Police asked a campaign worker for Democrat Vicente Gonzalez to pack up and leave a Brownsville polling place this week after he was seen slumped over holding “Support ICE!” signs with Republican Eric Flores’s face on them.
The Gonzalez campaign called him “a peaceful poll worker.”
In photos and video obtained by Current Revolt, a Gonzalez poll volunteer working at the Brownsville Library appeared “asleep” while holding signs that displayed the photo and name of Gonzalez’s opponent, Republican Eric Flores.
Across two days of working the poll, the volunteer repeatedly fell asleep, even dropping his signs onto the ground:
The signs say “TRUMP ENDORSED” and “Support ICE!” The same design is on a digital billboard in Brownsville, and according to The Washington Sun, the fine print on that billboard says the Gonzalez campaign paid for it. The Flores campaign sent the billboard company a cease-and-desist letter on Oct. 12, and its spokesperson called the billboard “a scam.”
Many people are asking if the Gonzalez campaign deliberately hired a volunteer who appeared impaired and would fall asleep in public in order to damage voters’ impression of Flores.
At one point this week, citizens became so concerned for the poll volunteer that police were called and the volunteer was asked to pack up his things and leave the polling place:
Current Revolt reached out to the Vicente Gonzalez campaign to inquire about the poll volunteer. A spokesperson did not deny he was hired by their campaign and provided the following comment:
“Allegations against a peaceful poll worker are false. But what isn’t false are the high prices and rogue ICE raids South Texans face every day under this Administration. When Eric Flores stands on stage with the President next Tuesday in Corpus Christi, his team will continue working behind the scenes to keep voters in the dark and scrub any appearance of a Trump endorsement.”
Current Revolt also reached out to the Eric Flores campaign to inquire about the Gonzalez poll volunteer holding signs with Flores on them:
“Vicente Gonzalez has lied to his constituents for years. Now he is spending his last few days as a member of Congress pioneering a new way to lie to voters. His campaign is going so badly that local Democrats won’t campaign with him. I guess he thinks his only option is to hire people to impersonate the Flores campaign who either are drunk or act like it. The whole thing is twisted, desperate, and weird.”
In response to the Gonzalez campaign’s claim that Flores wants to “scrub any appearance of a Trump endorsement,” the Flores campaign added:
“Eric is looking forward to welcoming President Trump to Corpus Christi for the second time this year. The fact that Eric earned the President’s endorsement is no secret. It’s also no secret to South Texas voters that Vicente Gonzalez has spent ten years in Congress voting with Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and radical socialists to keep the border wide open and to fund sex changes for kids with taxpayer money.”