{"id":430771,"date":"2026-09-09T16:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430771\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:24:09","slug":"texas-republican-in-race-for-key-house-seat-under-fire-for-derogatory-comments-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/430771\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Republican in race for key House seat under fire for derogatory comments | Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Republican<\/a> candidate for a key congressional district in Texas<\/a> has come under scrutiny over a series of derogatory comments made about women in his social media posts and videos.<\/p>\n

Brandon Herrera, who is the GOP candidate for Texas\u2019s 23rd congressional district, has made a string of insults while fashioning a rightwing online persona as the \u201cAK Guy\u201d, and hosts a YouTube channel with more than 4 million subscribers that tests and reviews firearms.<\/p>\n

The comments, first reported by CNN<\/a>, include Herrera taking aim at people he opposes politically, and women. In a 2023 video, he said that a gun range dummy\u2019s empty head was \u201cfull of mush \u2013 much like the average Austin feminist\u201d, and in a separate 2024 video, he likened the weight of \u201cangry blue-haired\u201d feminists to that of orca whales and elephants.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Herrera filmed himself<\/a> firing a gun at bottles of ranch dressing and, after they exploded, rubbing the condiment onto himself and declaring that this would \u201cmake me irresistible to the fat bitches\u201d. While discussing the merits of a car on X in 2023, Herrera opined<\/a> that \u201c4 doors means more whores\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other groups have also been the focus of Herrera\u2019s online content. In 2020, while firing a gun at a ham<\/a>, Herrera said that while purchasing a ham for target practice was expensive, it was \u201cstill cheaper than a homeless person\u201d.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that Herrera has come under scrutiny. In 2024, during a run for Congress, Herrera said: \u201cI am not, nor have I never [sic] been, a neo-Nazi\u201d after describing a Nazi-era gun as \u201cthe original ghetto blaster\u201d. The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned him<\/a> at the time as \u201ca goose-stepping extremist\u201d.<\/p>\n

Herrera said that all these comments were jokes, and took aim at his opponent in this November\u2019s midterm election, Democrat Katy Padilla Stout. \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that CNN would allow someone to allege that jokes about feminism lead to violence when Stout is fighting to return children to the parent convicted of abusing them,\u201d Herrera said in a statement to CNN, referring to a case in which Stout was appointed as a defense attorney for a father seeking to restore parental rights after a domestic abuse allegation.<\/p>\n

Asked to comment on his previous statements made online, Herrera said via his campaign that it is \u201cdisappointing\u201d that \u201calleged journalists\u201d would \u201cignore\u201d the Stout case. He did not reference his own past statements.<\/p>\n

The past comments could add to Republicans\u2019 challenge of holding onto the US House of Representatives seat. Herrera is attempting to replace Tony Gonzales, a Republican lawmaker who resigned in April<\/a> amid a House ethics committee investigation into his relationship with a former aide.<\/p>\n

While Democrats haven\u2019t prevailed in this district since 2015, the party has recently added it to its target list and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has sent funding to Stout, a former teacher and attorney, in what is expected to be a strong year for Democrats amid rising voter dissatisfaction with Donald Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Republican candidate for a key congressional district in Texas has come under scrutiny over a series of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-430771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430771","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=430771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}