Vice President JD Vance’s trip to south Texas alongside Reps. Nathaniel Moran (R., Texas) and Brandon Gill (R., Texas) may help Republicans flip a House seat, Eric Flores told the Washington Reporter following the event.
Flores, the GOP’s nominee in the race against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas), praised Vance for the clarity of the message he took to Harlingen, Texas.
“South Texas is ready for change and is done settling for a representative who voted against tax relief for seniors while his campaign paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a convicted felon who served federal prison time for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid,” Flores said.
“While South Texas families have struggled to make ends meet, Vicente Gonzalez has spent nearly a decade in Congress as a glorified piece of furniture, collecting a paycheck and making millions,” Flores said, echoing the attack line he used against his Democratic opponent in an interview with the Reporter during the first-ever midterm Republican National Convention (RNC) in Dallas. “I’m a proven leader who will show up, stand up, and fight for our people every damn day!”
Following Vance’s visit, Flores turned Vance’s stop into an ad, obtained exclusively by the Reporter. The ad features Flores’s remarks at the rally with Vance, in which he told the audience that
“Mr. Vice President, we are proud to have you here,” Flores said to Vance during the event. “This community believes in hard work, strong families, and a secure border. From the Rio Grande to Corpus Christi Bay, this is our home. These are our families, and this November, we are going to give South Texas the leadership it deserves, and send Vicente Gonzalez a message he can understand: you’re fired!”
During his interview with the Reporter, Flores made a forceful case for how the agenda, advanced by Vance and by President Donald Trump, has both helped Texans, and that it should motivate Republicans to vote in November.
“When you tell them exactly what this administration has done, that’s a good start,” Flores explained. “Let’s look at the Working Family Tax Cuts bill itself. Let’s look at my district specifically, where a vast majority of them do rely on tips, do rely on that overtime pay. Well, under that legislation, there’s no tax on tips. There’s no tax on overtime. For seniors, there’s no tax on their Social Security. My opponent voted for the largest tax hike since World War II. That’s how we get folks motivated: by informing them and not listening to the fake news, to the mainstream media putting out claims that this administration has not done well; that’s an absolute lie. Just like my opponent is doing right now, just lying; he’s saying that he’s a moderate Democrat or the right kind of Democrat. Newsflash: He’s the wrong type of Democrat, and he’s the wrong type of congressman for South Texas.”
