{"id":46813,"date":"2025-09-17T13:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/tejano-icon-bobby-pulido-is-officially-running-for-congress\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T13:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:19:13","slug":"tejano-icon-bobby-pulido-is-officially-running-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/tejano-icon-bobby-pulido-is-officially-running-for-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Tejano Icon Bobby Pulido Is Officially Running for Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tLast year, musician Bobby Pulido<\/a> tearfully announced that he\u2019d be going on one final tour to celebrate more than 30 years as a Tejano icon. His reason for retiring? To trade concerts for a career in politics.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Wednesday morning, Pulido confirms to Rolling Stone<\/em> that he will be running as a Democrat in South Texas<\/a>\u2019 15th congressional district, aiming to unseat incumbent Republican Monica De La Cruz. But in a district that has shifted red in recent years, in part due to gerrymandering, Pulido says he\u2019s approaching his candidacy with a bipartisan mindset.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s be honest, this is the most conservative district in South Texas,\u201d Pulido tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cI think you need to have a candidate that is tailor-made for the district in order to flip it. I don\u2019t think a progressive will ever be able to flip this district \u2014 doesn\u2019t matter how popular you are, it\u2019s just not made that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe puts it simply in his campaign video: \u201cI\u2019m not team red. I\u2019m not team blue. South Texas, I\u2019m team you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 15th district spans more than 300 miles across South Texas, covering rural areas along the border where Pulido says many residents have felt disenfranchised and disconnected from the Democratic Party, but also upset with some aspects of the Trump administration\u2019s approach to immigration and other issues. He says he isn\u2019t afraid to go against the party line, centering his campaign on three issues: immigration, healthcare, and the economy.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn immigration, he says he opposes both Biden\u2019s \u201copen borders\u201d approach and Donald Trump\u2019s deportation push that has separated families. On the economy, he wants to champion working families by \u201cinvesting in skills and apprenticeships, and creating high-wage jobs that keep our talent right here at home.\u201d And on health care, Pulido admits he doesn\u2019t have insurance himself, citing skyrocketing prices, and says he wants to put people ahead of Big Pharma.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really feel like the country\u2019s off kilter right now. There\u2019s a tremendous imbalance and I can either stay on the sidelines and be a guy with an opinion or I can actually attempt to do something that most people think is not doable, which is win in a heavily gerrymandered district,\u201d Pulido says.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tFor his campaign, Pulido is spotlighting his family values, Mexican American identity, and lifelong ties to South Texas as the son of immigrants who built a life in the community. He hopes to draw on both his cultural roots and the respect he\u2019s earned over his storied music career to connect with voters and represent the region he feels deeply tied to on a national stage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know it\u2019s clich\u00e9 because we heard the guy in the Oval Office say it \u2014\u00a0but I don\u2019t have to do this,\u201d Pulido says. \u201cI don\u2019t have nearly as much wealth as he does, but I would definitely take a financial hit if I were to win. And I\u2019m OK with that because I really want to fight for South Texas \u2014 and for my kids\u2019 future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe morning after a show in Mexico, Bobby Pulido sat down with Rolling Stone<\/em> over a breakfast of huevos con jam\u00f3n to explain why he\u2019s running for Congress<\/a>, his frustration with \u201cphony capitalism,\u201d and why he believes South Texas needs a candidate tailor-made for the district.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat do you say to the people who doubt your candidacy because of your background in music?<\/strong>
I don\u2019t blame them. I have been incredibly careful not to mix politics with my career. I understand if somebody says, \u201cWhat does he know? He\u2019s a singer.\u201d But that\u2019s why you talk about the issues. And I will tell you this: If anybody that would judge me based on that, especially in the district, I would also just ask that you be fair and ask yourself the same question: If you voted for the guy that was a reality TV star, and if you voted for the woman that is now our congresswoman that was selling insurance out of a strip mall, did you ask her the same question? At the end of the day, I just ask for fairness and for an opportunity for people to listen to me talk about the issues.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tWhy did you decide to run for office?<\/strong>
It has been a long time coming, to be honest with you. The very first time I thought about it was during the election of 2022. I traveled with Congressman Vicente Gonzalez and spent a day with him. I\u2019m a big policy nerd. I\u2019ve always been that way. And for me to get the chance to spend a day with a congressman on a campaign trail [changed everything.] His wife said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you consider running? You\u2019d be awesome.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, I always wanted to get into politics, but I love my life. My life\u2019s good.\u201d And she said, \u201cThink about it.\u201d And I did.\u00a0 I talked over with my wife later, and she said, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen you write a song lately, but you\u2019re always keeping up with what\u2019s going on.\u201d And I said, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s always been in my DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy run in South Texas?<\/strong>
South Texas is something that I\u2019ve been culturally very close to. I consider myself 100 percent South Texas, and I felt as long as they kept me in South Texas, I have a fighting chance, \u2019cause I do believe I represent the values of South Texas.\u00a0 But the question is, what am I going to do to help improve my kids\u2019 chances of making it in the world? I sense them getting incredibly frustrated that even if they work hard, that dream is not attainable right now. The system that we have in place is not working. It\u2019s phony capitalism. And I think it\u2019s affecting the youth.<\/p>\n

\n\tI want to get into policy and your district. I\u2019m from California, but my family\u2019s from Texas. Some family members turned toward MAGA and very anti-immigration. That shift is happening a lot with Latinos in Texas. How do you plan to appeal to them?<\/strong>
I ask a lot of questions. I think we have to be honest: We did not handle the border correctly. And I say we, being the Biden administration. It was not handled correctly. What created some resentment in the Mexican-American community is that a lot of the people who had parents who were undocumented crossed over, and they just had to figure life out. They didn\u2019t get anything given to them. They had to go figure life out and make it work. Now, some Mexican Americans start feeling a little bit resentful when they see that other people cross the border who are not from Mexico, and declare political asylum.<\/p>\n

\n\tI have a lot of friends and even family members who are border patrol agents who have felt very frustrated because they\u2019re like, \u201cI signed up to protect the border, not to be processing people. And that\u2019s not what they signed up for.\u201d The border patrol vote went really, really heavily towards Republicans.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt feels now like there\u2019s only two sides: let them all in or kick them all out. And that\u2019s not a policy. Right now, what the Trump administration is doing with immigration is using fear. But the problem with fear is fear doesn\u2019t just affect the undocumented people from coming over here, but it\u2019s also people with visas. You would think that we would have tons of border traffic from Mexico of people coming over to spend their money, but they are not. It\u2019s affecting our local economy.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what\u2019s the solution?<\/strong>
Bipartisanship. Before the election, Republican Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma put forward a good bill <\/a>\u2014 but Trump killed it, saying, \u201cNo, the elections are coming and we need to win.\u201d They didn\u2019t want to fix it. The solution is working across the aisle, but partisan tribalism gets in the way. And the problem with the Republican leadership right now is that there\u2019s a swath of people who don\u2019t want to fix this because, in their eyes, there are already too many Hispanics in the country.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs it racism, in a way<\/strong>?
I\u2019m going to be very careful about using that word or calling anybody that. But I won\u2019t blame you if you use it, and I\u2019m not saying the Republicans are all like that. I\u2019m not saying that there is a segment that has that worldview, and they won\u2019t accept the fact that we can have more Hispanics in the country. And that\u2019s the problem that I have with some of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the immigration front, a lot of Mexican music acts haven\u2019t been able to get their visas as well.<\/strong>
I feel like it\u2019s an attack on our people. My biggest problem is that they don\u2019t even give them an excuse. They don\u2019t even tell them, \u201cYou can\u2019t come because of this. We\u2019ve canceled your visa.\u201d They just say, \u201cWe don\u2019t owe you an explanation.\u201d Now, that\u2019s not right. What do they do to our economy when Juli\u00f3n \u00c1lvarez sells out Cowboy Stadium? How many people reserved hotels and got flights and just lost money? That\u2019s not an attack on us? I absolutely think it is. Give us a reason. There\u2019s no reason they\u2019re just doing it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you win the Democratic primary, you\u2019d be facing off against Monica De La Cruz, who is a Republican and took over a GOP district. Why would you be the right person then to face off against her if you win the primary?<\/strong>
Well, that\u2019s a good question. I feel that I\u2019ll be able to be the best person to face off against her because I have a very high name ID in the Latino community. This district is 11 counties and stretches almost 300 miles. That\u2019s a lot of campaigning. I have the time to campaign. I have a grasp of the issues. I understand the people, their values, and their needs.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe have a lot of rural areas. I\u2019m a rural guy. I feel like we have to make a better case as to why the Republicans are really leaving rural America in the dust. I know it goes contrary to what you might imagine, but rural hospitals are getting defunded by those budget cuts that my hopefully future opponent voted for. And what makes it even worse is that De La Cruz wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House just days before that vote saying, \u201cPlease don\u2019t cut this because you\u2019re going to hurt my people.\u201d She\u2019s acknowledging that it\u2019s going to hurt her constituents and her people \u2014 and then voted for it.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re talking about the Big Beautiful Bill, no?<\/strong>
I am. And I don\u2019t call it beautiful. For sure, it was big, but not beautiful. At the end of the day, if you have your loyalty to the party, it never serves the people, especially in this day and age; it is really dangerous.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of healthcare, what do you hope to bring to South Texas?<\/strong>
I don\u2019t have health insurance. And I\u2019m going to tell you something: most musicians in my field don\u2019t have health insurance, unless they\u2019re married to somebody who does. It\u2019s too expensive. And the reality is, the people in office have sold us out. They have allowed these companies to prey on us. And it just bothers me that there\u2019s no balance on them. It\u2019s phony capitalism at its finest. The whole healthcare industry is just out of control, and not enough people speak out against it. And it\u2019s hurting us. I have personally lost two people that I know who died because they didn\u2019t have health insurance, and they felt a little sick, but they didn\u2019t go to the doctor because they didn\u2019t have health insurance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the economy: What are the biggest changes you think need to happen to help the future generation of South Texans?<\/strong>
If we stop selling ourselves out to these corporations, the people will be fine. We have a very fighty spirit down there. People down in the Rio Grande Valley don\u2019t consider themselves poor; they consider themselves broke. And there\u2019s a big distinction because when you\u2019re broke, you\u2019re always thinking, \u201cI can still make it.\u201d You have hope. And that\u2019s been our spirit. But right now, I feel like that spirit has been broken, because we\u2019re not even given a chance, and that\u2019s the problem. The income disparity keeps getting larger and larger.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe people in power sit there, and they blame the poor people.\u00a0 But the people saying that are the ones who are really rich, who don\u2019t pay their taxes and look for loopholes to get out of paying taxes. And then they dare to blame the middle class.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tWhat do you make of the political violence that has gone on in recent years, and in the last week?<\/strong>Look, it shouldn\u2019t get lost on you that at the inauguration, the president had a bunch of these tech guys sitting behind him. Now, he who controls the algorithm controls the information that gets out to people. Who do you think the algorithm is working for? I\u2019ll tell you, they\u2019re using this to play us against each other and make it a left versus right thing. And it\u2019s not. But that\u2019s what people are conditioned to look at and see that way. And we\u2019re getting played. We are living in dangerous times.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s the solution to that?<\/strong>
Well, it\u2019s people power. At the end of the day, people are going to have to wake up. Their voice really has to matter because if you don\u2019t go vote, it\u2019s just going to get worse. Trump is in bed with big business and corporate interests. That\u2019s the one thing that we need to disassociate ourselves with. And I\u2019m not saying all corporations are evil. But the ones that are playing with our health, we cannot compromise on those issues. That to me is a non-starter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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