AUSTIN, Texas — The Democratic congressional nominee running in a highly contested Texas border race has accused the Republican of flaking out of their only scheduled debate ahead of next month’s election.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a three-term congressman running in a neighboring district this cycle, slammed Rep. Mayra Flores (R-TX), the recent special election winner, for what he described as bailing from their showdown in front of a live TV audience.
“It’s really disgraceful that she’s backed out,” Gonzalez, who represents the neighboring 15th Congressional District, told the Washington Examiner in a phone call Friday. “The campaign did say that it’s a scheduling conflict, but that’s BS because we’ve been talking about this for a very long time with AARP, who is sponsoring it — who I think is now stuck with a bill paying for it.”
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Flores spokesman Paul Smith denied the accusation and said the candidate “did not back out of a debate.”
“The first time we heard from the TV station about the details of the proposed debate was this week and given the late notice the date did not work with her schedule,” Smith wrote in an email Friday afternoon.
Gonzalez, who issued a press release saying Flores “flake[d] out” on the debate, said despite the conflict, he would be willing to reschedule another debate “anywhere, anytime.”
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Smith said there has not been additional talk about arranging another date and that there would be no rescheduling “since there was not a debate committed to in the first place.”
Both are competing in the 34th District, a Gulf Coast-adjacent region of South Texas that is majority Hispanic and has historically been a top region of illegal immigration arrests from Mexico.
