{"id":398490,"date":"2026-08-05T17:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398490\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T17:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:16:10","slug":"democrats-target-san-antonio-district-vacated-by-tony-gonzales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398490\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats target San Antonio district vacated by Tony Gonzales"},"content":{"rendered":"

The campaign arm of U.S. House Democrats added Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District to its target list Wednesday, hoping to capitalize on YouTuber Brandon Herrera\u2019s long history<\/a> of potentially inflammatory online comments to flip the San Antonio-area seat.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee now sees the sweeping west Texas border district as a path to retaking control of the House, where the GOP holds a slim 218-212 majority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBrandon Herrera\u2019s disturbing history of extremism, violence, and antisemitic rhetoric puts this open Congressional district squarely in play,\u201d DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said. The addition of the district is an indication the party plans to invest resources there to support Democratic candidate Katy Padilla Stout.<\/p>\n

Herrera, who has 4.26 million subscribers on YouTube, appeared to acknowledge the recirculation of his past comments across social media earlier this week at the Gun Owners of America conference in Iowa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never had interest in running for office of any kind, it\u2019s very clear if you watch my YouTube channel \u2014 which the Democrats have very clearly started doing,\u201d Herrera said.<\/p>\n

The DCCC\u2019s list of seats it views as potential gains now includes three in Texas. The party was already targeting U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz\u2019s 15th Congressional District, and supporting Johnny Garcia\u2019s bid for an open seat in CD-35 that was redrawn last year to favor Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The addition of the 23rd district comes after Herrera has so far outraised his opponent. He also has the backing of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who came to a San Antonio fundraiser for Herrera last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From April to the end of June, Herrera raised $435,657 through his official campaign committee and his Brandon Herrera Victory Committee, while Padilla Stout had raised $248,928 during that period.<\/p>\n

After the DCCC’s announcement, Padilla Stout called Herrera a performer who “built his career on chaos and clicks,” and said she was a public servant who serves children and families.<\/p>\n

\u201cNational attention is welcome, but Washington will not win this race for us,” she said. “We will win it by showing up across this district and earning voters\u2019 trust. This district has gone without serious representation long enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The campaign arm of U.S. House Democrats added Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District to its target list Wednesday, hoping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-398490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}