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Melissa Harris-Perry: It runs almost straight down the center of South Texas, a long, narrow corridor just east of San Antonio. It starts just north of I-10 and squeezes down to the US-Mexico border in Hidalgo County. This is the 15th congressional district of Texas. According to some election analysts, it may be the only truly competitive House seat in the entire state.

Having gained two seats after the last census, Texas will now send 38 people to the House of Representatives in January, more than any other state but California, but because of how the state party has sliced and diced the electoral map, nearly every other seat is pretty safely in the red or blue column based on how voters decided between Trump and Biden two years ago, all except the Texas 15. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and that's where we begin today on The Takeaway.

Matthew Choi: The 15th congressional district goes from the eastern suburbs of San Antonio down to the Mexican border in McAllen. It takes about four hours to drive from end to end, and it has a real spectrum of voters. In the northern portions, you have more conservative voters, and in the southern area, you have a very large Latino population that has historically voted very Democratic. My name is Matthew Choi, and I'm a Washington correspondent for the Texas Tribune.

Melissa Harris-Perry: After 2020 redistricting, third-term congressman Democrat Vicente Gonzalez opted not to seek re-election in the 15th.

Matthew Choi: This district is now leaning more towards the Republicans just based on the way that it's been redrawn after the census. It used to be a Biden district that would now vote for-- Trump district on its current lines. The change in barriers is actually what Republicans say is one of the biggest reasons why the current incumbent Vicente Gonzalez decided to run in the 34th district.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Gonzalez's decision left the seat open, leading to hard-fought primaries in both parties, and two women emerged as the final contenders for this coveted seat. Yes, y'all, the Texas 15 is a SHElection. Along with our partners at the Center for American Women in Politics and with support in part from the Ms. Foundation for Women, we're bringing you these woman-versus-woman mid-term contests. In this SHElection, both candidates are Latina.

Matthew Choi: Monica De LaCruz is a pretty conservative Republican. She is really running on this message of support for President Donald Trump. She puts her faith at the center of her message. She has pretty restrictive views on reproductive rights, and she is the first pioneer of this wave of right-wing Latina Republicans running in South Texas.

Monica De LaCruz: [Spanish language]?

Participant: [Spanish language]

Monica De LaCruz: I'm Monica De LaCruz, and I approve this message.

Melissa Harris-Perry: De LaCruz first sought this seat back in 2020, and she almost won.

Matthew Choi: She came very, very close to winning in the 15th district in the 2020 cycle, surpassing a lot of expectations. She had half the amount of money as the incumbent Democrat, and yet she came within only three percentage points of winning, which was a real shocker considering the history of this region, which has been Democratic for so long.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This year, De LaCruz is facing a political newcomer.

Matthew Choi: Michelle Vallejo is a progressive who has long family roots in the valley. She loves to talk about her family background running a store, a small business in the area, and her person-to-person connections with the community.

Michelle Vallejo: My mother used to wear these earrings to work at the [unintelligible 00:04:09], even when multiple sclerosis made it painful for her to move. She taught me to work hard, [Spanish language]. I'm running for Congress to stand up for working people, the families trying to make ends meet at [unintelligible 00:04:23].

Matthew Choi: She is really running on a lot of progressive bona fides, things like Medicare for all. Also, one of the biggest issues that's come up in this cycle is reproductive rights. She's an ardent supporter of abortion access in a state that has taken really strong measures recently to curb those rights.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Texas's 15th congressional district is more than 80% Latino. What happens in this Texas SHElection will shape how many political observers understand the political power and preferences of Latino voters.

Maria Teresa Kumar: Hi, my name is Maria Teresa Kumar, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Voto Latino. I think that what we're seeing is very much two different swathes of the Latino community coming out. Now, I think what's more surprising is that the Republican is running as a MAGA Republican, and poll after poll that shows that when you ask the Latino community who they would vote for, the moment that someone puts a MAGA Republican on the ballot, they repel it.

I think this election's going to be very, very close, and it's going to be very much on turnout because we know that there's more registered Democratic voters in that district than there are Republican voters, but it's a matter of, does the Democrat, in this case, have more money and more ability to touch voters? Right now, it's dead heat because the conservative candidate has received so much more backing from the Republican party. I think that is going to be pieces of the news that people aren't going to pay attention to, but it is something that is equally as important.

Matthew Choi: That's actually a really big sore spot amongst a lot of Texas Democrats. They're really unsatisfied with the amount of funding that national Democrats have been giving to their candidate in this race. National Democrats like DCCC, they really prioritize incumbent. Michelle Vallejo is pretty new, and they really want to keep hold of the districts that they already have control over, or, in the case of Vicente Gonzalez, keeping somebody they already have in office in office just in any district.

Vicente Gonzalez's new district in 34, that's a Biden +15 district, and yet it's still pretty competitive. You can imagine what an earth-shattering event it would be if he were to lose a Biden 15 district, so he's getting a lot of funding there.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The Democratic Party's decision to abandon Vallejo in a tough, competitive district in Texas is part of the incumbent protection strategy being used by national Dems this year. Earlier this month, Axios reported that Vallejo has received no financial backing from the DCCC. That's the official campaign arm for House Democrats. Axios also noted, "The House Majority PAC is planning to cancel the scheduled ad reservations for her at the end of the month." Voto Latino's Maria Teresa Kumar thinks this is a mistake.

Maria Teresa Kumar: Talking about district 15, it really is a unique one in the sense that that whole area has historically been Democratic, as Matthew pointed out, and it's the only highly, highly contested district in all of Texas. Ceding that to a MAGA Republican, I think, is incredibly dangerous, and it feeds into a narrative that Texas is redder than it actually is. I believe that we should be fighting for every democratically elected individual that believes in our elections and not undermining our democracy. I would encourage you to look at what happened in Oregon.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, the race she is referring to here is Oregon's newly created and highly competitive 6th congressional district. Back in May, progressive Oregon State House Representative Andrea Salinas won the Democratic nomination in a very crowded primary, but she did it without mainstream party support.

Maria Teresa Kumar: There was an open seat, three women in the race and one guy who is basically backed by the Bitcoin folks. Because he had the backing of a lot of money, Silicon Valley money, there was no backing for the only really qualified candidate. In this case, it was a Latina who was at the state legislature and who had been able to demonstrate governing experience. She was leading in the polls, and she actually had some money.

Even though there was a mobilization effort from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in a manner that I had never seen, Melissa, asking for the institutions to endorse her and endorse her early because, up to that point, it wasn't until the other guy announced that he had received significant money that we should back her. It was astounding to me that they refused to, but, luckily, she created an incredible campaign, and she ended up beating the other guy out in the primary.

Even with highly qualified candidates, a woman of color, she would have been a Latina. There's not that very many-- First Latina from Oregon, all the trappings, she made everything that would say, "Of course, this candidate makes sense," but even in an open primary like that, they decided to back the guy. I think that really speaks to how we need to reevaluate representation in candidacy because if you have even the most-- Melissa, we've lived this through our life experience.

You can be the most qualified woman of color and all of a sudden someone sings a Dinkin and you have to work twice as hard as everybody else to prove that you're supposed to be in that room. [chuckles] That was a perfect example of what happened in Oregon with Angela Salinas. She is now more than likely going to go to Congress but with a lot of receipts of the people who did not support her.

Matthew Choi: We saw something similar to this over in the district, just like store [inaudible 00:10:33] in the Democrat primary in Henry Cuellar's race. He was up against Jessica Cisneros, a very progressive Latino woman, and a lot of progressives, a lot of the younger progressives in Congress were wondering, hey, why are we backing Henry Cuellar who is one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress?

He is the last Democrat in the house to be against abortion access. A lot of them were saying he's very out of step with issues like climate change. Why don't we back somebody who's a bit more in line with the new Democratic Party? Well, Henry Cuellar is a really strong ally of democratic leadership. He puts in the fundraising work, he votes with the party on really large issues like, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats, just next door we see an example of the incumbency protection ethos at work.

Maria Teresa Kumar: I think something Matthew that he brings up is the fact that Cuellar is the only long-standing anti-abortion individual right now. What is astounding is that poll after poll in Texas show that at the least, 68% of Latinos support abortion care. Actually, that margin actually narrows when you look solely at women and depending on the age group they are.

We just did a poll that came out just on Tuesday. It hasn't seen a lot of day but in reviewing that, so I'm breaking news with you right now Melissa, in that breaking for the very first time, and we basically did the poll in the four battleground states that we care about Texas being one of them, for the very first time, Latino's two top issues, the first one was jobs and inflation, the second one, abortion access. It shows that there's not an alignment in representation.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, stay right where you are because we aren't done yet with this SHElection in the competitive 15th Congressional District of Texas. When we come back, I'll ask whether the abbot over gubernatorial race might affect who wins this seat. It's The Takeaway.

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Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. We're still talking about the US Congressional race in the Texas 15th. It's a SHElection matchup between two political newcomers, conservative Republican, Monica De La Cruz, and progressive Democrat Michelle Vallejo. Republican Monica Dela Cruz has a massive fundraising advantage.

She's brought in nearly 4 million compared to the Democrat Vallejo's 1.5 million, but the outcomes of house races can be affected by campaigns at the top of the ticket, and there's a big one raging in Texas right now. Take a listen to this report out of Houston's KHOU 11.

Participant: We hold a lot of political power if our people will come out and vote.

Participant: The campaigns know it. It's why Beto O'Rourke is hosting Latino voter rallies in Houston's historic Hispanic neighborhoods, answering questions in Spanish.

Participant: [Spanish language]

Participant: It's why Governor Greg Abbott is spending record amounts of money.

Participant: [foreign language]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Most polls show incumbent Governor Abbott with a double-digit lead over Beto O'Rourke, but over the weekend, a new survey from Democratic polling firm Beacon Research shows the race is much tighter, a virtual tie. Now, these results are definitely an outlier, but they did get a little media attention and in close elections, perceptions can shape realities.

I wondered if a gubernatorial slugfest combined with the elimination of [unintelligible 00:14:31] access in Texas might affect this SHElection contest between two south Texas Latinas. Here again is Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Voto Latino and Matthew Choi, Washington correspondent for the Texas Tribune.

Maria Teresa Kumar: One, I think Beto has done a terrific job of going around the state and including South Texas. Most folks campaigning forget about South Texas. He has not done that. I do think that the most untold story though, Melissa, is that last year in an effort to curb participation, one of the least reported pieces of legislation that Abbott signed was a concealed carry law.

This was in April. Shortly after the concealed carry law, he signed into law having electoral poll watchers. That is potentially a very deadly combination of voter intimidation. Beto has run a very strong campaign, I think that he's closer than people realize, but our concern is we want people to vote early and make sure that they take their friends and family and that they are also at the same time protected.

Matthew Choi: I think Maria Teresa brought up a great point about Beto really not neglecting South Texas. One of his biggest talking points is that he's visiting every county in the state. That's really remarkable in a place like South Texas which has been one of the strongest democratic bastions in the entire state. The South Texas counties all voted for Lupe Valdez in the 2018 gubernatorial election even though she was almost comically outspent by Greg Abbot at that cycle. Even Democrats themselves acknowledge that she did not have much of a chance against Abbott in that cycle.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Again, this is part of our SHElection series where we're looking at these races where all of the candidates in the general election are women. Maria, I'll start with you on this, why does it matter for women to run for office?

Maria Teresa Kumar: It matters for the strength and the innovation for the next set of 15, 20 years for this country. I say that because oftentimes Melissa, oftentimes folks get into this idea that diversity is a nice to have, and I am able to point to the election of 2018 where for the very first time in our country's 240-ish years, we had the most diverse set of congressional members in our nation's history.

In that body that was elected, it was the most women we had ever seen to at tune of close to 130 total members, in 240-ish years. What that body politic was able to produce was a set of values. They passed over 400 pieces of legislation that set our priorities including childcare, caring for our elders, the prescription drug benefits that we're now seeing, the insulin caps that we are now seeing.

This idea of managed care all came out of that body, but it came because there was finally a group of mothers and sisters and aunts who understood what it was to be a woman in trying to juggle a lifestyle. It also demonstrated the importance of having 51% of the population at the table to really meet our country where they are. I believe that it was the power of that legislative body that gave President Biden not only the win, because it was women who outvoted men in this election, disproportionately women of color who voted for Biden, not by minimal points, but by double digits.

It was also them that gave him the White House the courage to ensure that we are passing the legislation that history will say was perhaps the most monumental consequential pieces of policies put together in our nation and a time where our nation desperately needs it to help define itself for the 21st century.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Of course, as our SHElection series has made clear, not all women candidates are running as Democrats. In fact, in these midterms, Republican Latinas are trying to make history of their own in Texas.

Matthew Choi: Over on the Republican side, there is this push to sit against the idea that Democrats are the voice of women voters. They really want to show that they're able to make inroads with communities other than the more traditional conservative white males. That's one of the really big selling points that the three republican candidates in these competitive South Texas races are bringing up. They call themselves the triple threat. They are friends with each other, they are ideological line, they're personally close with each other, and they're really leaning into their identities as a big part of their pitch.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Maria Theresa Kumar is CEO and co-founder of Voto Latino, and Matthew Choi is Washington correspondent for the Texas Tribune. Thank you both for being here.

Maria Teresa Kumar: Thanks for the conversation, Melissa. Be well.

Matthew Choi: Thank you so much.

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