▶ Watch Video: Latest on tight races in Michigan, Texas, and Maine as voting underway
Democrat Katy Padilla Stout is projected to win Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, flipping the seat after Republicans nominated controversial pro-gun YouTube personality Brandon Herrera.
The victory came as Democrats in Texas notched major victories, including winning the Senate race, the governor’s mansion and several major House seats.
Although Herrera eventually secured the backing of Republican leadership, his campaign was dogged by comments he had made on his YouTube channel, which has 4 million subscribers. During his 2024 primary challenge against former Rep. Tony Gonzales, his jokes about Nazis and veteran suicides were widely shared, and his other crude jokes about women also resurfaced.
The seat has been vacant since April, when GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned. He was facing an expulsion vote after admitting an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
Gonzales was considered a moderate, but he also had been a reliable Republican vote . Gonzales won by 23 points in 2024 and the district remained safely Republican after last year’s redistricting. Mr. Trump won the current district by 14 points.
Texas’ 23rd District stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, includes Uvalde and extends more than 800 miles along the southern border. The district was previously considered a swing district, having flipped between Democrats and Republicans four times between 2006 and 2020, when Gonzales was first elected.
The district has been redrawn to be more conservative, and Gonzales defeated Herrera in the 2024 primary by only 400 votes. In the March primary this year, Herrera came out ahead of Gonzales, even though Gonzales had Mr. Trump’s backing.
Although the district had not been seriously considered in play for Democrats before Gonzales dropped out of the race, the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy has been a key issue in the district. The Department of Homeland Security has begun border wall construction in Big Bend National Park, though the area accounts for only 1.3% of all southwest border arrests. The massive park is the size of Rhode Island and is beloved by Texans.
Both Herrera and Padilla Stout opposed the border wall construction. A bill to stop the construction introduced by Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar did not advance, but a judge halted construction last month.
