» In U.S. House District 23, Reyes has a narrow edge over Trump’s pick, Gonzales.
GOP race too close in bid to replace Hurd
Raul Reyes, a retired Air Force officer backed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, held a slim lead over Navy veteran Tony Gonzales, President Donald Trump’s pick, as votes were still being tallied Tuesday in the fractious Republican race to replace U.S. Rep. Will Hurd.
Just before 10 p.m., the race was too close to call as Gonzales bit into Reyes’ early lead.
Reyes was leading Gonzales by about 3 percentage points, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office. All 28 counties that make up the vast district that ranges from San Antonio to El Paso had reported at least early voting totals.
In Bexar County, about half of the ballots cast in the county’s 214 voting centers Tuesday had been counted.
“We spent almost every single dollar we possibly could,” Gonzales spokesman Matt Mackowiak said. “We believed it was going to be extremely competitive. It’s hard to predict given coronavirus, given that it’s a runoff to begin with. It’s a very unusual political environment right now. This is razor thin.”
A Reyes spokesman declined to comment.
The victor will face Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, a San Antonio native and former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, in November. She won her primary outright in March.
Intraparty drama had come to define the Republican race in recent weeks as top Republicans split over their pick. Gonzales narrowly bested Reyes in the March 3 primary but couldn’t avoid a runoff.
Hurd — who opted not to seek re-election — along with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise backed Gonzales, a 38-year-old San Antonio native.
But in late June, Cruz threw his weight behind Reyes, an immigration hardliner and a staunch Hurd critic. Cruz put out a 30-second ad for the former Air Force lieutenant colonel.
There were reports that Cruz tried to get Trump to back Reyes, 49, of Castroville.
Instead, Trump endorsed Gonzales.
For years, Texas’ 23rd Congressional District — which stretches 550 miles from San Antonio to El Paso along the U.S.-Mexico border — has been a hotly-contested partisan battleground, flipping between Democrats and Republicans four times since 2006. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the district by about 3 percentage points.
Hurd, a Republican, snagged the seat from Democrat Pete Gallego in 2014. He’s kept the seat
since, though by increasingly smaller margins.
Jones nearly ousted Hurd in 2018, coming within 1,000 votes of Hurd. The National Republican Congressional Committee alone pumped $2.1 million into the race that year. In all, campaigns and outside groups spent more than $20 million on the race.
Jones — a veteran of the war in Iraq who was deployed there for three years — heads into the general election with more name recognition and a bigger cash advantage than either of the Republican candidates. Last week, her campaign said it had more than $3 million in the bank.
By contrast, Gonzales had more than $398,000 on hand as of June 24. Reyes had a little more than $59,000 on hand.
Gonzales, a retired Navy cryptologist, was deployed multiple times in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Other races
In Congressional District 20, nightclub owner Mauro Garza held a strong lead over retired educator Gary Allen in the Republican runoff to face U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro in November, the four-term Democratic incumbent. That district is completely within Bexar County.
In the 35th Congressional District, which stretches from San Antonio to Austin, GOP activist Jenny Garcia Sharon had a lead over ostrich rancher William Hayward in the Republican runoff.
The winner of that runoff will face longtime Democrat Congressman Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in the November general election.