Republican Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX) won a special election last summer on June 14 and assumed office on June 21, 2022. She represents Texas’ 34th Congressional District. She is running to serve a full term. Her victory was truly historic. Democrats controlled that district for more than 100 years.

Flores is running against Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, also a sitting member of Congress. There are a few dozen or so extremely competitive House races and this is one of them. The 34th Congressional District is in South Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. The majority of residents are Hispanic. The district was redrawn and Gonzalez comes from the 15th District, west of the 34th.

As you might imagine, border security and the Biden border crisis is a top issue. Residents are fed up with the neglect of the southern border by the Biden administration and Democrats. Flores’ husband is a Border Patrol agent. Her first campaign was heavily focused on the border crisis and voters responded. Elon Musk cast his first ever Republican vote for her.

Gonzalez is casting himself as a moderate, even conservative Democrat and claims Flores is too extreme for the voters in TX-34. Frankly, I expect Flores to win this race.

Gonzalez described Flores’s stances as “extreme right-wing, election-denying, thinks that January 6 was a hoax, believes QAnon conspiracy theories.”

“Middle-of-the-road Chamber of Commerce business Republicans are with us,” said Gonzalez in a phone interview Friday. “We do have some Republicans, but they’re very moderate business people. They’re not the Trump flag-carrying Republicans.”

Taylor Zanazzi, Flores’s campaign manager, hit back at Gonzalez’s characterizations, saying, “If those lies are the best he has, buena suerte!” — Spanish for “good luck!”

The problem with Gonzalez’s desperate rhetoric against Flores is that it was Trump who was able to make inroads in south Texas with Hispanic voters. They liked his ideas about border control and how Trump was able to make agreements with Mexico to hold illegal migrants in Mexico. Flores’ victory in the special election was proof of the gradual shift being seen in previously Democrat-heavy Hispanic majority districts. Flores herself is the first female Mexican-born member of the House.

Gonzalez is oddly claiming to have put together an agreement with the president of Guatemala. He wants to position himself as a deal-maker with solutions to the Biden border crisis.

“I know the border better than most people in Congress, and I don’t need anybody from New York or Iowa or Nebraska telling me how to fix the situation on our southern border,” Gonzalez told the Washington Examiner.

He pointed to his Safe Zone Act as the ultimate solution to resolving record-high illegal immigration and preventing another crisis down the road by allowing people to seek asylum in their home countries rather than making the dangerous trek to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“My proposal is to do everything that we’re doing on our border, on the border of Guatemala and Mexico, and create a safe zone where migrants who are coming into this country from south of Mexico … would have to go to the safe zone and check in there and get processed at that juncture,” Gonzalez said.

The three-term lawmaker said he negotiated the deal with the president of Guatemala and has proposed it to Vice President Kamala Harris, who he said has not shown any interest in his solution. The proposal, he contends, would eliminate human smuggling through Mexico, drying up billions of dollars in annual business for the Mexican cartels, and it would “take the pressure” off the southern border, where more than 1 million illegal immigrants have been released into the United States since President Joe Biden took office.

“I don’t think the vast majority of these people will ever qualify for asylum, and that’s a fact we need to come to terms with,” said Gonzalez. “We should be dealing with these caravans and these mass migrants further away from the border.”

Since when do individual members of Congress negotiate international agreements with leaders of other countries? It’s not a surprise, though, that Kamala isn’t interested in any ideas. That tracks with her usual apathy toward the border.

Gonzalez found himself in some hot water over a blogger who shared racist remarks about Obama. The Gonzalez campaign paid for “advertising services” on two occasions. The campaign paid for ads to be run on the blogs. There were also racist and sexist remarks made against Flores on the blog, The McHale Report.

In November 2014, Juan Montoya, who operates the El Rrun Rrun blog, amplified the insensitive comments that were penned by Jerry McHale, another blogger who was revealed in July to have made numerous racist and sexist remarks through his own blog that targeted GOP Rep. Mayra Flores.

In the post shared to Montoya’s blog, McHale, who was also paid by the Gonzalez campaign for “advertising services” through his own blog, made racist comments through “one of his alter personalities” known as Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully.

Describing Republican politicians, who he believed the GOP should prop up in elections, McHale stated: “The voters look at the Cameron County Republicans as viable options. If the party of the rich, racists and religious right ran Terry Ray or Bud Richards or Harry McNair, the Democrats would prevail in landslides, but Tony Garza, Cascos and Garcia aren’t reactionary ideologues, born-again Christians or prudes.”

“They like to f— and drink. They are reasonable individuals who aren’t ranting and raving that Barack Obama is a god-mn n—– who is bringing the world to an end,” he added. “They aren’t wasting any rhetoric opposing gay marriage, abortion or legalizing marijuana.”

Through his own blog, titled “The McHale Report,” McHale has previously offered several racist and sexist remarks about Flores, who will face off against Gonzalez in the state’s November 8 election to represent Texas’ 34th Congressional District.

It looks like a lot of name-calling going on. I think the reason Flores has brought this race to a toss-up is because she is focusing on speaking to voters about what they are interested in – the everyday issues like border security and inflation, the high cost of living in Biden’s America, and the rise in crime. This race is one to watch.