Bobby Pulido, the Tejano music star turned Democratic congressional candidate, is watching his own words become his biggest campaign liability.
Resurfaced interviews from 2023 show Pulido describing himself as a "summer Mexican" who retreats south of the border to escape the Texas heat, then rebranding the arrangement with a more voter-friendly label.
In his own words:
"It gets hot here, bro. Like real hot — like real hot. I'm a summer Mexican."
He then offered a more polished spin:
"It sounds better: winter Texan. It sounds better to say, 'I'm a winter Texan.'"
Pulido recently captured the Democratic nomination to run in Texas's 15th Congressional District, a seat currently held by Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a two-term Republican incumbent. The Latin Grammy winner is best known for Tejano and Mexican-Spanish folk hits like "Desvelado" and "Se Murió de Amor," not for his policy credentials. And the more voters learn about his background, the more the campaign looks like a vanity project with shaky roots in the district he wants to represent.
The "winter Texan" quip is far from the only thread pulling at Pulido's residency story. In 2015, he told the Mexican newspaper El Norte that he was considering dual citizenship:
"I'm going to be Mexican because I want the same Mexican passport you have."
His campaign now insists that never happened. Pulido's spokesperson told Fox News Digital that he holds one citizenship, American, and is proud of it. The spokesperson added that "there's nothing wrong with people having ties to family and heritage across borders."
Nobody said there was. The issue isn't heritage. It's whether the man asking South Texas voters to send him to Congress actually lives among them.
Pulido himself acknowledged in 2025 that he and his wife have a house in Mexico and that he travels there regularly. He told interviewers he's experienced healthcare on both sides of the border. His last five concerts have all been in Mexico, according to his own tour website. A person familiar with Pulido's background said his wife still lives there.
Earlier this month, Pulido pushed back on the residency questions in comments to NBC News:
"I live in Texas. We've always lived in Texas. Since COVID, really — that's just not true."
That denial lands with a thud when stacked against everything else on the record. A candidate who spends large portions of the year in another country, publicly considers taking that country's citizenship, performs almost exclusively there, and seeks healthcare there is not a candidate with deep roots in his district. He's a candidate who summers in his district.
Pulido's residency questions might be survivable in isolation. They aren't arriving in isolation.
Shortly after he announced his congressional bid last fall, resurfaced social media posts created an entirely separate set of problems. Pulido had posted links to explicit websites on his personal X account. More damaging still was a social media post of what appeared to be him urinating on President Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
He also received backlash over past vulgar attacks against Trump, including this gem directed at a critic:
"I'd like to give you the biggest 'f--- you' you piece of s---, a--hole, d--- head, son of a b----."
Pulido's response to the controversy was characteristically flippant: "Don't threaten me with a good time."
This is the man Democrats chose to challenge De La Cruz in a competitive South Texas district. A candidate who treats vulgarity as a personality trait and dismisses scrutiny with one-liners lifted from a bumper sticker.
Rep. De La Cruz needled Pulido over his time spent in Mexico in a post to X, quipping that the election in Texas should not turn on which candidate is better suited to perform at "quinceañeras," the parties traditionally thrown for girls turning 15. The jab landed because it highlighted exactly what Pulido brings to this race: celebrity, not substance.
Pulido has drawn nearly 1,000 invites to parties in the district. He is, by all accounts, a beloved entertainer in the region. But South Texas voters have been trending rightward for years, and the reasons have nothing to do with Tejano music. They care about border security, the cost of living, and whether their elected officials actually understand the communities they represent.
Democrats had an opportunity to field a serious candidate in TX-15. Instead, they nominated a man whose own interviews read like opposition research. A man who calls himself a "summer Mexican" on camera, flirted publicly with Mexican citizenship, performs almost exclusively outside the United States, and responds to legitimate questions about where he lives with defensive non-answers.
Five Latin Grammy nominations won't fix that. Two Best Tejano Album wins won't fix that. The voters of Texas' 15th Congressional District deserve a representative who lives in their community year-round, not someone who treats the district as a seasonal residence when the weather cooperates.
Pulido said it himself. He's a winter Texan. South Texas voters should take him at his word.
