Vicente Gonzalez Jr. is the Democratic incumbent for Texas's 34th District. He is a South Texas attorney who opened his own law practice in 1997 and was first elected to Congress in 2016, representing the 15th District from 2017 to 2023 and the 34th since 2023. He sits on the House Financial Services Committee and says he is running on lowering costs, including drug prices and insulin costs, and ending tariffs.[1][2][3]
Vicente Gonzalez was born on September 4, 1967, in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to Wikipedia. His House biography describes him as a lifetime resident of South Texas, and his campaign website says he was raised in a military family.[4][2][5] He earned his GED in 1985, an associate degree in banking and finance from Del Mar College in 1990, a bachelor's degree in business aviation from Embry-Riddle University in 1992, and a J.D. from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law (now Texas A&M School of Law) in 1996.[2][1] His campaign website says he served as a congressional intern in Washington, D.C., during law school and later trained in negotiation at Harvard University School of Law.[5]
Gonzalez opened his law practice, V. Gonzalez & Associates, in 1997. His campaign website says the practice focused on suits against corporations on behalf of working families and on recovering money for South Texas school districts.[2][5] He was first elected to the U.S. House in 2016 to represent Texas's 15th District, after Rep. Rubén Hinojosa retired, and won re-election in 2018 and 2020. After redistricting, he has represented the 34th District since 2023, defeating Mayra Flores in both 2022 and 2024.[4][1] According to his House biography, the 34th District includes all of Cameron, Kenedy, Kleberg and Willacy counties and eastern Hidalgo County.[2]
Gonzalez has served on the House Committee on Financial Services in every Congress since 2017, including its Capital Markets subcommittee and its subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions. He also served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022.[1][3] He chairs the Congressional Oil & Gas Caucus and co-chairs the Critical Minerals Caucus. He is also a member of the Blue Dog Coalition (where he is a Communications and Outreach Co-Chair), the New Democrat Coalition, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Group.[3][2][6] According to his House biography, Gonzalez is married to Lorena Saenz Gonzalez, a former teacher and school administrator in Edinburg and McAllen, and they live in the Rio Grande Valley.[2]
Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.
