Rep. Chip Roy Says Voters Rejected the Other Party for Being 'Bought and Paid For' by Billionaires; His Party's Billionaires Decline Comment

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chip Roy of Texas issued a statement Tuesday night explaining the election. "Voters rejected" the other party "in part because they were bought and paid for by AI billionaires," he wrote, adding that his own party "must hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks." The checks, The Press can report, had already cleared.

The other party's largest donor spent roughly $446 million this cycle, the most any non-candidate has ever spent on an election, including more than $200 million in Chip Roy's home state, where that donor's preferred candidates lost almost everywhere. A forecaster called it "the biggest defeat for big money in politics in American history."

Over the same period, Chip Roy's own party's two largest donors gave roughly $103 million and more than $60 million, and total spending on the midterms was projected at a record $12 billion, divided between two parties that each describe the other's half as the problem.

Asked whether "bought and paid for" applied to any candidate on his side of the aisle, Chip Roy's office referred The Press to the statement, which does not address the question, and to the results, which do not either.

The Press's Money desk applies the standard test. When a congressman of the other party declared a billionaire-funded defeat a victory for ordinary people on the same night his own billionaires outspent a small country, the write-up reached the word "hypocrisy" by the second paragraph. Under Chip Roy it is "a populist message." The decimal places are identical.

At press time both parties confirmed that money cannot buy an election, and asked that their donors not read this.