A complicated political story is playing out on the border in South Texas as Democrats ask whether they’re contending with more than a bad cycle.
South Texas voted Republican at historic levels. Donald Trump won almost every county along the border. But Republicans didn’t sweep. House Democrats kept their seats.
“All incumbents on the state reps, which are a majority Democrat, still won; the county judges are still Democrat,” Texas-based political consultant James Aldrete said.
He’s still worried.
“Do not take anything I’ve said as, like, optimism. The results were defeating overall,” he said. “There’s warning signs, yeah, we just got our asses kicked.”
The “why” of it all seems clear to most who know South Texas. The region was hit hard by COVID-19 and inflation, and there is a perception that national Democrats weren’t connected with the community. Local leaders said voters felt neglected — economically and geographically. Republican candidates told NOTUS that their base complained that migrants were cutting in line and were getting more help from the government than the citizens in South Texas were.
“[Migrants are] living for free, and people are seeing that. They’re no longer turning a blind eye that they’re eating better than we are and living better than we are,” said Wanda Cuellar-Garcia, the Republican sheriff candidate in Zapata County, which Trump won this year with 61% of the vote.
Then again, she’s skeptical of a true political realignment. She lost her race by a lot, winning only 23% of the vote.
“A lot of people voted Trump, and then turned around and voted blue,” Cuellar-Garcia said. “You’re just a Trumper. You’re not a Republican. The true Republicans voted straight red.”
Mayra Flores, another Republican who lost her race Tuesday, was quicker to find silver linings.
She lost by less than 3 percentage points in her race against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, significantly improving from her nearly 9 points in November 2022, when she first ran against him — then as the incumbent. Flores won a special election for the seat in June 2022, serving several months in Congress. She thinks it’s a trend that’s going to stick.
“I really do believe that as long as we continue putting in work in South Texas, we’re going to see more Republicans down the valley get elected,” she said. “That just tells me that what we’re doing, it’s working, and it’s not the time for us to back down.”
Her argument: Even if Republicans — who have adopted racist rhetoric about migrants and Spanish speakers, notably Haitians and Puerto Ricans this cycle — are rubbing folks the wrong way, their economic message is louder and clearer.
“The everyday American just doesn’t have the luxury to vote for someone that they like,” Flores said. “They’re going to vote for someone that’s going to get the job done, and that will allow them to have more money in their pocket so they can take care of their children and their families.”
There’s no way to know for sure what will happen in future cycles. But if Democrats don’t reverse the trend, it could ultimately cost them representation, both in Congress and the statehouse, hurting their effort to make Texas a real battleground.
“We got absolutely no support,” said Sylvia Bruni, the Democratic Party chair in Webb County, which covers Laredo. Trump won the county, the first time a Republican presidential candidate has done so in 100 years. “As long as the Democratic Party continues to ignore South Texas, we’re going to continue to suffer.”
The executive director of the party, Monique Alcala, pushed back on the idea that they didn’t invest.
“I wouldn’t even say it is a lack of investment on our part, but an overinvestment on the Republican side,” she said.
Republicans agreed.
“Your team is either getting better or they’re not. Our team is getting better,” Cat Parks, president of the Coalition Por For Texas, which invested in South Texas, said.
Depending on the county, there are some signs that Republicans might be finding a lasting foothold. Alfredo Arellano, the former Republican chair of Maverick County, pointed out that there were only 500 to 700 new voters in his county this cycle, but Republicans had improved their totals by thousands.
“The president won it by close to 3,000, so we’re talking about switching over the hearts and minds of close to 1,500 Democrats that voted Democrat in the previous election,” he said.
He also pointed to the few local seats that did flip — Adam Hinojosa will become the first Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in the state Senate since Reconstruction — and to local incumbents like Eddie Morales, who won his statehouse district by a much smaller margin than in 2022. Republicans also won the open South Texas seat formerly held by retiring Democratic Rep. Tracy King by almost 20 points.
Parks isn’t concerned if Democrats keep thinking Republican gains are a myth. She said it really only works in their favor.
“I’d love for them to continue thinking that we’re the underdog, underperforming, and we’ll keep coming in and doing what we do,” Parks said.
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.