Republican candidate for US House of Representatives Brandon Herrera speaks during a midterm rally for Texas Attorney General and Republican US Senate candidate Ken Paxton in San Antonio, Texas, US October 18, 2026. REUTERS/Joel Angel Juarez
A MAGA congressional candidate became a laughingstock Wednesday after his Election Day gotcha about his rival’s campaign ended in a decisive loss.
Brandon Herrera, the Republican gun YouTuber who ran for Texas' 23rd Congressional District, teased on Election Day that "one of the people we had inside the @katy4congress campaign might be someone you'd recognize," attaching a selfie of Democrat Katy Padilla Stout beside a grinning man in glasses. Fellow gun YouTuber King Trout then appeared to claim the role, quote-tweeting Herrera with "I've been quiet this cycle for a reason. I've been busy, teehee."
The stunt did nothing to save Herrera. Padilla Stout flipped the seat, becoming the first Democrat to hold it in more than a decade, the Texas Tribune reported. She led Herrera roughly 52% to 44% with nearly every county reporting, per Decision Desk HQ. Herrera landed the GOP nomination after incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales dropped out of the primary runoff.
Aaron Fritschner, a senior aide to Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), called the episode "one of the funniest things I've ever seen on a House campaign."
"Brandon Herrera is an awful person but boy oh boy did he and his terrible friend manage to lose in the most entertaining way imaginable," he added.
Stephen Gutowski, a gun policy reporter who founded The Reload, marveled that Herrera "had a pal volunteer to help his opponent, triumphantly revealed the scheme on election day, and then lost the race with a 23-point shift towards Democrats from 2024."
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before," Gutowski said.
The anti-MAGA research account PatriotTakes, which monitors right-wing extremism, summed up the misfire bluntly, noting that Herrera "had an infiltrator in his opponent's campaign and still lost."
Sam Weinberg, executive director of Path to Progress, went a step further, warning that "Herrera is possibly admitting to multiple state and federal crimes here." Weinberg did not specify which laws he believed the scheme might have broken.