The Rio Grande Valley, along the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, has long been a Democratic stronghold. But in 2024, the region swung to Donald Trump. How do voters there feel now? To find out, the Opinion writer Mara Gay traveled to the region, where voters described fears about immigration enforcement, frustration with the economy and a desire for stability.
With the midterm elections less than three weeks away, their votes could help determine whether Texas sends a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. What would it take to win their support?
Below is an edited transcript of this video. We recommend watching it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the video player above.
Clip of crowd chanting: ICE out of Texas!
Mara Gay: Welcome to Texas. We’re in the Rio Grande Valley, a once reliably blue area that swung for Trump in 2024.
Clip of Donald Trump: I love Texas. I won it three times.
But a lot has changed since then. This year, Republicans may have a harder time.
News clip: The U.S. Senate race in Texas is a close one.
News clip: There’s another Marist poll that shows Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton.
Clip of “Jimmy Kimmel Live”:
Jimmy Kimmel: Why are they so scared of you?
James Talarico: Well, they’re worried that we’re going to win this race in Texas, and ——
Voters here could determine whether the state of Texas sends a Democrat to the Senate. So I’m asking: How is the economy here? What keeps you up at night? What’s the biggest struggle for you here, day to day? Do you have an American dream?
Why did you vote for Trump? You said you felt like it was a change.
Marco Pardo-Orduna: It was just because I felt like — OK, maybe in the Democratic Party, people in poverty or everyone who is a minority — I felt like I was a poster child for the party, for their elections.
Gay: And then afterward ——
Pardo-Orduna: And they forget about you.
Rigo Garcia-Bautista: They had kind of forgotten about us. No major candidate had come to visit us in years.
Gay: Was it one particular issue that drew you to the Republican Party?
Alexis Uscanga: This region doesn’t provide sufficient opportunities. So many people in high school, I talk to many of them, and they’re like, Yeah, we want to do everything possible to leave.
Gay: Do you blame the Democrats for that?
Uscanga: I blame the local politicians, and then: Oh, they’re all Democrats.
Gay: So tell me a little bit about the Rio Grande Valley.
Francisco Quezada: We’re mainly 99 percent Hispanics. I feel like we have that sense of community, that sense of closeness.
Haley Escamilla: My parents lived here. My grandparents lived here. My great-grandparents lived here. I like to say that the line crossed us.
Gay: The border crossed you.
Escamilla: The border crossed us.
Seby Haddad: You have a conservative, Catholic community who believes in family values, hard work. But they also believe that you should invest in infrastructure, you should invest in labor, you should provide social services because we have a community that needs it. And we’re also proponents of law enforcement and border infrastructure, because we live near it.
Garcia-Bautista: There’s not a lot of opportunity down here. There’s very few jobs that can get you a house, get you a car, get you a stable income. A lot of people down here are Border Patrol agents, policemen, federal agents, sometimes teachers. We all had relatives or friends that were Border Patrol agents, and we never felt unsafe around them.
Ariana Vianey Hinojosa: My dad’s a Border Patrol agent, but it was always hearing, No, it’s black and white. No, they shouldn’t be here. It’s illegal.
Pardo-Orduna: I wanted to be a Border Patrol agent when I was growing up, and that was always my goal. I physically am not able to do that job anymore. But the way things are now, I don’t think I’d be that proud of doing that job.
Gay: So you wouldn’t want to be a Border Patrol agent now.
Pardo-Orduna: Now, no. I respect them. It’s just I feel the confliction between your family, your community and having to follow your orders. I’m a veteran, but I’m also a son of an immigrant. And seeing the persecution, maybe in a way, seeing family men being taken in front of their families — I don’t agree with that.
Gay: If you had to describe the mood in the Rio Grande Valley right now, what word would you use?
Quezada: Worried and anxious. I’ve got friends that are undocumented, and some of my friends can’t even go to their own kids’ football games because they’re afraid that ICE is going to be there.
Kel Kelley: I always knew that deportation was a thing, but I never knew it would be at this extent and this inhumanely. And that’s really changed my perspective of humanity here in the U.S.
Garcia-Bautista: I am an American citizen. I was born here, but because of the color of my skin and just how I look — I’m tall, I have a beard — I tend to get profiled. So I personally carry my passport with me everywhere I go. Not something I would have ever thought of in a million years.
Gay: You voted for Trump?
Mario Guerrero: Yes, ma’am.
Gay: Three times?
Guerrero: Yes, ma’am. I was conditioned to look at Trump and believe he was a business figure that I would look up to. And I’ll be the first to admit it, I’m politically ignorant. I’m an ignorant person when it comes to politics.
Gay: So when did you realize, This is not exactly what I thought I was voting for?
Guerrero: Once I started seeing that all my friends were being affected.
Gay: What went wrong?
Guerrero: It’s out of control. I mean, they killed somebody. They killed multiple people. They killed ——
Gay: Yeah. This is not what you wanted.
Guerrero: No, no, no.
Gay: Do you plan to vote this November?
Guerrero: I have to.
Gay: You have to?
Guerrero: I have to. I have to vote. I think we all have to ——
Gay: Why do you say that?
Guerrero: Because we need some sort of stability.
Gay: If you had to describe the Democratic Party, in one word, right now ——
Guerrero: Right now?
Gay: What word would you use?
Guerrero: God — like a beacon of light, maybe? I think some people are looking at them for help, some real help.
Gay: What do you like about James Talarico?
Daisy Garza: He’s a fresh, young guy. We don’t have a geriatric Congress that sits in wheelchairs and can’t make decisions on their own or have to be told how to vote. So I like that. I like that we’re getting young.
Escamilla: I actually had the privilege of meeting Mr. James Talarico twice. He wanted to know what it was like to actually live here in the valley and what our daily struggles were. And I really hope that he is a man of his word.
Anaid Zapata: I would like Democrats to talk about unions. I would like for them to really back working-class people. I’m working a temporary position, so that means I don’t have health care.
Kelley: I want more change to be done. Things are bad. Things are messed up right now. And I want our party to be more strong about that.
Gay: So what keeps you up at night?
Quezada: The future of our country. I’ve got a 9-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old boy, and I worry about their futures. Like I said, in the valley we feel like we’re almost in a bubble. We hardly experience racism, but the immigration policies are definitely being felt.
Pardo-Orduna: I want to have kids. I feel like there’s not going to be a safe zone for them anywhere. That at any moment they can be profiled and they can be taken.
Gay: What keeps you up at night or worries you the most?
Nathan Zamora: My family.
Gay: Why?
Zamora: If I could get separated from my family or they could get separated from me.
Brian Alvarez: My biggest fear is that my grandparents will be taken away by ICE. They’ve been shown to ignore people with legal papers before. If you’re born — even if you were born here, they’ll still take you.
Gay: That’s a lot for anybody to carry, let alone someone who’s still in high school. Has seeing the ICE raids been motivating for you as a voter and a young person just wanting to get involved?
Kelley: Yes. Most certainly. Why would I stay silent? Even though things feel like they’re set in stone, they’re not. In history, things have changed.
Gay: When you talk to Republicans and they say, Well, you don’t have to worry about it because you’re an American citizen, what do you say?
Kelley: I say, Why not speak for others? Why not speak for others that don’t have a voice?
This video was produced by Mara Gay and Emily Holzknecht. The senior producer is Katherine Miller. The associate producer is Rebecca Shaid. It was edited by Chris Kursel. Fact-checking by Julie Beer. Cinematography by Isaac Garza and Hector Sanchez. Audio recording by Charlie Vela. Audio mixing by Isaac Jones. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Color by Kyle I. Kelley. The postproduction manager is Mike Puretz. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski. The executive producer of Opinion Video is Erica Berenstein. The director of Opinion Video is Jonah M. Kessel. The director of audio engineering is Isaac Jones. The deputy director of Opinion Shows is Alison Bruzek. The director of Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. The head of Times Opinion is Kathleen Kingsbury. Special thanks to UnidosUs.
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