Maureen Galindo, the 38-year-old Democrat who led the primary field in Texas's newly drawn 35th Congressional District, has built her campaign around credentials she does not appear to hold. In videos, social media posts, and campaign materials, Galindo has repeatedly described herself as a "psychologist" and a "liberation psychologist." But a Daily Mail investigation found she lacks both a doctorate in psychology and a psychologist's license, the baseline requirements under Texas law.
What she does hold is a Marriage and Family Therapist Associate license, granted in 2024. Texas recognizes three separate licenses that permit the practice of psychology, and a therapist associate credential is not among them. The state's Board of Examiners of Psychologists requires a doctoral degree just to apply.
The credential gap is only part of the story. Before Galindo reinvented herself as a congressional candidate and self-described single mom of three, she ran a business called Cosmic Kinks Tarot, an astrology-themed venture that offered, in its own words, "kinky birthchart readings and live tarot therapy." That business, its website, and its social media presence have since been scrubbed. But the paper trail remains.
On January 19, 2022, Galindo filed an assumed-name registration with Bexar County, Texas, for an unincorporated business under the name Cosmic Kinks. Three months later, on April 13, 2022, the domain for cosmickinkstarot.com was first registered.
The now-defunct business was listed in the Wedding Expert directory of San Antonio bachelorette party vendors, complete with a phone number the Daily Mail identified as Galindo's personal cell. It also had a MapQuest listing. On Instagram, Galindo operated under the handle @cosmic.kinks, since deleted.
When confronted about the venture, Galindo did not deny it. She told the Daily Mail:
"I supported people in developing healthy and safe sexuality using tarot, astrology, and sex education. It did not involve therapy."
She also described herself on past promotional material as a "pleasure advocate." Her current business, Exulted Sex Therapy, still encourages visitors to "inquire about including an astrology report" in their services.
Galindo's response to questions about calling herself a psychologist was brief and dismissive. She said: "I have a Master's in Community Psychology. Look up what a community psychologist is." A master's degree, of course, does not meet the doctoral requirement Texas imposes on anyone who wants to use the title "psychologist" professionally. That distinction matters, voters are being asked to trust a candidate partly on the strength of a credential she has not earned.
This is not a minor résumé embellishment. Galindo has made her professional identity a cornerstone of her campaign pitch. In Facebook videos, she calls herself a "psychologist." On her Instagram campaign profile, she does the same. Voters in a competitive district deserve to know whether the person asking for their trust is being straight with them about who she is.
The pattern of questionable judgment extends further. The New York Post reported that Galindo has also drawn fire for antisemitic remarks during the campaign. She reportedly said, "[Zionists] are also infiltrating our local governments, the Israeli billionaire Zionists," in comments first surfaced by The Current.
It is a remarkable collection of baggage for a candidate who has not yet won a runoff, let alone a general election.
Texas's 35th District exists in its current form because Texas Republicans redrew the congressional map last August, after the Department of Justice claimed four Democratic-led districts were racially gerrymandered. The remapped districts could flip as many as five Democratic seats in this year's midterms, and the 35th is squarely in play. The Cook Political Report gives it an R+4 partisan lean.
Galindo was the top vote-getter in the March Democratic primary, but she now faces a May 26 runoff against Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County Sheriff's Office employee who calls himself an "old school Democrat." National Democrats reportedly prefer Garcia. On the Republican side, John Lujan led the GOP primary and will face Carlos De La Cruz, brother of current Republican U.S. Representative Monica De La Cruz, later this month.
For Democrats trying to hold a newly competitive seat, a nominee carrying questions about inflated credentials, a scrubbed adult-themed business, and antisemitic remarks is not exactly the profile that wins swing voters in a district that already leans right. The party has seen this movie before, candidates whose personal scandals become the entire story, drowning out whatever policy message they hoped to run on.
There is one more detail worth noting. In a Threads post from March of last year, Galindo wrote that she had "recently offered to clients that ChatGPT could support some of their problems." Whether that means she directed therapy clients toward an artificial intelligence chatbot, or something less alarming, she has not clarified. But for a candidate who already misrepresents her qualifications, the suggestion that she outsourced any part of client care to a large language model raises its own set of questions.
Galindo's campaign has not been short on self-promotion. She was out campaigning in Somerset, Texas, presenting herself as a relatable single mother and mental health professional. The image was polished. The reality underneath it is considerably messier.
Democrats have a growing credibility problem with candidates who present one face to voters and live a very different life behind the scenes. It is not limited to Texas. Eric Swalwell's ongoing misconduct scandal is another case where the public persona and the private record diverged sharply. And when a New Jersey Democratic mayoral candidate admitted to forging a thousand voter registration forms, the same pattern held: say one thing, do another, and hope nobody checks.
The core issue in Galindo's case is straightforward. She told voters she is a psychologist. Texas law says she is not. She ran an astrology-and-kink business, then tried to erase it. She made inflammatory remarks about Zionists. And she may have pointed therapy clients toward ChatGPT.
None of this is illegal. But all of it speaks to honesty and judgment, the two qualities voters have the most right to evaluate before handing someone a seat in Congress. The gap between crafted image and actual record is exactly the kind of thing primary voters exist to catch.
Galindo still has a runoff to win on May 26. Garcia, her opponent, may benefit from the fact that his résumé, sheriff's office employee, self-described old-school Democrat, is considerably harder to embellish. Republican voters in the 35th, meanwhile, will be watching closely to see which version of the Democratic nominee emerges for the general election: the polished "psychologist" or the woman behind Cosmic Kinks Tarot.
Voters can forgive a lot. But they tend to remember when someone looked them in the eye and made up a credential.
