The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee(DCCC) announced Monday that it plans to pour funds into Texas’ 15th congressional district this election cycle in a bid to regain the state’s most competitive seat.  

The seat had been a Democratic stronghold until Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Edinburgh) won the district in last year’s midterm elections. “The race saw a Republican spending frenzy and was a critical win for the party, which has been eager to make inroads with the district’s majority Latino population”, according to the Texas Tribune.

“The strategy is a shift from last year, when national party groups essentially abandoned the district to the fury of local and state Democrats. Groups like the DCCC asserted they needed to prioritize limited resources to defend incumbents also in competitive races, including Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who switched districts out of the 15th to the neighboring 34th last year”.

The district winds from the eastern suburbs of San Antonio to McAllen on the Mexican border. The Democrats said they only lost the 15th district because its boundaries were redrawn in the 2021 redistricting to include more conservative areas north of its core population in McAllen. But Republicans managed to close the margins in traditionally Democratic areas of Hidalgo County.

In announcing plans to run for the seat, the DCCC said De La Cruz prioritized national partisan politics over his district.

“De La Cruz is a MAGA extremist who is less concerned with the needs of the community she represents and more committed to advancing an extreme Republican agenda filled with partisan investigations, GOP messaging bills, and rolling back reproductive freedoms nationwide,” said DCCC spokesperson Tommy Garcia.

De La Cruz ran touting her support for Donald Trump and with a message for border security, won the race by more than 9 percentage points and has since become a leading voice among Republican freshmen in Congress on issues related to immigration, a top issue used to attack Democrats.

She “raised just under $4.7 million last year. She eclipsed her Democratic rival Michelle Vallejo, a fellow political novice and progressive candidate with family roots in the region. Vallejo raised over $2.3 million — still a significant sum relative to past races in the district but not nearly enough to win”, according to the publication.

Republicans are also trying to continue their incursions into South Texas next year. The Republican National Committee announced last month that it was pumping in funds to oust Gonzalez in the 34th district, according to the Texas Tribune.