Candidates go negative as campaigns wind down
With regular voting for the primary election just days away, some Hidalgo County candidates have gone negative on the airwaves.
Candidates for county judge, Precinct 4 county commissioner and Texas House District 36 have all aired advertisements in the past week to attack their opponents rather than sell themselves.
Their rationale? It works.
Studies of American voting behavior have generally shown it’s easier to tell someone to vote against something than for it, said Jerry Polinard, a political science professor at the University of Texas-Pan American. Candidates typically profess a desire to run a clean campaign but then decide they would rather win.
“The public overwhelmingly condemns and equally overwhelmingly responds to negative ads,” he said. “Candidates run negative campaign ads because they work.”
The candidates to replace incumbent state Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview, blanketed the airwaves with negative ads this week.
Sandra Rodriguez, a former probation officer, released an ad identifying her opponent, Sergio Muñoz Jr., as the hand-picked stand-in for Muñoz’s father, himself a former state representative, and for Flores. Muñoz Jr., a lawyer, put out an advertisement featuring a fetus that attacks Rodriguez’s pro-choice stance on abortion.
Ramon Garcia, a former county judge seeking to regain his old seat, has run an ad in which his supporters criticize tax hikes during the tenure of his opponent, Eloy Pulido, by saying the county “can’t afford” Pulido. Pulido, another former county judge, released his own ad this weekend in which he criticizes Garcia for protesting the appraised value of his home.
Candidates for Precinct 4 county commissioner have also taken shots at each other in commercials as the race winds down.
Incumbent Oscar Garza, a land developer, is running ads this weekend in which the Objective Watchers of the Legal System — a local government watchdog group known as the OWLS — say his opponent, Joseph Palacios, is “two of a kind” with his boss, Precinct 1 Commissioner Sylvia Handy.
Handy is currently fighting criminal charges that she used taxpayer dollars to pay illegal immigrants for housekeeping and babysitting work at her house.
Palacios, a county administrator, responded to a previous negative ad by Garza’s campaign by releasing his own in which he says the OWLS are distorting the facts. The ad also features Garza’s mug shot from a 2003 indictment.
Garza was accused at the time of having Precinct 4 employees pave a private road and improperly leasing county property. He paid $50,000 in restitution before charges in that case were dropped.
Garza said he was “bringing out the facts” when he aired the first negative ad in his race against Palacios. Citing his campaign’s in-house poll that shows him 11 percentage points ahead, Garza said his opponent responded because he’s trailing.
“(Palacios) went negative because I’m sure he doesn’t want to lose,” Garza said.
Palacios said the incumbent commissioner’s ads linking Palacios to Handy are misleading the public. Garza is the only candidate in the race who was indicted on charges of wrongdoing, Palacios said.
“What he’s throwing at me are appearances of impropriety that have no factual base,” he said of Garza.
Negative ads are the inevitable result in any race in which candidates want to pull in votes by raising doubts about their opponent, said Polinard, the political science professor. The overwhelming majority of competitive races end with mudslinging.
But television viewers who hate negative campaigning — even if it secretly drives them to the polls — can take solace in the campaign advertisement policy of the region’s ABC affiliate, KRGV.
The station limits the amount of advertising each candidate can buy during the local news, said Danny Aguilar, the station’s general sales manager. The policy lets all candidates have their fair say on the airwaves and prevents information overload for viewers.
“We want to make sure that our viewers aren’t inundated with political ad after political ad,” Aguilar said. “And we like to take care of our existing advertisers because they’ll be here after the elections.”
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Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.
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Below are summaries of campaign contributions, expenditures and outstanding loans from the Feb. 22 ethics reports for Hidalgo County’s seven contested primary races — all of which are Democratic. The report, which generally covers all expenses from late January to Feb. 20, is the last one required by the Texas Ethics Commission before the primary on Tuesday.
County Judge
Ramon Garcia
Contributions: $36,300
Expenditures: $164,640
Loans: $100,000
Eloy Pulido
Contributions: $17,000
Expenditures: $25,362
Loans: $0
District Attorney
Alma Garza
Contributions: $17,030
Expenditures: $11,090
Loans: $0
Rene Guerra
Contributions: $83,600
Expenditures: $36,145
Loans: $0
Fidencio Guerra Jr.
Contributions: $975
Expenditures: $9,859
Loans: $60,000
Precinct 4 County Commissioner
Oscar Garza
Contributions: $40,500
Expenditures: $65,402
Loans: $375,000
Joseph Palacios
No report filed
Texas House District 39
Armando “Mando” Martinez
Contributions: $46,867
Expenditures: $57,391
Loans: $33,595
Joel De Los Santos
Contributions: $1,520
Expenditures: $4,660
Loans: $0
Texas House District 36
Sergio Muñoz Jr.
Contributions: $32,020
Expenditures: $92,794
Loans: $250,000
Sandra Rodriguez
Contributions: $125,379
Expenditures: $93,775
Loans: $21,000
Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2, Place 2
Rosa Treviño
Contributions: $2,250
Expenditures: $2,589
Loans: $5,000
Francisco “Frank” Prado
Contributions: $300
Expenditures: $201
Loans: $0
Samuel “Sam” Soto
Contributions: $0
Expenditures: $150
Loans: $0
Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 1
Hilda Caceres
Contributions: $4,000
Expenditures: $14,835
Loans: $20,000
Speedy Jackson
No report filed
