EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A West Texas congressman says he remains humble and ready to listen to his constituents after surviving a close GOP runoff election against a gun-enthusiast YouTuber he beat by fewer than 500 votes.
“There are no easy races, I don’t care what you run for. It’s a pretty tough time in politics right now,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, said at a news conference hours after declaring victory in the Republican runoff election for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. “We are always ready to go to battle but we also want to be respectful. This is not about spiking the ball; this is about being humble and going, ‘Alright, how do I listen to the other folks that did not cast their vote for me?’ What can we do to make sure they feel as if they’re represented?”
Texas Secretary of State unofficial data gives two-term incumbent Gonzales the nod over challenger Brandon Herrera by a 407-vote margin with 100 percent of polling locations reporting.
Herrera, a firearms manufacturer and conservative social media figure known as “The AK Guy,” late Tuesday shared a tweet by U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida. It highlights Gonzales’ $9 million in campaign expenses just to keep his job through November, while Herrera came in just short after spending only $1 million on the race.
Gonzales will now have to defend his job against Democrat Santos Limon in the November general election after surviving a runoff in which half of Republicans voted against him.
“I look at this victory and it’s about being humble, and it’s about getting stronger and it’s about listening to folks, meeting with more people,” Gonzales said. “I’ve only been in politics three years, so I think there’s clearly some growing to do, and I look forward to that, just being able to connect” with voters.
The incumbent said his district, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, is very large and diverse. It includes three border cities that have been at times overrun by the mass movement of people from across the Rio Grande. It also includes Uvalde, the site of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary that left 19 children and two teachers dead in May 2022.
Uvalde played a big role in the runoff. Gonzales voted for a gun-control bill in the House shortly after the massacre, prompting censure from the state Republican Party and opening the door for far-right candidates, including Herrera, to challenge him.
Herrera found a receptive audience in the rural counties he won and in some big cities like El Paso. Gonzales carried Bexar County, which appears to have made the difference in a very close race.
“You are never going to please everyone, nor should you try to please everyone. Just do the best job you possibly can, show up in good times and in not-so-good times and ultimately deliver. And that’s what our campaign has done. It has delivered over and over,” Gonzales said. “It was literally ground-to-ground, block-by-block kind of a knife fight – and I knew exactly that was what was going to take.”
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