US Vice President JD Vance shakes hands with a man as he delivers remarks at a rally aimed at boosting local Republican candidates, including Eric Flores in Texas' 34th Congressional District, at Harlingen Convention Center, in Harlingen, Texas, US, September 30, 2026. Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Pool via REUTERS
Texas Republican congressional candidate Eric Flores is demanding the removal of a Brownsville billboard that highlights his President Donald Trump endorsement and support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, The Washington Sun reported on Friday, though his campaign says its objection is to the sign’s look rather than its message.
In an Oct. 12 cease-and-desist letter, Flores campaign lawyer Eric Wang told Lamar Advertising of the Rio Grande Valley to pull the digital sign right away. The letter says the billboard deliberately copies the style of Flores’ campaign materials “to cause voter confusion,” and that it “fraudulently purports to be on behalf of” the campaign.
The billboard’s fine print says it was paid for by the campaign of Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, Flores’ opponent in Texas’ 34th Congressional District. The letter instead identifies the Northern Cameron County Democrats as the payer. That group and Lamar didn’t respond to The Sun’s requests for comment, and Gonzalez’s campaign said the sign remained up Friday.
Nothing in the letter disputes Trump’s backing of Flores, who received the president’s “complete and total endorsement” in December, or his support for ICE. Flores spokesperson Matt Brownfield said the issue is deception.
“Vicente Gonzalez is a practiced scammer who has been running a con on South Texas voters for years. This billboard is just the most recent example,” Brownfield said. “It is designed, on purpose, to cause people to think that it comes from the Flores Campaign. It is deceptive on its face. It is a scam.”
The Texas Observer reported this month that Flores’ signs have de-emphasized the Trump endorsement, part of a broader trend of Republicans scrubbing Trump from campaign materials. Gonzalez’s campaign said Flores is “ashamed” of the president and the ICE raids and skipped a debate. BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign arm, said he’s now “paying lawyers to hide it.”
After Trump won the district in 2024, it was redrawn as part of Texas Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymander to try to make it even more favorable to them. Trump would have carried it by about 10 points under the new lines, though the Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.