Mayra Flores Launches Campaign To Retake Texas Seat

Congresswoman Mayra Flores is saying that she will be running for Congress again in South Texas after winning a seat in a special election last summer — only to lose it in the general election in November.“We made history last year, but there’s still work to be done here in South Texas,” Ms. Flores said in a statement Tuesday. “I’m running to help restore the American Dream, secure our borders, and stand strong on our values of God, Family and Country.”The National Republican Congressional Committee, an arm of the GOP that works to elect House members, has been trying to recruit Ms. Flores to run in Texas’s 34th District since last year.When Ms. Flores initially won the seat in the special election in 2022, she became the first congresswoman born in Mexico and flipped a seat that had historically been held by Democrats.The race in June was to replace Congressman Filemon Vela, who resigned in 2022. Ms. Flores defeated the leading Democratic candidate, Dan Sanchez, 51 percent to 43 percent, though there was relatively low turnout in the race, with only about 29,000 votes cast.In November, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez defeated Ms. Flores 53 percent to 44 percent in a race where 134,000 votes were cast. In March, the NRCC announced that the 34th District would be a target for its 2024 efforts.Ms. Flores’s initial victory was hailed as evidence that Republicans were making strides with Latino voters. Although the GOP has increased its support among the demographic, the increase in support was not as significant as Republicans had hoped.According to an Equis Research report on the subject, Republicans largely failed to expand their support among Latinos beyond 2020 levels in 2022, except in Florida, where Republicans invested heavily in Spanish-language messaging.“A segment of Latino voters who had shifted to Republicans in 2020 stayed there. But the GOP couldn’t make progress beyond that share in 2022,” the report reads. “The forces that kept many Latinos viewing Democrats (or not-Republicans) as the default option held firm, to the point that critical Latino voters would rather stay home than vote GOP.”According to Equis Research’s analysis of voting data, Latino support for Democrats in the House was stable at 62 percent between 2020 to 2022 and saw a slight increase in Senate and gubernatorial races, rising to 62 percent from 61 percent.As Republicans attempt to make further gains in Latino support going into 2024, Texas’s 34th District will likely be a testing ground for new strategies, as it was in 2022.When Ms. Flores first announced her candidacy on Fox News on Tuesday, she made it clear that she would be running on a platform of border security.“We want to empower our Border Patrol agents, strengthen our border security, of course our economy as well,” Ms. Flores said. “This is for our children, for the future, for their parents, and also for these children that are being brought into the United States as well, to be trafficked.”“Mayra Flores is more focused on espousing fringe conspiracy theories than actually helping middle-class families, which is why South Texas voters decisively rejected her extreme agenda last year,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman, Viet Shelton, said.The Cook Political Report rates the district as likely Democratic, meaning that Ms. Flores or any eventual GOP nominee will have a disadvantage in attempting to win back the district.

Mayra Flores Launches Campaign To Retake Texas Seat

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