Johnny Garcia, the Democratic Party candidate for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, talks with the media on May 26 during a watch party for the primary runoff at B&N Sports Bar in San Antonio.
Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News
We recommend Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy with more than 20 years in law enforcement, in the general election for Texas’ 35th Congressional District.
Garcia, who emerged from a spirited Democratic Party primary, faces Carlos De La Cruz in the general election. But while the choice in November is between blue and red, the shades of those hues matter.
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Garcia was one of the two most centrist candidates in his primary. De La Cruz, who did not meet with us during the primary and again recently, is as far right as any candidate in any race.
Garcia is the underdog in the congressional district, which is among the ones in Texas redrawn last year after President Donald Trump demanded a mid-decade redistricting. His goal was to create a net increase of five districts designed to elect Republicans.
Only a fraction the area that was in the previous District 35 remains in the new one, which includes much of the South Side and far east Bexar County, along with all of Guadalupe, Wilson and Karnes counties.
Had the new District 35 been in place for the 2024 election, Trump would have carried it by about 10 percentage points. The previous District 35 was strongly Democratic and favored then-Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump, 66% to 32%.
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But circumstances — internationally, nationally, locally and individually — have changed in two years. And some portion of conservatives in District 35 may be looking for an alternative to tariffs, high gas and grocery prices, wars and senseless cruelty.
Garcia espouses pragmatism over party. He is able to see issues from the inside out, rather than from the left or right side.
Case in point — border security and immigration.
Unlike Harris in 2024, Garcia acknowledges that the Biden administration mishandled the wave of immigrants that overwhelmed our southern border during those years.
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“I know Democrats got it wrong on the border because I’ve worked in law enforcement, and we have seen the realities of how Democrats failed us here,” Garcia told the Express-News Editorial Board.
And in walk-and-chew-gum fashion, he also said he would seek to stop the overreaching tactics that the Trump administration has employed via Immigration and Customs Enforcement, other Department of Homeland Security agencies and the National Guard from states.
As a sheriff’s deputy, Garcia speaks with credibility when he says Congress needs to exert oversight over ICE as a law enforcement agency that has lost sight of its duty to serve and protect.
“It makes no sense that your local law enforcement agencies are held to a higher standard than federal law enforcement,” he said. “Where they used to be the golden standard, now they have no standard.”
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He cites the lowering of requirements for hiring and training, including reducing the number of weeks in the curriculum, changes that seem to manifest in ICE agents’ lack of professionalism and often questionable use of lethal force. And it’s time for Congress to address those problems.
“There needs to be some accountability measures,” Garcia said. “There needs to be major overhaul and reform to the agency.”
Similarly, he sees corruption that warrants attention.
“We need to hold Trump accountable for all the corruption we’ve gotten to see, for all the self-enrichment his family has earned under the two years that they’ve been in office,” he said.
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At the same time, Garcia the pragmatist strongly cautions fellow Democrats against letting themselves be distracted from the affordability crisis.
As for affordability and another key issue, healthcare, Garcia is on the correct side. He said it’s critical that the U.S. end the “broad-based tariffs that are hurting 97% of small businesses and working-class families” and that he supports making the Affordable Care Act subsidies permanent.
For this new district, Garcia’s brand of old-fashioned common sense is in order.