SAN ANTONIO — A runoff appears imminent in the Republican primary for U.S. House District 23, where incumbent Tony Gonzales had a healthy lead over four challengers, but not a big enough slice of the vote to win outright.
Gonzales is vying for a third term in the seat.
He held just 45% of the votes as ballot counting was concluding early Wednesday morning, not enough to avoid a May 28 runoff.
Brandon Herrera is a Second Amendment YouTuber who owns his own firearms manufacturing business, and he's been going on the attack with mailers. Gonzales, meanwhile, has kept his campaign focused on the border, having called for increased deportation flights and faster processing of migrants.
The 43-year-old Gonzales was also going up against Frank Lopez Jr., Julie Clark and Victor Avila on Tuesday. Gonzales was able to avoid a runoff in 2022 after overwhelmingly winning the primary election that year, but he only faced two competitors that year.
On the Democratic ballot, Santos Limon defeated Lee Bausinger with 58% of the votes.
Four Republicans – Jose Saza, Lazaro Garza Jr., Jay Furman and Jimmy León – were vying to punch their ticket to the general election for Congressional District 28. Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar is running unopposed.
And, in Congressional District 35, Republicans Rod Lingsch, Michael Rodriguez, Brandon Craig Dunn, Dave Cuddy and Steven Wright were competing for the right to face Democratic incumbent Greg Casar in the general election.
About the race
U.S. House District 23 encompasses 58,000 square miles in west Texas and is home to more than 778,000 residents, according to Census Reporter. Gonzales, the incumbent, is a 2014 graduate of American Public University and served in the U.S. Navy from 1999 to 2019.
Gonzales is running for reelection in the 23rd congressional district for the first time since the Texas GOP censured him for breaking with the party over his positions on gun control and border security. The rebuke against one of their own means the state Republican Party doesn’t have to spend money to help defend his incumbency.
Among those running against Gonzales is Julie Clark, the former Medina County Republican Party Chair who was responsible for the measure to censure him. Also running: Brandon Herrera, a Second-Amendment activist on YouTube; Victor Avila, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agent; and retired Border Patrol agent Frank Lopez, who ran the campaign of Gonzales’ 2020 far-right primary opponent Raul Reyes.
The candidates largely agree that Gonzales doesn’t represent the values of the massive, sparsely populated district, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso. They point to Gonzales’ repeated refusal to play ball with his other Texas Republicans in the U.S. House on issues ranging from border security to the speaker of the House.
On the Democratic ticket are two engineers in Limon and Bausinger. Limon says he will fight to expand rural health care and increase the number of immigration judges; Bausinger supports raising the age to legally purchase a gun to 21 and creating a smoother path to citizenship for migrants.
Congressional District 23 has not voted a Republican into the seat since Pete Gallego in 2012.
>MORE ELECTION COVERAGE: