Hakeem Jeffries spent Sunday working the pews of San Antonio, telling roughly 150 worshipers at Cavalry Baptist Church that Democrats stand ready to govern if they win back the U.S. House in next week’s midterms. The House Minority Leader, who is positioned to become speaker if his party retakes the chamber, used the stop to campaign alongside Democratic candidate Johnny Garcia in Texas’s newly redrawn 35th Congressional District.
Jeffries spoke at Cavalry Baptist Church, where Reverend Kevin L. Nelson spoke after his address, according to the San Antonio Report. Nelson told the congregation that Jeffries knows both politics and the Prince of Peace, per the same report. Jeffries also visited two Black churches in San Antonio on Sunday morning.
Garcia’s Invitation and a District Built to Flip
Garcia invited Jeffries to campaign with him in San Antonio as he runs against Republican Carlos De La Cruz in the 35th District. The seat is one of five Texas districts Republicans redrew in 2025 as pickup targets. Texas’s 35th was specifically created to give Republicans an additional pickup opportunity by concentrating low-propensity voters of color within its lines, and under its new boundaries Donald Trump would have carried the district by more than 10 points.
Jeffries said Garcia was making a strong case that Washington is broken, and told the congregation he would support the future Texas delegation’s new leadership, energy and perspective if Garcia wins, representing what Jeffries called change. He also promised to work closely with a reshaped Texas congressional delegation.
The National Math Behind the Texas Push
Every seat in the U.S. House is up for reelection in November, and recent polling indicates Democrats are favored to flip between 12 and 22 seats on Nov. 3, per the San Antonio Report’s account of the race landscape. Cook Political Report has indicated Democrats could compete in two San Antonio-area congressional districts that Republicans carried easily just two years ago, with analyst Erin Covey saying Republicans’ path to keeping control of the House had nearly disappeared — though Covey added that the size of a Democratic majority remains the outstanding question…