Jasmine Crockett visits RGV
In the RGV, it’s still hard to find a Trump supporter who says they now regret voting for him in 2024.
The one exception may be the construction trade. Two months ago, the South Texas Builders Association hosted a meeting in Pharr where approximately 400 people showed up to discuss the state of local building.
“Business is down significantly,” South Texas Builders Association Board President Ronnie Cavazos told the crowd. “If we continue on this trajectory, we will see a lot of businesses fail.”
On its Facebook page, the same group posted this last month: “The South Texas Builders Association is sounding the alarm on severe labor shortages and project disruptions due to intensified immigration enforcement in the Rio Grande Valley.
Recent ICE raids have led to a significant decline in construction activity with many workers staying home to avoid detention, leaving contractors unable to staff active projects.”
Since President Donald Trump took office last January, ICE agents have arrested more than 9,100 people in South Texas, which constitutes nearly one-fifth of all such arrests in the Lone Star State (Source: Deportation Data Project).
As pointed out during the November meeting with the builders, the construction slowdown has an adverse effect on the entire local economy. It’s trickle down. Contractors buy less lumber, less hardware, leaving fewer workers with the means to support local restaurants, jobs. Less money is dropped into the local economy. The building supply stores have less reason to hire more workers or find work for those remaining.
Yet, if one asks the RGV residents who voted for Trump in 2024, if they have any regrets, they say, no, they’d vote for him again if they could.
So apparently, from an anecdotal perspective, ICE deportations of local residents is having little to no impact on Trump’s popularity in the RGV. Neither, apparently, is the state of the economy, which is either booming or a bust, based on whom you ask.
The real tell will come this November during the midterm elections. In an unprecedented move for the GOP, Trump flipped all four Valley counties red in 2024. Question is, will they remain red?
Meanwhile, home builds, commercial construction projects, many remain on hold.
So much so that even Republican House Representative Monica De La Cruz has asked the Trump Administration to bend just a little.
In fact, De La Cruz is advocating for a new work visa program, potentially modeled after the agricultural H-2A visa, to address labor shortages in South Texas’s construction industry. That would potentially provide a legal pathway for migrant workers to resolve issues caused by increased ICE enforcement impacting construction projects.
The U.S. Senate Race
The last time a Democrat won a Texas seat in the U.S. Senate was back in 1988, when the Valley’s own Lloyd Bentsen was proclaimed the winner.
This year, the Republican primary for U.S. senate should be a rip-roaring affair with John Cornyn, Texas AG Ken Paxton (MAGA), and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (Houston) going at it. A May 26 primary runoff is expected.
The March 3 Democrat Primary also includes three candidates, but only two are raking in big money, so a runoff isn’t expected.
Leading the ticket are Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock), a millennial seminarian with a large following on social media, and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas), an outspoken Trump critic who is popular with the Democratic fan base.
Last week, during a House Judiciary Committee meeting, Crockett could be heard challenging her Republican colleagues to “have a little bit of courage and humanity” and to stand for the constituents who elected them, given their lackluster response (her words) to last week’s ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Last Saturday she was in both McAllen and Brownsville, hoping to drum up support for her “Texas Tough Tour:” “I don’t want this situation that we’re running into now where people don’t have access to health care,” she said.
She also addressed the issue of Trump’s tariffs: “If there’s one thing that I think matters most and can impact everything quickly is the reversal on the tariffs. The tariffs are increasing costs for everything.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon rule on whether the tariffs will remain in effect.
Speaking about Jasmine Crockett’s campaign and the state of the country, Hidalgo County Clerk Art Guajardo, Jr., a Democrat, said: “Like I told the crowd (Saturday), our federal government has gone wild, and the only way that we can begin to reclaim its ability is by electing fearless leaders like Jasmine Crockett. We need to fight fire with fire. No more nice guys. She is a real firecracker.”
Hidalgo County District Clerk Laura Hinojosa was also at Saturday’s event, where she spoke as an advocate for Crockett’s U.S. senatorial campaign.
Her dad is longtime U.S. Representative Ruben Hinojosa. She says if there’s a time to get involved in politics, that time would be now.
“I was honored to be part of a panel of elected officials, welcoming Congressman Jasmine Crockett to Hidalgo County. I believe she speaks truth to what is fundamentally wrong in this nation, and how that negatively impacts our families in South Texas and beyond.”
We’re past the point of political partisanship, she says.
“This isn’t about pitting Democrats against Republicans; it’s about a shared moral compass — discerning what is right and what is wrong. In Texas, we value strength and resilience. We need to stand and unite behind a leader like Jasmine Crockett. When she speaks, people listen, and she will fight for what is right in the U.S. Senate and our nation, advocating for core American values and the people of the Rio GrandeValley.”
Richard Gonzales, Hidalgo County Democratic Chair, also shared a similar sentiment in having Crockett make a stop in the region.
“We were happy to host congresswoman Crockett in Hidalgo County. It’s good to know that statewide candidates are taking notice of Hidalgo County and (are) realizing the importance of this region,” Gonzales said.
On local social media posts, though, it wasn’t all love:
“How much free stuff did she promise?”