Democrat Congressman Vicente Gonzalez defeated Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores in the congressional election for the newly merged 34th Congressional District in the state of Texas. New census data resulted in the redistricting of congressional districts across the country, and the new 34th Congressional District incorporated many Democratic voters from Texas’ 15th district. As a result, 15th district incumbent Vicente Gonzalez decided to run against incumbent Mayra Flores in the 34th district, which now favors Democrats.

The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index for the 15th district favored Democrats by 1 point before redistricting. After redistricting, the PVI indicated a 1 point Republican lean. As of November 13th, 2022, with more than 95 percent votes having been reported, Monica De La Cruz (R) has won the district by about 8.5 points. Her opponent was Democrat Michelle Vallejo. This margin of victory for De La Cruz heavily outpaces the PVI, a trend which carried into the Democratic leaning 34th district.

The 34th district’s PVI offered a 9 point Democratic lean for 2022. This initially suggested that the freshly redrawn 34th district had the potential to become a Democratic stronghold in the state of Texas. However, Republicans were counting on continued success with Hispanic voters, an emerging trend, to possibly carry them to an upset victory in the district. While this upset did not occur, Republicans were able to slightly outperform the voting index. Mayra Flores captured 44.3 percent of the vote, while Vicente Gonzalez won 52.7 percent, a difference of 8.4 points.  

This race may indicate trouble for the Republican Party in Texas, as it highlights the failure of the party to capture Hispanic votes at a time when the current President faces poor approval ratings. Republican support among Hispanics has, in fact, increased over the past year. Ron DeSantis saw massive support among the Cuban American population in Florida during his 2022 gubernatorial campaign. Furthermore, polls have indicated that Hispanic voters may be evenly split in their support among Democrats and Republicans.

The theory supporting a Hispanic transition to the Republican party is largely based on the sentiment that the Republican party is becoming the party of the working class. The Hispanic population is also demographically Christian and socially conservative, so Republicans hoped that they could rally Hispanics to their side of the culture war on issues such as abortion, LGBT policy issues, and education. There is some evidence to suggest that this trend is continuing despite Flores’ loss. Flores outperformed Trump’s 2020 performance in each county in the 34th district, shrinking Gonzalez’s lead to just 4 points in Cameron County—a county which Biden won by 13 points in 2020. However, despite outpacing Trump in all five counties in the district, Flores still failed to make up enough ground to clinch the House seat.

Mayra Flores’ loss in the 34th district could be an indicator that Republicans are continuing to underperform with Hispanic voters in Texas, despite a slow moving trend of advanced Hispanic support. Flores’ gains also failed to reflect the rest of Texas’ midterm results, as Democrats continued to do well with Hispanic voters. Significantly, members of the Hispanic community in Texas have not joined the Republican party in droves like those in Florida. Joe Biden’s lackluster approval ratings and an uncertain economic future played directly into the hands of Mayra Flores and the Republicans, yet they were unable to capitalize on this opportunity in her campaign.