Mayra Flores bets South Texas is ready for an outspoken conservative

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When Mayra Flores gained the particular election for Texas’ thirty fourth Congressional District final month, she turned the primary Mexican-born girl to serve in Congress — and one of some Republicans to ever signify the Rio Grande Valley in Washington, D.C.

That was the simple half.

Flores’ special-election victory gave Republicans a shot of momentum as they attempt to make a brand new battleground out of South Texas, a predominantly Hispanic area lengthy dominated by Democrats.

“She is the beacon of hope right now,” mentioned Adrienne Peña-Garza, the Hidalgo County GOP chair who helped introduce Flores to native politics only a few years in the past.

Now the 36-year-old Mexican immigrant, who spent her childhood summers working within the cotton fields of Tennessee, faces a more durable election in a bluer district that might rapidly lower brief a promising political profession.

After arriving in Congress a bit over a month in the past, Flores rapidly carved out a profile not like that typical of battleground incumbents, leaning into political fights and eschewing the ideological middle. She cheered on the U.S. Supreme Court resolution overturning Roe v. Wade, voted towards the bipartisan gun management regulation and opposed laws defending same-sex marriage.

She stays vocal concerning the three values that centered her marketing campaign — religion, household and nation — and makes little apology about her politics.

“I’m conservative and have strong values, and that’s why we were successful in the special election,” Flores mentioned in a latest interview.

In every of her latest votes, she sided with a majority of her GOP colleagues, although she is not simply any Republican within the House. The district the place she is working for a full time period in November — protecting a populous swath of the Valley and two counties north of it — would have been carried by President Joe Biden by 16 proportion factors. It is a difficult panorama even in a nationwide setting that favors Republicans.

If she wins in November, Flores might put the most important exclamation level but on Republicans’ drive to show South Texas pink. But if she loses, her monthslong keep in Congress might go down because the special-election aberration that Democrats are hoping for, particularly after watching her first month in workplace.

“She’s made no bones about the conservatism in her faith and that she would be a firm conservative” if elected, mentioned Andrew Smith, a political science professor on the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “And I think that’s something that’s a high-risk, high-reward proposition come November.”

Growing up

Flores was born in 1986 in Burgos, ​​Tamaulipas, Mexico, a small city about 150 miles south of the Texas-Mexico border. She remembers strolling to highschool, rising near her grandparents, attending numerous household gatherings — and studying that her household could be going to the United States when she was 6 years previous.

“I remember the kids in the school being happy for me the last day,” Flores mentioned. “I clearly remember our teacher made the class aware that I was going to be going to the otro lado, meaning the other side, and everyone just looking at me, like, ‘Wow, you’re going to the other side.’”

Her household moved to the Rio Grande Valley however later turned nicely acquainted with one other a part of the nation: Memphis, the place they spent summers working within the cotton fields. Flores mentioned she began at an early age — 13 — and spent summer season days hoeing the fields surrounded by every kind of household.

One of these members of the family was Elda Flores, her dad’s cousin who lived within the Memphis space. Elda Flores mentioned Mayra Flores was a “go-getter” who didn’t let something cease her, like when she was teased for having “garage-sale clothes.”

After working all day within the fields, the 2 women had been “still full of energy,” Elda Flores recalled, and would trip their bikes to the swimming pool.

Still, it was not all enjoyable. Mayra Flores remembers waking up in ache at 4 within the morning and her mom rubbing Icy Hot on her sore palms.

“I still remember her getting emotional and telling me, ‘You don’t have to do this,’” Flores mentioned. “And I remember saying, ‘No, I can.’ Because I knew that my parents couldn’t afford being able to buy needs, clothing and the school supplies.”

Flores graduated from highschool in San Benito in 2004. Ten years later, she acquired an affiliate diploma from South Texas College’s respiratory remedy program, and in 2019, bought a bachelor’s diploma from the college’s organizational management program.

Her time on the faculty overlapped with a rising curiosity in politics, and college noticed a scholar rising with the “potential to be a great leader,” mentioned Ali Esmaeili, who chairs the organizational management program.

“She was thinking about her community, what she can do to provide to her community and transform her community, the region,” he mentioned. “She had a long-term vision.”

Becoming politically concerned

Growing up, Flores mentioned her household by no means actually talked politics. She was raised with “very conservative” values, she mentioned, however when it got here time to vote, her household defaulted to Democrat by custom. When she requested her dad who to vote for within the 2008 presidential election, he informed her Barack Obama.

“He’s conservative himself, but he voted Democrat because … that’s what we were told to do,” Flores mentioned. “But we didn’t know what these parties stood for.”

Elda Flores, who has lengthy thought of herself a Republican, remembers one “heated debate” with Mayra Flores over her assist for Barack Obama again then. They had been hanging out at a buddies’ home, and Elda Flores mentioned the argument bought so dangerous she “actually had to take a breather and go outside.” They agreed to cease speaking about politics afterward.

Mayra Flores factors to 2010 because the yr she realized the true variations between the events and “walked away” from the Democrats. The most clarifying problem, she mentioned, was abortion, saying she noticed how Republicans “fought for the unborn” in contrast with Democrats.

Still, a number of years handed earlier than Flores bought concerned in politics extra formally. It occurred in the course of the federal authorities shutdown of late 2018 and early 2019, when the Hidalgo County GOP was holding an occasion to assist wives of Border Patrol brokers impacted by the shutdown. The spouse of a Border Patrol agent, Flores went to the occasion and bought to speaking with the county occasion chair, Peña-Garza, about getting extra concerned.

Days later, Peña-Garza supplied Flores the job of Hispanic outreach chair, a volunteer place, and Flores took it on with zeal. She spoke on behalf of the occasion within the media, block walked, telephone banked, helped recruit candidates and labored with them on their social media, and opened and closed the workplace. Peña-Garza mentioned there was no job too small for her.

Peña-Garza mentioned Democrats within the Valley had “done a really good job of making us the villains.” But along with her immigrant story and fluency in Spanish, Flores proved to be a “bridge for Hispanics,” the county chair mentioned.

“I could see that for first-generational Hispanics especially, people that are not happy with the open borders, not happy with where the country is right now, but maybe they need a different messenger — that was Mayra,” Peña-Garza mentioned.

At the identical time, Flores constructed her personal following on social media. When Flores began working for the county occasion, Peña-Garza mentioned she had requested Flores to begin her personal Facebook web page to share extra of her story and opinions — and “not hold back.” Flores gladly obliged.

Flores posted movies discussing the news of the day, however she would “throw in her twist, the little flavor she has,” recalled Joacim Hernandez, chair of the Texas Young Republicans who hails from the Valley.

“I think she had a good feel, a good pulse, for what was the hot topic that the culture down here could relate to and switch the narrative up,” Hernandez mentioned.

Special election and November

Flores’ eventual transition from activist to candidate was helped by one other Hispanic GOP girl within the Rio Grande Valley: Monica De La Cruz. Flores took inspiration from De La Cruz’s 2020 marketing campaign towards U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, within the fifteenth District, which drew little consideration till she got here inside 3 proportion factors of profitable — and helped gasoline new GOP optimism all through the area.

While Biden carried the fifteenth District by simply 2 proportion factors, he additionally underperformed within the neighboring thirty fourth District, making it an extra GOP goal heading into the midterms. Flores jumped into the race early, assuming she could be taking over the Democratic incumbent, U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela of Brownsville. But then he introduced he wouldn’t search reelection, creating an much more attractive pickup alternative for the GOP.

Then, redistricting occurred. While it made the fifteenth District extra favorable for De La Cruz, it made the thirty fourth District extra blue. Flores had traveled to Austin to beg the Republican mapmakers to rethink, however they caught with the map.

With Vela retiring, Gonzalez determined to hunt reelection within the safer thirty fourth District, and immediately, Flores’ uphill battle appeared steeper than ever.

The twists and turns in South Texas politics weren’t over but, although. A couple of months after redistricting was executed, Vela introduced he would step down early, prompting a particular election to fill his seat below the earlier, extra aggressive boundaries. Flores hardly waited to declare her candidacy for the particular election.

Republicans from Brownsville to Washington, D.C., went all in on the particular election, whereas nationwide Democrats spent a small fraction of the GOP funding. Democrats argued it was not price it for a seat that might probably stay of their column come November, when Gonzalez is the nominee within the bluer thirty fourth District.

The particular election was not even shut. Flores scored an outright victory over the candidate Democrats needed to rush to area, Dan Sanchez, 51% to 43%.

National and state Democrats disregarded Flores’ win as a fluke that might be irrelevant come November. But native Democrats noticed it in a different way.

In his concession assertion, Sanchez faulted the nationwide occasion for not taking the particular election extra critically. And days later, a coalition of county occasion chairs throughout South Texas sounded the alarm, noting how organized and unified Republicans had been.

“If these missteps continue, and South Texas continues to be ignored by national Democratic committees,” the county chairs mentioned in a joint assertion, “we risk losing South Texas to Republicans.”

First month in Congress

Flores’ first month in Congress was something however uneventful. She was sworn in three days earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a call that she celebrated with out hesitation as polls confirmed it was unpopular in Texas.

“Honestly, this is a dream come true for me,” Flores mentioned on Fox News shortly after the ruling got here out.

The news obscured a extra politically delicate matter looming that morning for Flores, not less than in her view. The Senate had simply handed a bipartisan gun management invoice, the primary important one in a technology, partly in response to the Uvalde faculty taking pictures in May. The House vote on the laws could be Flores’ first main vote in Congress, and she or he had declined to inform a CNN reporter the night time earlier than how she would vote.

She ended up becoming a member of most of her GOP colleagues in voting no, whilst the total House permitted the invoice and despatched it to Biden’s desk. She issued a press release afterward saying the proposal didn’t present sufficient cash for faculty security and that the method was too rushed.

Gonzalez promptly criticized her for opposing the invoice, noting in a press release it was “crafted by our state’s senior senator, John Cornyn” — a Republican. Speaking days later at a Hidalgo County GOP dinner, Flores appeared to acknowledge it was not an simple resolution.

“In only one week that I was there, I remember I was going to be voting for a very controversial bill, and I was praying that morning that Roe vs. Wade would get overturned so the attention would be on that,” Flores mentioned jokingly.

The controversial votes didn’t finish there, although. With Democrats seeking to codify same-sex marriage and contraception entry after the Roe ruling, Flores voted towards payments to do each of these issues. She said the contraception invoice “creates a back door to abortion.”

While most Republicans opposed the payments, few of them are in districts as aggressive as Flores’ in November. And when it got here to the laws on weapons and homosexual marriage, Flores cut up with a fellow South Texas Republican who had campaigned for her, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio, whose district contains Uvalde.

The votes have all given Gonzalez’s marketing campaign contemporary fodder for the November election. The marketing campaign issued a news launch Monday saying that Flores has “already made her far right-wing views clear” after one month in workplace.

But Flores has been handed loads of political alternatives herself, fueling viral tweets and a gradual stream of Fox News appearances bashing Democrats as more and more out of contact with Hispanic voters.

After her swearing-in ceremony, a clip went viral that confirmed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., nudging one of Flores’ daughters whereas posing for a photograph. The New York Times revealed a narrative about Flores — and different Hispanic Republican girls working for Congress in South Texas — titled “The Rise of the Far-Right Latina.” And earlier this month, first girl Jill Biden visited San Antonio and informed a Latino civil rights group that the Hispanic neighborhood is “as unique as the breakfast tacos” within the metropolis.

Gonzalez additionally has not executed himself many favors. He disparaged Flores’ immigration story in a Newsweek interview, arguing he is aware of the district higher as a result of he was born in Texas. And most lately, it was uncovered that Gonzalez’s marketing campaign has been paying an area blogger for promoting who has been slinging racist slurs at Flores.

“Vicente Gonzalez can’t handle running against a strong, accomplished Latina like Mayra Flores,” mentioned Torunn Sinclair, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, denouncing Gonzalez’s “xenophobic and sexist attacks.”

Beating the chances in November

All the nationwide consideration following Flores might attain an abrupt finish on Nov. 8.

Not solely is the thirty fourth District bluer because of redistricting, however turnout will likely be increased than the 7% seen within the particular election. And she faces a extra established Democratic opponent in Gonzalez, who had $1.4 million money readily available on the finish of June. By distinction, Flores had $114,000 money readily available, her funds depleted by the particular election.

Democrats say Flores also can anticipate way more scrutiny, and their opposition analysis file is well-known.

As Hispanic outreach chair for the Hidalgo County GOP, she made a number of social media posts with a protracted listing of hashtags that included some associated to the QAnon conspiracy motion. She has mentioned she by no means supported QAnon and that she was really arguing towards QAnon, although her marketing campaign has but to offer proof of that declare.

She additionally made posts casting doubt on the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election and suggesting that President Donald Trump gained. She has refused to deal with these posts and declined to entertain questions concerning the validity of the 2020 election, saying she is targeted on future elections.

Flores gave a shoutout to Trump in her special-election victory speech.

“We have to state the facts that under President Trump, we did not have this mess in this country,” Flores mentioned.

But it is unclear how a lot she plans to embrace him going ahead, particularly because the Jan. 6 hearings proceed to tarnish his public picture. In an interview, she was comparatively restrained when requested about his affect on the Hispanic vote.

“I think that Hispanics just started seeing that they had more money in their pocket,” Flores mentioned. “The Hispanic community was doing a lot better under the previous administration.”

Republicans are optimistic Flores can cling on regardless of the longer odds in November. They notice Biden is solely rising extra unpopular, together with amongst Hispanic voters, and financial issues will not be receding amongst voters.

And for all of the discuss of Gonzalez being a stronger opponent, they level out that he has already had ample missteps in his marketing campaign.

In the particular election, “it was a perfect storm,” mentioned Macarena Martinez, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “It’s even more of a perfect storm now.”

Disclosure: The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Facebook and The New York Times have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that is funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.

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