This November, Bobby Pulido is trying to flip a Republican congressional seat blue, right on the Texas border. That would be reason enough to talk to him. But he was famous way before politics—Pulido is a Tejano star, a 1990s teen idol, a Tejano Backstreet Boy before there were the Backstreet Boys.

He’s also a lifelong resident of the Rio Grande Valley: “My dad was a migrant farmworker, and so was his dad. We don’t come from generational wealth,” he said. “Latinos and Hispanics in South Texas are the embodiment of the American dream.”

Over the years, he has watched friends and neighbors pivot from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Donald Trump’s inroads with Latino voters were one of the surprises of his 2024 victory, as he carried places like South Texas’ 15th District. But Pulido thinks those gains are temporary, and that Democrats have a chance, with sensible policies, to retake the district and Congress.

For him, immigration enforcement is a top priority. “President Obama did crack down on it, that’s a fact,” he said. “But I think under Biden, it got really out of hand.” With Trump, he says, “We went from ‘Let them all in’ to ‘Kick them all out.’ And neither one of the two things work.”

On a recent episode of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Pulido about what Democrats misunderstand about South Texas and whether he’s singing the right tune for Congress. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mary Harris: I was wondering why you would run for office. You’re a well-known Tejano singer. You probably don’t need to do much of anything if you don’t want to.

Bobby Pulido: I was a political science major in college. I was a Texas Boys Stater in high school. Government and social studies and Texas history were my favorite subjects. I wanted to do this.

You’re running in Texas’ 15th District, a district that Donald Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024. Redistricting may have made it a smidge Trumpier, but it relies on the Latino vote remaining in the GOP’s favor. And my assumption is that part of the reason you got into this race is that you were beginning to see signs that that was not going to hold. I’m curious what those first signs were to you.

I was talking to lots of people during this cycle—even the cycle before, as it was going right since ’23. Lots of my friends were voting red. And, listen, I’ve always been a blue-dog Democrat.

I was going to ask about that, whether you always considered yourself a........

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