Fort Bend race’s field among largest in U.S.

Already expected to be one of the hottest congressional races in the country, the battle in Congressional District 22 is fast becoming one of the nation’s largest with now 18 candidates vying for it.

And there is still almost a month until the filing deadline, meaning more could compete to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land.

The latest candidate in the mix is Marine veteran Jon Camarillo, a Republican who announced his bid on Tuesday to run in the district, which includes most of Fort Bend County and parts of Brazoria and Harris counties.

“We need to fight for pro-life policies, lower taxes, less spending, a strong military, secure borders, and pro-growth economic policies,” Camarillo said.

Camarillo becomes the 15th Republican to jump into the race — making it the biggest field in the nation so far for a Republican primary for Congress. Three Democrats have also filed to run. And more candidates could still be on the way given that they have until Dec. 9 to file to run in the March 3 primary election.

The big field of candidates is partly to be expected because it is the only open seat for Congress in the Houston area. Typically when there is no incumbent, the number of candidates soars.

“It is a lot easer to win an open seat than trying to defeat an incumbent,” said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus.

In 2018, 91 percent of incumbents running for re-election to

Congress won.

But there is more at play in the Fort Bend Countybased district, Rottinghaus said.

Democrats have been surging in the Houston-area and the 22nd Congressional District. In 2018, they flipped the neighboring 7th Congressional District and made close races out of three other nearby districts held by Republicans. Holding the 22nd District would be a major symbolic victory for Republicans after all of the talk of the region becoming more favorable to Democrats, Rottinghaus said.

“It is really ground zero for politically competitive Texas,” Rottinghaus said. “Both parties are going to fight for it.”

While Olson has represented the district for 11 years, his re-election bid in 2018 was the closest battle of his career. He won the race by 5 percentage points over Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni, a former foreign service worker who has filed to run again in 2020 for the seat.

That has national Democrats targeting the race and promising to help flip it.

Beside Camarillo, the race already includes longtime GOP donor Kathaleen Wall; former Pearland City Councilman Greg Hill; retired Army officer Keli Chevalier; attorney Howard Steele Jr.; vaping bar owner Schell Hamme;l and Pearland City Councilwoman Felicia Harris. Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls is also expected to jump into the race, though he hasn’t filed paperwork to run.