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In 2022, Michelle Serrano and her South Texas nonprofit helped get the word out about a progressive Democratic candidate trying to win the vacant congressional district in her area of the Rio Grande Valley.
That candidate, Michelle Vallejo, hosted community events at her family’s flea market decrying what she called the “hyper-militarization” of the border due to an increased presence of law enforcement and the construction of a border wall.
But Serrano said she didn’t recognize Vallejo last week in her first major political ad of this new election cycle where she stood shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement officials criticizing the “chaos at the border” and saying it was “time to get serious” about fixing the issue.
[Democrat Michelle Vallejo seeks rematch against U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz in 2024]
“Everybody has this idea that Michelle was pro-immigrant and pro-community and instead we’re getting … pro-police,” Serrano said. “It’s totally against what people expected. That’s why the anger is there.”
Serrano isn’t the only one who feels betrayed. Vallejo’s social media channels are filled with angry posts from people accusing her of pandering to Republicans with her new ad. Some are threatening not to vote for her if she doesn’t pull it down.
Vallejo, who is running against U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, again this November says her messaging has been consistent on border security and legal pathways for unauthorized immigrants to become citizens: she wants both.
“I have always advocated to make sure we have the resources we need to make sure our border region is safe and secure and to make sure our families have the opportunity to live their American Dream,” Vallejo said in an interview. “We can both recognize there’s a problem in border security and immigration but we can and must treat people with dignity.”
She said she plans to listen to all constituents – Democrats, Republicans and independents – and work on border solutions even if that means working across party lines. She supports the policies laid out in the U.S. Senate’s Bipartisan Border agreement earlier this year, which fizzled after House Republicans refused to consider it. That bill would have put more Border Patrol agents on the ground and expanded capacity in detention facilities, as well as provided more resources for immigration courts to process asylum seekers more quickly.
That legislation reflects the reality and complexity of the issues facing border communities, she said, while criticizing her opponent for not advocating for its passage.
While the border ad surprised some of her past Democratic supporters, it wasn’t exactly a pivot in her politics as she was similarly centrist on the border in her 2022 campaign.
In that election, she echoed border policies that other South Texas Democrats like McAllen Rep. Vicente Gonzalez and Laredo Rep. Henry Cuellar have advocated for years. She supported funding to update the ports of entry and for Border Patrol agents facing low-morale, in a recognition that many of her constituents are employed by the federal agency.
But to her critics, there’s a clear change in tone.
“It’s a clear shift in messaging,” Serrano said. “I don’t believe for a second that this is what she always believed. Had that been the case, I don’t think so many people would have put in so many volunteer hours and the show of support [from last cycle].”
Meanwhile, De La Cruz’s campaign called Vallejo’s latest border ad a “disingenuous about-face.”
“It’s no surprise that even her own allies recognize her dishonesty, and that Democrats no longer take her campaign seriously,” Andrew Baughman, De La Cruz’s campaign manager said in a statement. “Our community has rejected her before and will do so again because South Texans know Congresswoman De La Cruz is doing a great job fighting for a strong border and a thriving economy.”
The Republican incumbent says she is the true border security candidate and touts her support for Border Patrol agents and border infrastructure – including a wall – and has called for the return of Trump-era immigration policies like the “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their asylum applications were processed.
Congressional District 15, which stretches from the Rio Grande Valley to Seguin, northeast of San Antonio, is one of the few competitive congressional districts in Texas. Sometimes mockingly called the “fajita strip” because of its shape, the district was redrawn in 2021, taking out reliably Democratic voters and replacing them with rural conservative voters in the northern part of the district.
Under the old district lines, voters in 2020 favored President Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump by 2 percentage points. Under the new district, voters in the district would have preferred Trump by 3 points.
Those changes helped boost De La Cruz to Congress in 2022, after the district’s former representative, Gonzalez, ran in the neighboring and more favorable Congressional District 34 and opened up a vacancy.
De La Cruz defeated Vallejo by 8 percentage points in their first face-off and the Cook Political Report rates the competition this year as likely favoring Republicans.
Those election results may explain why Vallejo is trying to tackle immigration head-on, said Alvaro Corral, a political science professor at the University of Texas at the Rio Grande Valley.
“Her and her campaign are probably trying to shore up some support in the northern part of her district,” he said. “You might not win those but losing by less margins in the northern parts of CD-15 would probably be their game plan.”
Corral said the ad seemed like a “sensible” approach to border security and immigration especially given their importance to voters, who consistently rank those issues as the first or second most important in Texas voter surveys.
Corral noted that the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Dallas Rep. Colin Allred, is also emphasizing his bipartisan approach to border security and running ads with law enforcement praising how “tough” he would be on the border.
The Democratic messaging is a calculated risk, said Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston. Vallejo may anger some of her more progressive and young supporters but appeal to independent and moderate Republicans who have higher patterns of voting.
“The strategy here is you need to have a coalition that has core supporters but also need to have some people from the middle,” Cortina said. “That’s how you have to build that coalition and fight for those true independents who may be issue voters.”
That approach appeals to voters in the district like George Ramon, who identifies as an independent and has supported Democrats as well as Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the past. He will be voting for Vallejo in November.
“I’ve always said that the immigration system is broke and in order to fix it, it’s going to require bipartisan support,” he said. “It’s going to require a sensible approach. You can’t just be security only. Can’t be Democrat or Republican. It’s gotta be a bipartisan issue.”
Many of Vallejo’s supporters were drawn to her because of her progressive values. During her first campaign, she ran on “Medicare for All” and was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
For those voters, the ad was off base.
“It sounded like a Republican ad,” said Amanda Elise Salas, a political activist in the Rio Grande Valley. “It shocked me because she had a very different stance on border security.”
Salas said Vallejo not only hosted events against border militarization at her business but also participated in them and was seen as an ally to those activists.
“That’s the reason why it’s so jarring to them,” she said. “Because people saw her and her space as a place to talk and show resistance to the militarization of the area.”
De La Cruz’s campaign highlighted Vallejo’s participation in an arts festival where participants held signs with the message “FUCK ICE,” short for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. They also flagged her consulting work for Trucha, a progressive multimedia platform, which has previously called for defunding ICE and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration.
They also knock her for past comments Vallejo has made about being “afraid” to go to a local park near the Rio Grande for Easter celebrations because there are too many border agents on patrol.
But Vallejo is getting reinforcement from some high-profile supporters, like U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a progressive Democrat from El Paso.
“I, like Michelle, live in a more realistic world, a more pragmatic world where we have to compromise in order to ensure we can achieve most of our goals,” she said. “Michelle, like me, believes that one of the best ways to secure the border is through legal pathways and that the best way to reach that is to compromise with Republicans in order to end the status quo.”
Escobar said fellow Democrats should not hold out for someone promising to deliver everything they want because that is not realistic. They have to work within the confines of the two-party system, which Vallejo is promising to do. And importantly for Democrats, Escobar said, replacing De La Cruz with Vallejo could help the party win back the U.S. House, which would drastically change the immigration conversation.
“We have to look at this issue through a lens of wanting to get to a solution,” she said.
Vallejo said the border ad is only the start of her messaging to voters and she wants them to look at her entire policy platform which includes improved access to affordable health care and bringing high-paying jobs to the district when they make a decision between her and De La Cruz.
“I knew there was a need for our community to have a representative who will fight for the things that we are experiencing and the things we need in South Texas,” she said. “I’m working really hard to make sure our community knows that I’m the champion our community needs to get the resources we have for far too long been lacking.”
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