This Special Election Is Testing Republican Efforts to Court Latino Voters

The contest to fill a vacant State House seat in South Texas has exposed the vulnerabilities of a Democratic stronghold.

SAN ANTONIO — For as long as María Rodríguez can remember, the South Side of San Antonio has just about always elected Democrats, Hispanics like herself who emphasized improving public education and access to health care.

But last week, as she walked out of an early polling site where she had cast a ballot in a tightly contested runoff for an open State House seat, Ms. Rodríguez, 55, wondered whether her once solidly Democratic district might flip.

This time, there was a strong chance that the Republican candidate, a Latino who briefly held the seat in 2016 and received the most votes in last month’s five-way special election, could emerge the victor and represent Ms. Rodríguez and about 160,000 of her mostly Latino neighbors.