The race to succeed GOP Rep. Will Hurd in a Texas district straddling the U.S.-Mexico border is effectively tied, a poll by the Republican candidate Tony Gonzales shows.
Gonzales is not yet the official Republican nominee against the Democratic candidate, Gina Ortiz Jones, in the sprawling district Hurd is retiring from after six years in office. A recount looms over his primary runoff tally against Raul Reyes, whom the initial count showed Gonzales beat by 45 votes out of nearly 25,000 cast the in the race.
Recanvassing of the three biggest counties in the 23rd Congressional District began Tuesday. But assuming Navy veteran Gonzales does emerge as the Republican nominee, he’ll start the 11-week sprint to the Nov. 3 election in a dead heat with Ortiz Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer who narrowly lost to Hurd in 2018.
According to the poll, both candidates remain in a dead heat, with 40% of the 400 voters polled in the district supporting Gonzales and 41% backing Ortiz Jones. The Remington Research Group found similar results in a poll released June 1, with Ortiz Jones leading Gonzalez by 2 percentage points, within the survey’s margin of error.
One source informed the Washington Examiner that Internal RNC data confirms a Gonzales-Ortiz Jones matchup is within a percentage point.
The battle to keep the West Texas district red is a fierce one for the GOP, as the House seat is considered high on the list for Democrats to flip blue this election cycle. The Cook Political Report rates the district as R+1. More broadly in Texas, the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is eyeing playing hard in the state, which has gone Republican in every White House race since 1980. Republican Sen. John Cornyn is also likely to face his toughest race since first being elected in 2002, against Afghanistan War veteran MJ Hegar.
Hurd eked out his reelection in 2018 against Ortiz Jones with 49.2% of the vote to her 48.7%. The new poll released by the Gonzales campaign, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies on their behalf, shows a similarly tight race if Gonzales is declared the winner at the end of the week.
Both Gonzales and Reyes have major Republican endorsements backing their candidacies. President Trump supported Gonzales while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz backed Reyes.
Both Republicans are far behind the Democrat in terms of campaign fundraising. According to Federal Election Campaign records, Ortiz Jones has over $3 million in cash on hand, while Gonzales and Reyes trail with over $390,000 and $24,000, respectively, cash on hand.
Gonzales campaign spokesman Matt Mackowiak, in a statement to the Washington Examiner, argued the majority of Ortiz Jones’s donors are not from Texas, and Republicans are now uniting behind their campaign.
“In the second quarter of 2020, Gina Jones raised 0.65% of her money in the district and 80% from donors outside of Texas. She’s raised millions from left-wing donors from California and New York. Tony is earning support from Texans because he will fight for Texas. Tony has raised $1M+ so far, and we have some ground to make up, but since the runoff, the party is quickly unifying behind Tony because we must win this race,” he said.
