Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-TX) is facing a challenge from House candidate Ada Cuellar as the Democratic Party seeks to flip her South Texas district blue.

Cuellar, a Harlingen-based emergency physician, on Thursday became the first Democrat to launch a campaign seeking to oust De La Cruz from her seat representing the state’s 15th Congressional District, which lies in Hidalgo, one of the most populous counties in the Rio Grande Valley. 

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De La Cruz, first elected in 2022, represents a majority-Hispanic district that has seen critical shifts to the Right in recent years. 

While the congresswoman won reelection by 14 points in 2024, Democrats believe the seat is competitive ahead of the 2026 midterm election, due to her margin of victory being smaller than that of other Texas House Republicans. Democrats also share hopes that ongoing redistricting efforts could redraw boundary lines in their favor, negatively impacting De La Cruz’s voting pool. After Democrats suffered disastrous results in South Texas during the 2024 election, De La Cruz’s district was the only Texas seat included on the initial list of 2026 targets unveiled in April by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats. 

Still, Cuellar faces an uphill battle, due to Hidalgo’s stark pivot toward the Republican Party in recent years. While it has been a Democratic stronghold for generations, President Donald Trump flipped the county red during the 2024 election after making major inroads in the mostly Hispanic area during the 2020 election. 

Despite the Hispanic community’s embrace of Trump, Cuellar has been slow to offer up bipartisan overtures, a move that could alienate centrist voters. 

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Álvaro Corral, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, told Spectrum Local News in April that he was somewhat surprised to hear Democrats are targeting De La Cruz’s seat, given the margin of victory in her reelection.

“That probably just means that Democrats are looking to be pretty bullish for 2026 and trying their best to sort of target at least some sort of seat that they can nab back from Republicans, and they’ve identified Monica de la Cruz’s seat,” the professor said.