Red wave of Right-wing Latinas pose triple threat to Democrats
MAYRA FLORES sent shockwaves through Washington when she became the first Mexican-born woman to enter Congress last month.
But it is not the 36-year-old’s country of birth that caused the stir: it is the fact that she is a Republican.
Her victory in the Rio Grande Valley, an overwhelmingly Hispanic region along the Texas-Mexico border, has caused alarm among Democrats about their longtime stronghold.
In flipping her seat from blue to red in a special election, she became the first Republican elected to represent parts of her district since 1870.
Most striking of all is the fact that Flores is not a moderate, but a full-throttled endorser of Donald Trump who refuses to admit Joe Biden won in 2020 and has previously tweeted QAnon conspiracy theory hashtags.
She even captured the attention of Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla. “I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican,” Musk wrote on June 15. “Massive red wave in 2022.”
Two more Trumpite Latina candidates in the Rio Grande Valley – Monica De La Cruz and Cassy Garcia – are vying for seats in Congress, and Republicans hope they will be part of that “red wave” that will hand them control of Capitol Hill in November’s midterm elections.
Their stated ideals – strong faith in God and support for strict immigration laws and abortion bans – have connected with their base and led Republican officials to refer to them as the “triple threat” as they consider Hispanic voters across the country as a potentially decisive swing vote.
Worryingly for the Democrats, the trend extends beyond Texas. In races nationwide, more than 100 Republican candidates for Congress are Hispanic – a record number.
Like many in her district, Flores, who came to the US at the age of six, grew up in a Democratic-voting family, and she voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
But Flores says it is the party’s neglect of Latinos that she has to thank for her victory. “They feel entitled to our vote, making the same promises over and over and really not making nothing happen,” she said recently.
De La Cruz, a small business owner, describes herself as a former Democrat who “walked away” from the party and voted for Trump.
Only Garcia, a former aide to Texas senator Ted Cruz, is a lifelong Republican.
The party’s strategists say the rise of these Right-wing Latina candidates reflects a Rightward shift in a former blue bastion. The start of that shift in southern Texas became apparent during Trump’s presidency. While Hillary Clinton won the Rio Grande Valley by 39 percentage points in 2016, Joe Biden carried it by just 15 points in 2020.
Some have suggested Democrats grew complacent, assuming Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric would alienate Latino voters.
In fact, the former president’s grievance politics chimed with this corner of the US-Mexico border, where residents witness the daily battle against illegal immigration first-hand.
Jaime Florez, the communications director for the Republican National Committee, said the three women were “just a sample” of the large numbers moving to the GOP.
“They were just taken for granted for too long by the Democrats who offered a lot of things that they never delivered,” he said. “What we’re doing is showing Hispanics their principles and their values align much more with the Republicans than Democrats.”
Flores, a mother of four and the wife of a Border Patrol agent, says her slogan – “God, family, country” – resonated with her district’s border city of Brownsville, where church is a fixture of life for many and traditional values are deeply instilled.
In a district where law enforcement jobs offer one of the most stable forms of employment, Flores has found success in campaigning on strict immigration laws and accusing Democrats of supporting the defunding of police departments.
Some Democrats have dismissed Flores’s recent win as an outlier, pointing to low turnout in the special election and the fact that her district will be redrawn in November, making it unlikely she will hold her seat.
Congressman Ruben Gallego, a member of the party’s Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called the victory a mere “public relations coup”.
But her Democratic opponent in November, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, warned her recent victory “was a profound message to the party”. He has distanced himself from the national party, recently criticising Biden’s handling of the border.
He warned that the party needed to learn its lesson “before it happens across the country” in a recent interview.
He added: “They have just forgotten about the brown people on the border.
“And that’s basically what it is. I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it anymore. They are taking Latinos in South Texas for granted.”