“I’m putting a karaoke machine in my house,” Bobby Pulido admits with a bit of a sheepish grin.
The two-time Latin Grammy winner and icon of Tejano music is simultaneously preparing for perhaps two of the biggest professional milestones of his life, both set to take place in the coming weeks: his last concert and his first congressional election.
“If people want me to represent them and they believe that I could best represent them, I’m perfectly comfortable never having a concert again,” he tells me during a media and fundraising blitz that brought him through New York City. Pulido is running a tight race to unseat Rep. Monica Del La Cruz, a Trump-aligned Republican, from her seat in Texas’ 15th Congressional District.
It’s largely the district Pulido grew up in, encompassing a slice of the Rio Grande Valley that stretches from San Marcos down to the southern border at McCallen. Edinburg straddles its boundary. He was born there. His father, Roberto Pulido, was a famed Tejano singer in his own right. His mother, Diana Montez, was the daughter of norteño accordionist Mario Montez.
Music has been an inextricable part of his life, yet Pulido is planning on performing his last concert on October 17 in Edinburg.
He pulls at a sentiment that seems particularly difficult for politicians of the modern gerontocracy to grasp: bowing out when it’s prudent. “I see a lot of — and it’s probably the vain part in me — other artists that don’t sing the same, and I would just suffer so much [if that was me],” he says.
Pulido is waiting to hear if he’ll be awarded his third Latin Grammy, this time for Best Mexican Music Album (for the live record Bobby Pulido & Friends: Una Tuya y Una Mía), and he’s clear that his philosophy on politics will largely be the same as it was with his music: “Leave it up to the people.”
When his father warned him that he was not ready to drop his education and be a singer, Pulido recounts telling him that it would be “the people out there are gonna decide whether I have what it takes or not.”
“A lot of the things that I went through in the music business have prepared me for this moment,” he says. Pulido notes his thick skin, his belief that you actually should read the comments, and his comfort in front of crowds. In the spring, De La Cruz attempted to take a dig at Pulido’s foray into politics by chiding that this was a race for Congress, not “who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera.”
Pulido’s campaign not only managed to flip the attempted insult, but convert it into one of the most effective gimmicks of this election cycle. The campaign put out a public call for invitations to quinceñeras — coming of age celebrations for young women in the Hispanic community — and received over a thousand requests.
Pulido has attended over 75 events. He’ll waltz with the birthday girl, and serenade guests with his hit “Desvelado.”
“We only have one ask,” he says of his appearances. “Can we send volunteers to sign people up?”
Pulido says the quinceñeras have given him invaluable opportunities to interface with potential voters who have no interest in attending political rallies, in a setting that speaks to the shared culture of his community.
Texas is the ultimate prize in this year’s midterm cycle. After over three decades of big swings and near misses, Democrats in the state are attempting to distance themselves from the post-2024 identity crisis weighing down the party, in part by returning to their roots to reverse the hard rightward swing among Hispanics in 2024.
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he doesn’t try to make himself out to be a clean person, he’s just really good at muddying up the alternative,” Pulido explains. In South Texas, he says, accusations that the Democratic Party embraced socialism, the seizure of individual wealth through taxation, and the so-called politics of envy landed with voters. “Hispanics, especially in South Texas, don’t come from generational wealth. We want to be rich,” Pulido laughs. “We have to show that as Democrats, we can also be the party of success while also leading with a heart about helping your neighbor.”
“In recent years, it felt like we were leading all the time with social justice — which is fine, we need social justice, it’s important — but you can’t win elections if you just lead with that,” Pulido says. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, great. I know you’re fighting for this, but what about my pocketbook? I can’t feed my family.”
In Pulido’s mind, the disconnect between the priorities of local voters and the national party is emblematic of politicians’ persistent disinterest in understanding Americans outside of the blue fortresses on the coasts. Pulido is aware of just how frustrated voters are with the two-party binary, the feeling that no one was “delivering,” and how politicians feel they need to be loyal to the party line over all other considerations.
He points out that there are some realities in his district that are non-negotiables for the voters he’s trying to win, even if they clash with the Democratic platform.
“[There are] things that I’m conservative about,” he says. “I live in a rural area, and you’re not going to be able to take away people’s guns in Texas.” He recalls Beto O’Rourke, the 2018 Democratic Senate nominee who came within a breath of unseating Ted Cruz. O’Rourke won the 15th District by 12 points. In 2022, during a run for governor in which he declared that “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” he lost the same district by six points.
“So there’s certain issues where you say hey, man, like I want gun safety, but just to call out for bans to me is lazy legislating,” Pulido says. “I mean, my oldest son’s name is Remington. I named him after the Remington 700 bolt action rifle. So you can understand that in rural areas, it’s a way of life for us.”
He knows that while weekend skeet shooting, hunting, and target practice are a part of the culture, gun violence is not to be ignored — especially as a parent who once experienced the emotional turmoil of a false alarm, suspected shooting at his son’s school. “Hopefully I’ll be able to provide a different perspective when it comes to those issues,” he says. “Because I come from that world.”
Pulido’s world is the core of his focus for the next 30-odd days. He’s still crisscrossing the district, still going to quinceñeras, still using music as an antidote to the stress of the campaign. He confesses that he watches a YouTube video of Heart performing “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center on almost “every plane trip” he takes. He says he hopes to one day see it in person, if Trump doesn’t tear the iconic arts center down out of spite.
Pulido, notably, doesn’t say he wants to perform there. He’s already building up the walls separating his life as a musician from the life of elected service he hopes to begin next year, if all goes well next month.
“I could foresee in the future maybe potentially doing a benefit and maybe using a concert here and there to help raise money for various causes that are really important to me,” he caveats. “But public service to me is much more powerful. I do music for me because I enjoy it, but when you’re serving, it’s not for you. It’s for other people, and I think my life would be complete that way.”
And of course, if he ever misses it, there will be a state-of-the-art karaoke machine waiting for him at home.
