Source: Politics<\/p>\n
MCALLEN, Texas \u2014 Just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Ken Paxton is trying to inherit President Donald Trump\u2019s historic gains with Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n
The Texas GOP Senate nominee, speaking to hundreds of supporters last week at his first campaign rally in this region that\u2019s almost entirely Latino, revealed how Republicans believe that\u2019s possible: by touting Trump\u2019s closure of the border and hitting Democrats over the head with the culture war \u2014 while ignoring the drag his mass deportations have had on the region.<\/p>\n
The GOP faithful, clad in signature MAGA red and a few scattered Trump 2028 hats, gathered at a beer hall outdoors in 100-degree heat to greet the Republican Senate nominee and other candidates. Attendees ate up the Republicans\u2019 constant jabs at Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. Eric Flores, the challenger to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, called Talarico a \u201cgay vegan\u201d and \u201clow T.\u201d Paxton belittled Talarico, a seminarian student and critic of Christian nationalism, for referring to himself<\/a> as a \u201cChristian who hates Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an approach key to Paxton\u2019s strategy, as Republican Senate nominee, to slice into Talarico\u2019s widening polling lead<\/a> with Hispanic voters, who could prove decisive for who wins the competitive Senate seat and a litany of other races that will determine which party takes power in Washington come November.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce this community knows what [Talarico\u2019s] views are on transitioning boys into girls, and girls into boys, and boys and girls sports, they’re not going to support it,\u201d Paxton told reporters after the rally, in response to a question of how he intends to keep Hispanic voters in the fold after they swung toward Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n This has worked before for the Texas GOP. Sen. Ted Cruz blitzed the airways<\/a> in the 2024 Senate race with attack ads against former Rep. Colin Allred about transgender youth participation in sports. Republicans branded Wendy Davis \u201cabortion Barbie<\/a>\u201d following her successful protest against an anti-abortion law in the state legislature.<\/p>\n But outside the carefully choreographed event is a community getting pummelled by the president\u2019s increasingly unpopular immigration agenda \u2014 a reality that\u2019s given Democrats a strong opening with Latinos as they attempt to end a decades-long losing streak in statewide races. Interviews with local lawmakers, business leaders and voters on both sides of the aisle reveal that Democratic candidates like Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa have so far been successful at appealing to Hispanic voters feeling the economic strain under Trump.<\/p>\n Talarico, who appeared in McAllen for an event 16 hours after Paxton\u2019s, kept his pitch focused on the cost of living, handing out hot plates of food and calling for a reversal in health care cuts under the GOP budget bill enacted last year.<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s pretty steady and focused on the issues that matter to families,\u201d said Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, whose district spans Corpus Christi to McAllen.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats get sidetracked on all these cultural issues, and they need to stay focused on what I call the bread butter issues, issues that impact families directly, the kitchen table issues,\u201d he said. \u201cDemocrats need to stay away from biting the hook that’s being put out by Paxton.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rio Grande Valley is buckling under the weight of Trump\u2019s policies, and the economic strain is visible in McAllen.<\/p>\n Deportations have dried up workforces in critical industries like construction that drive the local economy, leaving cement slabs half-poured. A traffic chokehold at the border has slowed business in retail and restaurants as Mexicans have been deterred from hopping over to the U.S. for the day.<\/p>\n The entire border is being squeezed. Laredo, located more than 150 miles from McAllen, is one of the nation\u2019s top trade hubs, and its leaders are warning that Trump\u2019s tariffs and his threat to eliminate the USMCA trade agreement stands to devastate international commerce that flows through the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the U.S. doesn’t provide economic opportunity for the people at the border, it will create this situation,\u201d said Laredo Mayor Victor D. Trevi\u00f1o, a Democrat, in an interview.<\/p>\n The Paxton campaign dismissed concerns of Democrats\u2019 gains with Latinos, especially in the Rio Grande Valley \u2014 and once again emphasized the culture war, which Republicans say resonates with socially conservative Latinos.<\/p>\n “Look, Hispanic families aren’t voting for a woke vegan who says God is nonbinary and wants to Latinx our children,\u201d said Alex Alarcon, director of Hispanic outreach for the Paxton campaign, in a statement. \u201cWe’re proud of our culture and our faith, and Ken Paxton has spent his career fighting for us: a secure border to protect our families, a cost of living we can actually afford, and the freedom to live by our values.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the tide seems to be turning toward Democrats.<\/p>\n A dozen residents along the border said in interviews that they are satisfied illegal border crossings have dropped to record lows, a realization of one of Trump\u2019s top campaign promises and one of the reasons he won over Hispanic voters in the region. But they also believe the crackdown has gone too far. More than 60 percent of Hispanics said Trump\u2019s mass deportations campaign \u2014 including his widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. \u2014 has been too aggressive, according to a July POLITICO Poll.<\/p>\n In McAllen last week, the community was still aghast over a nun who was recently arrested by ICE<\/a> while walking to church. She was later released after GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz and Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar intervened, but interviews with residents revealed they still live in fear: Even U.S. citizens are checking their pockets for ID before venturing out, and they try to steer clear of the border if possible.<\/p>\n Across Texas, one in five Hispanic business owners said they\u2019ve had an employee deported in the past year and 70 percent have been impacted by Trump\u2019s tariffs, according to a June survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared first with POLITICO<\/a>. Talarico holds a seven-point lead over Paxton among those surveyed \u2014 even though a plurality of them self-identified as Republican.<\/p>\n A national Republican close to the race, granted anonymity to speak freely, countered that Paxton stands to benefit from some of the most competitive House races taking place in South Texas \u2014 where Republican Tano Tijerina and Flores are trying to oust Reps. Henry Cuellar and Gonzalez, respectively, and Rep. Monica De La Cruz is fending off a challenge from Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. GOP campaigns have stood up multiple field centers in those districts drawn to favor Republicans under a new Congressional map, a ground game that is expected to boost Paxton at the top of the ticket, the person said.<\/p>\n They added that internal message testing shows some of the attacks on Talarico, specifically those regarding his past comments on gender, “is unlike anything we’ve ever seen with Hispanic men, just in terms of the amount that it moves them.”<\/p>\n Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said Trump\u2019s closure of the border has affirmed Hispanic\u2019s support for him, and Democrats aren\u2019t offering viable pro-growth economic plans.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats have failed to give Latino voters something to vote for, and that they’ve only focused solely on something you know for us to vote against. And that’s not good enough,\u201d he said. \u201c[Latinos] want less tax burden, less regulatory burden, more energy production.\u201d<\/p>\n Talarico was also in McAllen, just one day after Paxon\u2019s rally, to host a fundraising benefit \u2014 the final stop on a 750-mile bus tour hitting small towns along the border to deliver a message about lowering costs and creating jobs. In an attempt to cast himself as a tough-on-immigration Democrat, Talarico unveiled a border security plan<\/a> that includes hiring more Border Patrol agents, a major employer in South Texas, and adding immigration judges to reduce the asylum backlog.<\/p>\n It\u2019s part of his attempt to widen his current edge over Paxton with Hispanics, with a New York Times poll<\/a> in June showing Talarico is winning the demographic by a 61 percent to 29 percent margin \u2014 a significant shift<\/a> after Trump won 55 percent of Hispanic voters in Texas in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could drive a truck through the margin of error on the Times\u2019 subsample,\u201d Alarcon, Paxton\u2019s Hispanic outreach director, said. \u201cThe fact is nobody is winning Hispanic voters by default this cycle. We\u2019ll be in Spanish-language media from the Valley to Dallas, talking about groceries, gas, health care and a secure border.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Talarico\u2019s lead has given Democratic party leaders hope amid their national tug-of-war with Republicans over Hispanic voters: If Talarico can hold onto Texas\u2019 large Latino population by these margins through November, that would prove gradual gains over the past decade for Republicans were a temporary blip ahead of the 2028 presidential race.<\/p>\n Under the midday sweltering sun in McAllen, Talarico handed out hot plates of food to a line of people who had donated to a local woman struggling to pay for cancer treatment. The Democratic Senate nominee, while speaking to reporters later, dismissed Paxton\u2019s attempts to appeal to Hispanic voters by making personal attacks against him.<\/p>\n Republicans are attempting to divide people, Talarico said, \u201cso we don’t notice that they’re picking our pockets, that they’re closing our public schools, that they’re gutting our health care, that they’re raising taxes on working people while they cut taxes for billionaires. It’s the oldest strategy in the world.\u201d<\/p>\nA community being squeezed<\/h5>\n
Talarico\u2019s pitch to Hispanics<\/h5>\n