National Democratic super PAC launches last-minute six-figure ad buy in bid to keep Vela’s seat

House Democrats’ main super PAC is launching a six-figure, Spanish-language television advertisement ahead of a special election in Texas’s 34th Congressional District next week. 

The ad from House Majority PAC targets Republican candidate Mayra Flores, who is running to fill a seat vacated by Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned in March.

A press release says the ad, titled “Lawless,” describes Flores’s “support and promotion of the lawless conspirators and conspiracy theories” of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. 

“Throughout her campaign, Mayra Flores has shown that she will always support violent conspirators and conspiracy theories over the best interests of Texas’ 34th Congressional District,” House Majority PAC Executive Director Abby Curran Horrell said in the release. 

A total of four candidates, two Democrats and two Republicans, are running in the special election next Tuesday. If no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff in August. 

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), who currently represents a neighboring district, is the Democratic nominee for a redrawn 34th District for the upcoming general election in November. He did not run in the special election because it would require him to vacate his current seat. If a Democrat wins in the special election, they will serve in the House for only a few months before the term ends. 

Flores is the Republican nominee for the seat in the general election and therefore could remain in the seat if she wins both the special and general elections. A Republican has not represented the region of South Texas in decades. National Republicans have contributed almost half a million dollars in television ads to support Flores in the race, Politico reported. 

Vela stepped down from his seat, which he had held since 2013, at the end of March to join the Washington, D.C.-based law and lobbying firm Akin Gump.