When rumors of U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales’ affair first started circulating last fall, Democrats sought out a candidate they hoped could help put a long-shot district in play.
This week their dream scenario came true, when a wounded Gonzales finished second to 30-year-old YouTube creator Brandon Herrera in the GOP primary, and later dropped his reelection bid at the urging of Republican leaders in D.C.
The massive 23rd Congressional District hasn’t been competitive for Democrats since it was redrawn after the 2020 census.
Under its new boundaries, it would have supported President Donald Trump by roughly 14.8% in 2024, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.
Yet Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder was once again pointing to it as a “real opportunity” after the party flipped a deep-red Texas Senate seat that swung 31 points in a Jan. 30 special election — and even some Republicans believe Gonzales’ moderate politics have been key to keeping the district red.
“All of a sudden, for Democrats, that seat has moved from low third-tier to top second-tier [race]. They’re on the hunt for marginal seats that they can take back,” said San Antonio political strategist Kelton Morgan.
After spending big on losing races in both 2018 and 2020, Democrats struggled to field strong candidates in more recent years.
They’ll now be turning to Katy Padilla Stout, a 40-year-old attorney who grew up in San Antonio, taught primary school at Northside ISD, and current works at a family legal practice representing children in the foster care system.
Perhaps more important for an uphill race, Padilla Stout also has a background in national fundraising, having worked for one of San Antonio’s most prolific Democratic fundraisers, Henry Muñoz, while she was in law school. Muñoz, at the time, was the finance chair for the Democratic National Committee.
Padilla Stout said that in recent weeks she’s had a long list of outside groups, including Emily’s List, which helps Democratic women, and Bold PAC, which helps Hispanic candidates, offering to help if she got the party’s nomination.
On Tuesday the first-time candidate crossed that threshold, beating out three other Democrats with 52% of the vote.
“I know we have a lot of big donors that are ready to go as soon as the primary is over,” she told KSAT at her election night watch party at Elsewhere Too.
A focus on children
Padilla Stout is a Lee High School alumna who grew up splitting time between her home in San Antonio, where she lived with her mom, and her dad’s family home in South Texas, where they have a ranch in Carrizo Springs.
She studied education at the University of Texas, and returned home to teach kindergarten at Colonies North Elementary School. Days before starting the job in 2007, however, the school received an influx of refugee students from all over the world, and she was reassigned to teach English as a second language.
The experience working with refugee aid groups like Catholic Charities inspired her to go back for a law degree at South Texas College of Law in Houston, and would shape her path for years to come.
“She’s someone that has dedicated her entire life to being there for children,” said Brielle Insler, a local political consultant who serves with Padilla Stout on Bexar County’s Child Welfare Board.
Padilla Stout said she finished law school in 2013 and passed the bar, but returned to the classroom, teaching special education and gifted and talented students. It wasn’t until she and her husband adopted two children from the foster care system that she decided to change careers.
The couple has four children, one of whom was born just after the adoption.
“When we adopted on June 2, 2016, and then I gave birth on June 10, 2016, I decided to switch my focus from education to representing children in foster care, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” Padilla Stout said at a Tejano Democrats in January.
“I do home visits all over the city. … I’m also taking appointments in eight other counties that are south of San Antonio. … It has allowed me to really be in our community, see our community.”
On Tuesday the first-time candidate took the most raw votes of any candidate in either party’s primary.
That’s as Democrats overall outvoted Republicans in TX23’s primary election, casting about 59,000 ballots to the GOP’s 55,000.
“I think we need to be realistic about what might actually happen in November, but we are obviously seeing a very strong response to national and statewide politics, and how it’s trickling down all the way to the local levels,” said Insler, the local Democratic political consultant.
“We’re looking at counties across the state that are very, very, very historically red, and they had more people turn out in the Democratic primary, so it’s really just seeing, is that going to hold in November?”
A conservative district
Padilla Stout is currently poised to face Herrera in November — a race that will test whether the South Texas district will support a candidate from the conservative wing.
Herrera grew up in North Carolina, where he started a small gun manufacturing company to build and sell unique firearms he’d been displaying on his YouTube channel. Gun-focused content creators have built quite the community in San Antonio and its suburbs, so he moved his business here in 2021, and then shocked political watchers by pushing Gonzales to a runoff in 2024.
As recently as two months ago, GOP leaders thought making him their nominee for a massive congressional district was a gamble, and Trump sought to help Gonzales shut down Herrera’s primary rematch.
“The way that [Republicans] drew TX23 a couple years ago put it — for the most part — out of reach. And then Gonzales was the right person for that district as a Republican, Brandon Herrera is not,” said Morgan, the Republican strategist.
Speaking to a gathering of the Alamo Pachyderm Club in January, however, Herrera dismissed the idea that the district was in any danger of falling to a Democrat.
“A lot of people have voiced concerns over, ‘Well, this was a purple district,'” he said. “It used to be. [But] last cycle, even though Tony was a wounded candidate … he carried the vote in the general by 20%, because of redistricting. We can finally have the conservative Republican that we need, that we deserve.”
