turn out at lower rates<\/a> than other groups, making them a smaller share of the electorate; in 2024, for example, voters with Spanish surnames made up just 37% of those that voted in the new 35th District.<\/p>\nDe La Cruz\u2019s campaign believes the Southside is the key swing area of the district and is knocking on doors of voters they believe are truly up for grabs. Their pitch leads with an overview of the candidate\u2019s background as a veteran and small-business owner, having opened a kickboxing gym with his wife several years ago. <\/p>\n
The Republican, who said in an interview that his mom and grandparents were Democrats, believes swing voters care about candidates\u2019 vision and values above their party affiliation \u2014 and that he has a compelling story and economic gameplan to offer them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking about the issues voters care about,\u201d De La Cruz said. \u201cThey see my 20 years in the United States Air Force, and that\u2019s the story of this community, being Military City, USA.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Election Day has crept closer, the race has gotten more expensive. Republicans have spent or booked $4.4 million on ads in the general election, with $4 million coming from No Going Back PAC, which is affiliated with Trump\u2019s political operation. Democrats, meanwhile, have spent $5.1 million, mostly from House Majority PAC, the main outside group supporting House Democrats.<\/p>\n
The Trump-affiliated group has gone after Garcia over a 2019 case in which a teenage inmate of the Bexar County Jail attempted suicide. Garcia, who was the public information officer for the sheriff\u2019s office, which oversees the lockup, called the incident \u201ctragic\u201d and accused Republicans at the state level of providing inadequate support for mental health treatment in local jails. <\/p>\n
In their attack ads and on the stump, each candidate has tried to tie his opponent to his party\u2019s unpopular elements. De La Cruz, according to Garcia, is little more than \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s wingman,\u201d a nod to the president\u2019s underwater approval among Latino voters and Texans overall. And Garcia, per De La Cruz, is a \u201cPR guy\u201d who would \u201cmake excuses for his party\u2019s open border policies\u201d in Congress.<\/p>\n
Despite all the money, the presence of two first-time candidates in a completely new district means that each candidate\u2019s ground game will be doubly important, said Henry Bonilla, a Republican who represented parts of San Antonio in Congress from 1993 to 2007. <\/p>\n
Bonilla, who is a finance chair of Associated Republicans of Texas, said 2024 was a watershed moment for Republicans who had long invested in making gains with Hispanic voters. But he worries that the administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement could imperil those gains in districts with significant Latino populations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised back then, where even on the Southside, which is overwhelmingly Hispanic, I\u2019d see pickup trucks with Trump signs,\u201d Bonilla said. \u201cHowever, a lot of the policies now that have been implemented are driving them away, and that\u2019s extremely concerning to a lot of us who have worked so hard over many years to build that support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia<\/p>\n
Garcia has spent nearly two decades at the Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office, a job he began at age 21 working in the county jail. He went on to be a SWAT crisis negotiator and eventually became the agency\u2019s public information officer.<\/p>\n
The Democrat has drawn on that experience on the campaign trail, frequently quipping \u2014 including in his television ad over clips of him in uniform \u2014 that when law enforcement officers get a dispatch, they don\u2019t ask if the house they\u2019re going to is Democrat or Republican. Part of his pitch to independent voters and even Republicans is what he describes as a willingness to stand up to his party.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration, Garcia said, committed \u201cfailures\u201d on the border \u2014 describing an incident where dozens of dead migrants were found in a truck in San Antonio in 2022 to the emergence of stash houses and the fentanyl trade. And he said he does not agree that trans women should be playing in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we got it wrong on the border here in Texas,\u201d Garcia said, explaining his pitch to voters. \u201cBut at the same time, I bring it back to the economy, and just how much things have changed under this administration, with the tariffs that are hurting working class families, with the healthcare cuts. And that\u2019s where folks see, okay \u2014 this guy is able to call it like it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia has the backing of local union chapters in the race, including the Communications Workers of America, which conducts weekly phone and text banks and is gearing up for a major get-out-the-vote push. Charles Fuentes, the CWA legislative director, thinks Garcia is a good fit for the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, that I-35 corridor down to Southside San Antonio \u2014 that\u2019s working class to the bone,\u201d Fuentes said, adding that rank-and-file union members this cycle are more energized and eager to get involved in helping CWA\u2019s candidates. <\/p>\n
Garcia\u2019s allies also believe there\u2019s stronger Democratic organizing on the Southside this cycle and that the candidate has been shrewd to lean in on visiting churches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Johnny has made a good platform for himself,\u201d said Peter Vallecillo, the longtime president of the Bexar County Tejano Democrats, over chips and salsas at a northeast San Antonio restaurant where he has lined the windows with Democratic candidate signs. \u201cI think he\u2019s coming out very energetic. He\u2019s speaking to the crowds. These are all tangibles that make Johnny a very good candidate, especially with [the] Southside. Because they haven\u2019t seen a candidate like Johnny Garcia in a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n
To win, Garcia will need to win over Latino voters who pulled the lever for Trump in 2024. VoteHub estimates that Trump captured 44% of the Hispanic vote in Texas House District 118, which encompasses much of the Bexar County portion of the 35th Congressional District.<\/p>\n
He believes his laser focus on the economy \u2014 and tying high everyday costs back to Republicans \u2014 is the winning blueprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cLatinos, we just want our fancy troquita \u2014 our nice truck \u2014 that has 30-inch tires jacked up and our loud mufflers,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cAnd these days, Latinos are having to park that fancy troquita and now drive their wives\u2019 minivans. That pisses people off, because that isn\u2019t what they voted for.\u201d<\/p>\n
De La Cruz<\/p>\n
In his ads and on the campaign trail, De La Cruz follows a disciplined message, frequently acknowledging that Texans feel squeezed by high grocery and gas prices. His prescription for bringing costs down, he says, is cutting red tape, particularly for energy production and small businesses.<\/p>\n
In a tight race, the outcome could come down to whose vision for the economy appeals to more voters \u2014 and who shoulders the blame for its problems. Democrats have especially hammered the Iran War, and the subsequent rise in gas prices it caused, as a key way to pin the blame on the GOP. <\/p>\n
De La Cruz, meanwhile, emphasizes his own military service \u2014 a biographical detail his campaign sees as a strong fit in a district with a large military and veteran population.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand with our troops and with their families,\u201d he said when asked if it was time to wind down U.S. military engagement in and around Iran. \u201cBut I\u2019ll be crystal clear: No one wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and our troops are doing some very important work to protect our country. And nobody wants a forever war in the Middle East. I absolutely want it to be resolved peacefully, but at the end of the day, it has to be resolved responsibly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armed with Trump\u2019s endorsement in the primary, De La Cruz defeated state Rep. John Lujan<\/a>, a perennial Republican overperformer in House District 118, a swing seat routinely targeted by Democrats. The veteran spoke at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas in September, dismissing as \u201chogwash\u201d the idea that he should keep the unpopular president at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\nMore recently, he explained why he sees his support of Trump as a winning political play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t manufacture something to disagree with the president on just to make a headline,\u201d De La Cruz said. \u201cI want to make it clear that I\u2019m going to go there and actually work with this administration to bring resources back to our community, whereas my opponent, he would go there to set up shop at MSNBC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Janie Fonseca, who runs a local GOP group called Heart de San Antonio Republicans, said De La Cruz is able to connect with Hispanic voters, who she described as more culturally conservative even if they identify as Democrats. And she thinks Republicans, contrary to most polling, can actually improve with Hispanic voters locally due to the rising tide of democratic socialism in other states.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can make inroads \u2014 as long as people know of him and know what he stands for,\u201d Fonseca said. \u201cHe\u2019s a personable individual. And he also has values that Hispanics can relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 As canvassers gathered near a golf course on San Antonio\u2019s Southside, armed with bilingual campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2671,287,82,84,83,2850,293,6748],"class_list":["post-457909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-congress","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-texas-congressional-delegation","tag-texas-legislature","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457909","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=457909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}