Posts Tagged ‘Texas 34th Congressional District’

Texas 2026 Race Updates For August 27, 2025

Wednesday, August 27th, 2025

Following redistricting, a whole lot of 2026 races are heating up, so let’s do a Texas election news roundup.

  • Following Rep. Chip Roy’s entry into the Attorney General’s race, Sen. Ted Cruz and current AG Ken Paxton have issued dueling endorsements.

    The early favorite for the most interesting 2026 race in Texas is the campaign for the state’s attorney general, and two new endorsements have ramped the intrigue up to 11.

    Four candidates are vying for the spot: state Sens. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) and Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), former Department of Justice appointee Aaron Reitz, and Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX-21).

    Last week, Roy jumped into the race after a couple months of speculation — the same day that polling showed 73 percent undecided in the then-three person field.

    Middleton remains far and away the frontrunner on the money front, being able to self-fund with an initial $10 million investment — and the intent to put another $10 million in if need be. He also has the backing of a large number of Republicans in the Texas House, where he served two terms before winning his Senate seat.

    But each of the candidates has their own competitive advantages, making the race one of the most interesting to watch in the state so far.

    Over the weekend, two established GOP figures broke their impartiality in the race and endorsed competing candidates. First, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) backed Roy, his former chief of staff, saying, “There are several excellent candidates right now in the race for Texas Attorney General. All of them are friends of mine, and all of them have been strong supporters of mine for many, many years. Texas is blessed to have an abundance of strong conservatives stepping forward to lead, in such a time as this.”

    “I am proud to endorse Chip Roy for Attorney General of Texas. As my very first chief of staff, Chip has been a close friend and ally of mine for over 12 years. We have been in more fights together than I can count, and I know Chip will always, always, always fight for conservative values.”

    Reitz, whose campaign had picked up serious momentum since he launched in June, had served as Cruz’s chief of staff before taking a job in the Department of Justice under the second Trump administration earlier this year. The former Cruz staffer had also been seriously considering running for Roy’s congressional seat in light of the congressman’s entry into the attorney general race.

    But Reitz decided to stay in, and unloaded his own top shelf endorsement on Monday. “One of the most frequent questions Texans ask me is: ‘Ken, who should succeed you as Attorney General?’ My answer is now definitive: Aaron Reitz,” Paxton said in a press release.

    “Aaron Reitz is the only candidate who is fully vetted, battle-tested, proven, and ready to be Attorney General. He is loyal, fearless, trusted, and relentlessly committed to the Rule of Law. He has already proven himself as a defender of Texas, of Texans’ rights, and of the Constitution. That’s why President Trump called him a ‘true MAGA attorney’ and a ‘warrior for our Constitution’ — and I could not agree more.”

  • Cruz isn’t the only one who endorsed Roy in the race, as Gun Owners of America sent out out an email endorsement that I’m not seeing on their website yet:

    As a member of Congress, Chip Roy has been a steadfast ally for gun owners: he has opposed federal gun control, fought executive overreach, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with GOA to defend your freedoms.

    Chip’s record on the Second Amendment is rock solid. As a member of the powerful House Rules Committee, responsible for deciding which bills are sent to the House floor, Chip has been a brick wall to anti-gunners who aim to infringe on the Second Amendment. Chip will call out RINOs who compromise on the Second Amendment or empower the unconstitutional ATF.

    Not only does Chip talk the talk, he shows it with sponsoring and cosponsoring pro-gun legislation!

    Since January alone, he:

    • Sponsored H.R. 962 — Defending Veterans’ Second Amendment Rights Act (Prohibits VA from disarming veterans with fiduciaries)
    • Cosponsored H.R. 3228 — Constitutional Hearing Protection Act (Removes suppressors from the definition of firearms)
    • Cosponsored H.R. 1643 — SAFER Voter Act (Reduces the age to buy a handgun from an FFL from 21 to 18)
    • Cosponsored H.R. 1041 — Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act (Prohibits VA from disarming veterans with fiduciaries)
    • Cosponsored H.R. 645 — National Constitutional Carry Act (Would establish Constitutional Carry nationwide)
    • Cosponsored H.R. 563 — No REGISTRY Rights Act (Directs ATF to delete their illegal gun owner registry and certify to Congress that they have complied with the law)

    In 2021, when Democrats attempted to insert unconstitutional red flag laws for our service members, it was Chip Roy along with key allies in Congress who prevented that from being signed into law.

  • Paxton is running against John Cornyn for the senate, and the latest poll shows him leading the incumbent senator by five points.

    The gap between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the 2026 U.S. Senate race is narrowing, according to new polling from Texas Southern University.

    Cornyn trails five points behind Paxton in the GOP primary, according to a poll conducted by the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University — the same survey which had the senator nine points behind Paxton three months prior.

    The survey polled 1,500 likely 2026 Republican primary voters and 1,500 likely 2026 Democratic primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.53 percent.

    Various polls in the field have gauged Cornyn and Paxton in a head-to-head primary scenario, generally showing the latter to be in a comfortable lead. The Senate Leadership Fund estimates it to be about a 17-point gap, after averaging 13 polls taken over the past six months.

    However, data from an Emerson College poll on Friday, alongside this most recent Texas Southern poll, paint a different picture for Cornyn’s odds. Emerson had Cornyn in the lead by one point with 30 percent, Paxton at 29 percent, “someone else” at five percent, and “undecided” at 37 percent.

    Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), who’s been flirting with a bid against Paxton and Cornyn through a number of campaign-style ads running across the state, was also measured in the poll. In a three-way matchup, Hunt collected 22 percent of the votes, contrasted with Paxton’s 35 percent and Cornyn’s 30 percent.

    Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX-13), Hunt’s colleague who’s also lightly tested the waters, was also thrown into a three-way mix alongside Paxton and Cornyn. He garnered 15 percent of the vote, behind Cornyn’s 33 percent and Paxton’s 38 percent.

    When faced against one another, Cornyn collected 43 percent of the vote against Jackson’s 35 percent. When placed against Paxton, Jackson got 33 percent while the attorney general led with 44 percent.

    Hunt received 36 percent when faced against Paxton, who led with 43 percent — while 21 percent voted as “unsure.” Cornyn led with 43 percent against Hunt, while the latter received 36 percent. A similar 22 percent marked themselves as “unsure.”

    Taking the usual poll caveats and triple them for a poll this far out. The caveat to the caveat is that the sample size is bigger than some previous polls, and Cornyn has been dropping media ad spends (an unusual move this early), so I can well imagine that he’s been able to close some of the gap. But all the polls have shown Paxton leading, which can’t be comforting for a four term incumbent. Remember, when Cornyn was first elected to the senate, Barack Obama was still an Illinois state senator…

  • Republican “Mayra Flores ditches Cuellar to run against Gonzalez after Texas redistricting boosts odds.” That’s Vicente Gonzalez, not Tony, so she’s not running in the same race as Brandon Herrera.
  • Democratic Congressman Al Green, the current incumbent in the recently redistricted 9th U.S. Congressional District, is waiting for the 18th Congressional District Special Election to declare he’s running for the 18th in 2026.

    Congressman Al Green (D-TX-09) has all but officially declared his candidacy for Congressional District (CD) 18, which largely holds his prior constituency following Texas’ mid-decade redistricting.

    Green stated during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that if he “made an announcement today, then there would be mass confusion about where I am. I’m serving the people of the 9th Congressional District,” after outlining how the “new” CD 18 more closely resembles his current CD 9.

    “I live in the new 18 — I’m not moving into the new 18. I’ve lived in this house for more than 30 years. This is my home,” Green stated.

    “So to those who say I am moving into the 18th Congressional District to run for office, not so. All I’m doing is staying where my constituents are.”

    The Texas Legislature passed its new Republican-favored congressional map on August 20, following a two-week quorum break by members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus to prevent the vote. While Green’s CD 9 isn’t one of the five districts expected to flip from blue to red, as requested by President Donald Trump, a majority of CD 9 is now folded into the existing Democratic stronghold CD 18 — a move Green categorized as intentionally racist, as local Democratic lawmakers have also stated. Republicans argue that they are instead reworking the districts due to and in order to increase partisan performance.

    “I have no relationships politically with the people in the new 9th Congressional District. The new 18th Congressional District is where I have my home and my constituents,” Green said.

    He noted the passing of first Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in 2024, then Lee’s successor, Congressman Sylvester Turner, this March, as well as referencing the special election which will be held in November to determine the candidate to represent CD 18.

    “It’s important for people to know I’m not going to be in that special election,” Green continued.

    “I’m not going to be in that special election for a multiplicity of reasons, but here is one: because if I chose to get in it, and should I win it, I would have to then vacate the 9th Congressional District.”

  • Finally, down in fringe candidate territory, Valentina Gomez, who is running against incumbent John Carter for the Texas 31st Congressional district, made headlines by burning a Quran, giving a whole new meaning to “hot Latinas.” Sorry, I’m just not down with book burning (not that I want her to be charged with blasphemy laws either). Democrats should be asked: Which is worse, burning a flag or burning a Quran…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Guns, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Texas Redistricting Passes Senate, Headed To Abbott’s Desk

    Sunday, August 24th, 2025

    After passing the Texas House, the redistricting bill has now passed the Texas Senate and is headed to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk to sign.

    A Republican plan to redraw Texas congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections is on its way to the governor’s desk after passing the Senate early Saturday morning, paving the way for a shake-up in the state’s U.S. House delegation.

    Senators passed the congressional redistricting plan on a party-line, 18-11 vote, following hours of debate and a threatened filibuster that fizzled.

    The new map, drawn to improve Republican political performance, adds five new GOP-opportunity seats.

    State Sen. Phil King (R–Weatherford) sponsored the redistricting plan, House Bill 4 by State Rep. Todd Hunter (R–Corpus Christi), which the House passed on Wednesday.

    “The area of redistricting law is very robust and gets very complex, very quickly,” King opened Friday morning. “We’re not in a courtroom today.”

    Yet throughout the day, Democrats pressed King on specific redistricting legalities and made clear they intend to challenge the map in court.

    King said HB 4 is “legal under all applicable law” and meets the requirements of “one person, one vote” and compactness.

    He repeatedly emphasized that the map was drawn based on partisan political performance, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is permissible, not racial data.

    “In contrast to the complications that are involved with race-based redistricting, political performance is really a pretty easy map to draw, and it’s absolutely permissible as a basis for drawing electoral districts,” said King.

    The map flips five congressional districts from Democrat- to Republican-leaning: CD9 in Houston, CD28 in the Rio Grande Valley, CD32 in Dallas, CD34 in coastal South Texas, and CD35 in San Antonio.

    I analyzed the effects of district movement on their incumbents here.

    “There’s no question Democrats are not in favor of this map… because it elects more Republicans,” said King. “It was also very clear from testimony that a lot of people want us to create maps that reflect specific percentages of ethnic groups, and that’s illegal. We can’t do that.”

    State Sen. Adam Hinojosa (R–Corpus Christi), the first Republican to hold Senate District 27 since Reconstruction, said the new map—which increases majority-minority voting districts—gives South Texas Hispanics “a voice that reflects their values, not outdated assumptions about race or party.”

    “This is not a racial shift. This is a values shift, and no amount of shouting racism is going to change that,” said Hinojosa.

    For over half a century, Democrats have used the Voting Rights Act as a tool to racially gerrymander themselves legislative majorities. More recently, Republican have flipped the script on them, concentrating minority voters in deep blue urban districts to make other districts more favorable to Republicans while fulfilling the letter of the Voting Rights Act. Then Democrats launched the Petteway v. Galveston County lawsuit trying to save one Galveston County commissioner’s seat, whereupon the Supreme Court ruled that those black/Hispanic coalition minority districts carved out to benefit the Democratic Party were unconstitutional.

    Depending on only partisan affiliation date, Texas Republicans have now produced districts that are notably more compact than logical than many Democratic Party racially gerrymandered maps. Texas Republicans have garnered five additional Republican seats and helped America move closer to colorblind society. I count that as a win-win.

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Texas Redistricting Finally Passes House

    Thursday, August 21st, 2025

    After all the unnecessary and futile drama of the Democrat’s quorum break, the Texas House has finally passed the congressional redistricting bill.

    After weeks of gridlock, the Texas House has approved a new congressional redistricting plan that Republicans say will strengthen their hold on Washington, adding five GOP-leaning seats across the state.

    The issue has been a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott, who placed congressional redistricting on the call during the first special session earlier this summer. But Democrats brought the chamber to a standstill when they broke quorum and fled to Illinois and other states to prevent the map from advancing.

    Their walkout effectively killed the first special session, but with Abbott calling lawmakers back for a second 30-day session, Democrats returned on Monday. By Wednesday, Republicans had rushed the proposal out of committee and onto the House calendar, where it passed on a party-line vote.

    State Rep. Todd Hunter (R–Corpus Christi), who carried the legislation, defended the process while laying out the plan on the floor.

    “This plan originated in the first called special session before the chamber left a quorum,” said Hunter. “In that session, we held three public hearings—we were not required to hold those hearings. At these hearings, we heard testimony from members of Congress and citizens alike. The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance.”

    The map, which reshapes districts in Dallas and Houston as well as Central and South Texas, is designed to reflect population growth while giving Republicans an even stronger advantage. Each new district is required to be nearly equal in population, with the ideal congressional size sitting around 766,900 residents.

    Democrats blasted the proposal as “illegal and racially discriminatory.”

    President Donald Trump, meanwhile, cheered the move on Truth Social, calling it “ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL CONGRESSIONAL MAP!” He praised Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows for restoring a quorum, writing, “With the Texas House now in Quorum, thanks to GREAT Speaker Dustin Burrows, I call on all of my Republican friends in the Legislature to work as fast as they can to get THIS MAP to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, ASAP.”

    The detailed county-by-county breakdown maps of the new districts can be found here. On a personal note, I am thankfully being moved out of Democrat Lloyd Doggett’s District 37 and into Republican August Pfluger’s District 11.

    Here’s a snapshot of the new districts from The Texan.

    “The final vote was 88 ayes — all Republicans including House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), who normally doesn’t vote on legislation — to 52 nays.”

    Republicans drew this new map at the behest of President Donald Trump and with his 2024 election performance top of mind, ensuring that each of the projected five GOP pickups were areas the president won last year by at least 10 points.

    Those five seats are the 9th, 28th, 32nd, 34th, and 35th congressional districts; two are in South Texas, one in Dallas, one in Houston, and one on the outskirts of San Antonio.

    The Democrats currently representing those districts are Al Green of Houston (9th), the currently indicted Henry Cuellar of Larado (28th), Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch (32nd), Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen (34th), and infamous commie twerp Greg Casar of Austin (35th).

    My guess is that Cuellar and Gonzalez are simply gone, since the Rio Grande Valley was already trending Republican and there are no friendly districts anywhere nearby for them to run in. Green could quite conceivably run in the now-vacant 18th congressional district, previously represented by the deceased Sylvester Turner, and before that by the daughter of the also-deceased Sheila Jackson Lee, and before that by Lee. While Johnson could theoretically run in neighboring Marc Veasey’s 33rd congressional district, that’s a Hispanic and black majority district (and I suspect it’s getting even more so in the current redistricting), which is a tough hill to climb for any white candidate, much less a gay white girl in a suburban district, so I suspect she’s toast as well. The redistricting sets up a Thunderdome showdown between Doggett and Casar for the Austin-based 37th, unless Doggett (who is 79) retires.

    Now on to the Texas Senate, where which passed its own redistricting bill handily in the first special session and will likely pass this one in quick order.

    I have been (and will continue to be) quite critical of House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ membership in the Straus-Bonnen-Phelan cabal that stays in power thanks to Democrat votes and special interest/gambling money, but in this instance he has delivered on a very important Republican priority.

    Remember: All this was set in motion by Petteway v. Galveston County, a lawsuit Democrats filed in order to save one Galveston County commissioner’s seat, whereupon the Supreme Court ruled that “black/brown” coalition minority districts carved out to benefit the Democratic Party were unconstitutional. So instead of saving one county commissioner’s seat, they’re going to lose five U.S. Congressional seats.

    Democrats did this to themselves, and have no one else to blame…

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | 13 Comments »

    Texas Election Results Roundup for 2022

    Saturday, November 12th, 2022

    National results were a deep disappointment to Republicans expecting a red wave. What about the results in Texas? Better:

  • Republicans retained all statewide races.
  • Incumbent governor Greg Abbott walloped Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by about a point less than he walloped Lupe Valdez in 2018, the year O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. 2018’s Betomania seems to have slightly raised the floor for Democrats in various down-ballot races, but not enough for them to be competitive statewide. This is O’Rourke’s third high-profile flameout in five years, and one wonders whether out-of-state contributors are getting wise to the game.
  • Vote totals seem down a bit from 2018, with the governor’s race drawing about 266,000 fewer voters.
  • Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick increased the margin by which he beat Mike Collier (also his opponent in 2018) from about five points to about ten points.
  • For all the talk of Ken Paxton being the most vulnerable statewide incumbent, he also won his race over Rochelle Garza by about 10 points, as opposed to a three and half point victory over Justin Nelson (a man so obscure he has no Wikipedia entry) in 2018. (Thought experiment: Could Beto have beaten Paxton this year? My gut says his money would have made it a lot closer than his race with Abbott, but I think he still would have lost by about the same margin he lost to Ted Cruz in 2018. But his lack of a law degree would have worked against him, and I doubt his ego would ever consider running in a down-ballot race like AG…)
  • In the Comptroller, Land Commissioner and Agriculture Commissioner races, Republicans were up a bit around 56%, and Democrats were down a bit more. (And Dawn Buckingham replacing George P. Bush should be a big improvement.)
  • Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian had the biggest spread between him and Democratic opponent Luke Warford, 15 points (55% to 40%).
  • Three Republican statewide judicial race winners (Rebeca Huddle in Supreme Court Place 5, Scott Walker in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, and Jesse F. McClure in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6) were the only statewide candidates to garner 4.5 million or more votes (possibly due to the absence of Libertarian candidates).
  • Of three closely watched Texas majority Hispanic house seats, only Monica De La Cruz in TX15 won, while Myra Flores (TX34) and Cassy Garcia (TX28) lost.
  • Though Republicans came up short in those two U.S. congressional seats, statewide they “narrowly expanded their legislative majorities in both the House and Senate.”

    In the House, the GOP grew its ranks by one — giving them an 86-to-64 advantage in the 150-member chamber for the 2023 legislative session. The Senate has 31 members, and Republicans previously outnumbered Democrats 18 to 13. The GOP will hold at least 19 seats next session. Democrats will hold at least 11, though they are leading in one Senate race that is still too close to call.

    The Republicans’ victories were felt prominently in South Texas, where the GOP won key races after targeting the historically Democratic region of Texas after Democratic President Joe Biden underperformed there in 2020.

    In House District 37, now anchored in Harlingen, Republican Janie Lopez beat Democrat Luis Villareal Jr. The seat is currently held by Democratic state Rep. Alex Dominguez, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate rather than seek reelection. The district was redrawn to cut out many of the Democratic voters in Brownsville from the district to the benefit Republicans. Biden carried District 37 by 17.1 points in 2020 under the old boundaries, but would have won by only 2.2 points under the new map.

    Lopez would be the first Latina Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in the House.

    In another major South Texas victory, Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, who defected from the Democratic Party and ran this cycle as a Republican, won reelection handily.

    In another crucial battle in southern Bexar County, which has traditionally been dominated by Democrats, Republican incumbent John Lujan prevailed over Democrat Frank Ramirez, a former San Antonio City Council member.

  • Who did well? Incumbent Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw. Remember this ad from 2020? In addition to Crenshaw winning reelection by some 73,000 votes, August Pfluger and Beth Van Duyne won reelection to their districts, and Wesley Hunt, who ran a close-but-no-cigar race for TX7 in 2020, managed to win the race for newly created TX38 this year. (My guess is that, just like Rep. Byron Donalds (FL19) and Rep. Burgess Owens (UT4), Hunt will be blocked from joining the Congressional Black Caucus.)
  • Is there any sign of black support for Democrats eroding? A bit. In 2018, Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (one of the very dimmest bulbs in congress) received 75.3% of the vote from her black and Hispanic majority district. In 2020, she received 73.3%. In 2022 (post redistricting), she received 70.7%. Slow progress, but progress none the less.
  • Unfortunately, corrupt Harris County Democratic head Lina Hidalgo managed to edge her Republican opponent by a mere 15,000 votes.
  • Leftwing fossil Lloyd Doggett was elected to his fifteenth term in congress, crushing his Republican opponent for the newly created 37th congressional district, while communist twerp Greg Casar (formerly of the Austin City Council) was elected to the 35th, formerly Doggett’s prior to redistricting.
  • Tarrant County had been trending more purple recently, going for O’Rourke over Cruz there by about 4,000 votes in 2018, and going for Biden over Trump by a mere 2,000 votes (less than .3%). But Abbott beat O’Rourke there by some 25,000 votes.
  • Jefferson County (Beaumont) is another county that’s flipped back. It went for O’Rourke over Cruz by about 500 votes,and flipped back to Trump over by around 500, but Abbott walloped O’Rouke by over 8,000 votes this year.
  • The runoff in the Austin Mayoral race will be on December 13 between hard lefty Celia Israel, and soft lefty retread Kirk Watson. If Watson picks up a clear majority of third place finisher Jennifer Virden’s voters (which seems likely), he should win.
  • As I mentioned in the Liveblog, the social justice warrior slate beat the conservative slate in Round Rock ISD.
  • This is a side effect of Williamson County, formerly a reliable Republican bulwark, becoming decidedly more liberal as Austin has become a hotbed of radical leftism. Abbott still edged O’Rourke by some 2,000 votes here, but Biden beat Trump by about 4,000 votes in 2020.

    • If 1978 is the year this election reminds me of nationally, then 1984 is the template year for Texas politics. In 1982, Phil Gramm resigned after Democrats threw him off the House Budget Committee (because why would you want a professional economist on a budget committee?), switched parties, and ran for his own vacancy in a special election as a Republican, winning handily.

    Gramm’s switch showed that the time for conservatives to remain welcome in the Democratic Party was drawing to a close, and the way he resigned to run again rather than just switching made him a folk hero among Texas republicans. In 1984, Gramm ran for the senate, walloping Ron Paul, Robert Mosbacher, Jr. (a sharp guy who eventually did better in business than politics) and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Hank Grover in the Republican primary before decisively beating Lloyd Doggett (yep, the same one that’s still in congress) in the general by some 900,000 votes.

    Gramm’s victory showed that the political careers of conservative Democrats who switched to the Republican Party could not only survive, but thrive. Between 1986 and the late 1990s, a series of high profile conservative Texas Democrats (including Kent Hance and Rick Perry) would switch from an increasingly radical Democratic Party to the GOP.

    So too, this year showed that Hispanic Democrats could leave a party increasingly out of tune with people they represented (largely hard-working, law-abiding, entrepreneurial, conservative, and Catholic) for the Republican Party and win. Republicans may not have flipped terribly many seats in south Texas, but except for recent special election-winner Myra Flores, they held their gains.

    The combination of Trump’s distinct appeal to working class Hispanics, deep opposition to disasterous Democratic open borders policies, and Gov. Abbott’s long term dedication to building out Republican infrastructure there have all primed Hispanics to shift to the GOP. Just as it took years for all Texas conservatives and most moderates to abandon the Democratic Party (Republicans wouldn’t sweep statewide offices until 1998), it will take years for the majority of Hispanics to switch.

    But if Democrats continue to push open borders, social justice, radical transgenderism, soft on crime policies, high taxes and socialism, expect Hispanics to make that switch sooner rather than later.

    That’s my Texas race roundup. If you have any notable highlights you think I should have covered, feel free to share them in the comments below.

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 11 Comments »

    Republicans Flip Another Hispanic Texas House Seat

    Wednesday, June 15th, 2022

    Republican inroads into Texas Democratic Hispanic strongholds continue apace.

    According to unofficial results, Republican Mayra Flores has won the special election to represent Texas’ 34th Congressional District, anchored in Cameron County.

    The 34th is a sprawling district that includes a lot of rural southern Texas between San Antonio and the Gulf Coast. Cameron County is where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and includes Brownsville, Harlingen and South Padre Island.

    It’s an 85% Hispanic district that went for Obama by 61% in 2012, but for Biden by only 51% in 2020, an indication of the steady erosion of Democratic support among Texas Hispanics. And it’s also a district that suffers greatly under the Biden Administration’s continued refusal to deport illegal aliens.

    It’s also where Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica is located. A small house Boca Chica is also Musk’s legal residence, and Musk announced on Twitter that he voted for Flores.

    Flores’ victory represents a major upset for the historically Democratic seat.

    A Republican has not won the seat since the district was drawn in the last redistricting cycle 10 years ago. In fact, over the past forty years, a Republican has only won the seat once, in 2010.

    Flores squeaked past the 50 percent mark just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday night. At the time, runner-up Dan Sanchez, a Democrat, had just over 43 percent of the vote.

    Flores enjoyed a clear advantage over Sanchez in the election day vote count. Among early voters only, the gap between the two candidates was fewer than 300 votes. Election day voters preferred Flores to Sanchez by well over a thousand votes.

    The special election pitted candidates from both parties in a four-way race on the same ballot. However, party leaders largely rallied behind Flores and Sanchez.

    Flores, a respiratory care practitioner, had already won the Republican primary in March before the incumbent Filemon Vela (D-TX-34) announced his retirement. Flores enjoyed the endorsements of Governor Greg Abbott and Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi.

    On the Democratic side, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-15), who currently represents a neighboring congressional district in South Texas, won the Democratic nomination on March 1. However, Vela’s abrupt resignation announcement meant that Gonzalez would have had to leave his current seat to run for the 34th district instead of waiting for a regular transition in November.

    Gonzalez decided not to leave his current seat, endorsing Sanchez in his stead.

    Sanchez also nabbed Vela’s endorsement among other prominent Democrats, such as attorney general candidate Rochelle Garza.

    However, there’s a caveat:

    Bolstered by ongoing political trends in South Texas, timing gave Republicans an advantage.

    The voting population included in District 34 under the current map leans 54 percent Democratic based on data from the past two general elections. But the voting population of the newly adopted district map leans 63 percent Democratic.

    In other words, if Vela had not retired and triggered a special election, his replacement would have been decided in November by a more Democratic voting population than what the district currently includes.

    Flores may face a greater challenge in November when the regular election takes place under the new map with a more Democratic voting population.

    Between the impact of the Biden Recession and the continued flight of Hispanics from the Democratic Party, if ever there were a year for Republicans to defend a marginal seat, 2022 is it. Expect Flores to get all the help she needs from the state and national party to hold the seat.

    Can Republicans trust her to not go squishy on border security once in office? Since she’s married to a border patrol agent, I’m go to go with “Yes”…

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »