None of the Republican lawmakers on the ballot here faced the kind of test that Democratic State Rep. Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass encountered en route to victory in a swath of Texas that's Donald Trump country now. Few if any of the GOP candidates who captured House seats in Texas this year could possibly imagine how hard it was Morales to win in House District 74 on the border that separates the nation's second largest state from Mexico.
A spot on the ticket with Trump was all that Republicans in competitive races for the Texas Legislature and Congress needed to prevail in the general election of 2024. Robert Garza - the GOP nominee in HD 74 - was the lone exception in a race that wasn't settled until hours after midnight on election day.
Garza proved to be no match for Morales despite massive advantages that the challenger had on paper in a district on a border that was ablaze in red almost everywhere between El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley. The incumbent Democrat beat Garza by more than 3 points with almost 52 percent of the vote.
Morales is one of two Texas candidates sharing most valuable player honors in the Capitol Inside Best of the Texas General Election series for 2024. But U.S. Senator Ted Cruz had a cakewalk in a fight with Colin Allred compared to the challenge that the Democratic state legislator had to overcome as the co-MVP for the election here this fall.
The GOP flipped two state House districts in South Texas races on or near the border and wrestled a seat across the rotunda in Austin from Democrats as gravy when Adam Hinojosa of Corpus Christi defeated State Senator Morgan LaMantia of Brownsville by 1 percentage point. Hinojosa is the choice here for best campaign by a challenger in Texas in 2024. Fellow Corpus Christi resident Denise Villalobos gets the nod for top performance by a candidate in an open race as a product of a victory in a Texas House district that Democrats controlled for 18 of the past 20 years.
But Morales was clearly the most impressive candidate in Texas this year as the firewall to a South Texas sweep by Trump and the Republicans in races that both parties appeared to have shots to win. In a state that Trump turned a dark shade of red, Morales had to be better than the rest to have any hope for survival. And he was.
Governor Greg Abbott tried and failed to take Morales out when he shelled out $200,000 or more to Garza for campaign advertising and other services in September and October. The Associated Republicans of Texas poured more than $300,000 into the Garza campaign during the same span of time. Garza raised nearly $500,000 in the month before the vote when Morales only rounded up less than $122,000. The challenger raised $937,000 for the HD 74 bid - almost three times more than the lawmaker he was targeting.
Garza carried eight of the 10 counties that are located exclusively in HD 74. But Morales claimed 57 percent of the vote in a slice of El Paso County that he represents while scoring 71 percent in the sparsely-populated Presidio County. And Morales capped it off with almost 61 percent of the vote in his home base of Maverick County, which Trump carried with 59 percent just four years after 54 percent there backed Joe Biden. Garza wasn't as strong as Trump in Val Verde County where he's a resident, however. Garza received 58 percent of the Val Verde vote while Trump won the county as well with 63 percent.
In the final analysis, Morales demonstrated that HD 74 wasn't for sale to the highest bidder.
Coming this week: Best challenger, Best open race and more ...
