Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX 34), from her campaign website. Click to enlarge.
Republicans flip a Democratic-held House seat in South Texas, at least for now.
by Jennifer Medina | Tuesday, June 14, 2022
A U.S. House district in South Texas will send a Republican to Congress for the first time in its 10-year history.
Mayra Flores, a Republican and respiratory-care health aide, scored a significant victory in a special election on Tuesday for the party, which has been trying to capitalize on its successes in 2020 in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley. She will be the first Latina Republican from Texas in Congress.
Ms. Flores defeated three opponents in the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired this year before the end of his term. She captured more than 50 percent of the vote in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press, and will avoid an expected runoff with Dan Sanchez, a Democrat and former commissioner in Cameron County.
Her win may only be temporary, however.
The special election was held to determine who would fill the remainder of Mr. Vela’s term until the end of this year. Voters in the general election in November will decide who will become the district’s permanent representative beginning in January. Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents a neighboring district, is the Democratic nominee for November, and is widely favored to win the race against Ms. Flores, who is also running to fill the seat permanently in November.
It isn’t difficult to see how the Times is trying to downplay her victory, but note: she won outright, avoiding what the Times called “an expected runoff” election.
Republicans have directed enormous sums of money and attention to the race in recent weeks, seeking an early victory in a district that includes the border city of Brownsville. Ms. Flores raised 16 times the amount of money that Mr. Sanchez did. And she and her allies have spent more than $1 million on television advertisements, while Democrats have largely stayed off the air.
Republicans believe they have found an ideal candidate for the region in Ms. Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a young child. Her parents spent years working as migrant farmworkers in Texas. She is the wife of a Border Patrol agent and has campaigned on strict immigration enforcement in the overwhelmingly Mexican American district.
Say what? A Mexican-born immigrant, yet she favors “strict immigration enforcement,” and she won in a heavily Latino district? From her campaign website:
Mayra Flores was born and raised with humble beginnings in Burgos Tamaulipas, Mexico. Her parents and grandparents raised her with strong conservative values and to always put God and family first. She came legally to the United States at six years old with the help of her father. Her father gave her family the biggest gift, the gift of becoming a proud, naturalized American Citizen.
She and her family immigrated to the United States legally! That’s what Republicans support, that’s what I support!
Her parents were migrant workers, and like all migrant kids, she moved a lot growing up. She spent most of her life in the Rio Grande Valley and in 2004, she graduated high school in San Benito, TX. Growing up, Mayra worked alongside her parents in the cotton fields in Memphis, TX to earn extra money for school clothes and supplies. Instilling the value of hard work and the importance of education in her at a young age, Mayra remains a firm believer in the American Dream and will always fight so that others can achieve it as she has. She is eternally grateful to her parents for providing her with an opportunity to come to this amazing country to live the American Dream. Mayra graduated in 2014 as a Respiratory Care Practitioner with the support of her family. She currently works caring for the elderly and disabled with chronic respiratory issues and has been on the front lines helping patients combat COVID-19. She continued her studies and graduated with a Bachelors in Organizational Leadership from South Texas College. Mayra currently serves as the Hidalgo County GOP Hispanic Outreach Chair and has played a critical role in growing and maintaining Republican support across South Texas. She believes that having a strong relationship with the community and understanding the needs of each individual should be a requirement for any political candidate.
Mayra believes in fortifying our legal immigration system, in securing our borders, lowering the costs of healthcare, lowering taxes, promoting small businesses, and less government. She is a Pro-Life, Pro-Second Amendment, and Pro-Law Enforcement candidate that wants to earn your vote. She is a proud U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) wife and a mother, fighting for a better future for the children of South Texas.
One of her campaign yard signs.
For what more can a conservative ask?
Times reporter Jennifer Medina had warned the Democrats that this might be coming:
How Immigration Politics Drives Some Hispanic Voters to the G.O.P. in Texas
Former President Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way.
by Jennifer Medina | Monday, February 28, 2022 | Updated: Tuesday, March 1, 2022
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Mayra Flores, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, has done much of her campaigning in South Texas in Spanish. She has heard one phrase repeatedly from voters as she and other candidates try to become the first Republicans to represent the Rio Grande Valley in Congress.
¿Y nosotros?
And what about us?
“I hear every day that they’re tired — they feel that there is so much attention and help being given to the immigrants,” Ms. Flores said. “The attention’s on all these illegal immigrants, and not on them.”
The author then tells us how horrible that is!
Grievance politics, it turns out, translates.
Donald J. Trump’s brand of populism has been widely viewed as an appeal to white voters: Republicans around the country continue to exploit the fear that the left is attacking religious values and wants to replace traditional white American culture with nonwhite multiculturalism. But similar grievances have resonated in the Rio Grande Valley in a profound way, driving the Republican Party’s successes in a Democratic stronghold where Hispanics make up more than 90 percent of the population.
And why is that?
The difference is in the type of culture believed to be under assault. Democrats are destroying a Latino culture built around God, family and patriotism, dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas said in interviews. The Trump-era anti-immigrant rhetoric of being tough on the border and building the wall has not repelled these voters from the Republican Party or struck them as anti-Hispanic bigotry. Instead, it has drawn them in.
“Our parents came in a certain way — they came in and worked, they became citizens and didn’t ask for anything,” said Ramiro Gonzalez Jr., a 48-year-old rancher from Raymondville, on the northern edge of the Rio Grande Valley. “We were raised hard-core Democrats, but today Democrats want to give everything away.”
Mrs Flores parents were also Democrats, but she became a Republican due to her strong prolife views. In a mid-term election in which the Democrats are expected to fare poorly, you can expect them to hammer hard to get the Latino vote, but Mrs Flores’ victory tells us something good: the left cannot count on that, and may not win it at all.
References
| ↑1 | Apparently Catholic, though her biography page does not so specify. |
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