Johnny Garcia, a former sheriff’s deputy running a centrist campaign with the backing of national Democrats, defied a Republican attempt to boost his antisemitic opponent in a primary in South Texas, giving Democrats a shot at winning a gerrymandered majority-Hispanic district.

Lead Left PAC, which has been linked to Republicans despite taking great lengths to hide its origins, spent nearly $1 million to boost Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist who expressed antisemitic views, over Garcia. The group was essentially solely responsible for Galindo’s campaign — she managed to raise just $5,000 on her own.

A victory for Garcia, who describes himself as an “old-school, common-sense, law-and-order Democrat,” gives his party a chance to win the seat, which voted for President Donald Trump by 10 percentage points in 2024. It also means Republicans seeking to meddle in Democratic primaries are headed for a second consecutive defeat after a similar effort failed last week in Pennsylvania. (An earlier intervention in Nebraska was successful.)

The 35th District was one of several majority-Hispanic seats drawn by Texas Republicans during their mid-decade gerrymander last summer. But Trump’s precipitous decline in approval among Hispanic voters — mostly due to his failure to deal with a cost-of-living crisis — has Democrats confident they could put the seat in play.

The race for the GOP nomination in the district, which covers portions of San Antonio and rural areas to the city’s south and east, was also coming down to a runoff. Air Force veteran and kickboxing gym owner Carlos De La Cruz, who has the backing of President Donald Trump and is the brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz, was set to face off against state Rep. John Lujan, who has the backing of GOP Gov. Greg Abbott.

National Democrats had made it clear they would not support Galindo, who wrote on Instagram earlier this month that she hoped to turn a local ICE facility into a “prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” To the extent she ran a campaign, she ran well to the left of Garcia, who had the backing of the Democratic Majority for Israel and touted his law enforcement credentials.

Lead Left’s spending was countered by BDA PAC, a super PAC allied with the Blue Dog Coalition, which backs moderate and conservative Democrats. The group spent $1.25 million backing Garcia in the runoff and in the first round of the primary.

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