This series is called Meet the Candidates. Over the next three months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.
Who is Cecilia Castellano?
Cecilia Castellano is a third-generation Texan from Atascosa County. Her family’s been on this land since before “flippable seat” was a phrase anybody used, as she watched good people in her community leave because there’s no work.
She runs AZTECA Designs & Construction, has been married for twenty-three years and counting, has two grown kids, three grandkids, and has taught Bible study at New Life Christian Center since 2014. Castellano is a small business owner and a churchgoing grandmother running on public schools, rural hospitals, and property tax relief.
Ken Paxton’s office sent search warrants to her home in 2024, as well as elderly LULAC volunteers in their seventies and eighties. This came from a referral from a district attorney who took campaign photos with Castellano’s own opponent. She’s maintaining innocence and running again regardless. The raid was intended to put fear in front of a community that already votes at abysmal rates, and put Castellano’s name next to the word “investigation” nineteen days before an election, as part of an attack ad the McLaughlin campaign paid for and Henry Cuellar’s sister starred in. That’s the environment she’s running in.
Think about that.
In 2024, weeks before what was supposed to be a competitive election, the Republican AG raided the homes of Democratic candidates, campaign staff, and elderly LULAC volunteers in their seventies and eighties, in one of the poorest areas in Texas. The referral came from a DA photographed campaigning with Castellano’s Republican opponent. Nineteen days out, that Republican opponent’s campaign funded an attack ad starring the sister of a sitting congressman, Rosie Cuellaer. In 2025, Castellano was indicted on two counts of vote harvesting. She pleaded not guilty. The charges are still active.
And she stuck out her chest (and maybe her middle finger), and she put her name on the ballot again in 2026.
That tells us all who Cecilia Castellano is. She’s someone with a spine.
The district.
HD80 is across six counties (Atascosa, Dimmit, Frio, Uvalde, Webb portion, Zavala). Hispanic population is 83.2%, compared to 39.7% statewide. Anglo population is 14.0%. This is one of the most Hispanic districts in the state legislature.
Age skews young. 22.2% of the district is 5-17 years old versus 18.6% statewide, and only 11.7% is 65+ versus 13.4% statewide.
Language matters here more than almost anywhere else in the state. 65.6% of the district speaks a language other than English at home, and 11.2% doesn’t speak English well or at all.
This is one of the poorest districts in Texas. 23.9% of the district lives in poverty versus 13.8% statewide. Per capita income is $22,813 against a state average of $40,752, roughly 56 cents on the dollar.
Housing: 63.8% owner-occupied, average home value $201,508 (about 55% of the state average), average rent $1,033. Cheap housing, low equity, low wealth accumulation. 22.3% of owners are cost-burdened at 35%+ of income, actually worse than the state rate of 17.3%, despite the lower home values, which tells you incomes are dragging harder than housing costs are.
November 2024 results:
Now compare that to the top of the ticket in the same district, same election:
Castellano ran 2.5 points ahead of Harris and roughly in line with the down-ballot judicial Democrats, but 1.9 points behind Allred.
Trump is underwater with Hispanic voters right now, badly. Nationally, Democrats are running ahead on the generic congressional ballot by mid-to-high single digits, depending on the poll. Put that next to a district that’s 83.2% Hispanic, and you have one of the biggest swing opportunities available in this election cycle.
None of that means anything without turnout, and turnout is where HD80 has bled Democrats for a decade. In 2024, a presidential year, the district saw only 48.3% turnout. Turnout is the biggest problem this district faces. Total voter registration in HD80 sits at 116,791, and 73 percent of that roll is Spanish Surname Voter Registration, nearly triple the statewide share. Close even half that turnout gap in a district already trending back toward Democrats nationally, and Castellano’s 9,949-vote loss from 2024 starts looking very different.
Castellano is running into a shift that’s already underway in a district that overlaps TX23 and TX28, both of which are Talarico and DCCC targets (translation: it’s raining money). Castellano’s challenge will be to target the same Democrats and make sure they vote down-ballot.
The incumbent.
The day after 19 kids and two teachers were murdered at Robb Elementary, Beto confronted Greg Abbott when he was speaking and said, essentially, saying that Abbott’s inaction got those kids killed. He was right. Firearms remain the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in Texas.
McLaughlin, then Uvalde’s mayor, stood up and called him “a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.” McLaughlin later said that it wasn’t the place or the time. But notice what actually offended him. Not the deaths. Not the 77 minutes cops stood in a hallway while kids bled out. The politics of pointing out Republicans’ poor governance leading to that year’s mass death of children.
McLaughlin is the one on the left:
Before being elected, McLaughlin spent a lot of time on Fox News talking about the white supremacist “great replacement theory.”
Once elected, he signed the “Contract on Texas,” a pledge backed by donors with documented ties to Tim Dunn’s Defend Texas Liberty PAC, the same PAC that spent seven hours meeting with Nick Fuentes, promising to strip political power from “Democrats” in the Legislature. Of course, McLaughlin DID vote in favor of the racist mid-districting maps.
He told the Texas Tribune he wasn’t going to gut public schools. Then he signed on as a co-author of the voucher bill anyway.
McLaughlin spent two years savaging DPS for the Robb Elementary response. But when his own city commissioned a report, and it exonerated local police, he didn’t like that either; he said leadership failed and blamed the acting police chief. Meanwhile, when actual grieving fathers showed up to a city council meeting demanding real answers, he got into a shouting match with one of them, blamed the school board for stuff under his own authority, and dismissed another father with “I don’t know that man’s relationship with his daughter.” He called the slow release of the shooting footage “one of the most chicken things” he’d seen. Families in the room said the real chicken thing was the police response he’d spent two years defending politically while criticizing everyone else.
And nineteen days before the 2024 election, McLaughlin’s campaign funded an attack ad starring Rosie Cuellar, timed to a Paxton-office investigation referred by a DA who’d posed for campaign photos with him. He won by 19 points off the back of that. It happened for him, on schedule, funded by his own campaign, aimed at a district too poor and too worn down by a broken healthcare and education system to fight back at the ballot box the way a wealthier district might.
That’s the case against Don McLaughlin. A pattern of cruelty when it’s politically convenient, absence when it’s not, and a comfortable relationship with whoever’s willing to do his dirty work for him.
In Cecilia Castellano’s own words.
Below are some questions I asked Castellano, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.
Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?
Yes. Large corporations should invest in the communities where they do business and pay their fair share. Texas taxpayers and small businesses should not have to subsidize large corporations that have the resources to pay their own way. Economic development should benefit the community, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen local infrastructure—not shift corporate costs onto taxpayers.
Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?
Yes. I oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education. Public tax dollars should remain in our public schools, where they can support teachers, classrooms, special education, school safety, and student programs. Our priority should be fully funding and strengthening Texas public schools, not diverting limited resources to private institutions.
Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?
Yes. No child should have to learn while hungry. Texas should guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students so every child has access to nutritious food without stigma or unnecessary paperwork. Feeding students helps them focus, learn, and succeed in the classroom.
Q: Do you support closing or downsizing state prisons and redirecting that funding to community-based alternatives like mental health care, housing, and youth programs?
Yes, where appropriate. I support reducing our reliance on incarceration for nonviolent offenses and investing more in mental health care, substance-use treatment, housing stability, and youth programs that can prevent crime before it happens. At the same time, Texas must maintain secure facilities for individuals who pose a serious threat to public safety.
Q: Do you support publicly financed elections to reduce corporate and PAC influence?
Yes. I support reforms that reduce the influence of corporations, PACs, and wealthy special interests in our elections. Public financing can help qualified candidates compete without being dependent on large donors, while giving everyday voters a stronger voice. Any system should be transparent, voluntary, and include strict accountability for how public funds are used.
Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?
Being a Democrat, to me, is not about a party label. I believe people are tired of politics being divided into red versus blue while the issues affecting their families continue to go unresolved. Housing affordability, veterans’ services, water infrastructure, public education, healthcare, wages, and the rising cost of living are not Democratic or Republican issues—they are Texas issues.
I am especially concerned when government decisions benefit powerful interests while communities are left carrying the consequences, whether that involves data centers placing additional demands on our water and electrical infrastructure or BESS facilities being developed without adequate safety protections.
I believe we need to get back to talking about the things that matter to people and creating real pathways to opportunity—quality education, skilled trades, good-paying jobs, affordable healthcare, reliable infrastructure, and stronger communities. My goal is to help build a Texas that works for everyone, regardless of political party, income level, or ZIP code.
That’s the choice in front of HD80.
On one side, a legislator who found his voice in a hallway full of grieving parents and used it to call a concerned citizen a “sick son of a bitch,” who’s spent four years managing the optics of a massacre instead of the aftermath of it, who took the voucher money and signed the pledge and voted for the maps, and who benefited, whether he ordered it or not, from a Republican AG’s office turning a search warrant into a campaign ad nineteen days before an election.
On the other side, a woman who watched her own community get hollowed out for lack of work and decided to run for office anyway. She had her phone taken and her home raided, and her name dragged through an indictment, and she filed for the seat again regardless. You don’t have to guess what Cecilia Castellano is made of. The state already tried to find out, and she’s still standing.
The math says this district is winnable. Trump’s underwater with the exact voters who live here. Democrats are running ahead nationally. HD80 sits inside the same map as TX23 and TX28, both drawing national money and attention this cycle. And the district didn’t lose in 2024 because voters rejected Castellano, it lost because less than half the registered electorate showed up. That’s a door-knocking problem, a ride-to-the-polls problem, a somebody-asking-you-twice problem.
Cecilia Castellano is on the ballot again. Whether HD80 flips depends on whether the rest of us do our part.
You can learn more about Cecilia Castellano from her website, Facebook, and Instagram.
65 days until the November election!
Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
LoneStarLeft is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Follow me on Facebook, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram. Or join my Facebook Group.
Let’s just flip all these seats. I am so done with all these horrible hate filled people.
Thank you, Michelle! I remember her! I love a candidate with a spine!!! Shared on bsky.