President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Gastonia Municipal Airport in Gastonia, NC (AP Photo) TOI correspondant from Washington: Twenty years ago, a single word helped change the balance of power in Washington. In 2006, Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia was cruising toward re-election and was being talked about as a possible presidential candidate.

Then, at a campaign rally, he pointed to S R Sidarth, a young Indian-American volunteer tracking his campaign for Democrat Jim Webb, and called him “Macaca” (monkey), before adding, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” The episode went viral, by the modest standards of the pre-TikTok, pre-X era, and transformed the Virginia Senate race.

Allen's once-comfortable lead evaporated, and Webb eventually won by just 9,329 votes, giving Democrats the 51st seat they needed to take control of the Senate. The lesson was not that one offensive comment single-handedly decides an election (Allen was decidedly pro-India).

It was that stray remarks and small events can have large consequences when voters are already paying attention. A seemingly inconsequential slight can become a symbol, particularly when it resonates with a community, in this case Indian-Americans, that feels it has been singled out, which is what appears to be happening in Texas.

Karl Rove, the legendary Republican strategist who helped George Bush win the White House in 2000, says he will now do something he has done only once before in his life: vote for a Democrat. The immediate trigger was a social-media post last week by Republican candidate Bo French after a football game showing mostly Indian-origin students celebrating in the stands.

“These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it,” Rove wrote in oped on Friday, referring to French and his incendiary posts and comments.

Other moderate Republicans, notably Senator John Cornyn, ousted by Trump, have also condemned French’s post that became a lightning rod for anti-Indian campaign among MAGA hardliners. All this is happening when the Republican relationship with Trump is acquiring something resembling buyer's remorse.

There was a time when GOP candidates would have walked through fire for a photograph with the MAGA boss. Now, with the midterm elections weeks away, some appear reluctant even to walk into the same room.

Among them is Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican and former Trump champion among Hispanic voters. In a campaign advertisement released this week, she told Trump that his immigration enforcement had “gone too far” and warned that Hispanics who helped return him to the White House in 2024 “feel betrayed.”