SAN JUAN, Texas (Border Report) — The political arm of an influential civil rights group in the Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday announced its endorsement of three Democratic candidates in the upcoming primary elections for key leadership posts on the South Texas border.
LUPE Votes, which is the sister organization of La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE,) came out in support of three Democrats who ultimately want to take on seats currently held by Republicans.
From their headquarters in the border town of San Juan, LUPE Votes announced support of the following candidates:
- Michelle Vallejo for Texas’ 15th Congressional District.
- Ruben Cortez Jr., for Texas State House, District 37.
- Roland Gutierrez for U.S. Senate.
“From Brownsville, to Pharr, to Rio Grande City of the current political landscape, and the politicians who place party over people, the pueblo says ‘enough is enough,'” said LUPE Votes Director of Civic Engagement Michael Mireles. “The Rio Grande Valley deserves representatives who work hard to protect our families and communities.”
Texas’ 15th Congressional District
Republican Monica De La Cruz currently represents Texas’ 15th Congressional District, which spans from San Antonio south through ranchlands to the border with Mexico. She flipped the seat in 2022, turning it Republican for the first time in its history after U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat, switched to run for Texas’s 34th Congressional District after the Texas Legislature redrew the boundaries of these two border districts.
Vallejo, a businesswoman and entrepreneur, ran against De La Cruz in 2022 and lost 53% to 44%.
The primary Democratic field was crowded from the start and Vallejo endured a tight runoff election that was contested and political analysts say limited her campaigning time prior to the general election.
Lawyer John Villarreal Rigney is once again challenging her for the Democratic nomination, but so far the field is small as the March 5 primary elections get closer.
“I am incredibly proud to be endorsed by our Pueblo. In her short time since getting elected, Monica De La Cruz has voted against South Texas families time and time again by cutting Medicare and Social Security for our abuelos, reducing funding for our veterans and public schools, and playing dangerous games with border and immigration funding and policy,” Vallejo told Border Report. “South Texans deserve a representative that works for them and will fight every day to ensure that hardworking people achieve their American dream.”
De La Cruz was among Republicans on Tuesday who voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. And she has repeatedly advocated for tougher asylum and immigration policies to limit those crossing from Mexico into South Texas.
When asked whether Vallejo has the experience needed to represent South Texas in Congress, LUPE Votes Executive Director Dani Marrero Hi told Border Report: “We know that she’s taking those lessons and we still see her as the best candidate for the primary, and the best candidate that’s going to stand with our Pueblo to fight for the issues that we care about.”
LUPE Votes’ “Pueblo Platform” advocates for Medicare for all, higher wages, free higher education, and the right to claim asylum in the United States.
“We believe that the primaries are going to give us a really good glimpse of what the political landscape for the future looks like, in the November ballot. So this is the opportunity to show to folks who the people are going to carry our needs to office,” Mireles told Border Report. “These candidates we believe are going to be able to address and challenge some of these very problematic laws that the state of Texas has been enacting both at the state level and also considering just a federal level what the US government has done to protect immigrant rights. So we believe that these candidates will be those to change the tide.”
Texas State House District 37
Cortez served on the Texas State Board of Education and was a trustee with the Brownsville Independent School District, one of the largest school districts on the border in Cameron County.
He is running for the Democratic nomination in the hopes of defeating Janie Lopez, the incumbent who in 2022 became the first Republican Hispanic elected to represent the Gulf Coast district that includes Cameron and Willacy counties.
She is the daughter of immigrants who came from Mexico and previously served on the San Benito Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees.
U.S. Senate seat
Gutierrez is a Democratic state senator from Uvalde, Texas, who is running in a field for his party’s nomination to go against Republican Ted Cruz, who has held the seat since 2013.
He wants gun restrictions and repeatedly refers to the deaths of 19 children and two teachers in 2022 at an Uvalde elementary school as need for reforms.
On Wednesday, an investigation by the Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE released a report into active shooter training protocols in schools and found no states mandate annual active shooter training for police officers.
“There must be better training for law enforcement, but at the end of the day we have to make sure that these weapons never find their way into the hands of dangerous people,” Gutierrez said. “We have to stop the madness and keep our communities safe from gun violence.”
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com/
