A charter bus full of Hispanic civic leaders rolled into downtown McAllen on Monday, parking outside a tortilla bakery to kick off a daylong push to get Rio Grande Valley residents to the polls before Tuesday's midterm elections. The “Vamos a Votar” tour then wound through neighborhoods and businesses across the region before landing at a Día de los Muertos celebration in San Juan, where an altar bearing a photo of labor icon Dolores Huerta stood as a backdrop for voter conversations.
The tour started at a tortilla bakery in downtown McAllen, according to BorderReport, with dozens of leaders from prominent Hispanic organizations traveling in from across the country to join. Participants rode the bus throughout the region, stopping at neighborhoods and businesses to talk with residents about voting, per the same report. Its second stop was La Union del Pueblo Entero, known as LUPE, in San Juan, where the community was simultaneously marking Día de los Muertos.
Hector Sanchez Barba, president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, said the tour aims to emphasize the border and Texas, push back against anti-immigrant attacks and Latino exclusion from democracy, and stop hate crimes. The coalition behind the effort — Mi Familia Vota, LULAC, UnidosUS Action Fund and Latino Victory — says it has invested $22.1 million to register, inform and mobilize Latino voters ahead of Tuesday's elections, according to Mi Familia Vota. The group also says it launched a bilingual AI-powered civic participation coach called Nubi on Oct. 1 and plans to directly contact more than 5 million Latino voters across more than 10 states and 17 congressional districts through 2028.
A Community Altar and a Personal Case for Voting
At LUPE, the altar held a photo of Dolores Huerta, the farmworker union co-founder and Hispanic civil rights icon who died Wednesday. Gloria Galindo, who is from McAllen, attended the Día de los Muertos and Hispanic vote event in costume and said every person should vote because participation can bring change, according to BorderReport's reporting.
Angie Razo, a Houston resident who traveled to McAllen for the tour, said she wants economic change and more investment for Hispanic Texans. Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UnidosUS, said Latino voters are important to the election and that the community is an economic driver in the area that has been hit hard — a point echoed by Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who lives in Washington, D.C., but is closely following Texas' 15th Congressional District. Proaño said he expects the region's political shift toward Republicans to reverse.
Early Voting Numbers Climb Across the Valley
The tour arrived as early-voting numbers across the Valley outpaced 2022. In Hidalgo County, 20,530 people cast ballots on the first day of early voting this cycle, compared with roughly 13,746 on day one four years ago, according to KVEO-TV / ValleyCentral. Cameron County saw about 9,424 early votes on its first day, up from 6,977 in 2022, the station reported.
Statewide, about 26% of Texas' record 19 million registered voters had voted in person or by mail, according to data cited by KERA. Early-voting turnout in the Rio Grande Valley ran roughly 64% higher than at the same point in the 2022 midterms, KERA reported, though all four Valley counties still trailed the statewide rate. Hidalgo County had recorded about 113,000 early votes, or 24% of registered voters, while Cameron County had logged about 54,000, or 22%, per KERA's tally.
A District Watched for Signs of a Shift
The Rio Grande Valley, which is over 90% Hispanic, voted for Donald Trump in 2024 but is seen as leaning Democratic again this cycle. Texas' 15th Congressional District, which stretches from east of San Antonio down into the Valley and is majority Latino, has become a bellwether for that shift. Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz is seeking a third term there against Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy-winning singer.
Hispanics make up about 80% of the district's population, and NPR reported that Trump won the district by roughly 18 percentage points in 2024, largely on the strength of Latino support. This year, NPR reported, some of those same voters were considering Democrats like Pulido.
Legal Fights Over Immigration Enforcement
LULAC has filed 13 immigration-related lawsuits across 10 states, along with lawsuits alleging voter suppression efforts and seeking to block U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from election polls, BorderReport reported. One such case, a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleges that the Department of Homeland Security adopted a policy authorizing armed ICE officers to go to places where voters cast ballots for routine immigration or customs enforcement, according to the plaintiffs' filing. The complaint asks the court to declare the policy unlawful, set it aside and enjoin it, though the filing itself does not establish that a court has ruled on those claims.
