A Houston mother is calling on Gov. Greg Abbott's campaign to take down a political ad that uses a photo of her slain 9-year-old daughter, saying she never agreed to let the image be used to promote his reelection. Wendy Alvarez, the mother of Arlene Alvarez, says she had no knowledge the commercial was being made and wants it removed.
The ad, titled “Protect Texans, Vote Greg Abbott,” was uploaded to Abbott's YouTube channel on Oct. 19 and promoted on his campaign website two days later, according to Chron. It features Arlene's aunt, April Aguirre, holding up the girl's photo while discussing her death. On the campaign's own site, Texans for Greg Abbott describes Aguirre as a victims' advocate whose nine-year-old niece was murdered in Houston.
In the spot, Aguirre says she trusts the governor because “he's fought to keep violent criminals locked up,” and she urges viewers to vote for him. She also accuses Democratic candidate Gina Hinojosa of supporting “dangerous bail policies that allow criminal illegal immigrants and murderers back on our streets,” per the ad language posted on gregabbott.com. The seed report notes that Aguirre further accused Hinojosa of siding with the movement to defund police, while Abbott's campaign framed Arlene's death as a consequence of liberal policies.
A Tragedy From Valentine's Day 2022
Arlene Alvarez was fatally shot while riding in the back seat of her family's pickup truck in Houston in 2022. Tony Earls Jr. opened fire on the vehicle after mistakenly believing a man who had robbed him at gunpoint had gotten inside, according to Chron's reporting. Arlene died from a gunshot wound to the head. A Harris County jury found Earls guilty of manslaughter in September 2025 and handed down the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, as Houston Public Media reported at the time.
After the verdict, Wendy Alvarez said she planned to work on “Arlene's Law,” proposed legislation aimed at increasing penalties for people who handle firearms recklessly, according to CW39. She had hoped to pursue stronger laws to prevent other families from experiencing a similar loss and had even sought Abbott's support for the measure, having previously met the governor and taken a photo with him. Alvarez has said that effort was never meant as an endorsement of his broader political views, and the backlash over the campaign ad has since prompted her to step back from pushing the legislation.
Friendship, Not Permission, Family Says
Alvarez described Aguirre as her best friend since they were teenagers and said Aguirre stood by her family throughout their fight for justice. She said she believes Aguirre participated in the commercial with good intentions and was not paid for it, but she maintains she never agreed to let her daughter's photo be used to promote Abbott's reelection and does not want Arlene's memory exploited for political purposes.
An Abbott campaign spokesperson said Aguirre brought the photograph herself and gave permission for its use, and that she participated voluntarily without compensation, according to the same Chron report. The spokesperson said the campaign was unaware of any need for Alvarez's separate permission and said it had not received any requests to remove the ad, while declining to directly address Alvarez's objections to the political use of her daughter's photo. Alvarez, for her part, said the renewed scrutiny and political arguments surrounding her daughter's death have left her emotionally exhausted, adding that the criticism has taken a toll on her family nearly five years after Arlene was killed.
Separately from the ad controversy, Abbott appointed Aguirre to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct in January 2025 and reappointed her in June 2026, the seed reporting notes. That commission oversees allegations of judicial misconduct and can recommend disciplinary action against judges.
Part Of A Broader 2026 Pattern
The dispute over Arlene's image fits into a wider trend this election cycle. Axios reports that the 2026 midterms have taken a deeply personal turn as campaigns use other people's family tragedies as political ammunition, sometimes over the objections of the families themselves. In Georgia, Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson used images of murdered 8-year-old Secoriea Turner and her mother's anguished 911 call to attack Democratic rival Keisha Lance Bottoms, prompting Turner's family to demand the ads be taken down and accuse the campaign of exploiting their grief without permission.
Axios also reports that a Republican attack ad against former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown used images of a couple and their 1-year-old son killed in a highway crash, and that a Republican super PAC used a grieving North Carolina father in an ad tying his murdered 23-year-old son to Roy Cooper's prison policies — a link fact-checkers found no evidence to support. CNN reports the Senate Leadership Fund alone has spent at least $17 million on ads naming crime victims or perpetrators this cycle, including roughly $3.7 million recounting the rape and murder of Nicole VanNoty and about $2 million on Michigan ads revisiting the 1999 rape and murder of Jessica Ledford. In at least three cases, according to CNN, relatives said the group never told them their loved ones' deaths would be used in political advertising.
