“The Valley matters to us”: Texas Democratic Party leader makes first pitch to reclaim South Texas

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.

---

McALLEN — Democrats are ready to fight for South Texas.

That is the message Kendall Scudder, the new chair of the Texas Democratic Party, shared last weekend as he visited the Rio Grande Valley for the first time since being elected in March.

Scudder held two town hall events in the region — once considered a Democratic stronghold — on Saturday as part of a series of town halls he plans to host across the state to declare a new day for Texas Democrats.

Speaking to a crowd in the McAllen public library's auditorium, Scudder, 35, said the party will throw punches, not just take them.

"If we keep moving backward here, we don't just lose votes, we start losing sitting electeds that are good people that are fighting for their communities down here," Scudder said during an interview before the event.

"This is a place that we have to be showing up in and fighting back, and we got into this mess because we weren't," they said.

Scudder replaced former Democratic Chair Gilberto Hinojosa, a Rio Grande Valley native, who stepped down in November after 12 years that included last year’s devastating election cycle.

All four Valley counties voted for President Donald Trump, including Starr County which hadn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate in more than 100 years.

To begin making inroads, the party must fill vacancies in their ranks, including precinct chair and county chair positions which are 50% and 20% vacant, respectively, Scudder said.

The goal is to have more people on the ground who know what is happening in their communities and who can help the party reach more voters.

He knows Valley voters have felt that the Democratic Party has taken them for granted, but he hopes to rectify that by focusing on economic issues such as increasing the minimum wage and improving working conditions.

"I think this area has felt kind of abandoned by our party for a while and I want to make sure that it is crystal clear to folks that the Valley matters to us," Scudder said. "The working people down here deserve advocates who will fight to make sure they get fair wages for working conditions."

The Democrats have been ceding ground in the Valley to Republicans for years.

In 2022, Democrats lost the 15th Congressional District for the first time to Republican Monica De La Cruz after the Texas Legislature redrew the congressional maps, making the seat more favorable to Republicans.

Congressional Republicans recently have come under fire for declining to hold in-person town halls, on advice from the National Republican Congressional Committee. The guidance came after lawmakers faced public backlash during town halls over federal funding cuts mandated by the Trump administration.

Though De La Cruz held a telephone town hall last month, Scudder and leaders of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party criticized her for not taking questions in person.

Organizers of Saturday’s event placed an empty chair on stage with a photo of De La Cruz that said "Where's Monica?"

"Is Monica here? We have a seat for her," said Richard Gonzales, chair of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party.

A spokesperson for De La Cruz called Saturday’s event a political stunt and said the congresswoman would be happy to consider invitations to events from nonpartisan, credible organizations which, they said, the Texas Democratic Party is not.

“On most days, it barely qualifies as an organization,” they said.

“Congresswoman De La Cruz loves nothing more than meeting with the people of South Texas—and she does so often,” the spokesperson said. “That's why she regularly holds office hours in all seven counties and hosts virtual town halls so that working parents, veterans, and the district's nearly 19,000 disabled residents can attend.”

Michelle Vallejo, De La Cruz's two-time Democratic opponent, accused her of taking pre-screened questions during the tele-town hall and further argued that De La Cruz does not represent the region's interests.

Hoping to inject optimism into the Democrats in the audience, Vallejo pointed out that while De La Cruz won the majority of the votes in the district, she was carried to victory by the voters in counties north of the Valley.

"She has not once won in Hidalgo County," Vallejo said of De La Cruz's home county which also has the most voters in the district.

When Democrats next take on De La Cruz in 2026, they might have some star power behind them.

Gonzales confirmed that Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy Award-winning Tejano artist and Edinburg native, is interested in running for the Democratic nomination. However, Pulido, 51, will not decide until the end of his farewell tour at the end of 2025.

Scudder said the party needs to start putting in the work into building relationships within the community, long before election season comes along, to be successful.

“People would love to be able just to come in and buy their way out of a problem,” Scudder said. “That's not going to happen here.”

However, money is an issue for the party.

During a stop in Brownsville, Scudder said the party is not in great financial shape but is working on raising money to help it get out of that situation.

When they do have the resources, he pledged he would not hire additional staff until they could have a Spanish-language communications department.

“Thirty percent of Texans speak Spanish at home. In House District 15, which is highly viewed as one of the most contentious races in the state of Texas, that number is 67%” he said. “For us to not have a Spanish-language comms department is completely derelict.”

Andres Rios, a 65-year-old accountant from Brownsville, questioned Scudder about the party’s focus on social issues, saying that older voters told him they voted for Trump over Kamala Harris in the presidential election because they believed Democrats were focusing too much on issues like transgender rights.

Scudder said the party should not lead with those issues but emphasized that the party is a coalition of different types of people who all had a seat at the table and they should not run away from their beliefs.

"We believe what we believe, because it's the right thing to do, and we are not sellouts," Scudder said. However, he added that the party should not lead with social issues but, instead focus on problems that affect people of every background.

"What every group of people within our coalition has in common is that they all pay bills,” he said. “We want to make sure everybody … is welcome and being treated appropriately."

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

---

Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas’ breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Get tickets before May 1 and save big! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.