Despite being redrawn in 2025 by Texas Republicans with the goal of giving their party an advantage in Washington, Houston’s 9th Congressional District went to a Democrat during the midterm elections.
Democrat Leticia Gutierrez defeated Republican Alex Mealer in Tuesday’s election, winning a district that was among five targeted by Texas Republicans in their effort to gain more seats in Congress.
In a statement following her victory, Gutierrez said, “They redrew the lines, but they couldn’t redraw our roots. I’m a daughter of the East End, a Latina mom, and a community advocate who has spent years fighting for the families and neighborhoods that raised me. I know these streets. I know our struggles. And more importantly, I know the strength of our people.”
KPRC 2 spoke with Gutierrez two days after the vote.
The newly-drawn district includes Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood, where an ICE agent was accused of fatally shooting Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in July.
Gutierrez says this event played a significant role in the vote this election, not just among Democrats, but Republicans as well.
“Absolutely,” she said. ”There are a lot of Hispanic Republicans in this community and they are scared that their child, who happens to be brown, is going to be targeted. That’s not a good feeling."
She says the tactics of ICE, alongside the fatal shooting, pushed a lot of people toward voting the way they did this election. She says it has created fear in the community.
“I am all for making sure that, yes, criminals are being picked up, absolutely, and that our borders are secure, absolutely, but this was not the way, and this is not the way to operate in a community that is a hard-working community, operating with warrantless searches, impunity, no real investigation, and just as if people are allowed to come out here and terrorize us for no reason other than because we are Hispanic,” she said.
She says it has also had an economic impact on small businesses in the East End.
“Small businesses are suffering, when communities are too scared to want to go outside and even just going to the grocery store or wanting to go with their family to eat on a Sunday night or going to the flea market that they usually attend on the weekend because they are fearful, that impacts everything, and that impacts the economy as well on top of all the other affordability issues that we are suffering with out here that also need to be reigned in,” she said.
Now that she has won the election, Gutierrez laid out what she says will be her priority when she gets to Congress.
“Immigration reform, first and foremost, reigning in some of the affordability issues, people are grappling right now with just going to get groceries and being able to afford basic necessities. A lot of our electricity, trying to power our homes is also an issue, those continue to go through the roof. Insurance prices, homeowners insurance, there’s a lot of infrastructure issues as well, all of that is very intersectional so its just trying to hone in exactly where we are best needed,” she said.
