CUERO, Texas — When Tejano music star Bobby Pulido entered a Mexican restaurant in Texas Trump country a few days ago decked out in jeans and a denim shirt, black cowboy boots and his iconic ivory cowboy hat emblazoned with his initials, all eyes turned to him. Customers left their half-eaten lunches and workers paused to take selfies and reminisce about live performances of his 1995 hit “Desvelado.”
“Welcome! I need a photo,” a woman said in Spanish as she squeezed her way through a fawning crowd surrounding him.
After mingling with star-struck fans, Pulido entered a back room — less with the swagger of an international megastar and more with the humility of a novice politician.
He was there for a luncheon, part of a listening tour he launched in July to explore running for Congress. Pulido was days away from announcing his candidacy as the Democrats’ newest hope of turning Texas, or at least a sliver of it, blue.
Outside the restaurant, yard signs read: “Run Bobby, Run!”
He listened. Pulido’s set to officially announce Wednesday that he’s running in Texas’ 15th Congressional District, aiming to challenge Rep. Monica De La Cruz, the first Republican and first Latina elected to represent this district in the House of Representatives. She first won in 2022, after the district was gerrymandered in 2021, and was re-elected in 2024, each time by large margins in what used to be a reliably Democratic seat.
National Democrats have put De La Cruz at the top of their 2026 midterm elections target list, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee labeling her the “most vulnerable” Republican in Texas.
MSNBC documented the days leading up to Pulido’s announcement, and during an exclusive interview, he revealed his decision to leave music behind in hopes of going to Washington.
It’s a good thing Pulido is used to the spotlight. His entry into the race thrusts the Latin Grammy winner directly into the epicenter of a national tit-for-tat redistricting war that will decide whether President Donald Trump’s party will retain control of Congress and fulfill his post-midterm agenda.
Pulido’s candidacy also trains attention on Latino voters, who voted for Trump in 2024 in record numbers, including here in South Texas, in spite of his promises of mass deportations.
First, he must win the Democratic primary in March. If he goes on to defeat De La Cruz in the general election, it would signal that the Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymandering bid to redraw the Texas congressional map to bolster the party’s majority in the House failed.
Texas Republicans were following Trump’s directive when they recently voted to approve a gerrymandered map aimed at flipping as many as five of the Lone Star State’s congressional seats in the 2026 midterm elections. (One of those seats is held by Democratic Rep. Al Green, of Houston, who says, “It is more than redistricting. It’s really theft.”)
“You can gerrymander the district,” says Pulido, 52, who is currently on a “farewell” tour in the United States and Mexico. “You can’t gerrymander Tejano culture in South Texas.”
With his decision to run, Pulido, who won his Latin Grammy for best Tejano album of the year in 2022, is positioning himself as the Democratic Party’s secret weapon to beat Republicans at their own game. The newly redrawn map, ironically, makes the state’s 15th Congressional District one of the more competitive Texas races of 2026.
“It’s not a vanity project,” said Pulido, who believes running for office is an opportunity to use his voice — not to sing — but to speak on behalf of the people of the 15th District, a narrow strip that runs from the Rio Grande Valley north toward San Antonio, with a few new zigs and zags, courtesy of GOP gerrymandering.
Pulido would be a “credible threat” to De La Cruz who may succeed in putting a blue dot on Texas’ red map because his name “transcends partisan politics,” says Mark Jones, Baker Institute fellow in political science at Rice University in Houston. In fact, if Pulido prevails, the entire tip of South Texas could turn blue again if Democrats retain control of the two districts adjacent to the 15th.
“When you combine those high levels of name recognition and his positive association with Tejano music, he has a very realistic prospect of defeating Monica De La Cruz in 2026, especially if we see Donald Trump’s approval ratings continue to fall here in Texas,” Jones said.
When Texas Republicans gerrymandered the state, they assumed Latinos would vote for Republican candidates in midterm elections with the same enthusiasm they showed for Trump in 2024, but that’s not what Jones foresees next year.
“We’re more likely to see a reversion to normal Texas Latino voting patterns where Democrats do better,” Jones said.
If Pulido wins, the Trump-led mid-decade gerrymandering strategy in Texas will have blown up in Republicans’ faces, Jones argues. Which means Republicans will likely be laser-focused on attacking Pulido on all fronts, he said.
Thanks to the GOP’s gerrymandered maps, the 15th District now includes MAGA enclaves where some residents say they feel pressured to vote Republican. But Pulido says he’s up for the challenge; he’s been an underdog before. He’s a Democrat, after all, “because I fight for the little guy.”
He was a broke college student studying political science when a record label offered him an opportunity he couldn’t refuse. That’s when his father told him, “You’re not ready, son… you’ve never sang professionally.”
The new candidate recalls telling his father, Roberto Pulido, a Tejano music legend, “If it’s my destiny and God decides that I’m going to be a singer and the fans like my music, then I’ll be a singer.”
Like his dad, Pulido went on to become one of the biggest names in Tejano music and built a worldwide following. His biggest hit, “Desvelado,” has been played more than 436 million times on Spotify.
Now that he’s entering politics, he says he’ll do the same — leave it up to God and the voters.
Pulido could have chosen to invite MSNBC to follow him through the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where he is beloved in his hometown of Edinburg and where a statue of his father is displayed. Instead, he took us through Gonzales, DeWitt and Lavaca counties, where Trump won 77%, 83% and 88% of the vote in the 2024 election, respectively.
“It’s very tough right now to be a Democrat,” Pulido said. “So in order to win, we’re going to have to bring over a lot of people that voted the other way.”
Signs of his likely uphill battle are hard to miss, with flags proclaiming “God, Guns and Trump” wave in rural parts of the district. Still, fans swarmed Pulido everywhere he went even though he was talking about taxes, immigration and health care instead of singing about love and heartbreak.
A seventh-generation Texan and father of four sons, Pulido appeared to surprise the crowd when he admitted he does not have health insurance and instead travels to Mexico for medical care. He himself appeared surprised when a woman shared that Trump’s mass deportation efforts are taking a toll on the area’s economy, as business owners and ranchers face worker shortages.
Pulido expressed frustration with Trump and other billionaires who evade taxes. But he also said he was disappointed with then-President Joe Biden’s border policies, as well as his disastrous campaign-ending final presidential debate.
He and his supporters acknowledge he faces an uphill battle. “We live in a Republican area, we better vote Republican so our neighbors don’t look different at us,” said Russell von Roeder, a Republican who is a personal friend of Pulido.
The musician-turned-politician joined von Roeder and his wife, Roxanne, at a shooting competition on their private land. They know Pulido as a fellow long-range rifle shooter whose music logo features a set of crosshairs. Their friend’s political logo is an unwelcome sight in these parts.
It’s not friendly territory for Democrats, who are often stereotyped here, but von Roeder said he thinks Pulido could change that if voters give him a chance.
Over the course of two days, as MSNBC followed Pulido while he shook hands, snapped selfies, listened to potential voters and shared his desire to run, we sensed hearts and minds in Trump country begin to shift. At least in the direction of one Democratic candidate for the U.S. House.
The von Roeders, who voted for Trump in 2024, said they would vote for Pulido, and about a dozen other Republican voters who attended a Tejano music fiesta where Pulido performed two songs as a special guest, also expressed support for him.
“I’ll tell you right now, Bobby Pulido has a damn good chance of winning this election,” said Thomas Enriquez, a Republican and Pulido fan who said he would vote for him.
Pulido says he’ll miss his fans, and performing. But he’s ready for his cowboy hat and boots to exit the concert stage and enter the halls of Congress.
“If the people want me here and they believe I best represent them, I’m perfectly comfortable never singing again,” Pulido said.