SAN ANTONIO — The default Republican nominee for the 23rd Congressional District, Brandon Herrera, gained notoriety on his YouTube platform as “The AK Guy” and calls himself a Second Amendment absolutist. Herrera became the GOP nominee in the district that spans from San Antonio to El Paso after incumbent U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, dropped his bid for reelection after admitting to having an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide.

“We’re going to talk about how we’re going to heal the Republican Party and face the Democrats in November,” said Herrera.

The Democratic nominee Katy Padilla Stout says parents in Uvalde, where a deadly school shooting occurred and is in the district, are “disgusted” that Herrera could be the nominee.

But to run a competitive campaign, Stout will need to increase her funding. Latest reporting shows her campaign has $8,000 on hand, but she says she got around $50,000 in donations over the weekend.

“We would like to keep this as grassroots the way we started it all the way through to the end as much as possible,” she said. “And I think people are going to be really surprised that you can’t really buy campaigns like we’ve been used to in the past.”

Stout will also meet with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) this week, the funding arm for the party. A national Democratic strategist working on House races said that “The DCCC is monitoring the race as the Gonzales fall out continues to shake Republicans.” But the strategist wouldn’t confirm if the race would be added to their list of districts in play.

At least one Republican analyst thinks their party should be worried about the outcome in the district that is 70% Hispanic.

“We’ve seen a softening among Hispanic voters toward the president,” said Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser. “He’s going to have to sort of convince them that he’s on their side, he’s fighting for them, and that he actually holds values that are reflective of the district.”

Herrera and a PAC associated with him raised more than $2 million between January and February this year.

Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesperson Zach Kraft attests that “Anyone saying this race is remotely competitive is an unserious clown.”

Since claiming the nomination, Herrera has received pushback over multiple videos where he pretended to be a Nazi. Herrera has said publicly that he was joking, and that he was making these videos to get laughs and to highlight the guns.

One Republican analyst writes Herrera’s online persona off as a joke and is confident Herrera will be successful in November in a district that favored Trump by 15 points.

“Just because you make a comment about something doesn’t mean that you’re antisemitic,” said Wanye Hamilton of Protect Red TX.

But antisemitism has become a flash point on the right, which is a cause for concern, according to Steinhauser.

“We have to have a zero-tolerance policy for antisemitism. And when a Republican candidate does anything that is giving an indication that either hold those views or they tolerate those views, then we need to speak out. So hopefully he’ll have more to say on that and we’ll have a better defense of just saying that he was joking,” he said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee maintains that “Texas’ 23rd District is deep red, and Democrats know it.” Adding that “voters will once again elect a Republican.”