Rep. Hall’s opponent says his age is fair game

Rep. Ralph Hall’s (R-Texas) primary challenger said he thinks the 91-year-old congressman’s age is fair game Thursday morning.

{mosads}”It’s something the voters are concerned about,” former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe (R) said on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” when asked if Hall’s age is a fair issue in the race. “It’s certainly something that we haven’t focused on in our campaign, I’ve talked about his tenure, the fact that I think he’s been there too long, but voters raise the issue of his age and I think that’s fair for them to consider.”

Ratcliffe has implicitly used Hall’s age against him in the race, portraying it as a choice between the past and future. But he’s rarely explicitly gone after Hall’s age, instead focusing on his three decades in Congress.

“He has been there too long and his record isn’t very good,” Ratcliffe said.

The challenger, a former U.S. attorney, also expressed a hard line on immigration, saying he opposed any plans to give immigrants here illegally a pathway to citizenship and calling for tightening laws on those who overstay their visas so “we’d have some folks who’d leave this country voluntarily.”

The two are set for what may be a tight primary runoff on Tuesday.

This post was updated at 10:45 a.m.