The race for Texas Congressional District 34 is one of a handful nationwide that could decide which party controls Congress.
Democrat U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez and former Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores squared off in their only debate before election day, with both candidates focusing on the economy and illegal immigration.
The televised debate took place in the heavily Hispanic Texas District 34 on Oct. 17, in a race that could determine which party controls Congress.
Gonzalez and Flores, who are in a rematch for the district seat, clashed over voting records and positions, often talking over each other.
Both parties have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the race. Republicans have been putting more money into South Texas in hopes of increasing their share of Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley.
On inflation, one of the top issues, Flores contrasted the current high prices under the Biden-Harris administration to those under former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term in the White House.
Flores said Democrats drove up inflation by overspending, which included sending billions of dollars overseas when Americans at home were hurting.
“We have to put Washington on a budget. You know, Americans are on a budget, living paycheck to paycheck,” she said.
Gonzalez said inflation was caused by the global pandemic, adding that prices are coming down under the Biden-Harris administration.
He blamed grocery stores for high food prices, saying they were gouging consumers.
“Clearly, meat prices, poultry prices, egg prices are higher than they should be, but we’ve got to go after corporate price gougers,” he said.
Gonzalez called for a government crackdown on “bad actors” taking advantage of consumers, an idea proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris, who is vying to keep the White House in the hands of Democrats.
Both candidates thought the minimum wage should be increased, with Gonzalez calling for $15 per hour.
Gonzalez said the immigration process has been broken for decades. One way to fix it, he said, was through the Safe Zones Act, which he introduced.
That would establish facilities in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Panama where asylum seekers could apply and await processing, he said.
Migrants who bypassed those centers and attempted to cross the southern border illegally would be deported under the bill, he added.
On the issue of abortion, Gonzalez, who is Catholic, said he does not promote abortion, but he would never support a national abortion ban.
He accused Flores of supporting such a ban and working against in vitro fertilization (IVF) for co-sponsoring the Life at Conception Act while she was in office.
The bill didn’t pass but defined life as beginning at conception and didn’t include an exception for IVF.
“It’s a national abortion ban. You need to read your own bills,” Gonzalez said.
Flores said that as a mother of four children, she supports IVF as part of her pro-life stance but was not in favor of a national abortion ban.
The abortion issue has particularly attracted attention in Texas because it has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.
It does not allow for the exceptions of rape or incest.
However, it does permit abortions to save a pregnant woman’s life or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
The debate was contentious at times, with Flores accusing Gonzalez of “pretending” to be a moderate while supporting leftwing causes such as transgender surgery for kids and men playing in women’s sports.
“You don’t know what a woman is,” Flores said during the debate.
During the campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee helped her with an ad accusing Gonzalez of pushing “sex changes for kids.”
In the debate, Gonzalez countered by claiming Flores supported Project 2025, which she denied.
Democrats have attempted to tie Republicans to the plan—developed by the Heritage Foundation—that they consider extreme. Republicans deny involvement in the plan.
During closing statements, Gonzalez touted his support for legislation to bring money to South Texas, saying $8 billion in resources have been earmarked to transform infrastructure in the region.
He said it was essential to take care of veterans and seniors and to support education.
Flores, a legal immigrant from Mexico, focused on the economy in her final statement during the debate, asking voters if they were better off now or four years ago.
“I need you to vote with your pockets. I need you to prioritize the needs of your family and your children,” she said.
Gonzalez is running for his fifth term in Congress. He is favored to win District 34, having defeated Flores by 8.5 percentage points in 2022.
However, political analysts have said the seat is vulnerable and could be flipped.
Flores, who focused her campaign on “God, family, and country” in 2022, won a special election to fill the seat temporarily that year before being defeated by Gonzalez later in the general election.