A new congressional district on San Antonio’s South Side is at the center of Republican efforts to save a narrow U.S. House majority this year.
On Wednesday evening, that brought U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Florida) and Rudy Yakam (R-Indiana) to a VFW near the Mission Marquee Plaza, where they mingled with veterans and local officials at a campaign event for first-time congressional hopeful Carlos De La Cruz.
“I just want to tell you that leaders from across Congress and across the country are all watching what happens right here in this district,” Johnson told the crowd of roughly 200 people. “This district is the whole enchilada — did I say that right?”
Meet Carlos De La Cruz, the Air Force veteran Trump boosted from obscurity in TX35
Texas’ 35th Congressional District was drawn to give the GOP a leg up in an election that party leaders worry could be brutal.
Johnson can only afford to lose a few seats and still hold onto the speaker’s
gavel, so his party placed a gamble on a part of the country that swung toward President Donald Trump two years ago.
Last year, Trump got Texas to redraw its congressional districts outside of the census cycle, creating the new San Antonio-area district and reshaping several others south of here that are currently held by Democrats.
“2024 was a bellwether election,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday. “We had a true demographic shift. We had a record number of Hispanic and Latino voters — we had a record number of Black and African American voters — coming to the Republican Party.”
Now the party hopes it can hold onto Trump’s gains in a year when the president isn’t on the ballot, including with voters of San Antonio’s politically swingy South Side.
“The Hispanic and Latino population are famously aligned with the values of the Republican Party,” Johnson said.
“They believe in family. They believe in God. Religion is important in this community. They believe in a secure border. They believe in the rule of law. They don’t want their communities overrun by dangerous criminals,” he continued. “It’s American values. … It’s common sense, and because our party represents them, and the Democrats increasingly were leaving them behind, they came to us in droves.”
Democrats contend that Hispanic voters aren’t happy with the results of the second Trump administration, and point to a series of special elections in which they’ve already swung away from GOP candidates.
That’s part of the reason they believe they have a shot at some races once considered unwinnable, including TX35, which Trump would have carried by more than 10 percentage points. The untested district’s GOP voters rejected a more moderate candidate, state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio), by 16 percentage points in the primary runoff, propelling instead Trump’s pick, the brother of U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Edinburg), into the general election.
In fight for the U.S. House majority, Democrats target two uphill San Antonio-area races
Democrats’ nominee in that race is Johnny Garcia, a longtime Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy who fended off a more progressive opponent in the primary.
National Democrats consider Garcia one of their best candidates in the country this election cycle, and their leading super PAC has already reserved TV ads to help him win this fall.
Outside the VFW on Wednesday, several veterans who attended the De La Cruz event said they weren’t sure what to make of the candidates in this race, but they were stunned to see high-profile congressional leaders campaigning through San Antonio.
They presented Johnson with a gift, which the speaker vowed to take with him back to D.C.
“I’m just glad we were able to give a gift to the Speaker of the House,” said Ralph Alvarado, commander of the post for VFW 9186. “We’ve never had a visitor that was in the presidential line of succession.”
