Monica De La Cruz retains GOP control of South Texas congressional district

Sign up for the We the Texans newsletter to receive twice-monthly updates on our year-long initiative dedicated to boosting civic engagement and chronicling how democracy is experienced in Texas.

---

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz defeated Democrat Michelle Vallejo on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, securing a second term representing Texas' 15th Congressional District and maintaining GOP control of a key seat anchored in the traditionally Democratic Rio Grande Valley.

The contest was a rematch from two years ago, when De La Cruz easily captured the district after it had been redrawn the previous year to favor Republicans. This time, national Democrats devoted more attention and resources to the race. But in the end, De La Cruz still easily outspent Vallejo and pulled off a win with her platform focused on securing the border, reducing inflation and protecting energy jobs.

“In 2022, we made history, and tonight’s outcome confirms that the change we brought to this community is here to stay,” De La Cruz said.

She added that South Texas “deserves more than benchwarmers in Washington” and promised that she was “just getting started” in Congress.

De La Cruz fended off attack ads claiming she would jeopardize Medicare and Social Security based on her proximity to efforts supported by other Republicans — a charge she hotly disputed. Vallejo also took aim at De La Cruz over her support for Texas’ abortion ban, as Democrats hoped to seize on backlash sparked by high-profile cases of women leaving the state to receive medical care for life-threatening pregnancy complications.

De La Cruz largely avoided the issue, removing a "Pro-Life" section from her campaign website's issues page, though she acknowledged she supports "exceptions for women facing heartbreaking circumstances."

The district is anchored in Hidalgo County and its biggest city, McAllen, along the U.S.-Mexico border. It runs through rural South Texas up to Guadalupe County east of San Antonio.

As was the case in 2022, Republicans in Texas and Washington, D.C., saw the race as an important benchmark in their efforts to continue gaining ground among Latino voters and cutting into Democrats' hold on South Texas, a region they had long dominated until recent cycles.

GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson traveled to the district to campaign with De La Cruz, and she landed high-profile speaking slots this year, delivering the Spanish-language response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and speaking at the Republican National Convention.

Meanwhile, Democrats hoped to reassert themselves in South Texas by reclaiming Texas' 15th District — though they have also noted that Republicans gained the upper hand by redrawing the district to fold in more conservative areas near San Antonio, hundreds of miles and several counties away from the border.

Still, De La Cruz had made inroads in the Democratic stronghold of Hidalgo County, where most of the district lives. She lost the county by about 13 points in 2022 after losing it by more than 20 points the cycle before, when she narrowly failed to unseat the Democratic incumbent at the time, Vicente Gonzalez. This time, Vallejo led in Hidalgo County by just 4 percentage points through early voting — reflecting a major shift to the right throughout South Texas.

After GOP state lawmakers redrew the district so that former President Donald Trump would have carried it by 3 percentage points in 2020, Gonzalez shifted to run in a neighboring district, leading to an open 2022 race in which De La Cruz defeated Vallejo by an 8.5-point margin.

Undeterred, Vallejo saw a path to bring the seat back under Democratic control this cycle, starting with her newfound support from national Democrats who had declined to seriously invest in the race two years ago. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put the district on its early target list and gave Vallejo mentorship and resources through its Red to Blue program for candidates it deems competitive. And House Majority PAC, a super PAC connected to House Democratic leadership, ran ads supporting Vallejo in English and Spanish as part of a $2 million ad reservation in South Texas — a sharp contrast to when the group pulled its reservations from Vallejo’s race in 2022.

Additionally, Vallejo moderated her message after embracing a more overtly progressive set of issues last cycle, including the single-payer health care system known as Medicare for All. She dropped that from her platform this time around and ran an ad that showed her standing shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement officials while vowing to "get serious" about fixing "chaos at the border" — sparking backlash from progressive supporters who said they felt betrayed by her shifting posture on immigration.