A new sign razzing Democrat Maureen Galindo stands outside a polling station in Bexar County. Credit: X / @kristianfortx

The Democratic runoff for Texas’ recently redrawn 35th Congressional District just got uglier. And, some might argue, a whole lot funnier.

Over the weekend, campaign signs popped in San Antonio stating in bold red letters that “Yolanda Saldívar Would Vote for Maureen Galindo.”

Spotted at polling locations around San Antonio, the signs are paid for by a group called Latino Vets for Garcia.

The signs surfaced as the runoff between Galindo, a grassroots Democrat with a history of controversial remarks, and her opponent, Johnny Garcia, who has the backing of the party’s establishment, has gathered national media attention and filled TV airwaves with attack ads. Although Galindo has largely run a shoestring campaign, the GOP-linked Lead Left PAC poured more than $600,000 in pro-Galindo ads last week.

Saldívar, of course, was convicted of murdering Tejano icon Selena at a Corpus Christi Days Inn in 1995 after the singer accused Saldívar of embezzling money from her fan club. Since the star’s death, Saldívar has become persona non grata across South Texas.

Meanwhile, a firestorm of controversy has surrounded Galindo’s campaign over video clips in which she spun conspiracy theories about zionist Jews controlling Hollywood and South Texas human smuggling rings. She also pledged to convert the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center into a prison for “American Zionists.”

The remarks drew condemnation from the DNC, Texas Democratic Party and Bexar County Democratic Party, who blasted them as antisemitic and not representative of the party.

Despite the widespread condemnation, Galindo doubled down on her rhetoric over the weekend, detailing her plans in a video posted to her social media channels to convert the Karnes County detention center, which lies in the 35th district, into a castration center for pedophiles, which she said will “probably be most of the Zionists.”

“As a pilot, we’ll have a department that catches pedophiles on TV — like that one show,” Galindo said in the online rant. “We bring that back, publicly funded, and then they’re the first to be castrated. I think that would shift things rapidly.”

Although Galindo’s rhetoric has garnered widespread condemnation, she late last week landed the support of former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

McKinney, a Georgia Democrat, received backlash in February after promoting a conspiracy theory that Jews were somehow to blame for the rise of transgenderism. The former lawmaker has been tweeting her complaints about “the Jews” since 2022, and her attacks against the transgender community have been going on since at least 2018, according to news outlet LGBTQ+ Nation.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...