Democrats attributed the loss to poor turnout and vowed to win it back in November when more of their voters were paying attention.īut Garcia, armed with solid fundraising and a national profile from his special election upset, narrowly beat Smith in their November rematch in a district Biden carried by 10 points. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) notched a blowout victory against Democrat Christy Smith for a Democratic-held north Los Angeles district. Special election in closely divided districts often signal a certain amount of momentum ahead of national elections. But she would also have the power of incumbency and have a head start in raising her profile.
And she would be up against Gonzalez, a sitting member.
Flores, a respiratory care practitioner who was born in Mexico, plans to run in both the special and race for the full term.Įven if she wins in June, the Republican would face a much taller task in November in a seat Biden won so handily. Yet when Vela resigned, Gonzalez did not give up his current seat to run in the special to fill the rest of Vela’s term and instead endorsed Sanchez, an attorney from Harlingen. Gonzalez decided to run in the newly redrawn version of Vela’s district, which Biden would have carried by 16 points under the new lines. Vicente Gonzalez’s district into a prime pickup opportunity - a seat Trump would have won by 3 points. When state lawmakers reshuffled those South Texas lines during redistricting last year, they turned Democratic Rep. Hillary Clinton carried them by double digits in 2016, but Biden won each by just a few points four years later.
All three South Texas districts saw a big shift to the right in 2020 as former President Donald Trump and the GOP made gains among Latinos. The June 14 special election will take place under last decade’s district lines - which span from Brownsville on the U.S.-Mexico border up north toward San Antonio. “Republicans have a real chance to win this district for the first time ever and flip a Democrat-held seat,” pollster Chris Perkins wrote in a memo obtained by POLITICO. The survey also showed a generic Republican beating a generic Democrat, 45 percent to 42 percent. The margin of error was 4.9 percentage points and the sample size was 400 likely voters. The poll, conducted April 19-21 by Ragnar Research for Flores and the National Republican Congressional Committee, found Flores with 24 percent, her Democratic opponent with 19 percent and 41 percent undecided.