Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language.

WASHINGTON — When Katy Padilla Stout first announced a bid for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, neither the former teacher — nor the Republican-held seat — were on many Democrats’ radar.

But now that the Republican incumbent has dropped out of the race amid a scandal, and a hardline gun activist YouTuber with a history of edgy, controversial comments has taken his place as the GOP nominee, Padilla Stout’s phone has started ringing more — with both Texans and Washingtonians on the other end — since she won last week’s Democratic primary.

Padilla Stout, a San Antonio attorney, was not recruited by Democratic groups in D.C. to run for the district. But Democrats are increasingly enthused by her candidacy and a convergence of circumstances they believe gives them a chance to win the sprawling border district for the first time since 2012.

A former elementary school teacher in the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Padilla Stout now works on child welfare cases at her family law firm. She grew up between San Antonio and rural south Texas, a background she says can help her navigate challenges in all parts of the district, which includes a mix of rural and urban communities from the Alamo City to outside El Paso.

She will face Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTuber known as “The AK Guy” with a large online following. Herrera, who moved to the San Antonio area in 2021, first challenged moderate Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, in 2024, criticizing him for voting in favor of a bipartisan gun safety bill in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Uvalde, a city in the district. He forced Gonzales into a runoff, but ultimately lost by fewer than 400 votes.

This time, Herrera finished first in the primary and became the GOP nominee after Gonzales dropped his reelection bid. The move came as Gonzales was facing intense backlash for having an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide; after the married father of six admitted to the extramarital tryst, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans had called for him to end his campaign.

There was no love lost between the two GOP foes, whose rivalry has divided the GOP locally since their initial 2024 match. Gonzales previously called Herrera a “known neo-Nazi”, while Herrera has referred to the congressman as a “baby back bitch coward.”

Known for his free-wheeling use of brash, profane language — and being intentionally provocative in a way that may be recognizable to digital natives but would be highly unusual in Congress — Herrera has built a strong campaign operation but not watered down his style.

Padilla Stout said her concerns about both candidates led her to get into the race.

“I decided to run because I thought that this seat was one that was winnable for Democrats, given Tony Gonzales’ scandal that we all knew about in September,” Padilla Stout said in an interview. “I didn’t feel someone like that could accurately represent me and my family.”

Then, Padilla Stout continued, when she saw Herrera was the alternative option, “I decided I just couldn’t allow him to represent my children, or our values, or the people of TX-23.”

President Donald Trump won the seat by 15 percentage points, similar to his margin in South Texas’ 15th Congressional District. But while national Democrats put the 15th District on the party’s target list and recruited Tejano musician Bobby Pulido to run there, the 23rd District initially attracted none of the same interest.

But Democrats now see encouraging signs across the district. More Democrats voted in last week’s primary than Republicans. A majority of the district’s eligible voters are Hispanic, in a cycle in which polls, special elections and primary turnout all suggest Latinos have swung back toward Democrats. And both Gonzales’ scandal and the subsequent ascension of Herrera give Democrats hope that Padilla Stout can attract moderate voters.

Already, Democratic groups have been blasting out controversial clips from Herrera’s YouTube channel, including footage of him referring to a gun as the “original ghetto blaster”, making Holocaust jokes, simulating the assasination of Martin Luther King Jr. and discussing owning a copy of “Mein Kampf.”

Herrera has maintained that accusations that he is anti-Semitic or a neo-Nazi are smears.

“The accusations against Brandon Herrera are bizarre, desperate, and false,” Herrera campaign manager Kimmie Gonzalez said in a statement. “Brandon has never done or said anything antisemitic, and he has earned the support of leaders in the Jewish community. In Brandon’s work as a historical firearms educator, he has simulated the execution and poisoning of Adolf Hitler. The misleading clip about Brandon’s rare book collection omits his comments ridiculing and condemning Hitler’s book.”

But Democrats think voters will find Herrera offensive.

“I don’t think I’m going to have to do much to draw a contrast between myself and Mr. Herrera,” Padilla Stout said. “I think that those facts are going to speak for themselves.”

About the district

The 23rd Congressional District is the largest — by land area — in Texas. It includes 27 counties, stretching from El Paso County along the border in West Texas, including Big Bend, to take in part of San Antonio.

Nearly half the district’s population is in Bexar County, including more Republican-leaning areas northwest and southwest of San Antonio. The rest are scattered between small cities and towns west of Bexar County and along the border, from Del Rio and Eagle Pass to Hondo and Uvalde.

Representing the district in Congress is one of the more difficult assignments in Texas — members are expected to be conversant in everything from rising housing costs in the San Antonio suburbs to the invasive New World screwworm affecting livestock on West Texas ranches to the challenges of border communities.

In 2024, had the district existed in its post-redistricting form, Trump would have won it by a 15-point margin, while Sen. Ted Cruz would have carried it by 8. Historically, it has been represented by moderates — owing to its former status as a swing district.

In the late 2000s and 2010s, the district changed hands in four successive elections, alternating between Democrats and Republicans. Former Rep. Will Hurd, a moderate Republican and Trump critic, won in 2014, and Republicans have held the district ever since, thanks in part to a 2021 round of redistricting that made the seat more favorable for the GOP.

Since he first won the district in 2020, Gonzales has also benefited from the rightward shift of Latino voters, particularly in the district’s border counties. In 2024, he won the general election by a margin of about 24 points.

That year, Gonzales captured all but two of the district’s counties — Presidio and Zavala — underscoring the difficulty for a Democrat in turning the tide. Even in Democratic precincts in Bexar County, Gonzales ran ahead of Cruz and Trump, contributing to his large margin.

But for the first time in over a decade, the Republican nominee is not a moderate.

Herrera has maintained in both cycles that the district is to Gonzales’ right, but added that he intends to campaign hard in the general election. Before the March primary, Herrera told the Tribune that, if he won the nomination, he would campaign on issues that include “the epidemic of rural hospital closures across Southwest Texas and the affordability crisis facing too many of our working families” — topics that hold broader crossover appeal than the partisan ones, like gun rights, that have defined his political brand so far.

“It’s a very conservative district,” Herrera said in a post-primary video posted to his YouTube channel. “I do have that in my favor. But it’s going to be a tumultuous midterm. I’ve got a philosophy, always fight like you’re behind.”

Polling by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, conducted on behalf of House Majority PAC and shared with The Texas Tribune, underscored Democratic optimism. In a sample of 521 voters, which favored Trump voters by 12 points, Herrera led Padilla Stout by a narrow margin, 42% to 40%. The poll was conducted over Tuesday and Wednesday.

Padilla Stout is banking her campaign on winning over moderates who might feel turned off by Herrera’s brash conservatism. At the same time, she acknowledged she’s a “tad bit more progressive” than Democrats who previously represented the district, saying “times are more progressive” than when those members served in Congress.

The attorney said she has already received outreach from Republicans validating her theory.

“We’ve actually been flooded with a lot of emails on our campaign site from Republicans, essentially saying that ‘I’ve been Republican my entire life. I’ve never voted for a Democrat. I don’t know this woman. She seems like a decent person, and he does not seem like a decent person. And if my party is not going to put up candidates that are decent, then I guess I’m helping you,’” Padilla Stout said.

The general election

Republican leaders in Washington had initially been behind Gonzales, but they say Herrera’s ascension to the nomination does not change their calculus.

“Texas’ 23rd District is deep red, and Democrats know it,” NRCC spokesperson Christian Martinez said. “While they talk a big game in Washington, they don’t even have a credible recruit and are too busy defending their own vulnerable members across Texas to compete here.”

With mentioning Herrera’s name, Martinez said voters in the district “will once again elect a Republican who will secure the border, lower costs, and stand up for Texas families.”

Both Trump and House GOP leadership had endorsed Gonzales this cycle, and the National Republican Congressional Committee had spent money on joint ads for Gonzales in the primary — though leaders of both groups eventually called on Gonzales to drop out of the runoff.

Republicans point to a significant fundraising discrepancy between the candidates as one reason for confidence. Padilla Stout had raised less than $45,000 as of mid-February, while Herrera’s haul stood at over $850,000 — though he spent nearly all of it during the primary. He also has a joint committee with a PAC that raised over $1.4 million, most of which was also spent ahead of March 3.

But Padilla Stout’s fundraising has grown exponentially since Gonzales’ affair scandal spilled into public view. In the week before the primary, she raised over $40,000 — and in the 48 hours after Gonzales dropped out, she received over $50,000 in donations, according to her campaign.

If national Democrats choose to spend money on the district, they could deploy millions late in the cycle — a tactic that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC has used in prior uphill races. Doing so could force Republicans to spend money defending the seat that they would have used elsewhere.

Local Democrats say Padilla Stout is worth the investment, and that an energized Latino electorate can flip the seat. Esmeralda Rodriguez, chair of Democrats of Northwest Bexar County, was encouraged by the primary and said she thinks Padilla Stout has a “really good” chance of winning.

“I think the path is getting the Latino vote,” Rodriguez said. “And we saw it in the primary. That really, really high turnout — it brought the energy back.”

The Democratic PPP poll also found a distaste among voters for some of Herrera’s more controversial comments. Sixty-two percent of respondents said a Herrera joke about veteran suicide — saying “I often think about putting a gun in my mouth, so I’m basically an honorary veteran” — gave them concerns, while 58% were concerned about his ownership of Mein Kampf.

The poll found that Herrera starts the general election race underwater, with 29% of voters having a favorable opinion of him and 35% viewing him unfavorably. While over 60% of voters said they were unfamiliar with Padilla Stout, her favorability rating stood at 21% favorable to 17% unfavorable.

Herrera, for his part, said his focus has turned to “bringing the party back together.”

His campaign manager noted that he’s held public events in all 27 counties in the district, and that he intends to campaign on issues including border security, job creation, veterans’ health care and keeping rural hospitals open.

“The job isn’t done, but from day one, we’ve wanted to unseat an anti-gun [Republican in Name Only] — somebody who voted against the interests of the district, of his people, somebody who was out for himself — and he let us suffer for it,” Herrera said. “Now, no matter what happens going forward, we will always be able to say that we were successful in that, and that we are the reason Tony Gonzales is out of a job.”

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