Tejano singer Bobby Pulido will win the Democratic primary for Texas’ 15th Congressional District, CNN projects, defeating emergency room physician Ada Cuellar.
Pulido will face two-term GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in November in his bid to flip control of a deeply Republican district.
National Democrats view Pulido, the son of a migrant farm worker turned Latin Grammy Award-winning artist, as giving them their best shot at competing in the seat due to his fame and his socially conservative profile.
“We’ve been getting our butts kicked for a long time. And we have to find out why that is,” Pulido told CNN. “And there’s a lot of people that we’ve got to go bring back.”
Cuellar, who campaigned with Democratic Senate candidate Jasmine Crockett, painted Pulido as the establishment’s pick and blasted him over his personal opposition to abortion. Pulido has said that he doesn’t support the state’s near-total abortion ban.
The district, a roughly 250-mile-long strip that stretches from outside San Antonio down to the US border with Mexico, was redrawn last year by Texas Republicans as part of a push to net the party as many as five additional US House seats.
That new map relies heavily on retaining gains the GOP has made with Latino voters. President Donald Trump would have won the district on its current lines by 18 percentage points in 2024.
“As Latinos, what unites us all is that many of us come from humble beginnings,” Pulido told CNN. “Hispanics, they want this: They want to be able to work hard and be rewarded by that hard work. And when you take away from that opportunity, that used to be promised to everybody in this country, they get mad. And that’s what you’re going to be seeing.”
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