Vicente Gonzalez fights tough in 34th Congressional District race

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WASHINGTON — On paper, U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez must be sitting fairly.

He’s operating in a comfortably Democratic district. He has a pocketbook that different candidates can solely dream of. And he’s well-known in the group the place he labored for many years earlier than taking workplace.

“There’s no way Vicente can lose this race,” mentioned former U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, the final Democrat to characterize the district. “The world could collapse and he’s still going to win.”

But Vela’s confidence concerning the race isn’t common. Despite his benefits, Gonzalez is operating a hard-fought marketing campaign that has been beset by obstacles — a few of his personal making.

In a twist, Gonzalez, a three-term congressman, just isn’t the incumbent the place he’s operating, since he opted to run in a brand new district after redistricting. That distinction goes to Republican U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, who won her special election and flipped the district red in June after a tsunami of support from national Republicans hopeful to make South Texas their new stomping grounds. Emboldened by that win, Republicans are relentlessly going after Gonzalez’s verbal gaffes and portraying him as an out-of-touch creature of Washington.

Gonzalez’s aggressive spending in the race exhibits that he’s not taking something as a right. His marketing campaign has spent $2.2 million as of the tip of June on a strong floor sport — practically twice the bills of his previous two campaigns mixed — and that’s earlier than he launched his first TV advert in late September. With over $1.4 million in money available, he’s on his option to surpassing his 2016 spending of $2.3 million. This 12 months is his most sturdy operation since he first ran for Congress in 2016, he mentioned.

To Republicans, it’s an admission that their forays into the normal Democratic stronghold of South Texas are scaring Democrats and that Flores’ particular election was not the one-time, low season fluke they’ve made it out to be. Flores stresses her message of arduous work, religion and border safety attraction to the socially conservative values of the area, saying Democrats took South Texas Latinos as a right even because the celebration grew to become more and more out of step with their values.

Flores’ particular election victory final summer season adopted her celebration pouring over $1.7 million largely from out of state, into the race and the House Democratic marketing campaign arm declining to match the spending. Gonzalez, who didn’t run in the particular election as a result of he nonetheless occupies his seat, warned on the time that neglecting the district in the particular would swing momentum in Republicans’ favor, calling the loss a “self-inflicted tragedy.”

“It was a mistake to not have gone all in on that special, but we are where we are,” he mentioned in a latest interview. He additionally mentioned that the Republican money was the one cause Flores was doing properly and that November “is going to be a very different election than the special.”

Gonzalez is now operating in the 34th District after three phrases representing the next-door fifteenth District, which runs from the suburbs of San Antonio to McAllen’s Mexican border. Gonzalez’s house and far of his previous district’s city core was looped into the newly recast — and way more Democratic — 34th District after redistricting.

The 34th District has a powerful report of Democrats succeeding down the poll. Cameron County, which makes up the district’s inhabitants middle together with parts of Hidalgo County, voted 54% for Democrat Lupe Valdez in the 2018 gubernatorial election, although she was extensively seen as a weak candidate even inside her celebration.

And it has solely gotten bluer with redistricting, which lobbed off a big tail of the district that prolonged far north into Gonzales County east of San Antonio and included extra conservative elements of the state. Flores received her particular election underneath the previous district traces, the place President Joe Biden received by 4 proportion factors over Donald Trump based mostly on the 2020 election outcomes. But this November the brand new district will apply, which might have had Biden profitable with a 15.5-percentage-point margin.

Republicans contend that Gonzalez fled the fifteenth District to the 34th in order to take pleasure in operating in a neater race for a Democrat.

“He had no idea who he was going to be running against. He had no idea he was going to have to be running against an incumbent,” Flores mentioned. “He’s abandoning his constituents.”

It’s a story that visibly irritates Gonzalez, who retorts that he moved as a result of the Legislature put his house in the brand new 34th district. Members should not legally required to stay in their districts.

“We could have won [District] 15 as well. It would have been more of a challenge because of the way they drew it to be a very Republican district,” Gonzalez mentioned.

Gonzalez confronted off with Monica De La Cruz, who’s ideologically and personally near Flores, in the fifteenth District’s 2020 basic election. The incumbent Gonzalez spent over twice as a lot cash as De La Cruz however received by a margin of solely 2.9 proportion factors.

His run in a far safer district additionally leaves the far more modestly funded and lesser-known progressive Michelle Vallejo liable for defending the hotly competitive 15th District. Vallejo has introduced in slightly below $700,000 as of the tip of June with underneath $160,000 in money available — a shadow of the seven figures at Gonzalez’s disposal.

Regardless of the brand new district, Gonzalez says his ties to the group are unchanged. He has represented the area as a lawyer for many years earlier than taking workplace and constructed relations all through its authorized and political group. Gonzalez additionally has private ties to the coastal areas of South Texas. He was born in and attended faculty in Corpus Christi, whose southern portion dips into the district.

Gonzalez labored carefully with Vela on South Texas points on Capitol Hill, together with laws impacting District 34. The two have been usually aligned on the coverage points, voting collectively properly over 90% of the time, and Gonzalez co-sponsored 9 payments sponsored by Vela, largely over parochial issues and border points.

The two, together with U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, belong to a model of reasonable South Texas Democrats who can butt heads with the extra progressive wings of their celebration. Though Democrats have made local weather change a central coverage subject this congress, Cuellar and Gonzalez have been staunch defenders of their districts’ oil and gasoline employees (each members still voted for Democrats’ signature climate and social spending invoice this 12 months after weeks of holding their playing cards near the chest). Gonzalez sits atop the Congressional Oil and Gas Caucus and is a member of the centrist teams the Blue Dog Coalition, the New Democrat Coalition and the Problem Solvers Caucus.

“For 20 years as a lawyer, I fought for the same working families that I represent now in Congress, and many of them were from these new areas that I’m representing now in Congress in District 34,” Gonzalez mentioned. “So it’s not like I moved to Dallas.”

Gonzalez takes fierce pleasure in these deep ties, however they’ve additionally led to some verbal gaffes that Republicans have centered in their assault technique.

Gonzalez tried to distance himself from Flores, his Republican opponent and the primary Mexican-born congresswoman, by casting himself as a local of the district who “wasn’t born in Mexico,” Newsweek reported in June.

“I didn’t come here through chain migration, I didn’t come through asylum or amnesty or whatever,” he advised Newsweek.

Gonzalez additionally landed in sizzling water after his marketing campaign paid for promoting on a Texas political weblog that used racist and sexist language to describe Flores. Flores usually now says the congressman “hired” the blogger to verbally sexually harass her, however Gonzalez denies figuring out concerning the content material of the weblog and vowed to not give it any extra money.

Flores mentioned he was attacking her id as an immigrant as a result of he was panicking over her momentum.

“He should be talking about himself, and he’s just constantly attacking me and constantly disrespecting me,” Flores mentioned.

U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-California, a fellow member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with Gonzalez, defended his colleague as a “champion for immigrants in Congress” who “fights to help people of all backgrounds achieve the American Dream.”

“I’ve known Vicente for a long time — he’s Mexican American and proud of his roots,” Cárdenas mentioned in a press release. “The idea that he’s attacking Mayra Flores, or anyone, for her heritage is absurd.”

Gonzalez has additionally come underneath fireplace after The Texas Tribune reported that he and his spouse misfiled on their property taxes for years, claiming homestead exemptions on extra properties than is often allowed. The couple “voluntarily corrected” the “simple oversight” as quickly as they have been conscious of it, Gonzalez said.

He was additionally subjected to a Republican attack ad that alleged “millionaire attorney Vicente Gonzalez” had made his fortune by making “a living working for people charged with human trafficking.” The declare was in reference to his work in 2006 defending Marin Martinez-Hernandez, who pleaded responsible to illegally transporting migrants from Texas to Florida.

In actuality, Gonzalez was not primarily a prison protection lawyer. Rather he was appointed to characterize Martinez-Hernandez by the court docket underneath “managed assigned counsel” at a modest hourly charge, as was frequent follow in South Texas on the time.

Still, it’s no secret Gonzalez’s authorized follow has made him wealthy. He owns funding properties in the nation’s capital, Texas, Mexico and Spain. He received his 2016 major over Juan “Sonny” Palacios Jr., a deeply related Democrat coming from a extremely influential Valley political household, after lending well over $1 million of his personal money to his marketing campaign.

While Gonzalez forged the non-public spending blitz on the time as liberating him from company pursuits and the results of years of arduous work out of a working class background, Palacios’ camp on the time felt he was buying his election.

Gonzalez maintains he gained his wealth defending working households and — as a member of the Blue Collar Caucus, Small Business Caucus and Medicare for All Caucus — is an advocate for working class points on Capitol Hill.

Flores’ marketing campaign additionally hasn’t escaped its personal share of scandal. Her district director, Aron Peña, left the campaign after allegations arose of sexual harassment and assault. Flores’ marketing campaign mentioned he resigned, and Flores herself closely tied the departure to the allegations. Peña maintains he did no incorrect and that he left because of his well being.

Gonzalez mentioned Flores’ private assaults merely cover the chasmic variations in their legislative data — particularly that he has one. Flores’ small stint thus far in Congress was poorly timed for positioning to get main laws handed. It coincided with the last-minute summer season crunch for agenda-setting payments to get by means of earlier than election season consumes everybody’s consideration.

Gonzalez can also be gleeful in declaring that one in all Flores’ first votes in Congress was in opposition to the bipartisan gun security laws spearheaded by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, which handed this summer season in response to the Uvalde capturing. During a panel at The Texas Tribune Festival in September, Flores justified her vote by saying it didn’t go far sufficient in funding college security. She launched laws final week that might redirect $11 billion from the IRS towards hardening college safety in its place.

When requested in an interview about her largest wins, Flores first cited funding for native infrastructure tasks in her district. Flores was not in workplace when the House voted on the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that poured billions into regional tasks. She joined all Republicans in voting in opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats’ cornerstone local weather, social spending, well being care and power invoice.

Flores provides that in her brief time in Congress, she has blown up visibility for the district’s points, internet hosting city halls and attracting nationwide consideration just by having such an aggressive floor operation. No one cared about District 34 earlier than she rolled round, she mentioned, with Democrats merely assuming the seat was protected.

But Gonzalez is assured in the maturity of his marketing campaign operation and his seniority to fulfill the problem. While each candidates tout their aggressive door-knocking and town-halling, Gonzalez and his allies lean on the truth that that is removed from his first time on the rodeo.

“To the extent that Democrats are fretting and concerned about what happens in November in that district, they’re just getting worried about nothing,” Vela mentioned.