Republican Tony Gonzales was elected on Tuesday to succeed retiring Texas GOP Rep. Will Hurd in a district that Democrats invested heavily to flip.
The GOP win is a blow to Democrats in the state, who hoped the border district’s demographics would tie in with Hurd’s retirement to put their candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, over the top.
Ortiz Jones, an Air Force intelligence veteran, also narrowly lost to Hurd in 2018.
Gonzales, himself a Navy veteran, first competed for the 2020 Republican congressional primary in a neighboring district, before retiring from that race to win the primary and general election in the 23rd.
The district, the second-largest non-single-state district in the country, stretches from El Paso in West Texas to San Antonio in the center of the state.