Breitbart News reports that political analysts at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and Cook Political Report changed the rating for Texas’s Thirty-Fourth Congressional District in favor of Republican Rep. Mayra Flores, snubbing Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who is also running in the district.
Analysts changed the House rating from “Leans Democratic” to “Toss Up” in the Texas district, showing that Flores has been making a mark on her district as she represents it in Congress. But the rating change hurts Gonzalez.
The Center for Politics explained:
As the campaign has shaped up, Gonzalez has had some less-than favorable headlines. In June, he suggested that, as someone born on the Texas side of the border, he is a better representative of the area — Flores criticized those remarks as nativist. Republicans are also hitting Gonzalez, who is an attorney by trade, on some of his old cases…
We are moving TX-34 from Leans Democratic to Toss-up. While the partisanship of the district could be too much for Flores to overcome — even as the area has reddened, it still retains a clear Democratic lean — the trajectory of the race has not been good for Democrats. After redistricting concluded in the Lone Star State last year, we started this seat off as Safe Democratic.
“Vicente Gonzalez is Democrats’ worst nightmare this election cycle. He’s going to cost them not one, but two, House seats,” said a National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman.