Villarreal defeated Ruben Cortez by a slender 5 factors, lower than 300 votes.
Cortez is a present State Board of Education (SBOE) member who beforehand challenged Lucio for his Senate seat within the 2020 Democratic main.
In the March 1 main, Cortez led with 41.3 p.c of the vote whereas Villarreal acquired 38.5 p.c.
The runoff marketing campaign between the 2 grew heated, with Cortez asking, “Is my opponent running in the right primary?”
“I’ve always worked with my Republican friends to get things done for our community, but I’ve never given thousands of dollars to the Republican Party of Texas, which has worked so hard to defund our schools, block Medicaid expansion, and oppress workers and women,” stated Cortez.
The SBOE member pointed to 2020 donations from Villarreal to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and the Republican Party of Texas to the tune of $2,800 and $5,000, respectively.
“Regardless,” added Cortez, “I will keep working with my Republican friends, including my opponent, on ways to find common ground.”
Villarreal responded by criticizing Cortez for being “in attack mode.”
“Yes, he found these two ‘AHA!’ documents and maybe thinks it is evidence that I am not liberal enough,” stated Villarreal. “He holds them up like meal tickets for another four years of milking the government cow.”
Lucio’s former staffer stated “these donations are entirely accurate and true.”
Villarreal exchanged some barbs of his personal, claiming Cortez “has spent the last 18 years milking the government’s cow.”
“Taxpayer-paid trips to Las Vegas, exuberant dinners, and influenced career boost to his relatives are just examples of how we think he has benefitted himself from being in office,” stated Villarreal. “Yet you and I are stuck with the bill.”
In the top — however by solely a slender margin — Democrats within the district got here down on the facet of Villarreal.
The nomination units up a aggressive common election race towards Janie Lopez, the Republican nominee for the seat who received the GOP main outright in March.
With large swings towards Republicans in the newest election cycles, the occasion hopes to win new seats within the area.
In the redistricting course of final fall, GOP lawmakers particularly focused HD 37, altering its composition with an modification to make it some of the aggressive seats within the state.
Based on the Texas Partisan Index, the brand new district has a ranking of D-53%, which means that Democrats received with a mean of 53 p.c of the vote towards Republicans in 2018 and 2020.
The make-up of the district was particularly focused in a lawsuit that has made its strategy to the Texas Supreme Court, in a case that argues the district violates the Texas Constitution’s “county line rule.”
Under the Constitution, state House districts should fall inside county traces each time attainable.
Occasionally — corresponding to in El Paso County — lawmakers should break a county line with a district with a purpose to conform with the inhabitants necessities for districts.
But in Cameron County, the county line is damaged by two districts, not only one: HD 37, which additionally covers everything of Willacy County, and HD 35, which reaches into Hidalgo County.
The present incumbent underneath the previous map, Rep. Alex Dominguez (D-Brownsville), was drawn into a 3rd district, HD 38, that’s contained completely inside Cameron County.
Notably, one of many plaintiffs difficult the brand new boundaries of HD 37 is Cortez.
An lawyer for the state informed justices they’d not dispute that Dominguez would have standing to problem the legality of the brand new map if he had sought reelection. But Dominguez determined to run for a Senate seat as a substitute.
Not desirous to sow confusion amid the present election cycle, the state Supreme Court punted on responding to different redistricting lawsuits and isn’t anticipated to demand any sudden redistricting adjustments to HD 37.
But the state has conceded that lawmakers should revisit redistricting within the coming legislative session that begins in January.
Had Cortez been elected to the seat, his opposition to the map and the state’s admission of an incumbent’s standing would have doubtless performed a job in how the seat is likely to be redrawn.
But now the chance for that incumbent affect will fall into the fingers of Lopez or Villarreal, who didn’t deliver the lawsuit towards the brand new map.