Johnny Garcia won the Democratic primary in Texas’ 35th Congressional District on Tuesday night, and NBC News projected him as the winner over Maureen Galindo. The result closes a bitter race in a district Republicans redrew to merge two Democratic seats into one and give themselves a new seat that leans their way.
Garcia now moves on to face Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz in the fall, after De La Cruz won the Republican primary runoff on Tuesday night. The general election will test a district that President Donald Trump carried by about 10.5 points in 2024, even though its voting-age population is about 52% Hispanic.
The contest was shaped by money and by controversy. An opaque outside group spent $1 million to boost Galindo, whose candidacy drew national attention after she called for eliminating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and later wrote in an Instagram post that she wanted to turn an ICE detention center into “a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries disavowed her antisemitic and dangerous statements.
That outside push mattered because it cut against the political logic of the district. Punchbowl News reported that Lead Left PAC had links to a GOP fundraising platform, and one of its TV ads framed Galindo as a fresh face compared with weak Democrats. The investment suggested some Republicans believed they could help shape the Democratic field even in a seat Republicans drew to their advantage.
But Brandon Steinhauser, a Republican strategist who helped lead an effort aligned with the broader GOP math in Texas, said the gamble rested on uncertain assumptions. He described it as “making some big assumptions that President Trump’s support among Hispanics in Texas would translate in the future.” He added that it was “probably fair to look at this and say it was a little aggressive or overconfident. It may not be, but the concerns could be real that doing it this way may actually not work out as well as they hoped.”
The district’s recent history shows why. In 2018, Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz fought to a near-draw in the territory that became the new district. Two years later, Trump beat Joe Biden there by about 2 points. By 2024, Trump had widened that margin to about 10.5 points, underscoring how quickly the ground has shifted in south and central Texas. Republicans then redrew the map to combine two Democratic seats into one and create a district leaning their way.
That history leaves Garcia with a difficult road even after his primary win. He enters the fall campaign against a Republican nominee who emerged from a runoff backed by Trump over state Rep. John Lujan, while Gov. Greg Abbott supported Lujan. The fact that Democrats still had to spend the primary untangling a national backlash, and Republicans still had to settle their own fight, suggests neither side believes Texas’ 35th is settled yet. Garcia won the nomination, but the district is still being fought over on terrain Republicans drew and both parties are now treating as competitive.
