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Adam Hinojosa has defeated state Sen. Morgan LaMantia in South Texas, tightening Republicans’ maintain on the Texas Senate by profitable a Senate district within the Rio Grande Valley for the primary time since Reconstruction.
Hinojosa’s win in Senate District 27 flips the one aggressive seat within the Texas Senate this cycle, besting LaMantia two years after he got here inside 659 votes of defeating the Palm Valley Democrat of their first bout. Hinojosa has declared victory and LaMantia issued a press release addressing the outcomes.
Hinojosa declared victory simply earlier than midnight, fleshing out an evening of Republican features — and holds — in South Texas.
“The election results in our district are nothing short of historic,” Hinojosa mentioned in a press release. “Our campaign has changed the balance of power in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.”
LaMantia thanked her supporters in a press release Wednesday afternoon.
“We fought hard, and while voters have chosen a different path, our vision endures,” LaMantia mentioned. “This outcome will shape our region, but my faith remains in the strength, resilience and heart of District 27 to keep pushing for the progress we deserve.”
Hinojosa would be the first Republican to symbolize any a part of the Rio Grande Valley within the Texas Senate since 1874.
The win can also be a victory for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Republican who has presided over the Senate for a decade and has formed the chamber’s composition and position as a conservative power.
A very powerful Texas information,
despatched weekday mornings.
“His election is historic and ushers in a new era of Republican representation in South Texas and in the Valley,” Patrick mentioned in a press release welcoming Hinojosa to the Senate.
Hinojosa, an entrepreneur with a number of small companies, campaigned on the economic system, border safety and “stopping the sexualization of our children.” Regardless of Democrats contemplating abortion a profitable concern for them, Hinojosa embraced being “100% pro-life.”
“The people of this district have rejected the woke absurdity of the left — open borders, boys playing girls sports, sex change operations and fiscal insanity,” Hinojosa mentioned in his victory assertion.
LaMantia beat Hinojosa in 2022 to succeed state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., a conservative Democrat from Brownsville who established himself as a bipartisan defender of the Rio Grande Valley throughout his greater than 30 years within the Senate.
Lucio, an anti-abortion Democrat, endorsed LaMantia throughout that yr’s Democratic major however endorsed Hinojosa final month, citing his alignment with Hinojosa on abortion points. His son, former state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, a extra progressive Democrat, endorsed LaMantia.
Hinojosa’s victory additionally marks the primary time for the reason that Seventies that Brownsville and Cameron County have been represented by a senator hailing from Corpus Christi.
SD 27 spans the South Texas Gulf Coast from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, extending from San Patricio County to the southern border in Cameron County and a part of Hidalgo County.
Democrats have traditionally managed the Rio Grande Valley, however redistricting made SD 27 much less secure for Democrats in 2022, altering it from a district that President Joe Biden received by 16 share factors to 1 he would have carried by 6 factors in 2020. LaMantia scored a two-year time period final yr throughout a lot-drawing necessitated by the current redistricting.
Hispanic voters have been more and more voting for Republicans, a development the occasion tried to capitalize on in 2022. Early indications from the 2024 election present that former President Donald Trump grew his assist amongst Latinos.
Hinojosa obtained broad assist amongst Republicans and Republican teams. Trump endorsed him, as did Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a tort reform group and a high donor in Texas Republican politics, was the highest contributor to his marketing campaign, giving not less than $600,000 since August. Texans United for a Conservative Majority, the PAC primarily funded by far-right West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, contributed not less than $463,000.
Earlier this yr, Patrick launched the Texas Senate Management Fund, a PAC fashioned “in order to ensure the resources to support the mission of the conservative majority in the Texas Senate.” The PAC spent not less than $300,000 supporting Hinojosa starting in late October.
Hinojosa, who was endorsed by Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, accused LaMantia of supporting “overreaching regulations” on the oil and gasoline trade. And in a uncommon transfer for Republicans this cycle, he embraced the abortion dialog, first with Lucio’s endorsement and later highlighting laws LaMantia authored relating to funding for girls’s well being companies.
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