Opinion

When I first ran for Congress in the early 1990s, I was cautioned that some of the leaders in Austin did not want any Republican in the Valley to try for regional office because that would bring out additional South Texas Democrat voters and would hurt the chances of our statewide candidates. As a result no one had run for years. When I tossed my hat in the ring, however, and got between 41 and 43% of the votes in my four runs, attitudes changed and people began contesting the races. Up until this year, however, nobody had won. Then Mayra Flores won the special election for District 34 and served the last five months of an unexpired term. I predicted to my wife, however, that she would not win the general election. She had won a special election that followed a runoff election, which preceded a primary election. As a result of that, the turnout was extremely low and she had spent a million dollars to receive just over 15,000 votes (which was less than half of what I had received in my losing efforts in the neighboring 15th District).