Early Voting begins next Monday
Monday, many area voters may participate in a very rare election, a congressional toss-up. And when early voting opens that day, U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla and former U.S. Rep. Ciro RodrÃguez will be treading in uncharted waters.The incumbent Republican, Bonilla, had expected to run in a district specifically redrawn to reduce Latino voters — only 8 percent of whom voted for him in 2002 — to protect his re-election chances.
But that advantage vanished when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that 100,000 voters, mostly Latinos, who were removed from his district be restored.
Despite his incumbency, and a multimillion-dollar war chest that paid for carpet-bombing the airwaves with ads touting Bonilla’s reclaimed heritage — he failed to win outright and is in a runoff.
Gov. Rick Perry ordered the runoff be held on Dec. 12, el DÃa de La Virgen de Guadalupe, a religious feast day Latino Catholics celebrate with special activities, sparking indignant outcries.
RodrÃguez has run successfully in many of the precincts restored to the district, which now is 61 percent Latino and has a record of delivering 51 percent of the vote for statewide Democratic candidates.
But if Bonilla now has the unexpected disadvantage of having to defend his party’s stands on immigration, health care and social services that have made it very unpopular among Latinos, he still has the immense advantage of a $1.6 million campaign kitty to keep saturating the airwaves with his ads.
And if RodrÃguez enjoys long-term popular support in the district’s restored precincts, he must generate heavy turnouts in those areas on a holiday and also cut into Bonilla’s strongholds in the outlying counties. And, RodrÃguez must do it with much less money and despite federal laws that seriously limit additional fundraising.
So, whether this race turns on issues or money is now the big unknown. But both candidates have congressional voting records they will probably need to defend.
I would have to think there will be a backlash against Bonilla for the Republican gerrymandering that made this election happen. 100,000 latinos taken out of the district so that Bonilla would have a better shot should come back and bite him in the butt.
Early voting starts monday.
Filed under: Bonilla, Ciro Rodriguez, Congressional District 23, Henry Bonilla, election, gerrymandering, politics, texas, texas politics, vote
