Hispanic Mayor of McAllen ‘Fine’ with Governor Abbott’s Migrant-Busing

I’m down in McAllen, a border town of about 142,000 perched at the southernmost edge of Texas, for the week. This morning, I had the opportunity to sit down with Javier Villalobos, McAllen’s Republican mayor — whose election in the 85 percent Hispanic, traditionally Democratic town made national headlines last June — to chat about his perspective on the changing political headwinds in the Rio Grande Valley. (Mayoral races in McAllen are technically nonpartisan, but Villalobos is open about his Republican affiliation and served as the chairman of the Hidalgo County GOP before his run for office.)

The heavily Latino region of South Texas, once a reliably Democratic stronghold, has been the subject of significant interest for its swing toward the GOP in recent years. Villalobos’s tight, 206-vote electoral victory — 51 percent of the vote share — in McAllen’s June 2021 mayoral race was widely hailed as a sign of the shifting tide. Hidalgo County, where McAllen — the county’s biggest city — is located, is one of the deep-blue holdouts in the region: Joe Biden bested Donald Trump in Hidalgo by 17 points in the 2020 presidential election. But that, too, represents a significant shift rightward from 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried the county by a full 40.5 points.

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Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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I’m down in McAllen, a border town of about 142,000 perched at the southernmost edge of Texas, for the week. This morning, I had the opportunity to sit down with Javier Villalobos, McAllen’s Republican mayor — whose election in the 85 percent Hispanic, traditionally Democratic town made national headlines last June — to chat about his perspective on the changing political headwinds in the Rio Grande Valley. (Mayoral races in McAllen are technically nonpartisan, but Villalobos is open about his Republican affiliation and served as the chairman of the Hidalgo County GOP before his run for office.)

The heavily Latino region of South Texas, once a reliably Democratic stronghold, has been the subject of significant interest for its swing toward the GOP in recent years. Villalobos’s tight, 206-vote electoral victory — 51 percent of the vote share — in McAllen’s June 2021 mayoral race was widely hailed as a sign of the shifting tide. Hidalgo County, where McAllen — the county’s biggest city — is located, is one of the deep-blue holdouts in the region: Joe Biden bested Donald Trump in Hidalgo by 17 points in the 2020 presidential election. But that, too, represents a significant shift rightward from 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried the county by a full 40.5 points.