Election 2024: Historic in every way
When the four counties that comprise the Rio Grande Valley — Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy — vote in favor of Donald Trump, the only word that comes to mind for those who have followed Valley politics for years is “Historic.”
For example, Starr County is considered to be, according to data from the last U.S. Census, the most Hispanic-populated county in the country; and yet, its voters chose Trump 9,443 votes to Kamala Harris’s 6,845, with a 16-percentage point victory.
The last time Starr county voters chose a Republican for president was back in 1896 when William McKinley beat William Jennings Bryan, the Democrat nominee. Until this election, that streak was the longest Democrat streak of any county in the U.S. (Source: San Antonio Express News.) In Hidalgo County, Trump won by three percentage points; and in Cameron County, it wasn’t even close – Harris lost by approximately 19,000 votes, 53 to 47 percent.
Across the state, Trump won the Hispanic vote, approximately 55 percent to 45 percent.
More Republican inroads include Republican Jaime Tijerina winning the chief justice race for the 13th Court of Appeals, which includes a 20-county region that encompasses Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy counties. The other seats on the 13th also went the way of the GOP.
Meaning, longtime appellate justice Democrat Nora Longoria, also on the 13th, lost to her Republican opponent, Jeny Cron.
Another surprise to those who still saw the RGV as a Democrat stronghold — State Sen. Val LaMantia, part of the family that owns L&F Beer Distributors, lost her Dist. 27 seat to her Republican opponent, Adam Hinojosa, 49.4 percent to 48.3. (The Green Party candidate picked up 5,943 votes.
Said Hinojosa after the final tally:
“The election results in our district are nothing short of historic. Our campaign has changed the balance of power in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.”
After this election, and the resignation of RGV-based State Democrat Chair and attorney Gilberto Hinojosa, the balance-of-power shift isn’t in question.
What is in question — can the state GOP hold on to the Hispanic voters it now counts as among its own?
Rutledge Remembers
If one wants to look back in time to when Republicans in the RGV were typically pulling down nothing more than low double-digits in most elections (based on a percentage), one has to go no further than Hollis Vasquez Rutledge, who served as the Hidalgo County Republican Party chairman for 12 years, 6 terms, between 1998 and 2010.
Founder of Hollis Rutledge & Associates, Rutledge is a native of Mission, TX.
He became a Young Republican while still in high school.
“Banker Dennis Burleson recruited me,” said Rutledge.
President Ronald Reagan later appointed him as a Special Assistant over five states with the Housing and Urban Development Administration, and he was later appointed by President George Bush as a Regional Administrator for the General Services Administration serving over 11 states.
Following government service, Rutledge used his connections and business savvy to form his own consulting company.
To say that Hollis is feeling upbeat following last week’s election outcome would be an understatement; he and his fellow GOP party constituents have played the part of the underdog for so long.
“For years, in the Valley, Republicans would garner 20-something percent, maybe in the low 30-percent range,” said Rutledge, “but like I’ve said many times, a Democrat from New York is extremely different from a Democrat in South Texas, most of whom have been conservative as it relates to social issues.”
That mattered this election, said Rutledge, with regard to social issues like the big push in trans circles, plus the way the Biden Administration handled the border, plus his decision to close down oil-and-gas sectors, which matter to many people in South Texas who work in the energy sector.
“You drive into Starr County, and you see those big houses up on the side of those hills. A lot of people think that’s all drug money, but a lot of it is owned by people in the oil-and-gas industry. When Biden shut down the (Keystone pipeline), a lot of people working in that industry weren’t happy, and that includes South Texas.”
Looking back over the past 50 years or so, Rutledge said he thinks the change in party politics began in 1978 when some members of the liberal faction of the Democrat Party didn’t think that the sitting governor at the time, Dolph Briscoe, was liberal enough to suit them, so they got the Texas AG, John Hill, to run against Briscoe in the Democrat Primary, which Hill won.
“That in of itself propelled a guy who had never run for public office in his life, William P. Clements, to campaign against Hill for governor, and he became the first Republican governor since reconstruction (1870 to 1874).”
Democrats resurged when Mark White won the governor’s race in 1982, and Ann Richards followed on his heels, serving for one term, 1991 to 1994, but since then, starting with George W. Bush in January 1995, the state has been largely Republican ever since.
“Today,” said Rutledge, “there isn’t one Democrat holding an elected state office.”