This November, Bobby Pulido is trying to flip a Republican congressional seat blue, right on the Texas border. That would be reason enough to talk to him. But he was famous way before politics\u2014Pulido is a Tejano star, a 1990s teen idol, a Tejano Backstreet Boy before there were the Backstreet Boys.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also a lifelong resident of the Rio Grande Valley: \u201cMy dad was a migrant farmworker, and so was his dad. We don\u2019t come from generational wealth,\u201d he said. \u201cLatinos and Hispanics in South Texas are the embodiment of the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, he has watched friends and neighbors pivot from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Donald Trump\u2019s inroads with Latino voters were one of the surprises of his 2024 victory, as he carried places like South Texas\u2019 15th District. But Pulido thinks those gains are temporary, and that Democrats have a chance, with sensible policies, to retake the district and Congress.<\/p>\n
For him, immigration enforcement is a top priority. \u201cPresident Obama did crack down on it, that\u2019s a fact,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think under Biden, it got really out of hand.\u201d With Trump, he says, \u201cWe went from \u2018Let them all in\u2019 to \u2018Kick them all out.\u2019 And neither one of the two things work.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent episode<\/a> of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Pulido about what Democrats misunderstand about South Texas and whether he\u2019s singing the right tune for Congress. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n Mary Harris: I was wondering why you would run for office. You\u2019re a well-known Tejano singer. You probably don\u2019t need to do much of anything if you don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n Bobby Pulido: I was a political science major in college. I was a Texas Boys Stater in high school. Government and social studies and Texas history were my favorite subjects. I wanted to do this.<\/p>\n You\u2019re running in Texas\u2019 15th District, a district that Donald Trump won by nearly 18\u00a0points in 2024. Redistricting may have made it a smidge Trumpier, but it relies on the Latino vote remaining in the GOP\u2019s favor. And my assumption is that part of the reason you got into this race is that you were beginning to see signs that that was not going to hold. I\u2019m curious what those first signs were to you.<\/p>\n I was talking to lots of people during this cycle\u2014even the cycle before, as it was going right since \u201923. Lots of my friends were voting red. And, listen, I\u2019ve always been a blue-dog Democrat.<\/p>\n I was going to ask about that, whether you always considered yourself a Democrat.<\/p>\n I always have.<\/p>\n You have all these things that don\u2019t read as Democrat. You\u2019re known for long-range shooting. You named your eldest son Remington, after the rifle. You\u2019re not a traditionally coded Democrat.<\/p>\n That\u2019s based on a newer version of what a Democrat is. See, I never changed. I\u2019ve been the same type. All the people that used to vote Democrat are like me, and they started voting red. When I would talk to them, the one thing that jumped out at me was that they didn\u2019t like the leftward shift on a lot of Democratic policies.<\/p>\n Like what?<\/p>\n Oh, jeez, like guns. Listen, we\u2019re on the border. My district covers 11 counties, and 10 of the counties other than the Rio Grande Valley are rural. Firearms are not viewed the same way in the city as they are in the country.<\/p>\n How are they seen differently? As sport and protection?<\/p>\n Both. It\u2019s an independence. When you\u2019re out in the country, first of all, there\u2019s no traffic. You\u2019re not dealing with a lot of people to begin with. You can drive faster if you want to. I\u2019m not advocating for speeding, but you\u2019re not bound by the confines of traffic, where you have a stoplight at every block. It\u2019s a different way of life. And yes, there\u2019s less things to do. When you\u2019re out in these rural areas, the thing where you go out the most, to get dressed, is to go to church on Sunday. A lot of the sports that you practice, whether that be hog hunting, coyote hunting, or just hunting, they\u2019re associated with firearms. Down here in the Valley, the No.\u00a01 fundraiser for Democratic events are skeet shoots. I can\u2019t make this up. You shoot, and there\u2019s sporting clays. Gun sports are a way of life.<\/p>\n I saw an old interview with Chuck Schumer talking about: \u201cWe\u2019ll take the city vote over the rural votes because I\u2019ll take those 2-to-1.\u201d That was a huge mistake. I\u2019m insulted by hearing him say that, because if I look down the road, in 2030, California and New York are going to lose congressional seats to Texas and Florida, because people are moving out to the rural areas because it\u2019s cheaper to live. As a Democrat, if we want to make people\u2019s lives better and not let these batshit crazy people like Trump get in there, we\u2019re going to have to moderate on some issues to understand rural folk a little better.<\/p>\n What happened was when the Green New Deal was promoted\u2014the oil and gas business, it\u2019s probably one of the best-paying jobs in my district, and it got really politicized, where it was like, \u201cThey\u2019re going to take away your job.\u201d That\u2019s how it was being sold: The Democrats were going to take away your jobs. You\u2019re not going to be able to provide for your family.<\/p>\n So when did you see it turn back? You\u2019re saying you saw a lot of your friends flip or maybe express more GOP-coded opinions in terms of how they were voting. When do you see that change back to maybe thinking there was an opportunity here?<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a switch. I was talking to people, and they would say, \u201cLook, Bobby, I\u2019m voting Republican, but you\u2019re my kind of Democrat. I would vote for you because you\u2019re not batshit crazy.\u201d Because they painted Democrats as very radical, and it worked.<\/p>\n How much did immigration play a role? Even back in February, I was looking at Politico, for instance, writing about your district specifically and talking about how Republican Monica De La Cruz, your opponent, was all of a sudden like, \u201cOh, no, I need to moderate my opinions here,\u201d because people in her district were.<\/p>\n Well, here\u2019s the thing: Immigration is really a two-tiered issue down here. One thing is the border, and the other is enforcement in the streets. There\u2019s a difference. The border got really chaotic with asylum-seekers. Now, the diaspora in the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas in general is Mexican, Mexican American. Mexican Americans cannot claim political asylum because you\u2019re in a neighboring country. So, historically, most of the people here, their grandfather or their great-grandfather crossed the border illegally, undocumented, and they ran away from the Border Patrol and had to figure out life on their own. And it was like, hey, I\u2019ve got to cut yards, I\u2019ve got to do whatever I can to provide for my family.<\/p>\n Yeah, you talked about your grandfather being like, \u201cI was so proud I never took a penny from the government.\u201d So you\u2019re talking about the same kind of spirit.<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly right. That was the spirit of my grandfather, and that\u2019s the spirit of this region. We\u2019re proud people. Probably our forte is that we work really hard and we\u2019ll figure it out.<\/p>\n What you started seeing is when the asylum process started getting overwhelmed, it was catch and release. An asylum-seeker would not run away from a Border Patrol agent\u2014they would run to them and say, \u201cI want to declare political asylum.\u201d It was backlogged, so they would fly them in-country to wherever they wanted to go. I want to make clear that it\u2019s not my view, but the sentiment I was hearing often was: \u201cI see everybody here at the airport flying wherever the hell they want. My grandfather couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d And it really pissed people off.<\/p>\n Well, a lot of Latinos at the border work in enforcement too.<\/p>\n That\u2019s true. There\u2019s a lot of people working in Border Patrol and law enforcement, and they were really angry with the Biden administration. That had a lot to do with why the shift happened so big. And what\u2019s happening now, with the enforcement in the streets, is I\u2019ve got Republicans who go: \u201cMy gardener\u2019s gone, and I can\u2019t find anybody to cut my yard or clean my house, or build houses.\u201d There was a housing bill<\/a> that Trump refused to sign that went in because, after the 10-day period, it became law. That makes no change down here if you don\u2019t have a workforce. There\u2019s not a building in the Rio Grande Valley that was built without immigrant labor. Not one. I don\u2019t care what anybody wants to tell me. I will argue that to the day I die.<\/p>\n How Hard Could the Blue Wave Hit? The Blue Tsunami Sets Its Sights on the Texas Governor\u2019s Race Trump\u2019s White House Press Ban, Other Attacks on Free Speech Are Impeachable I think that a lot of people might make the assumption that a Latino population might look at images of people on the street being captured by ICE, what we\u2019re seeing now, and have a very emotional reaction to it, which I\u2019m sure they are as well, but you\u2019re really framing a lot of the concerns as economic.<\/p>\n It\u2019s both. I will tell you, I\u2019ve led with the humanitarian thing. It breaks my heart to see the things that are happening. And here\u2019s the other thing: People don\u2019t really understand us down here, but the Rio Grande Valley is a lot of mixed-status families. Recently, a friend of mine, a three-time Trump voter, 65 years old, eighth-generation Texan from an oil and gas family\u2014I was there years ago when he met his now wife, who was an immigrant. They came over, she overstayed her visa, they met, they fell in love. They have an 8-year-old American daughter. He\u2019s trying to get her papers, and there was a technicality in there\u2014she had crossed over and not said it and is getting deported. My friend is going to have to leave the country, and potentially, like he says, die in a country that\u2019s not his. The thing that people are not really taking into account is it\u2019s affecting everybody here. This is not us vs. them. It\u2019s affecting our community.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Copy Link <\/p>\n Share
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