By Ashlyn Beck | News Editor
With Federal House of Representatives election races underway, political science professors say Democrats might have the chance to flip the Republican-controlled House in 53 districts’ battleground races. Three of those battlegrounds are found in South Texas.
In Texas, the battleground races are for three vacant seats: District 15, District 28 and District 34.
According to Interim Chair and political science professor Pat Flavin, the best chance Democrats have at gaining a majority is to overturn those vacant seats in the house, because it’s unlikely a new candidate will win in a race against an incumbent.
“If you’re a Republican waiting for a favorable district, you would wait for an open seat, but it’s also … probably the Democrats’ best chance to try to flip the seat,” Flavin said.
Of the 45 open districts in the House right now, Democrats need to turn at least five to gain a majority.
“Republicans currently have a razor-thin majority in the House. That’s evidenced by difficulty wrangling routine votes — such as passing a budget — and so it’s very possible that the majority could flip after the 2024 election,” Flavin said.
As for Texas, in the three battleground districts of South Texas, Republican and Democratic candidates alike fight for congressional seats.
Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz and Democrat Michelle Vallejo face off once again after De La Cruz’s 53.3% to 44.8% win in 2022. De La Cruz was the first Republican to win the 15th District, but Vallejo returned to the race in hopes of turning the seat Democratic again.
In the South Texas District, De La Cruz said she is garnering support from the Hispanic community.
“Hispanics are also rejecting extreme Left-wing policies in urban areas like New York and Los Angeles. It’s easy for elites to applaud utopian criminal justice experiments from the comfort of gated communities. After all, it’s not their bodegas that are being robbed. Nor do they suffer the consequences of reckless border policies,” De La Cruz said in an opinion column for Newsweek.
As for the Democratic candidate, Vallejo vows to do whatever is necessary to secure the border — even if it crosses party lines, the Texas Tribune reported. Additionally, Vallejo is committed to providing abortion rights to women in Texas.
In District 28, the race heats up further as Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar faces opposition from Republican Jay Furman. The race grew even more contentious after Cuellar was indicted on charges of bribery, money laundering and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government in May.
As another South Texas District, borders and immigration are hot topics in the race. According to Cuellar’s campaign website, his goal is to “balance the interests of communities which are dependent both on international trade and small town economies” on the U.S. and Mexico border.
U.S. Navy veteran Furman is challenging Cuellar for the seat and said he was shocked to return from the Navy to find “bad policies that are causing problems that are clear and present dangers to South Texan’s safety, freedom, and survival,” according to his biography on Ballotpedia.
In District 34, Democratic incumbent Vincente Gonzales Jr. faces Republican Maya Flores. With Gonzales’s narrow win in 2022, both Democrats and Republicans are pushing to hold the seat.
According to his campaign website, Gonzales wants to reinvest in the educational system to “keep classrooms open and children learning.”
Flores’s campaign focuses on securing the border, providing affordable healthcare and — like Gonzales — protecting the educational system.
While congressional elections often get overlooked for presidential elections, Associate Professor of political science David Bridge said that participation in congressional elections is important for the American people.
“All 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for reelection, so it’s the easiest way to make a quick dramatic change in American national politics,” Bridge said.
Papillon, Nebr., senior Grayson Shirey did an internship in the House and said that participation in congressional elections is just as essential as participation in presidential ones.
“I think that a lower voter turnout in congressional elections is one of the most frightening things, at least for a young voter to look at,” Shirey said.
Additionally, Flavin said that the lack of participation in young voters is one reason why the things they care about don’t always get attention in Congress. Because seniors have a higher voter turnout, Congress doesn’t make big changes in things like social security and Medicare.
“If it was flipped and younger people voted at the rates that older folks did, we’d probably see something totally different in Congress,” Flavin said. “I think students should also think about that when they’re thinking about why it’s important to vote.”
