Rep. Vincente Gonzalez (D-TX) is running for re-election. The Democrat represents the 34th Congressional District of Texas which includes cities like Brownsville and McAllen.
The district is heavily Hispanic. Republicans have been making progress in South Texas, which dates back to Donald Trump’s term in office. Former Rep. Mayra Flores Vallejo is his Republican challenger.
Mayra Flores Vallejo sent shock waves through South Texas when she won the district in a special election in 2020. She was the first Mexican-born Congresswoman in U.S. history. She was the first Republican elected in the district in 100 years. Flores Vallejo served five months and Gonzalez won the seat in 2022. Now the two are having a rematch.
Donald Trump endorses Flores Vallejo. Her husband is a Border Patrol agent and border security is a big issue in her campaign. She is the mother of four children and campaigns to end indoctrination in schools. She is a social conservative warrior and Democrats despise her for it. The race between her and Gonzalez was very nasty in 2022 and it looks like it won’t be any better this time around.
This congressional race is being watched closely, as it was in 2022. Democrats are nervous about the growing trend toward Republican candidates in the Rio Grande Valley.
Gonzalez is from McAllen. Last week in one of his snits, he compared Hispanic Trump supporters to “Jews for Hitler.” Imagine being so out-of-touch that he would say such a disgusting thing, especially as the Israel-Hamas war rages on. Maybe Flores Vallejo should use a Trump term and call him a nasty hombre. It would be accurate.
In an interview with The New Republic published Monday, Gonzalez warned that Democrats could soon lose support among socially conservative Hispanic voters in South Texas as Republicans increasingly invest in the area. He said Hispanic voters are largely turned off by the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the top of the Republican ticket, including former President Donald Trump casting Mexican immigrants as “rapists.”
“If they didn’t have that racist, divisive element within their party, they would have a lot of Latinos, but they can’t seem to shake that off,” Gonzalez told the magazine. “The rhetoric you hear from the Republican Party is shameful and disgraceful for Latinos. And you know, when you see ‘Latinos for Trump,’ to me it is like seeing ‘Jews for Hitler,’ almost, you know?”
Flores Vallejo responded on social media. Believe them when Democrats tell you who they are.
When they say the quiet part out loud, believe them.
Shame on Vicente Gonzalez for referring to conservative Latinos in this manner. He forgets they are his constituents, too.
We need to elect new leadership in November, and that’s exactly what the Rio Grande Valley will do. pic.twitter.com/F8o8Fdvj9h
— Mayra Flores Vallejo (@MayraFloresTX34) March 13, 2024
The National Republican Congressional Committee called on Gonzalez to apologize. The Congressional Leadership PAC issued a statement calling his remark “absolutely disgusting.” It accused Gonzalez of pressuring voters “into voting a certain way based on their ethnicity.”
Instead of manning up and apologizing for such a hideous remark, Gonzalez doubled down. He said he didn’t understand how Mexican Americans can vote for Donald Trump. He said it goes against their self-interest.
“It’s clearly a vote against self interest. And yes it would be like the Jewish community voting for Hitler before the atrocities he caused. That would never happen. And Latinos need [to] wake up and see a tyrant on the horizon,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez added that Flores “should be calling out Trump” for his remarks about migrants.
Gonzalez is a back-bencher in the House. He has nothing to run on so he attacks Flores Vallejo, mostly on a personal level. In the 2022 campaign, he made several gaffes. He said he was a native of South Texas and “wasn’t born in Mexico.” He said he didn’t come here through “chain migration, amnesty, or asylum.” Flores Vallejo’s parents came to Texas through the legal immigration process when she was very young.
He also photoshopped a picture of her to make her look angry and scary while he paid a blogger to use racist slurs to describe Flores Vallejo. Then when that ugliness was exposed, he cut ties with the blogger.
The district is heavily Democratic. Republicans are funding her campaign in a big way in hopes of Mayra making history again by flipping the district.
The reason the race is tight and Mayra is getting so much support from Hispanic Texas voters is because they are socially conservative, for the most part. Mayra taps into that, as she is, too. The NRCC released a statement that said Hispanic voters are moving away from Democrats because the party has failed them.
“Hispanic voters, especially those living in border communities, know that Democrats are failing them on the border, the economy and community safety. Vicente Gonzalez’s comments are insulting, and he should apologize,” NRCC spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said in a statement.
“Vicente Gonzalez’s racist comments are incredibly hurtful to our entire Latino community in the Rio Grande Valley,” Flores told Fox News Digital. “While he continues peddling in hate and division, I’m going to focus on policies that uplift our entire community, including lower costs, a secure border, safer communities and a focus on faith, family and more opportunities in TX-34.”
The truth is that in Biden’s America, all demographics are struggling to make ends meet. Hispanics are just as vulnerable to Biden’s lousy economic policies as any other voters. The residents in the Rio Grande Valley want the border secured. They resent illegal aliens flooding into their community.
Hispanic Americans did well in the Trump years, as all Americans did. The economy boomed at historic levels before the pandemic. Trump’s pre-pandemic record looks pretty good these days. This will be a race to watch.