Texas Republican in race for key House seat under fire for derogatory comments

A Republican candidate for a key congressional district in Texas has come under scrutiny over a series of derogatory comments made about women in his social media posts and videos.Brandon Herrera, who is the GOP candidate for Texas’s 23rd congressional district, has made a string of insults while fashioning a rightwing online persona as the “AK Guy”, and hosts a YouTube channel with more than 4 million subscribers that tests and reviews firearms.The comments, first reported by CNN, include Herrera taking aim at people he opposes politically, and women. In a 2023 video, he said that a gun range dummy’s empty head was “full of mush – much like the average Austin feminist”, and in a separate 2024 video, he likened the weight of “angry blue-haired” feminists to that of orca whales and elephants.In 2020, Herrera filmed himself firing a gun at bottles of ranch dressing and, after they exploded, rubbing the condiment onto himself and declaring that this would “make me irresistible to the fat bitches”. While discussing the merits of a car on X in 2023, Herrera opined that “4 doors means more whores”.Other groups have also been the focus of Herrera’s online content. In 2020, while firing a gun at a ham, Herrera said that while purchasing a ham for target practice was expensive, it was “still cheaper than a homeless person”.This isn’t the first time that Herrera has come under scrutiny. In 2024, during a run for Congress, Herrera said: “I am not, nor have I never [sic] been, a neo-Nazi” after describing a Nazi-era gun as “the original ghetto blaster”. The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned him at the time as “a goose-stepping extremist”.Herrera said that all these comments were jokes, and took aim at his opponent in this November’s midterm election, Democrat Katy Padilla Stout. “It’s disappointing that CNN would allow someone to allege that jokes about feminism lead to violence when Stout is fighting to return children to the parent convicted of abusing them,” Herrera said in a statement to CNN, referring to a case in which Stout was appointed as a defense attorney for a father seeking to restore parental rights after a domestic abuse allegation.The Guardian has contacted Herrera’s campaign for comment.The past comments could add to Republicans’ challenge of holding onto the US House of Representatives seat. Herrera is attempting to replace Tony Gonzales, a Republican lawmaker who resigned in April amid a House ethics committee investigation into his relationship with a former aide.While Democrats haven’t prevailed in this district since 2015, the party has recently added it to its target list and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has sent funding to Stout, a former teacher and attorney, in what is expected to be a strong year for Democrats amid rising voter dissatisfaction with Donald Trump.