Morrow’s election as Republican chair of the fifth-largest county in Texas left several members of the Travis County GOP, including vice chair Matt Mackowiak, apoplectic. Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, immediately announced over social media that he would do everything in his power to remove Morrow from office.
“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account,” Mackowiak told the Tribune. “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.”
“Tell them they can go **** themselves,” Morrow told the Tribune.
The Travis County GOP, which operates in one of the most liberal counties in the state, nonetheless is the local party for a number of prominent Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott. The county party’s responsibilities include running elections and precinct conventions and working to elect Republicans at the local level.
Mackowiak said he was especially uncomfortable with the prospect of Morrow engaging in local politics, the core function of the job to which Morrow was just elected.
“We have someone who ran here who absolutely has no intention of serving the Republican Party with leadership and faithfulness,” Mackowiak said. “His social media account is something that no child should see. He is a total disaster.”
Although Morrow was elected with just more than 25,000 votes — 6,000 more than his one challenger, the incumbent chair James Dickey — Mackowiak said he and others would consider leaving the county party altogether to form a new Republican organization if they could not remove Morrow from office.
“I will not rest until we remove him as chairman," Mackowiak told the Tribune. "He’s going to be an absolute embarrassment to the party. And if we fail in these efforts, we will start an alternate organization.”
Even as Mackowiak attempts to unseat Morrow, Morrow has called Mackowiak’s own conservative credentials into question, especially because of recent tweets from Mackowiak that included the hashtag #NeverTrump.
“I don’t even think Mackowiak is going to support the Republican nominee, who is probably going to be Trump,” Morrow said. “What kind of traitor to the party is Matt Mackowiak? The incredible amount of damage someone like him does to the party — and he’s a douchebag.”
Morrow, who’s also tweeted that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is “very likely a gayman who got married,” said he supports the brand of Republican politics he most closely associates with Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz.
