and says he would build on Paxton\u2019s work while pursuing his own priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta deal with the border, you gotta deal with illegal aliens, you gotta deal with the issue of Islam, these massive Islamic centers and mosques that are going up all over the state of Texas,\u201d Roy said. \u201cSo you need an attorney general who\u2019s been there, been in the trenches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Middleton, meanwhile, has spent more than $11 million of his own money on the race and has aired attacks questioning whether Roy is loyal enough to President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
When asked about those attacks, Roy defended his record.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at my record and look what I\u2019ve done, how that aligns with what the president wants to accomplish, and how effective my record has been in delivering. The president knows that,\u201d Roy said.<\/p>\n
Roy also took aim at Middleton, accusing him of being too closely tied to Austin politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy opponent would be too quick and happy to be a puppet in Austin,\u201d Roy said. \u201cAustin doesn\u2019t need a puppet. Austin needs somebody who\u2019s gonna be a change agent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Middleton’s attacks, Roy said he has a strong relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a great relationship with the president,\u201d Roy said.<\/p>\n
Roy said he believes the Texas Attorney General\u2019s office should ultimately answer to Texans, not political factions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Office of the Attorney General is the lawyer for the people of Texas. That\u2019s the way I view it. And that means all Texans,\u201d Roy said. \u201cYou need an attorney general who\u2019s focused on them, on the people, not the swamp in Austin.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winner of Tuesday\u2019s Republican runoff will advance to the November election to face the winner of the Democratic runoff between Texas State Sen. Nathan Johnson and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.<\/p>\n
You can see Roy’s full interview here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just days to go before Tuesday\u2019s runoff election, Rep. Chip Roy is making his closing pitch to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13797,30641,7837,27,4479,29,28,13029],"class_list":["post-305118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chip-roy","tag-mayes-middleton","tag-runoff-election","tag-texas","tag-texas-attorney-general","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}