WASHINGTON — For years, Texas Republicans tried to win the Hispanic vote utilizing a Bush-era model of compassionate conservatism. The concept was {that a} reasonable’s contact and a softer rhetoric on immigration have been key to creating inroads with Hispanic voters, significantly in Democratic strongholds alongside the southern border.
Such was the Texas of previous. The Trump age has given rise to a brand new model of Texas Republicans, one in every of whom is already strolling the halls of Congress: the far-right Latina.
Consultant Mayra Flores turned the primary Republican to symbolize the Rio Grande Valley in additional than a century after she gained a particular election final month and flipped the congressional seat from blue to purple. She additionally turned the primary Latina Republican ever despatched by Texas to Congress. Her abbreviated time period lasts solely by way of the top of the 12 months, and he or she is seen as a protracted shot to win re-election to a full one.
However what’s most placing is that Ms. Flores gained by shunning moderates, embracing the far proper and carrying her help for Donald J. Trump on her sleeve — extra Marjorie Taylor Greene than Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Her marketing campaign slogan — “God, household, nation” — was meant to enchantment to what she calls the “conventional values” of her majority-Hispanic district within the border metropolis of Brownsville. She referred to as for President Biden’s impeachment. She tweeted QAnon hashtags. And she or he referred to as the Democratic Social gathering the “best risk America faces.”
In an interview in her still-barren workplace the day after her swearing-in ceremony, Ms. Flores was requested whether or not she thought-about Mr. Biden the legitimately elected president.
“He’s the worst president of america,” she stated.
When requested three extra instances whether or not Mr. Biden had been legitimately elected, she repeated the identical nonanswer.
Two different Latina Republicans, Monica De La Cruz in McAllen and Cassy Garcia in Laredo, are additionally on the poll in congressional races alongside the Mexican border. All three — G.O.P. officers have taken to calling them a “triple risk” — share right-wing views on immigration, the 2020 election and abortion, amongst different points.
They share the identical advisers, have held marketing campaign rallies and fund-raisers collectively and have knocked on doorways aspect by aspect. They accuse the Democratic Social gathering of taking Hispanic voters without any consideration and examine themselves, as do their supporters, because the embodiment of the American dream: Ms. Flores typically speaks of working alongside her mother and father as a teen within the cotton fields of the Texas Panhandle.
Ms. Flores, Ms. De La Cruz and Ms. Garcia grew up within the Rio Grande Valley, a working-class four-county area on the southernmost tip of Texas the place Hispanics make up 93 % of the inhabitants. All three are bilingual; Ms. Flores was born in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and the opposite two in South Texas. Solely Ms. De La Cruz has been endorsed by Mr. Trump, but all of them stay outspoken advocates for him, his motion and his robust speak on limiting immigration and constructing the border wall.
The Rio Grande Valley has lengthy been a politically liberal but culturally conservative place. Church pews are packed on Sundays, American flags wave from their poles on entrance lawns and legislation enforcement is revered. Ms. Flores’s husband is a Border Patrol agent, a observe she typically emphasised on the marketing campaign path.
In 2020, the Valley’s conservative tradition began to exert a larger affect on its politics. Mr. Trump flipped rural Zapata County and narrowed the Democratic margin of victory within the 4 Valley counties and in different border cities.
“Rising up down there, you at all times have closeted Republicans,” stated Ms. Garcia, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “Now, the will to embrace Republicans is basically spreading. They really feel a real sense of belonging.”
Different pro-Trump Latinas are working for Home seats in Virginia, Florida and New Mexico, amongst different locations.
Republican leaders and strategists say Ms. Flores’s win and the candidacies of different right-wing Hispanic ladies are proof that Latino voters are more and more shifting to the precise. Greater than 100 Republican Home candidates are Hispanic, a report quantity, based on the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee.
Democrats view the scenario a lot in another way. Some Democratic leaders dismiss Ms. Flores’s victory as a fluke — the product of a low-turnout particular election during which 28,990 individuals forged ballots — and a fleeting one.
Ms. Flores, who was elected to serve the final six months of a retiring Democratic congressman’s time period, is working in November for a full time period. She faces a well-liked Democratic incumbent who’s switching districts, Consultant Vicente Gonzalez.
Democratic leaders are optimistic that Mr. Gonzalez will defeat Ms. Flores, and that Ms. Garcia will lose her race towards Consultant Henry Cuellar, the conservative Democrat who narrowly beat a progressive challenger in a major runoff.
Ms. De La Cruz, nonetheless, is working in essentially the most aggressive Home race in Texas and can face Michelle Vallejo, a progressive Democrat.
Consultant Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who heads the marketing campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, dismissed Ms. Flores’s win as a “public relations coup” for Republicans.
“It doesn’t imply she represents mainstream Hispanic voters,” Mr. Gallego stated.
Mr. Gonzalez, the Democratic congressman, practically misplaced to Ms. De La Cruz two years in the past when she challenged him in Texas’ fifteenth Congressional District. He gained by 6,588 votes. Now, he’s difficult Ms. Flores within the thirty fourth District.
“This was a profound message to the celebration,” he stated of Ms. Flores’s victory. “It’s actually woken up the Democratic base. I’ve by no means had so many individuals volunteer free of charge in all my years.”
As she moved into her congressional workplace throughout from the Capitol, Ms. Flores, an evangelical Christian, eyed the naked partitions. She deliberate to place up a big photograph of the SpaceX launch website in her district in addition to photos of Jesus.
She had campaigned with the help of evangelical church buildings; her pastor carried out a “Make America Godly Once more” outreach effort and traveled to Washington for her swearing-in. “I do consider that pastors must be getting concerned in politics and in guiding their congressmen,” Ms. Flores stated. “Our pastors know our individuals higher than we do.”
Ms. Flores wasted no time displaying a combative fashion with Democrats. Minutes after her swearing-in, Speaker Nancy Pelosi posed with Ms. Flores and her household for a photograph. What occurred subsequent is a matter of debate. To Democrats, it regarded as if Ms. Pelosi had brushed her arm towards Ms. Flores’s 8-year-old daughter as the 2 stood aspect by aspect. To Republicans, it regarded as if Ms. Pelosi had shoved her apart.
“No youngster must be pushed to the aspect for a photograph op. PERIOD!!” Ms. Flores later wrote on Twitter.
To listen to Ms. Flores inform it, her swap to the G.O.P. was inevitable.
Early on, she stated, she had voted Democratic, primarily as a result of everybody she knew did the identical. The primary time she forged a poll for a Republican for president, she stated, was for Mitt Romney in 2012.
After attending a Republican occasion for the spouses of Border Patrol brokers, Ms. Flores started to volunteer for the Hidalgo County Republican Social gathering in McAllen. By 2020, she was organizing pro-Trump caravans by way of the Rio Grande Valley.
She was additionally posting tweets utilizing the hashtag #QAnon.
When requested about QAnon, Ms. Flores denied ever having supported the conspiracy concept, which claims {that a} group of Devil-worshiping elites who run a baby intercourse ring is attempting to manage the federal government and the media. Hashtags have lengthy been thought-about social media shorthand for expressing help for a trigger or an concept, however Ms. Flores insisted her intention was to specific opposition to QAnon.
“It’s simply to achieve extra individuals so extra individuals can see like, hey, this must cease,” she stated of utilizing the QAnon hashtag. “That is solely hurting our nation.”
Ms. Flores deleted the tweets about QAnon, however she didn’t chorus from expressing different right-wing views. After the 2020 election, she insisted on Twitter that Mr. Trump had gained, writing in a single put up, “Ganamos y lo vamos a demostrar!” or “We gained, and we’ll show it!” Following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, she retweeted a put up falsely calling it a “setup” by antifa. She has referred to as Mr. Biden “president in title solely” and has demanded his impeachment. And as her personal oath of workplace coincided with the hearings by the Home committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault, Ms. Flores largely dismissed the proceedings.
“Truthfully, my district doesn’t care about that,” she stated of the hearings. “My district is struggling to pay their payments. That’s what we’re imagined to be specializing in.”
Like Ms. Flores, Ms. De La Cruz describes herself as a former Democrat who “walked away” from the celebration. She stated she forged her first vote in a Republican major for Mr. Trump in 2016.
“I consider that the president was bringing to mild the horrible issues that we have been doing to our nation,” Ms. De La Cruz stated.
After she narrowly misplaced her problem to Mr. Gonzalez in 2020, Ms. De La Cruz suggested, without evidence, that each she and Mr. Trump had been victims of voter fraud within the district.
Ms. Garcia, in contrast, stated she has been a Republican her complete life. Raised conservative, she went to church thrice every week and entered politics quickly after faculty, working because the outreach director for Mr. Cruz in McAllen.
As a candidate, she has targeted on non secular liberty, faculty alternative and abortion bans — points on which she stated the area’s Hispanic voters have been more and more like-minded.
“The purple wave is right here,” Ms. Garcia stated.
