Poll: Bobby Pulido Appears Poised to Flip the 15th Congressional District

This article is a collaboration between the San Antonio Express-News, El Pais, and Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom and funder dedicated to high-quality, fact-based news and information from the U.S.-Mexico border.

EDINBURG — South Texas voters who embraced Don Trump two years ago have largely soured on the two-term president, and many of them are now smiling on a Tejano music star who’s running for Congress as a Democrat, according to a new poll.

Less than two weeks before a pivotal midterm election, Bobby Pulido appears poised to flip the 15th Congressional District seat in this heavily Latino district where Trump dominated in 2024.

The poll — commissioned by the San Antonio Express-News, El Pais and the nonprofit Puente News Collaborative — found that likely voters favor Pulido 51% to 44% over Republican Congresswoman Monica De La  Cruz.

Pulido with student musicians (Michael Gonzalez for Puente News Collaborative)

Among Latino likely voters, the gap widens, with about 57% for Pulido, compared with 40% for De La Cruz. The Latino population accounts for about 82% of 15th District residents and 65% of its likely voters. 

Pulido is also pulling ahead among independents, 55% to 33%.

The poll, conducted in Spanish and English, was carried out Oct. 13-16 by Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center. The survey has a margin of error of 3.8%, with 5% of voters still undecided.

The Cook Political Report rates the 15th District race in the Rio Grande Valley as a toss-up. 

“If the economy was booming then Republicans would be doing much better in South Texas,” said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University and co-director of the poll. “But the economy is not booming.”

Moreover, Jones added, the 15th’s new district map, part of the president’s gerrymandering plan to add more Republicans in the House of Representatives, may not be working out as envisioned.

“The false assumption that Republicans made was that Latinos would vote the same way they voted for Trump in 2024, but that was very unrealistic — Latinos remain a swing vote,” Jones said. “Trump is underwater in the Valley, by 10 points. His bubble is bursting.”

Among the poll’s key findings:

52% of likely voters in the 15th District report being worse off economically than a year ago, while 21% report being better off and 27% report being about the same.

57% of likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy. Just 37% approved.

51% of likely voters disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration and border security, while 47% approved.

Separately, in the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races — and among the district’s likely voters — Gov. Greg Abbott leads Democrat Gina Hinojosa 49% to 46% and Democrat James Talarico is favored over Republican Ken Paxton 48% to 46%, according to a poll by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs.

If Pulido wins, he will have surfed a wave-like, nationwide retreat of the Latino vote from Trump and the Republican Party, analysts say. That swing has upended Republican plans and underscored the growing importance of the fickle — or persuadable — Mexican American voter.

Many of these voters don’t have strong ties to either major party.

Accordingly, Pulido has been running less as a Democrat and more on his personal popularity and a rejection of Trump, who won the district by 18 percentage points in 2024. 

“I’m not going to Washington to serve a political party. I’m going to serve you,” the two-time Latin Grammy Award winner told some 9,000 rambunctious fans at an Oct. 17 concert in his hometown of Edinburg, which he said was the last one of his 31-year music career. “I made music for me. I’m running for Congress for you.”

Much of Trump’s appeal two years ago may have been in his vows to fix what many here and nationwide saw as a broken border. This year, with undocumented border crossings reduced to a trickle, voters’ focus appears to have shifted from border security to the high cost of gas and groceries, according to the El Pais-Express News-Puente News poll.

The fear factor — a sense of chaos and conflict at the border — isn’t dominating the election cycle. Instead, ICE raids are increasingly seen as a drag on the economy, Jones said, pointing to the construction and trade sectors.

“A lot of industries that depend on undocumented immigrants have simply stopped functioning,” Jones said. “Houses aren’t being built, and therefore construction supplies aren’t being purchased.”

‘Promises turned out to be lies’

Pulido is hugely popular across South Texas. Nearly everyone seems to have a personal connection with the singer or claims to. That’s why he’s largely built his campaign around singing at dozens of quinceñeras — coming-out parties for 15-year-old girls that are cultural touchstones. 

Though De La Cruz is also from the Valley, her support is stronger in counties farther upstate and ranchlands away from the border, according to the poll results.

Her campaign did not respond to interview requests. 

Looking like a jigsaw puzzle piece, the 15th District runs north from the border through sparsely populated, brush-choked oil and cattle country. The Stars and Stripes dominate among the few flags flying on ranch gates and along urban streets. Deeply proud of their Mexican heritage, many district residents also are resolutely American.

Lourdes Trevino-Cantu, 73, a retired high school librarian and lifelong resident of Falfurrias, now runs the town’s small but intriguing Heritage Museum, which focuses heavily on ranch life, the Texas Rangers and Mexican American culture.  

With the decline of ranching and the local oil industry, many Anglos who once held sway here — in politics and business — have moved away, Trevino-Cantu said. The Mexican Americans who remain feel their political allegiances pulled left and right.

“If I wasn’t personally connected to Bobby Pulido, I would probably be confused,” she said. “Those who voted for Trump last time are going to vote for Trump again because they don’t want to admit they were wrong. They believed in his promises that turned out to be lies.”

‘A terrible policy’

Ads on televisions in restaurants in Falfurrias, George West and other district towns warn that Pulido, Talarico and other Democrats are “radical” and “dangerous” Texans. One ad advises South Texans and Texans in general to vote Republican to get Trump’s agenda “across the line.”

Valley businessman Abad Morales, 36, said he’s done with fear-mongering. Though he supports tightening enforcement on the border, Morales has been outraged by detention and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of undocumented migrants who are otherwise law-abiding.

“I’m not going to lie, I did vote for Trump,” said Morales, who’s running as a Democrat for city commission in Weslaco, a border city in them15th District. “I am not against controlling the border, but what they are doing with deporting people is different.”

In an interview, Pulido said he supports tougher border enforcement. But he is also calling for immigration reform to help border families as well as farmers, builders and other businesses that depend on migrant labor.

“Catch and release,” the Biden-era policy that allowed entry to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, “was a terrible policy, terrible,” Pulido has said. Apart from attracting millions of poor migrants to the border, the policy resulted in log-jammed immigration courts and delayed or derailed residency claims by residents or their relatives. 

‘A rejection of both parties’

Pulido’s bid to unseat De La Cruz, an ally of Trump, is among the most watched races in the country because it might be indicating another shift in the Latino vote. Long a bastion of the Democratic Party, the Mexican American vote shifted dramatically in favor of Trump and the GOP in the past decade.

Latino voters are becoming even more crucial as they look for a political home.

“What appears to be happening is more of a de-alignment than a re-alignment,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political analyst and expert on the Latino vote. He co-founded the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump organization. 

“It’s really more rejection of both parties,” Madrid said. 

Pulido’s son Rodrigo and wife Mariana (Michael Gonzalez for Puente News Collaborative)

African American voters are largely sticking with the Democrats, Madrid said. The Republican base — working class, white and non-college voters — are sticking with the party, despite economic pain, the Iran war and other worries, he said.

“The only group that’s moving are Latinos, and that swing you’re going to see a full display in the San Joaquin Valley, Allentown (Pennsylvania) and Rio Grande Valley,” Madrid said. “In many ways, the valleys in Pennsylvania, California and Texas represent the future of this country.”

‘Almost at the finish line’

Inside Bert Ogden Arena, Tejano music fan Martha Garcia, 54, anxiously waited for Pulido’s “La Ultima Desvelada” — the last sleepless party — to begin. She had mixed emotions. 

A lifelong fan of Pulido, she said she felt “sad that he won’t sing again,” but “I don’t know him as a politician. I don’t know how or what he will do.” 

She remains unsure if she’ll vote this time around. “The Democrats ignored us, but the Republicans are killing us” with high prices, tariffs and those “ugly ICE raids,” she said.

“I hope if Bobby wins he can turn the page,” she added. 

Pulido’s chances may rest on getting people like Garcia to cast a ballot. About half of registered voters didn’t bother in the 2024 presidential election.

While he’s popular in the borderlands, turnout in the northern parts of the 15th District could overwhelm his support.

“We’re almost at the finish line,” Pulido said at a recent event for other local candidates. “But if you don’t vote, we can lose this.” 

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