A former Navy SEAL who lost his eye in Afghanistan and was mocked on “Saturday Night Live” over the eyepatch he wears won his election in Texas on Nov. 6.
Dan Crenshaw won 53 percent of the vote in Texas’s 2nd Congressional District elections.
He got 138,502 votes. His main challenger, Democrat Todd Litton, got 118,570 votes.
Crenshaw got publicity after being mocked by SNL’s Pete Davidson in a segment many on both sides of the aisle slammed for poor taste.
“You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie,” Davidson said. “I’m sorry, I know he lost his eye in war, or whatever.”
Neither Davidson nor NBC has apologized for the segment, although Crenshaw has said he doesn’t want an apology.
“I want us to get away from this culture where we demand an apology every time someone misspeaks,” Crenshaw told TMZ.
“I think that would be very healthy for our nation to go in that direction. We don’t need to be outwardly outraged. I don’t need to demand apologies from them. They can do whatever they want, you know. They are feeling the heat from around the country right now and that’s fine,” he said.
But he noted Davidson’s “mean-spirited” joke wasn’t even funny, adding Davidson and SNL executives should recognize that “veterans across the country probably don’t feel as though their wounds [that] they received in battle should be the subject of a bad punch line.”
Dan Crenshaw makes victory speech after winning seat in Texas Congressional District 2. pic.twitter.com/ESKKSloPka
— Ivory Hecker FOX 26 (@IvoryHecker) November 7, 2018
Victory Speech
Crenshaw addressed the controversy again in his victory speech.
“This election, the next couple of years, and hopefully, the next 50 to 100 years are going to be about understanding what we all believe in together, understanding the foundational values that keep us together, and that used to be comedy and sports,” he said, reported Deadline.
“Let’s separate politics from these things, let’s enjoy life together as Americans, man, that’s what I’d like to get back to,” Crenshaw said.
He also shared what happened the moment he called his wife to tell her of his injury, which at the time doctors feared would leave him permanently blind in both eyes.
“(When) my wife Tara got the phone call that I’d been seriously injured, and I may never actually lay eyes on her again, she wasn’t alone,” he said, reported USA Today. “Friends and teammates were with her. This life, this purpose, this American spirit that we hold dear, we are not alone, we do it together,” he said.
