Political Campaigns
In 1995, Reyes retired from the U.S. Border Patrol and announced his candidacy for the U.S. Congress against Ron Coleman in the Democratic primary, but Coleman later retired. Reyes finished first in a five-way Democratic primary--the real contest in this heavily Democratic district. He then defeated Jose Luis Sanchez in the runoff by just over 1,000 votes. He won the general election with little trouble, taking 70 percent of the vote. Although the 16th has long since become majority-Hispanic, Reyes is the first Latino to represent the district.
He was reelected seven times with no substantive Republican opposition. He only faced a Libertarian challenger in 1998 and 2008, and was completely unopposed in 2000.
In 2012, Reyes was defeated by primary challenger Beto O'Rourke, taking 44.4 percent of the vote--just a few hundred votes short of forcing a runoff.
Read more about this topic: Silvestre Reyes
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