This text was revealed by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative information outlet and journal. Join their weekly publication, or observe them on Fb, X, and Bluesky. It was co-published with Puente Information Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom devoted to high-quality protection from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sitting contained in the taquería El Portón right here in Edinburg, Texas, tuba-tinged banda music wafting by way of the audio system, Bobby Pulido may simply go for one of many many South Texas Latinos who drifted towards Donald Trump previously two presidential races. He’s a rancher who spends time on the capturing vary. Clad in a plaid shirt, cowboy boots, and khaki baseball cap that reads “Texican,” Pulido talks simply about religion, household and private accountability.
However, he insists, the Democratic Social gathering remains to be his get together.
“They shouldn’t personal the flag,” Pulido stated of Republicans. “I really like my nation, and I’d die for it. And I really like God, and I embrace my religion. That’s who I’m. However I’m additionally empathetic, and I additionally need to assist individuals. And I imagine that the little man typically wants—like my dad did—wants a serving to hand to get their household out of poverty. That’s our spirit.”
Because the nation heads into one other unstable election season, Texas’ fifteenth Congressional District—stretching almost 250 miles from the Rio Grande Valley north towards Central Texas—has grow to be a testing floor for one of many largest questions going through the Democratic Social gathering: Can it win again Latino voters who swung proper in latest elections?
Pulido, 52, the high-profile Tejano singer finest identified for his Nineteen Nineties hit “Desvelado,” is extensively considered because the frontrunner in Tuesday’s Democratic Social gathering major in a district redrawn in 2022 to favor Republicans—however one of many few in Texas that Democrats hope they will flip.
The race has attracted nationwide consideration as a case examine in how the get together would possibly reconnect with disaffected, hard-to-pin working-class Mexican American voters.
Pulido shouldn’t be the one charismatic product of the Valley’s working class on this race, nonetheless. His opponent, emergency room doctor Ada Cuellar, 44, argues she can be able to interesting past get together traces. Whereas she doesn’t prefer to label herself ideologically, a few of her positions place her additional left than Pulido’s self-declared Democratic conservatism.
Cuellar has an equally inspiring private story that displays the goals most of the Valley’s working households maintain for his or her kids. Initially from Weslaco, she just lately earned a legislation diploma whereas tending to sufferers and elevating her 12-year-old daughter as a single mom.
“I’m a child who grew up low-income and relied on public training,” she stated. “I used to be a WIC program recipient, after which rising up, I used to be a Pell grant recipient. I see that now these items are being attacked by the Trump administration. Advantages that might have helped a child like me, proper now they’re being lower.”
She describes herself as anti-corruption and anti-establishment and takes firmer stances than Pulido on points equivalent to codifying abortion rights. She favors dismantling ICE, leaving immigration enforcement to different businesses with higher belief.
“Democrats are enthusiastic about me as a result of I’m a fighter,” she stated. “And apparently, when speaking to Republicans, additionally they are enthusiastic about the identical factor, even when they don’t align with each single place that I take.”
Regardless of her political attributes, a ballot shared with Politico in January confirmed Cuellar operating a stable second, going through an uphill battle towards Pulido’s superstar standing and excessive media profile.
The son of famed conjunto musician Roberto Pulido —a former migrant farmworker who labored his method by way of school—Bobby Pulido grew up in a political household reflective of the Democratic Social gathering institution that has lengthy dominated the Valley.
His uncle, Eloy Pulido, was a county choose. In highschool, Bobby Pulido was chosen by his academics to attend Texas Boys State, a prestigious civic management program, and later studied political science at St. Mary’s College in San Antonio.
With these deep roots in politics, he assumed he would possibly at some point run for workplace.
However within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, main document labels have been looking for the following Selena-type sensation. When Pulido’s father invited him to document a duet, executives heard him and provided a deal he couldn’t resist. He left school a 12 months shy of graduating and have become one in all Tejano music’s largest stars, producing 18 albums, successful two Latin Grammy awards, and touring the U.S. and Mexico.
Now, three a long time later, the daddy of 4 hopes to translate his cultural capital into political momentum.
On the marketing campaign path, Pulido has hosted what he calls “ranch halls” as an alternative of city halls. He seems in his signature cowboy hat and boots, typically breaking into music on the finish of his speeches. His marketing campaign advertisements emphasize that he’s “not workforce crimson, not workforce blue, workforce you.”
He argues that Latino voters within the Valley defy straightforward partisan labels.
An in-depth examine in 2020 by the Texas Organizing Undertaking Training Fund discovered that many Latino voters maintain weak partisan attachment, even once they repeatedly vote for one get together. Moderately than aligning wholesale with a platform, respondents typically described weighing points individually—immigration, healthcare, taxes, training—and basing votes on who’s operating at any given second.
Equis Analysis, a nationwide agency that research Latino voters, has equally argued that Latinos needs to be understood much less as a assured Democratic bloc and extra as persuadable swing voters.
That sample is seen in South Texas. In 2024, some Valley voters supported Trump on the prime of the ticket whereas backing Democrats in native and congressional races.
“I hate this narrative that South Texas is crimson,” Pulido stated. “I don’t suppose the persons are crimson. I feel they care concerning the candidate.”
The 4 counties that make up the Valley, which has greater than 1.3 million principally Latino residents, had not voted Republican in a presidential race because the late 1800s. That shifted dramatically when Trump made average good points in 2020—then markedly bigger ones 4 years later.
In Hidalgo County, the place District 15 is anchored, he went from drawing 28 p.c of the vote in 2016 to 51 p.c in 2024.
Political pundits and the media typically oversimplify the Latino voters, and Pulido rejects the argument that the shift was principally concerning the economic system and immigration.
He believes cultural conservatism—together with debates over gender identification—resonated with many Valley voters deeply rooted in church, household, and a Tejano identification, whereas shielding them from the overt discrimination that Latinos face in different communities the place they’re the minority.
“You don’t really feel the racism as a result of we’re all Hispanics, predominantly,” he stated. “So that you simply suppose, ‘It’s conservatism. I’m going to church, I really like God. I would like tax cuts, have the federal government staying out of my enterprise.’”
He added: “You don’t perceive how many individuals down right here would inform me stuff about organic males enjoying in girls’s sports activities, and none of them had ever skilled that, and even identified of any scenario the place it occurred.”
In a area the place many Mexican American households like Pulido’s return generations—in some circumstances to earlier than the land was a part of the US—cultural identification and get together affiliation don’t at all times transfer collectively.
Pulido sees himself in that center area. He’s assured he can carry some Trump supporters again to the political middle with a give attention to working-class issues like healthcare entry and value of dwelling.
He stated packages that focus solely on individuals dwelling in poverty create resentment amongst individuals who earn simply sufficient to disqualify them, but nonetheless battle to make ends meet.
“So we’ve got to do one thing about catering our message extra to the center class and the working class,” he stated. “As a result of they really feel like they should work two jobs simply to make it.”
Pulido believes his benefit is his friendships throughout get together traces, together with with Border Patrol brokers and Trump voters.
“Crucial factor for me as a Democrat that didn’t vote for Donald Trump is I’ve realized how one can speak to people who did,” he stated. “They really feel I don’t disrespect them, and I don’t look down on them. And I don’t suppose I’m higher than they’re.”
Pulido’s superstar standing and his potential to code-switch politically are formidable. But Cuellar has mounted a severe marketing campaign, self-funding tv and radio advertisements whereas criticizing his institution endorsements and previous social media posts wherein he made sexist remarks and boasted {that a} household pal who was a choose dismissed a dashing ticket.
She argues that longtime Democratic energy brokers within the Valley who’re backing Pulido are the identical ones who contributed to voter disillusionment that helped Republicans flip the district.
“It’s a mistake to suppose that he’s the one candidate that may win this district,” she stated.
This week’s winner will face Republican U.S. Consultant Monica De La Cruz in November. She flipped the district in 2022 after Texas Republicans redrew its boundaries, and gained once more in 2024 by 14 factors.
“It’s completely winnable,” Pulido stated. “However I’m the underdog, I get it.”
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