Texas Republican House candidate and content creator Brandon Herrera is brushing off controversial comments he made in the past on his YouTube channel about women’s weight, calling the comments jokes.
Though Herrera’s past comments have been a target of Democratic pundits looking to flip Texas’s 23rd Congressional District before, a CNN report resurfaced several additional statements he made in his gun-related social media videos, in which he calls himself “The AK Guy.” The article pointed out a myriad of comments Herrera has made, including comparing the weight of feminists to nuclear bombs, killer whales, and elephants.
“When a blue hair on the news says that a semi-automatic AR-15 is an assault rifle, she is both fat and wrong,” Herrera said, referring to “blue-haired” feminists, in a video over the summer unearthed in the report.
The outlet pointed to other comments in which Herrera said “fat b****es” would find him “irresistible,” as he had ranch dressing on himself. He also said the head of a gun range dummy target is “full of mush — much like the average Austin feminist.”
In the report, CNN included a comment from a polarization and extremism research professor at American University, who argued that people “should also be worried about candidates like this who help normalize things that we know are reliable predictors of political violence.” Herrera pushed back on this comment in his response to CNN, drawing attention instead to his Democratic opponent Katy Padilla Stout, an attorney who, in one case, was appointed to represent a father appealing to regain his parental rights after a domestic abuse case.
“It’s disappointing that alleged journalists would ignore our opponent’s very real culpability in violence against women and children in her battle to return a child to the parent who abused her,” Herrera said in a statement, shared with the Washington Examiner.
Stout told CNN that her “ethical obligation was to represent her client” in the case and argued that there is “no comparison” between the two scenarios.
House Majority PAC, the PAC aimed at electing Democrats to the House, has clipped the report on social media, aiming to boost Stout’s standing.
THE GOP’S TEXAS-SIZED KEN PAXTON DILEMMA
The Cook Political Report lists the race between Herrera and Stout to replace former Rep. Tony Gonzales in the House as a “Likely Republican” seat. Herrera advanced to the general election from a runoff against Gonzales, after the former congressman dropped his bid while he faced sexual misconduct allegations.
Gonzales won the district by 24.6 percentage points against his Democratic opponent in 2024.