From Austin to Washington, D.C., Republicans were elated after the 2022 primaries when GOP turnout more than doubled in the Rio Grande Valley compared with the previous midterms and after a yearslong investment to court candidates and Hispanic voters alike in South Texas.
Four years later, Democrats are the ones finding joy along the border.
Texas Democrats more than doubled their turnout from 2024 during the primary elections on March 3 in the four counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley — Cameron, Starr, Hidalgo and Willacy — as the percentage of registered Democratic voters who cast a ballot far exceeded that of recent elections, including in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term and 2020 when he sought reelection.
That has buoyed optimism for Texas Democrats, who are striving to claim a statewide victory for the first time in more than three decades and betting that backlash to the president’s policies will win them contests up and down the ballot.
In the Valley, that energy could help spare two incumbent Democratic congressmen whose districts were redrawn to favor the GOP, and earn the state’s minority party a third congressional district as well as a statehouse district or two.
“Our participation is becoming a defining factor in elections across the state,” said state Sen. César Blanco, who sits on the board of an organization focused on the Latino voter bloc. “We are a force to be reckoned with and I think this midterm election demonstrates that.”
If the big Democratic primary turnout translates into big gains for the party in a region that is 93% Latino, it will represent a reversal from 2024, when Latino voters swung hard for Trump and he nearly swept all border counties in a historic feat. That could also signal that the state’s Latino voters are now neither reliably Republican or Democratic, but rather an independent group up for grabs.
To be sure, Republicans also saw an increase in their voter turnout in the region, although it was eclipsed by the surge of Democratic voters. Democratic party leaders are quick to note, as well, that primary elections are not necessarily predictors of what’s to come in November, especially after a primary that had a spicy race for U.S. Senate at the top.
Still, according to party leaders and analysts, the high water mark offers the latest encouraging data point for Democrats, who flipped a Texas Senate seat in North Texas during a special election in late January and have been trying to read tea leaves from local races across Texas.
“This is just the official rebuke of the Trump administration and the Republican party,” said Richard Gonzales, the chair of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party, which had 61,480 voters participate in last week’s election — a roughly 114% increase from 2024.
Gonzales anticipates the party’s momentum will have staying power thanks to Trump. He pointed to a struggling local economy that’s being further battered by the war in Iran and aggressive ICE activity all over Hidalgo County, including the recent detention of a family that included two award-winning high school mariachi students who were released after their arrests sparked widespread outrage.
“I could just allow the Republicans to continue making things worse,” Gonzales said. “We’ve seen that they’re really good at doing that.”
Republicans insist there’s no reason to worry.
“I’m not concerned at all,” Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters this week. “What happened in the primaries was party versus party candidates.”
Longtime GOP operative Wayne Hamilton, who ran Abbott’s first gubernatorial campaign, has been recruiting Republican candidates in South Texas for years with the goal of earning the support of Latino candidates. He chalked up the high turnout last week to the hotly-contested U.S. Senate Democratic primary between state Rep. James Talarico and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Perhaps no race better encapsulates the ferocity of competition underway in the Valley than the contest for the 15th Congressional District.
GOP U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz won the seat in 2022, defeating a Democrat, after the district was redrawn in 2021 to help a Republican win. Now she’s fending off a challenge from Tejano music star Bobby Pulido.
In an interview, Pulido said he’s hearing concerns from voters on the campaign trail about the economy and how it has not improved under Trump’s presidency. ICE raids are depleting workforces across the region, he said.
“When the American dream is interrupted, whether that be by ICE raids or you taking the workforce or tourists are not coming to spend their money anywhere or retail is down, people will definitely vote you out,” he said. “Hispanics are not loyal to a party. They’re more loyal to the people who are more willing to make their lives better.”
After the Legislature last year redrew the state’s congressional map, gerrymandered for maximum GOP gains, Democrats will be defending the other two congressional seats in the Valley.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo will face Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a former Democrat who cruised to victory in his GOP primary with an endorsement from the president. And Democratic U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez will be up against former federal prosecutor Eric Flores to hold onto his district, redrawn so that the president would have won by 10% instead of 4% in 2024.
Democrats’ best bet to flip a Texas House seat in the Valley might be House District 37, which Republican Janie Lopez first won in 2022. Although Trump carried the district by 11 points, the 2024 Senate contest came down to a razor thin win of 1.9 points for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Oziel Ochoa Jr. and Esmeralda Cantu-Castle advanced to a runoff for the Democratic nomination for HD-37:. In interviews, both expressed optimism about having Talarico at the top of the ticket to flip the district and others across the state — the party needs to win 14 seats to assume control of the lower chamber.
“I really think this is our chance,” Ochoa Jr. said.
Texas Majority PAC, a George Soros-backed group run by alums of Beto O’Rourke’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign, plans to invest $3 million in the Valley between the congressional and state house races, executive director Katherine Fischer said.
Although hesitant to read too much into primary turnout, Fischer said all indications are that Democrats will have a stronger performance in November than in 2024, when the Republican party won over the Latino voter bloc that had long evaded its grasp. That could have massive implications.
“We need to see much better performance amongst Latino voters than we have seen — not just in ‘24 but in the last few cycles,” Fischer said. “There’s just no pathway for Democrats to win statewide without a lot of support from Latino voters across the state.”
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