FLORES: BEST GOP CONGRESSWOMAN $$ CAN BUY CLEANS UP

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Texas Tribune

MyRGV

Boston Globe

Former Republican Texas District 34th congress woman Mayra Flores – whose brief tenure in Congress ended when she was trounced by Vicente Gonzalez – is again cleaning up on campaign contributions from conservative donors, according to her campaign.

Flores, who briefly represented the district from June, 2022 to January, 2023, raised over $970,000 from 16,617 donors in all 50 states during the 4th quarter of 2023, the campaign reported. She aims to flip the Democrat-held congressional district that sits on the U.S. border with Mexico and announced she had raised that amount of money to boost her bid.

But the Federal Elections Commission has already demanded payment of $15,000 she paid herself  in  three "salary" increments of $5,000 before she filed for office and the itemized accounting of more than $500,000 she reported in expenditures from her campaign fund.

 
She was first elected to Congress in June 2022 in a special election to fill a seat left vacant by Filemon Vela Jr. in the traditionally Democrat-leaning majority Hispanic region along the southern border based on her mantra of God, Family and Country and an endorsement by Donald Trump. 

National Democrats didn’t bother matching for a seat that would be up for election only five months later with new district lines that would be far more favorable to them.The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had learned its lesson and investment in South Texas surpassed $7 million for this cycle, including over $1.2 million on TV and radio ads and $250,000 on paid canvassing in the 34th district.

Redistricting turned the district from one that voted for Biden with a 4-point margin to one that, had the current lines been in place in 2020, would have voted for him by over 15 percentage points. Republicans had targeted as pivotal to their efforts to sway more Latino voters to their camp. She lost by 8 percent of the vote – more than 10,000 votes – to Gonzalez.

“They spent over $7 million against us, spewing lies and hate and disinformation,” Gonzalez said at his election night party. “Even with these large investments, we showed the Republican party that South Texas is not their home.”

But there is no guarantee that Flores will win the Republican primary March 4. She faces three credible candidates in the Republican Primary, including Dr. Laura Cisneros, an oncologist and former Democrat, former congressional candidate Mauro Garza, and Gregory Kunkle, Jr.