The Texan Podcast - Congressional Candidate Jon Bonck at the Texas GOP 2026 State Convention

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Texas Congressional District 38 candidate Jon Bonck joined The Texan's Reporter Mary Elise O'Bar at the Republican Party of Texas' 2026 state convention to discuss flipping Harris County red, Texas' 2025 congressional redistricting, Republican unity following the primary elections, and more.Listen to more interviews from The Texan wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, follow us and leave a review.

All right, well, John Vaughn, thank you for joining me today. We're with the Texan News, Mary-Ales-O-Bar here. We're live at the Republican Party, Texas Convention, 2026. How's it going for you so far? Thank you so much, Mary-Elees. I'm really excited to be here at the convention, the energy is excited. I'm glad it's here in Houston. Houston is the largest Republican city in America, you know,

and so the votes are here to move the state forward. The votes are here to win this county back. You know, being in Harris County resident, I care deeply about not only the country, but the county. Yeah, I was going to ask, I mean, Governor Greg Abbott has really focused on turning Harris County Red. What are your thoughts on that? What's it going to take? Yeah, I think it can happen. I mean, people here in Houston, we have not vacated the city. You see in these other big cities across the country where people are moving out.

People are moving into Houston because people believe in the opportunities we have here in energy and health care. People here are having kids. We live. I have a Houston address. I'm proud of that. That means I get to vote in the mayorial race. I get to vote for Houston City Council. And so people care about the city. We could have easily moved out to the suburbs, but as a young person, I'm raising my family, my wife and I are building businesses here.

So people care here. We just got to get them to the polls. And you are the Republican nominee for CD-38 now, which Congressman Wesley Hunt left open after he decided to run for U.S. Senate. I'd like to ask, so now that the primary runoff is over, everyone can kind of take a little bit of a breath, but now you're headed to general election. How has it affected your campaigning, whether you know, your voice or your message or just moving forward?

Yeah, I mean, the district that I ran in, Congressman Wesley Hunt, has 100% of the congressional district is in Harris County. And it starts in Tomball and Klein, kind of Champions Forest, comes all the way into the city of Houston, the Galleria, Memorial Park. And so it's a very unique district where it's kind of rural, but it's heavy metropolitan. But it's actually an R plus 20, meaning that the general election is a pretty cakewalk for the Republican nominee. but I'm not taking my foot off the gas at all. If you look at the area of Houston, we have five new people that I got the GOP nominee, Trevor Nell, Jessica Steinman, myself, Alex Miller,

and then Steve Toe and CD2. And so we have five new people going to Congress, and together all our seats are really safe except for Mealers. Hers is new. The Trump maps kind of got redrawn this year. So I'm going to be helping Alex Mealer a lot in CD9, get a win there in East Harris County for the Republican Party. And then the Democrats nominated Letitia Plummer for Harris County Judge.

She's supported by care, a lot of radical leftists. And so I'm going to be supporting Orlando Sanchez, who is our Republican nominee for Harris County. My congressional district, Texas 38, is one-seventh of the population of Harris County, but it's one-third of the registered Republican voters. And so if we're going to win anything countywide, I need the folks in 38 to get up and get to the polls and vote and support the entire ticket. So that's how I'm going to be campaigning going into the... general. Well, and a big message here has been about Republicans needing to unite after we had that relatively bloody primary season. So what are you specifically doing as a candidate to ensure unity

for the Republican Party moving forward? Yeah, I mean, when it comes to unity, I start with my own race first. And so I had 10 people in the ballot for the primary in March, finished first with 47%. So I almost got the nomination, just 3% off. Then I had a runoff going through May 26, where it just ended, I finished first, got the nominee, 165.35. Well, my opponent and I sat down. We had coffee. I brought my wife. My opponent brought her husband, and we talked about the party. We talked about the district. We put a social media post out together that, hey, we're going to go win this, support the Republican Party. And so I would encourage all my folks that were in Republican primaries that didn't make it that might have finished second or even finished third. Go be with that candidate. I got that nominee. Offer your help, offer your support, because you did build a message.

did build supporters and voters and that's how we're going to bring the party together it starts at the top and with real leadership so let's say you are elected to congress come november what's a committee that you would enjoy serving on when you're in congress yeah i mean that's kind of the the next leg of the race right is what committees can you get on and there's this grading system a committee a b committee c committees and houston again is like the economic hub of the state of texas the state of texas is the most important state in the country. And Harris County is the fourth largest, I mean, the third largest county in America. And so there's a strong case for a Houston, Texas congressman to be on an aid committee. And so I would love to see our seat, our congressional district have representation

at some of the most powerful committees. And one of the things I'm passionate about from a policy standpoint is affordability. I'm a mortgage banker, a mortgage business owner by trade. My wife has a real estate business. And right now, Mary Lease, the first time home buyer average age is 40 years old. So young Americans in our country right now are struggling to own a part of their country. And so we've got to fix affordability, especially when it comes to housing. Some of the legislative ideas I have are these 529 college savings accounts. A lot of people might not go to college. A lot of them might have gotten a scholarship and only use half their 529s. That's a tax deferred account. I would love to push policy to where those 529s could be used by Americans to put a down payment

on a house and own a part of their country. And how do you anticipate? pay you, your dynamic will be with a Texas delegation that's in Congress. Yeah, I mean, we're the largest delegation. A lot of people don't know that. Texas, we have 25 Republicans from the state of Texas. We redistrict this summer. There's five new seats that we're trying to flip from Democrats or Republican. We could have 30 Republicans in the nation's capital. Again, leading policy, leading committees, being involved in leadership decisions. Congress is one person. I'm just one of 435. I can't just write a bill and assume everyone's going to support it. So you have to build coalitions. We're a team and the most important team and the most

important coalition is us together as Texans. And we've already met with a lot of the incumbents in the Texas congressional delegation. I've already met pretty much all my members of the up-and-coming freshman class who got their nominations. And we're excited to unify together as Texans because I say this all the time. If a piece of policy is good for Texas, it's good for America. 99 out of 100 times. If we do what's best for Texas, it's going to be great for the country. And as we wrap up here, I'd like to ask you, what's a topic that you might not get to talk about a whole lot on the campaign trail, but you think it's really important to drive home to central voters? Yeah, I mean, Texas 38.

It's, again, it's energy, it's oil gas, it's parental rights, and those are things I've talked on and on again. But, you know, I'm an SEC guy. I went to LSU. There's actually a lot of buzz about legislation to fix NIL and kind of fix college football. Senator Ted Cruz endorsed me. He's been a great friend and great mentor. He's trying to pass some legislation right now on NIL because we've seen just the money pouring into college football

and some of these SEC schools have shut down other sports. Like Arkansas got rid of women's tennis. And so I love just thinking about the NIL and college sports and how important that is too is as a country, our culture as Americans. I think putting some caps or contracts or how many times you can transfer or things like that, we'll save the sport and save college sports.

And so even though that's not a top issue, like I've talked about on the trail, I think people really care about the culture of college sports. Well, John, that concludes my questions. Thank you so much for joining the Texan News here today. We just really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much, Mary Lee. God bless you.

Thank you so much. Thank you.