Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas faces YouTube personality Brandon Herrera, known as „The AK Guy,“ in runoff on Tuesday.
The Texas Republican Party gathered in San Antonio for its annual convention this weekend, but GOP , who represents part of San Antonio and lives there, was ambivalent about attending.
That’s not entirely surprising — one of the featured speakers was Rep. Matt Gaetz, who endorsed Gonzales‘ opponent, Brandon Herrera, in Tuesday’s GOP primary runoff in the 23rd District. The Texas Republican Party censured Gonzales last year over his vote for backed by the , introduced in the wake of the that killed 19 students and two teachers. Uvalde is also in the 23rd District.
Gonzales had four Republican opponents in the March primary, which stretches 800 miles from San Antonio along the U.S.-Mexico border to El Paso. Gonzales failed to secure 50% of the vote, forcing him into a runoff with Herrera, the next highest vote getter. The runoff winner will face Democrat Santos Limon in November.
Herrera only won 24% of the vote in the March primary, but the runoff has been a headache for Gonzales. With a runoff date so long after the primary and no big-ticket races on the ballot, turnout is likely to be low.
„If this was a high-turnout election, [Gonzales] would be a lock,“ said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor. In a low-turnout election, „anything can happen,“ he said, because the most fervent voters are the ones who go to the poll. Jones said a candidate needs to „mobilize a handful of the most diehard supporters“ to win.
That could be challenging for Gonzales, who’s positioned himself as the pragmatic choice, compared to Herrera, a 28-year-old YouTube celebrity known as „The AK Guy“ who has continually hit Gonzales over his gun legislation vote.
„What we’re seeing in Congressional District 23 is the story we see all over Texas politics,“ said Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, „which is that an incumbent, usually a Republican legislator, takes a position that is not 100% in line with the most conservative voters in their district.
