House Democrat Vicente Gonzalez Resorts to ‘Sexist,’ ‘Xenophobic’ Attacks Against Incumbent Republican Mayra Flores

Texas Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who’s running against Republican Rep. Mayra Flores — the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress — in November, resorted to “sexist” and “xenophobic” attacks against the newly sworn-in incumbent.

Gonzalez switched to Texas’s Thirty-fourth Congressional District from his previous district in hopes of having an easier election after redistricting. However, the congressman’s recent “sexist” and “xenophobic” attacks seem to signal deep concern about his prospects of getting elected in the district following Flores’s win.

The congressman called Flores an “unqualified opponent” in an interview with Newsweek, in addition to calling her a “pawn” that the Republican Party “poured millions of dollars into for a seat that’s going to last six months.”

Newsweek’s Adrian Carrasquillo noted that he wanted to “cast himself as the traditional Texan in the race” while degrading Flores as “an immigrant outsider.”

Gonzalez, fighting to be a member of Congress after November, claimed that he also supports “God, family, country” and “come[s] from a patriotic family,” saying, “I wasn’t born in Mexico, I was born in South Texas, the son of a Korean war veteran.”

The congressman went further by saying, “I didn’t come here through chain migration, I didn’t come through asylum or amnesty or whatever.”

Newsweek noted that Flores’s most recent ad on Facebook said her family emigrated to the United States from Mexico “the legal way” when she was six years old. One of her previous ads has her cowboy hat-wearing father saying that fathers want what is best for their children — the reason he moved his family from Mexico when Flores was six years old.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair hammered Gonzalez, telling Breitbart News that Gonzalez is resorting to “sexist” and “xenophobic” attacks against Flores.

“Vicente Gonzalez is resorting to sexist and xenophobic attacks against Mayra Flores because he has no accomplishments to run on,” Sinclair said. “Voters know Gonzalez and the Democrat Party are directly responsible for a never-ending border crisis, and the record high prices at the gas pump and grocery store.”

Flores was sworn in as a member of Congress this week, following her historic win in the special election last week, becoming not only the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress but also the first Republican elected in the Rio Grande Valley.

Flores’s win means she’ll be running as an incumbent against another incumbent from a different district rather than as a mere challenger.

The special election was held to fill the roughly eight months left in the two-year term for Texas’s historically Democrat-held Thirty-fourth Congressional District after the previous lawmaker bailed on the district to work for the lobbying firm Akin Gump. However, while she beat Democrat Dan Sanchez in the special election, she must still defeat Gonzalez in November before she can serve a full term.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.