Two months after the GOP’s conservative wing ousted a handful of moderate incumbents and sent others to runoffs, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio) fought back Tuesday night.
Gonzales took 50.7% of the vote, defeating firearms manufacturer and YouTube personality Brandon Herrera, who took 49.3%.
The contentious runoff in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District comes at a time of high division among Texas Republicans.
Last week, conservatives who control the state party — and who had censured Gonzales over his votes in favor in same-sex marriage and gun safety — laid plans for an emboldened approach to purging the party’s moderates. They overwhelmingly supported changes to the state GOP’ platform’s rules, like keeping censured officials off the ballot in future elections and limiting who can vote in Republican primaries.
Had the new rules been in place this year, they would have disqualified Gonzales from the Republican ballot, along with state House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont), who drew conservatives’ ire for allowing state lawmakers to vote on impeaching Attorney General Ken Paxton, but fended off his own runoff opponent after finishing second in his primary.
While Gonzales and Phelan hung on Tuesday night, moderates elsewhere in the state were less successful.
At around 9:30 p.m., Gov. Greg Abbott declared that enough state House runoffs had fallen his way to pass a school voucher program the legislature rejected multiple times last year. That issue had already cost state House Rep. Steve Allison (R-Alamo Heights) his seat in the March primary.
In light of Gonzales’ disagreements with conservatives, the second-term congressman has had limited visibility at Republican functions in recent months. He skipped both a primary debate hosted by the Republican Party of Bexar County and last week’s state party convention in his home of San Antonio.
But he’s been hitting the road aggressively at less-partisan venues, seeking to prove that the party’s loudest voices don’t represent the majority of the district.
“I’m trying to push back against some of the smaller tent crowd that, once again, wants to purge people out of the Republican Party,” Gonzales told the Washington Post. “I want to add people in and say, here’s the deal, this is the party of the future,” he said in the Post interview.
Herrera has also sought to paint his vision for the party’s future.
The 28-year old gun manufacturer and YouTube personality grew up in North Carolina where he was active in young conservative and libertarian circles.
He recently moved his gun manufacturing business to the San Antonio area, and when Gonzales broke with the party on gun safety, he set out to turn some of his millions of online fans into voters for his congressional campaign.
“People like us, people like me, are getting fed up with the candidates that D.C. feeds us,” Herrera told a gathering of the San Antonio Young Republicans at the East Side’s Alamo Distilling Co. Friday night. “…that’s why I got in this race, because we need more regular people in Congress.”
Herrera said the GOP should be working to bring along its next generation of leaders. Instead, he said, national Republicans spent big money attacking him with old videos from his YouTube channel.
Even so, “For me to be able to step back from my business to poke the establishment in the eye the way that we have… it has been the pleasure of my life.”
Texas’ 28th Congressional District
Republicans chose retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jay Furman to take on Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) in a race that’s suddenly come into the spotlight.
Cuellar has represented the district since 2005 but is now under indictment for bribery. He emptied a chunk of his campaign account to fund legal services ahead of the indictment, and is expected to go to trial roughly six months after the November election.
“He’s already showed us all recently who he really is,” Furman said of Cuellar at a campaign event with Herrera and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) at the Thirsty Horse Saloon last week.
So far, the district is not seeing much interest from national Republicans who poured money into South Texas last election cycle. Despite their investments, Cuellar carried the district by a 13% margin over Cassy Garcia, who had close relationships with GOP leaders in D.C.
Furman, on the other hand, has been an outspoken critic of national Republican leaders, aligning himself with Gaetz and other conservatives who don’t want the party cutting deals with Democrats.
“We don’t have two parties as we know them… It’s a false dichotomy,” Furman said at the Thirsty Horse. “Basically the elites have captured the entire Democrat Party and a lot of the Republicans who vote with them on the most important conservative issues.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee congratulated Furman Tuesday night, saying that “his time flying Black Hawks on the Texas border and serving as a foreign area officer has thoroughly prepared him to tackle the border crisis.”
Furman defeated businessman and rancher Lazaro Garza Jr. in the primary runoff.
Texas’ 35th Congressional District
With 99% of votes counted, Steven Wright, who served as a deputy sheriff in Kern County, California, was taking 50.2% of the vote, according to AP. Michael Rodriguez, a retired military veteran who lives in Converse, was taking 49.8% of the vote. As of 12:10 a.m. the AP had not called the race, which was at an eight-vote spread.
The winner will have a tough race against U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Austin), whose deep blue district includes a wide chunk of northeast Austin, a narrow stretch along Interstate-35, and parts of northeast and downtown San Antonio.
Casar, first elected in 2022, is a former Austin city councilman and a leader in the Congressional Progressive Caucus who carried the bright blue district with 73% two years ago.
