It’s been a long time since South Texas politics has produced such an unusual and high-stakes congressional race as this year’s battle between a two-term Republican incumbent and her Democratic opponent, a charismatic political neophyte who’s accustomed to being in the public eye. In fact, you might have to go back nearly 80 years to find the campaign equivalent.

That would be the 1948 Democratic primary race for a U.S. Senate seat between a popular governor and a young congressman from the Texas Hill Country. The Democratic primary was the race in those days; Republicans were as rare as a South Texas snowstorm. With Gov. Coke Stevenson seeking to go to Washington, and a hyper-ambitious congressman named Lyndon B. Johnson swooping down from the Texas sky in a helicopter — the “Johnson City Windmill,” the Associated Press dubbed it — the hot race was in the headlines day after day during that long-ago summer.

A bitterly disputed result in the primary runoff kept it in the news for days after the election. Relying on sleight-of-hand shenanigans from a magician’s top hat of campaign dirty tricks, both campaigns searched for uncounted votes around the state. As Robert Caro reported in the second volume of his monumental LBJ biography, “Means of Ascent,” an election official in Jim Wells County — a South Texas ranching area — declared the numeral 7 in the 765 vote tallies of the county’s Box 13 should have been read as a 9 for a total of 965 votes. That tally helped put Johnson over the top — by 87 votes out of nearly a million cast.

No one’s charging dirty tricks this time — unless you consider mid-decade gerrymandering a dirty trick — but the 15th Congressional District contest between Rep. Monica De La Cruz and Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido will serve as a test case to determine whether the shocking 2024 swing of South Texas voters toward President Donald Trump was a fling on the part of fickle Democrats — the vast majority Hispanic — or a paradigm-shifting relationship.

Although the young LBJ taught for a year in a predominantly Hispanic school in South Texas, it’s probably safe to say that he never made appearances at quinceañeras a staple of his campaign. (A quinceañera is a traditional Latin American celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday.) Pulido, a 53-year-old Tejano singer whose first album went platinum three decades ago, has never run for public office, but when he shows up at a quinceañera on a Saturday night, as he’s wont to do these days, it’s the equivalent of Bad Bunny dropping by.

“The knock against De La Cruz,” said Carlos Sanchez, a retired South Texas journalist and former Hidalgo County official, “is that she’s taking her orders from Washington, and they don’t have an appreciation for the culture.”

Pulido’s quinceañera campaign was a serendipitous response to a tone-deaf comment from his opponent. After Pulido secured the Democratic nomination in March, De La Cruz posted a video saying that the election “isn’t about who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera. It’s about who you trust with your family’s future.”

In an interview with the New Yorker, Pulido’s campaign manager, Abel Prado, recounted his immediate response: “Which gringo consultant wrote that?”

Prado had no trouble persuading the candidate to announce that he was happy to stop by quinceañeras in the district. He’s getting thousands of invitations, a campaign spokesperson told me, and is performing at as many as seven in one night. Fifteen-year-olds can’t vote, of course, but their parents and family friends can.

Although the national spotlight is on the Latin Grammy Award winner, De La Cruz has one big advantage, aside from incumbency. The district she represents is part of what redistricting expert Richard Murray describes as “a masterfully gerrymandered” map drawn in 2021. It runs northward from the populous Rio Grande Valley, traditionally Democratic, through Republican-rich rural areas into the equally Republican outskirts of San Antonio.

De La Cruz may have owed her 2022 victory to that customized district, but in a rematch two years later with Democrat Michelle Vallejo, she cruised to a 14-point win— this time relying on a huge swing toward Republicans in Hidalgo County.

When Trump pressured Texas Republicans to redistrict yet again last year, in a scheme to pick up five new seats, the partisan makeup of De La Cruz’s district didn’t change much, but it includes residents who weren’t within the boundaries before. They may not be familiar with her, but they do know Pulido.

De La Cruz has another challenge. The Brownsville native, 51, ran in 2024 as a supporter of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigration. Among Hispanics in South Texas, many of whom are proud of becoming citizens “the right way,” the tough approach resonated.

But then came Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Images of agents brutalizing residents in Minneapolis and elsewhere, combined with accounts of Valley residents being rounded up, have had a disturbing effect on Hispanics throughout South Texas. Many are reluctant to send their kids to school, to drive to work, to venture out to shop or attend church.

Their apprehension has impacted local economies, particularly in agriculture, construction and health care, where they are mainstays. Construction projects are stalled; crops are going untended. “Restaurants are closing, either temporarily or permanently because of raids,” Sanchez told me.

De La Cruz has sought to moderate her position on immigration. She has proposed a new visa category that would allow employers in construction to hire foreign workers. She also introduced legislation that would make it easier to hire seasonal agricultural workers.

Pulido, who majored in political science and considers himself a conservative Democrat, has said the immigration debate in Washington ignores reality in border communities. “I believe we can secure the border without destroying families and our local economy in the process,” the Rio Grande Valley native says on his website.

The issues — whether border security, water or the economy — may be less important than Pulido’s charisma. The son of a farmworker, he seems to be connecting with working-class voters in the 15th.

“We’re very aspirational,” he told the “Latino Vote” podcast. “The people down here do not consider themselves poor. They consider themselves broke. And there’s a big distinction. Because when they’re poor, the image is ‘Well, we want you to help us out.’ But when you’re broke you say, ‘Tomorrow, I’m going to make it.’”

De La Cruz has tried to muddy her opponent’s image by highlighting a New York Post story saying that one of Pulido’s band members was a registered sex offender convicted of indecent contact with an 8-year-old girl. In a statement, Prado said Pulido was not aware of the musician’s criminal history and fired him as soon as he found out.

The De La Cruz campaign also has pointed to misogynistic comments on social media and off-color jokes Pulido has made during his career. So far, the charges don’t seem to be sticking.

If Pulido is victorious — of course, the election is still six months away — he’ll likely ride a blue wave sweeping the nation, including South Texas. Countless quinceañeras may be key, but he won’t need a lucky number 7 miraculously transformed into a 9.