The next member of Congress representing the long and skinny 15th Congressional District in Texas will represent communities that stand in stark contrast.
At the very northern tip of the 15th District lies New Braunfels, a city about 30 to 45 minutes from both Austin and San Antonio. In October 2020, Money Magazine ranked New Braunfels the 25th best city to live in America noting its fast-growing economy, low cost of living, and optimal health and safety conditions.
At the district’s southernmost point is Hidalgo County which borders Mexico. It has a poverty rate of almost 30%, nearly three times the national average.
The contrasting needs of these areas are more representative of America’s diversity than they are typical for one federal lawmaker.
Simply put, the shape of the district is weird. It’s always been weird, but this year it’s getting longer and skinnier. If the 15th District were in California, driving from east to west would be about the same distance as driving from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. But if you were to drive from its southernmost tip to the northernmost tip, it would be like driving from USC’s campus to past Fresno.
It’s a lot of territory–nearly 8,000 square miles — and that’s intentional. As Texas gained two congressional seats, the mapmakers worked to figure out what to do with the district shapes and according to Texas Monthly, the new 15th is among the six “most bizarrely shaped districts” in the state.
This “fajita strip” of a district has a population of over 800,000, with 82% of residents being Hispanic. It stretches over cities such as Alice, McAllen, Seguin, Edinburg, Floresville and Hidalgo.
In February 2021, South Texan residents pleaded for new districts that more accurately represented their communities in a Texas Senate hearing.
“We need the right to elect people who can focus on our issues and our needs,” said Michael Seifert, a self-employed Migrant Advocate.” “The present election maps, however, do not respect this right or our needs.”
Seifert, who lives in Brownsville, expressed his frustration with having one member of Congress represent such a vast stretch of land when each community has unique and disparate challenges, especially when it comes to poverty.
“They have their own struggles with poverty, but that poverty has a different face and needs a different kind of advocacy than ours,” Seifert said. “Both communities deserve effective representation that can respond to those needs.”
Lucy Frost, a volunteer at All on the Line, a non-partisan organization geared toward fighting gerrymandering, also expressed concerns with Texas’s redistricting process during the hearing.
“Gerrymandering hurts all of us because it leads to a broken democracy,” Frost said. “If someone can’t win without stacking the deck, they’re not representing the will of the people.”
Cynthia Carrasco has been mayor of Alice, a Texas town with around 19,000 residents, since May 2021. She describes her constituents as “resilient,” “friendly” and “welcoming.” Carrasco shared her thoughts about the motivation behind the new redistricting maps.
“I feel like it kind of dilutes the minorities’ voices,” Carrasco said during a Zoom interview in February. She said she hopes that whoever is elected to represent the 15th District will be open to working with various communities regardless of party affiliation to ensure equal representation.
Alice, which was previously in the 34th District, now lies smack dab in the middle of the 15th and is 45 miles west of Corpus Christi.
“We all have our challenges but in spite of our challenges, we always come together,” Carrasco said. For example, the community helped out their neighbors during the ice storm last year which resulted in power outages and property damage for many Texans, she said.
While Carrasco’s territory is vastly different from the southern tip of the district in the city of McAllen, they share a community spirit.
Aaron Pico, a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, works at Service in South Texas, an organization that provides free yard work, cleaning, English lessons and more within the McAllen area. He described a “tight-knit community” unlike anything he has seen in the other areas he has lived.
“They’ll give you the shirt off their back,” Pico said. “If they’re grilling something in the front yard, everyone’s welcome. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you represent.”
Despite the tough spirit and sweet disposition of the people in the 15th District, many of them are facing various challenges. Since the decline of the oil industry, many Texans have lost their jobs — especially in Alice.
“[The oil industry] was one of our huge employers,” said Carrasco, who pointed to “diversifying the economy” as one of her top priorities as mayor. She also identified working to improve education as another area of focus.
McAllen also shares concerns for their education system, especially when it comes to the working conditions for teachers and other school employees.
Sylvia Tanguma, the president of McAllen’s American Federation of Teachers, spoke out at a school board meeting last month about the 300 employees who have had their pay docked since the start of the school year in the fall.
“We want our employees to come to work and be able to do their job at 100% of their capacity instead of having to worry about how they’re going to get home and what bills they’re gonna pay,” Tanguma said. “Do I put food on the table? Do I pay the rent? Do I pay the mortgage?”
Ruben Ramirez, who is competing in a runoff election to be the Democratic nominee for the 15th District after receiving 28% of the votes during the primary, emphasizes education concerns in his campaign.
“As a high school chemistry and physics teacher for years in Edinburg, I know the importance of investing in our schools and teachers to make sure that all students are able to receive a quality education,” Ramirez wrote on his campaign website. Additionally, he said he wants to secure the border while also updating immigration laws to make sure that those who want to enter the country legally can do so.
His opponent Michelle Vallejo was the second-place finisher in the March primary with 20% of the votes. She has focused her campaign on health care for all, raising minimum wage, immigration justice and eliminating student debt. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for governor, joined Vallejo at a February/March event where she thanked the Tejano Democrats of Hidalgo County for their endorsement.
Republican nominee Monica De La Cruz, who narrowly lost a 2020 battle for Congress in the 15th District, has expressed her disdain for what she labels “socialists [who] are ruining our border security, our values and our economy.” De La Cruz has focused her campaign on supporting law enforcement and enforcing strict border controls.
“Together we will finish what Trump started,” De La Cruz said in a campaign video.
The district’s current Rep. Vincente Gonzalez chose to run in the 34th District instead of seeking reelection here. He won the Democratic nomination in the 34th by beating out six other candidates.
While the old 15th District favored Biden in the 2020 election by two percentage points, Trump would have won the new district by three points. With a slight Republican lean, but a higher Democratic voter turnout in the primaries, the district is highly competitive and difficult to predict. Many outlets including CNN deemed it one of the two most competitive races in the state.