As President Donald Trump’s efforts to enact his mass deportation operations continue, Democrats’ hold on Texas’ border cities is waning, as elected officials in the region move to identify with the GOP.
It is no secret that Texas is among Trump’s biggest allies. He had a decisive win in South Texas in the past presidential election, taking 14 of 18 counties within 20 miles of the border. The now-president also won the state with 56.2 percent of the vote, compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 42.4 percent.
South Texas had a history of holding moderate Democratic Latino voters. But that all changed when in 2020, with Republicans smelling a chance to win, launched a first-of-its-kind offensive in the care, with a focus on securing the border, tamping down on inflation and protecting energy jobs in the region, according to Texas Tribune.
Now, during a non-election year, that trend is seemingly continuing, with the region turning redder each day.
For instance, Tano Tijerina spent a decade as the Democratic chief executive of Webb County in South Texas. But he recently changed parties, fiercely supporting a second Trump administration and citing Republicans’ increasing stronghold across the country.
“Sometimes we need to break things down to build them up,” Tijerina told the Washington Post.
“The Republicans have a great opportunity,” Tijerina said in late February. “There’s a lot of people like myself that are changing parties. You can change our minds.”
Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who in 2022 became the first Republican elected in her Rio Grande Valley congressional district, calls it “an awakening.” Last fall she won reelection by an even wider margin and watched state Sen. Adam Hinojosa flipped a seat in a similarly consequential fashion. He became the first Republican since Reconstruction to triumph in a legislative district extending from north of Corpus Christi to Brownsville.
“In the next several cycles, we’re going to see mayoral and commissioner seats flip,” predicts De La Cruz, who says she has heard from local Democratic officials likely to join the GOP soon.
Party-switching is not the only evident pattern in South Texas’ political transformation, according to The Post. Democrats’ longtime political machine, which featured pachanga barbecues to recruit supporters, have been undermined by a surge of GOP canvassers and homegrown candidates embracing the president’s populist rhetoric. Their appeal has eroded the historic stigma of voting Republicans.
“There is a moment where a threshold is crossed,” Alvaro Corral, an assistant political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said. “Where people are like, ‘maybe it’s safe for me to come out as a Republican. I will face less social ostracization. Enough people in my social circles will agree with me.”
Tijerina’s decision sent shock waves through the region, and it was even highlighted by the president himself.
“Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina from the Great State of Texas switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. In 2024, Webb County flipped from Blue to Red for the first time in over 100 years!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.
Democrats’ decreasing influence tracks with Republicans’ increasing budget. “First buddy” Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, donated $1 million to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the main political forces backing Republicans in battleground legislative races. During a three-month period, the party raised more than $1 million for GOP challengers in three South Texas races, compared with Democrats’ $243,000. And leading up to the election, Trump-allied organization America First and conservative Hispanic outreach groups targeted voters with text messages, phone calls, surveys and door knocking.
Originally published on Latin Times
