A long shot two decades ago, more are switching sides
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
What used to be considered a longshot, almost an oxymoron, a “Hispanic Republican,” is now becoming more common, according to polling data and news stories being published around the country. In Hidalgo County, although municipal elections are run in a non-partisan fashion, McAllen Mayor and former County GOP Chair Javier Villalobos is a Republican in a wide field of Democrats.
McAllen had a mayor for 20 years, Othal Brand, who was a bona fide Republican, through and through, but on the local political landscape he was a rare exception.
Is that starting to change — more Valley residents voting for the GOP — only time will tell, to use an overused cliché.
Just last week, The Washington Post published a story titled “Another lens into the rightward shift of Black and Hispanic Americans.”
Last month, read the Post story, “Gallup released data showing how the two-party margin between Black and Hispanic Americans had shifted dramatically since 2020. In 2020, Black Americans were 66 points more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans, and Hispanic Americans were 28 points more likely to do so.”
In the subsequent four years, though, things changed, according to the Post story: “Last year, those numbers were 47 points and 12 points, respectively. That’s a shift to the right of 19 points among BlackAmericans and 16 points among Hispanics.”
In the Rio Grande Valley’s four-county area, elected officials who are Republican are still in the minority — Javier Villalobos in McAllen, and Alejandro Flores in Los Fresnos.
In Starr County, believe it or not, which is 98 percent Hispanic, which includes part of state District 31, Ryan Guillen, a Republican who used to be a Democrat, won the 2022 general election 71 percent to 29 percent.
Other than that, the GOP pickings in South Texas remain relatively few and far between. Still, according to the Washington Post story, change just may be afoot.
A Local Elected Republican
According to McAllen Mayor and Attorney Javier Villalobos, who has been featured in countless state and national publications, a shining example of successful elected Hispanic Republicans, a big reason for the party switch among Hispanics over the past four years is largely due to the border situation.
“Most of the people I speak with, that’s the number one issue with regard to party politics,” said Villalobos. “The border crossings by undocumented immigrants, which shows no signs of subsiding.”
Right or wrong, the perception among many is that Republicans are tougher when it comes to border security, immigration solutions.
Villalobos’s name has hit the big time, so to speak, when it comes time to discuss Hispanics now voting Republican.
The Wall Street Journal ran a feature story on him in February 2022, a year after he was elected McAllen mayor, titled “The Republican Mayor of McAllen Represents the Changing Political Map of Texas.”
An excerpt from that story, speaking about his mayoral victory in June of 2021: “His victory is part of an absorbing new electoral trend in the Rio Grande Valley. Republicans, previously drowning in a sea of Democrats, are starting to swim. In the past, says Mr. Villalobos, the Democrats ‘would ignore us because they knew this area would always vote for them.’ Republicans ‘would ignore us because they thought we would never be with them.’But now that ‘we have competition, things are getting a lot more interesting.’ He jokes that Greg Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, ‘seems to be here almost weekly.’
In February of this year, last month, Fox News ran a story — “American people exhausted by lawmakers kicking the ball,” which featured Villalobos speaking about the recently defeated bipartisan border security deal, killed in large part by the U.S. Senate, where only four Republicans voted to pass it. The bill was aimed at stemming the historic flow of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border: “Lawmakers are ‘just kicking the ball and trying to do whatever they can, but for the purposes of politics, not for the purpose of benefiting the American people,’” (Villalobos said).
Proving, some would argue, that he’s a Republican based on party affiliation, but not afraid to criticize the GOP when it fails to act in the best interests of the American people, as he sees it: In the Fox story, the McAllen mayor blamed both Biden and Trump for failing to enact real (border) change alongside lawmakers.
“I don’t trust many people at all anymore,” Villalobos said. “At the time that President Trump was there, [Republicans] had the majority and nothing occurred. Now you have Biden. Nothing is occurring until very close to the election.”
The bill provided billions (approximately $670 billion) for immigration enforcement and gave Biden and Homeland Security authority to better police the border if migrant encounters exceeded a certain number.
As quoted in the Fox News story, Villalobos lamented the current state of politics: “We finally had a bill that at least would kind of stop the bleeding,” he said. “But unfortunately … nothing’s going to happen because of the election. Take care of the American people first and set politics aside,” Villalobos added. “We know we have issues. Let’s take care of them.”
On a national scale, Republicans like author Ann Coulter, who wrote “In Trump We Trust,” no longer supports the former president.
“He had both the House and the Senate controlled by Republicans, and yet, nothing got done.”
Unlike the hard-core members from both political parties, Villalobos tends to swing toward common sense. In a story published at wfaa.com, the largest ABC affiliate in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, he went on record, saying: “Be inclusive. Talk to everybody. Invite everybody. That’s how you’re going to be able to increase your party. There’s no reason to be adversarial, and sometimes I see it in either party, the right wing, the left wing. Look, what’s important to the majority of the people is that there be food on the table, that our economy do well, and that’s something that transcends party lines.”
According to Villalobos, a lot of people, including a lot of Hispanics, are no longer afraid to speak out by saying, look, I’m a conservative, whether or not they’re Republican.
“They (local Hispanics) have traditionally been very conservative, but always vote more as a Democrat. I think they’re opening up their eyes and saying, look, it’s a good thing. And I always say competition is a good thing.”
According to Villalobos, sadly, raising money in state and national campaigns has more to do with being adversarial as opposed to finding unity on common grounds.
“Too many people running for office point fingers at the opposition, telling voters, ‘Look, you’re not like them, you’re like this, send me money.’ And that’s not the right way to run the country, the state.”