San Antonio attorney Katy Padilla Stout, a Democrat, beat Republican YouTube gun influencer Brandon Herrera in the heated contest to represent Texas’ 23rd Congressional District.
The Associated Press called the race late Tuesday night, with Padilla Stout earning 52.13% of the vote to Herrera’s 43.97% — a margin of 22,237 votes. With her win, Padilla flipped a reliably red district that Trump won by 15 points in 2024.
Texas 23rd District, which includes part of San Antonio and stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border all the way to El Paso, was one of the state’s few open seats this cycle.
The district was previously represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who resigned amid a sex scandal shortly after going to a runoff with Herrera in the 2026 GOP primary. The congressman admitted to having an affair with a staffer who later took her own life by lighting herself on fire.
The race between Herrera and Padilla Stout became national news, due in large part to Herrera’s penchant for controversial online remarks, including referring to children as “cum trophies,” saying COVID-19 should have killed more fat people and mocking veteran suicide.
Herrera, known as the “AK-Guy” to his more than 4 million YouTube followers, has also drawn criticism for filming himself firing at child-shaped targets near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where a school shooting in 2022 took 21 lives, including those of 19 students. Uvalde is within the 23rd Texas Congressional District.
Herrera previously ran against Tony Gonzales in 2024 and lost the runoff in that contest by a margin of approximately 400 votes. During both cycles, Herrera’s history of offensive remarks drew national attention to the race. Last month, John Oliver’s political satire show Last Week Tonight skewered the candidate for his edgelord posturing.
On the other hand, Padilla Stout was a virtual unknown tasking with quickly building recognition with voters and donors.
“Initially, she wasn’t seen as a first-tier candidate, and she was up against someone with name recognition because he’d run before,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said of the contrast.
Padilla Stout, a former child welfare advocate and schoolteacher, repeatedly drove home the contrast between herself and Herrera during the campaign, all the while fielding death threats from Herrera’s followers.
But at her Election Night watch party at Willie’s Grill & Ice House on San Antonio’s North Side, Padilla Stout shrugged off the online attacks.
“I think at the end of the day, they were a lot of noise,” Padilla Stout told the Current at the Tuesday night event. “It’s a lot of noise and very little substance. So we just had to keep our noses down and do the work.”
Despite the stark difference between the candidates, both seemed to share positions on issues that emerged as bipartisan concerns in the district they sought to represent.
Both Herrera and Padilla Stout campaigned against data centers and the construction of a border wall in Big Bend National Park, which falls within the 23rd. However, on Monday, Padilla Stout called out Herrera for saying in a recent speech that data centers moving into West Texas could be “good neighbors.”
Throughout the campaign, Padilla Stout maintained that Herrera wasn’t actually for protecting Big Bend given that he still supported the construction of roads and a federal “surveillance wall” within the park.
Beyond that, Amazon plans to build a data center campus and gas-burning power plant near Big Bend National Park, which could become the nation’s largest polluter.
“Texans understand that you can’t just look at what someone says — you have to look at what they do,” Padilla Stout said.
She added that Trump’s decision to tweet his endorsement of Herrera three times indicated that her rival would just “do what [the Republican president] wants.”
At Tuesday’s watch party, Padilla Stout said her focus when she takes office will be on affordability, health care and education.
“There are everyday Texans who are really struggling,” she said. “This economy isn’t working for them when it should be.”
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