{"id":33571,"date":"2026-05-27T16:08:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/33571\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:08:36","slug":"trump-backed-candidate-wins-g-o-p-race-in-san-antonio-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/33571\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump-Backed Candidate Wins G.O.P. Race in San Antonio District"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and first-time candidate backed by President Trump, won a sharply contested primary runoff on Tuesday over a moderate state representative in a U.S. House district around San Antonio that was newly drawn to favor Republicans, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Mr. De La Cruz turned his lack of political experience and his vow to be \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s wingman\u201d into assets in the race for the district, Texas\u2019 35th.<\/p>\n

He defeated John Lujan, who was endorsed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Mr. Lujan has represented portions of the redrawn district in his three terms in the Texas House and was a favorite among Texas Republican leaders in the primary race.<\/p>\n

Mr. Lujan faced a crowded field in the first round of voting in March and ended up in a runoff with Mr. De La Cruz, who received endorsements from Mr. Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

Party leaders in Texas threw their weight behind Mr. Lujan, a former San Antonio firefighter who owns an information technology business and proved capable of winning tough general-election races. He reached the statehouse by flipping a formerly Democratic district.<\/p>\n

Mr. De La Cruz is the brother of Representative Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from a neighboring South Texas district. His fund-raising kept pace with the more experienced Mr. Lujan with help from Washington. A fund-raising event last month was attended by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 35th District is currently represented by a Democrat, but Republicans in the Texas Legislature voted to relocate most of the district to an area that includes parts of San Antonio and conservative suburbs and rural areas.<\/p>\n

Still, the general election for the 35th is expected to be competitive. Democrats in Texas and in Washington believe that rising prices and sagging presidential approval ratings will make the majority-Hispanic district winnable.<\/p>\n

The victory by Mr. De La Cruz may make that task easier for Democrats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and first-time candidate backed by President Trump, won a sharply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[17156,17157,8,20012,20011,798,9,360,7,11259],"class_list":["post-33571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-abbott","tag-gregory-w-1957","tag-headlines","tag-john-i-1962","tag-lujan","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116647408693327204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}