Herrera Gets Good News in Fox’s Latest Power Rankings

Fox News has shifted 17 races towards Democrats in its latest Power Rankings, including some ruby red congressional districts that have been in Republican hands for years. 

Republican John McGuire, for example, won Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District in 2024 by 15 points and should be a heavy favorite to win reelection in November, but Fox News has downgraded the district from “likely R” to “leans R” in its latest rankings. 

Some of the biggest changes in Fox’s Power Rankings are in the Lone Star State, which the network contends is “slipping away” from Republicans. That erosion includes the governor’s race, which is now “leans R”, and the Texas Senate race, which Fox says is a true toss-up between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. 

Fox also shifted the state’s 34th Congressional District from “toss-up” to “Lean D” even after the boundaries of the district were redrawn to make it more favorable to Republicans. 

One bright spot is TX-23, where Brandon Herrera is still seen by Fox to be the “likely” winner on Election Day. Herrera’s been the subject of hit pieces in the New York Times, CNN, and other national outlets for controversial comments that he’s made on his podcast over the past several years, with the Times noting his repeated references to overweight feminists and regurgitating the smears by his 2024 and 2026 primary opponent Tony Gonzales that Herrera is antisemitic based on multiple jokes about Nazis, including one video where he referred to a German machine gun used in World War II as the original “ghetto blaster.” 

The attacks on Herrera don’t appear to be hurting his campaign, though we haven’t seen any recent polling in TX-23. The AB PAC, which was founded by Media Matters for America creator David Brock, has spent almost $200,000 running ads against Herrera, but that’s comparable to what the PAC has spent going after other Republicans. 

More importantly, though, there’s no evidence that gun control groups have started spending big against Herrera or in support of his Democrat opponent Katy Padilla Stout. 

As of September 22, Giffords has endorsed Katy Padilla Stout and contributed $1,000 to her campaign, but neither Giffords nor Everytown has emerged in the available filings as a major outside spender in TX-23.

Independent-expenditure reports don’t capture every form of political activity, so anti-gun outfits may be conducting research, fundraising, or even doing some issue-oriented advertising without reporting it as an independent expenditure in this particular race. Still, we’re less than a month away from early voting opening in Texas, and if the gun control lobby believed Herrera is vulnerable you’d expect to see money flooding into Stout’s campaign or being spent by PACs in support of her (or opposition to Herrera). 

The most cautionary note for Herrera comes from the website VoteHub, which currently gives him a 61 percent chance of winning TX-23. That’s down from a high of 73 percent back in mid-July, and Herrera has lost six points in just the past two weeks. VoteHub’s predictions are also pointing to a pretty close race, with Herrera expected to receive 51.2 percent of the vote. Tony Gonzales won TX-23 with more than 62 percent of the vote two years ago, so the erosion of support for Republicans in Texas that Fox has allegedly found may be taking place in TX-23 as well as in statewide races. 

Herrera doesn’t appear to be in nearly as much trouble as some candidates like Ken Paxton, but my advice to gun owners who’d like to see Herrera elected in November is the same as it’s been for the past few months: don’t be cocky, definitely don’t be complacent, and get behind his campaign in every way possible. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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