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McALLEN — Any other election cycle, the Hidalgo County GOP headquarters might be a hostile environment for state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.
But the Brownsville Democrat was there to speak in glowing terms about the man standing next to him at the podium Tuesday night — Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is running for reelection against Democrat Mike Collier.
“I’m here to talk to you from the very bottom of my heart,” Lucio said. “That’s the only thing I normally do. He knows that. I really care for this man, and I love him as the great Christian that he is.”
Lucio, a conservative Democrat who is retiring from the Texas Senate after 36 years in the Legislature, made the rare cross-party endorsement for a Republican in Texas, where the rift between the two parties has grown into a chasm.
“He stood up when sometimes he was the only Democrat vote for certain key bills, and he got a lot of heat for that,” Patrick said Tuesday. “But he always represented his district.”
In 2021, those bills included a sweeping election law that critics believe was an end-run to disenfranchise minority voters, and a law requiring transgender student athletes to compete under their biological sex.
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The lieutenant governor is touting Lucio’s endorsement while campaigning in the Rio Grande Valley this week, part of a 131-city bus tour that has prioritized stops in small communities across the state. The idea, he said, is to buttress the firewall of rural Republican voters against growing concentrations of Democratic voters in urban centers and the suburbs.
Along the way, Patrick’s campaign has dodged journalists from regional and statewide media outlets and refused to release a schedule of stops, preferring to give notice to local media.
The effort has allowed Patrick to avoid questions about hot-button issues unfavorable to Republicans, such as abortion rights and gun restrictions. At the McAllen event, Patrick declined to answer questions from The Dallas Morning News.
The stop was one of several GOP events Lucio has attended as his tenure comes to a close. He is also holding a fundraiser for Patrick on Friday at a country club near South Padre Island.
Collier, a Kingwood accountant and businessman, sought Lucio’s endorsement, but the senator said he declined because of his close friendship with Patrick and his belief that the lieutenant governor will reach across the aisle to work with Democrats.
Collier’s campaign manager, Ali Zaidi, confirmed that he spoke with Lucio as part of the campaign’s effort to reach out to many state lawmakers. That has garnered Collier several notable endorsements from Republicans, including Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff and state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo.
Patrick’s campaign manager has called the slate of retiring Republican lawmakers in Collier’s corner a “dinosaur parade” even as the campaign trumpets the endorsement of a Democrat not seeking reelection.
“Unlike Dan Patrick, we will not denigrate people who are public servants,” Zaidi said Wednesday. “That is the exact type of behavior that is being repudiated across the state by members of Lt Gov. Patrick’s own party.”
While Lucio has represented swaths of the Rio Grande Valley for decades, Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said his endorsement is not “particularly decisive” for the South Texas region.
“There’s probably some regional value and some symbolic value, but I don’t think it is excessive,” Henson said. “It is one more exhibit that Republicans at the statewide level are trying to drive — the story line of apparent but not major shifts in Hispanic voters in the Republican Party.”
The GOP is also eyeing three Congressional seats in the Valley.
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Flanked by life-sized cardboard cutouts of former Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, he focused his stump speech less on his Democratic opponent, Collier, and more on rejecting President Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden has done more to destroy America in the last 18 months than any other president has done before,” Patrick said. “You know the only president who is really happy about Joe Biden? It’s Jimmy Carter, because Jimmy Carter is off the worst presidents list.”
Several in the crowd of about 60 nodded and clapped. Several were wearing camouflage shirts with the slogan “Don’t Beto my Texas.”
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Patrick has dominated spending in the race. He recently launched a statewide ad attacking Collier.
Patrick’s campaign raised about $2.27 million from 1,200 donors, according to campaign finance reports filed Tuesday. He has spent $12.4 million, mainly on advertising, since the last reports were filed midyear. The campaign has $16.8 million left in the bank.
Meanwhile, Collier’s campaign has spent $1 million and had $922,000 cash on hand after raising $1.4 million from 10,000 donors, according to campaign finance reports.