MIDLAND, TX — Rep. August Pfluger and Democratic challenger Claire Reynolds spent an hour Monday night arguing over who actually works for Texas’ 11th Congressional District, in a Basin PBS debate that ran from oil prices and data centers to Iran, ICE and the price of beef.
Pfluger, a San Angelo Central graduate and retired Air Force colonel seeking a fourth term, opened in a pink tie with a flag pin and leaned on biography.
“I love this district. This is where we grew up, raise our kids and go to church,” he said. He called himself a seventh-generation Texan, invoked Pflugerville (a part of TX-11) as the home of his ancestral line, and said his Air Force service was an oath kept that he keeps to this day. He pointed to funding he said he secured for Goodfellow Air Force Base and called himself a champion for the Permian Basin.
Reynolds, an attorney who said she has lived in Texas for 20 years, wore a maroon blazer and opened on affordability and money in politics. Republican members, she said, are given power and use it for themselves and the billionaires who pay for them.
“This election, you should ask whether your congressman works for you or for the person with the biggest bank statement,” she said. “Money doesn’t vote. People vote.” Moderators cut her off before she finished.
The forum was co-hosted by Odessa's CBS affiliate, First Alert 7’s Jay Hendricks, with Pat Canty and Becky Ferguson.
Pfluger kept returning to district roots and what he called the radical left. Reynolds kept returning to cost of living and campaign money, and later objected to the label.
On oil, the first question was whether the federal government should push crude toward $50 a barrel under the “drill, baby, drill” line. Pfluger said he has sponsored legislation to defend production and that “a free market is so important there.” He said he has worked to deregulate the industry, then contrasted that with Joe Biden. “What about when Candidate Biden said he was going to eliminate fossil fuels?”
Reynolds said she had heard on the street that she was there to put oil and gas out of business, and rejected it. “I am proud of West Texas’ leadership in the oil and gas industry,” she said. “But if we are going to compete with China, we need to go gangbusters on all sorts of energy, including solar and wind.”
A follow-up on a U.S. deal for a majority stake in Venezuelan oil split them cleanly. Reynolds said she strongly disagreed with the president taking a stake in private enterprise and that Congress should pass a law taking that authority back. “It’s time to hold Trump accountable,” she said. Pfluger said when Trump says drill, baby, drill, he means it, and that paired with what he called the radical left, voters can believe Democrats who say they want to eliminate the industry.
Data centers drew the sharpest exchange. Pfluger, who sits on Energy and Commerce, said he helped move an electricity rate protection plan that Senate Democrats would not pass, and that he trusts county judges and mayors over a federal one-size-fits-all rule. “I trust local government making decisions,” he said.
Reynolds agreed Senate Democrats should not have blocked the Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 9340, and called the gamesmanship a mistake. She also called the bill “kinda weak sauce,” though “still a good start.” The House-passed bill, sponsored by Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., would require states to consider making the largest data-center loads pay the full cost of the grid upgrades built for them. It passed 417-3 on Sept. 16 and has not cleared the Senate. Reynolds said Congress should also shield counties from lawsuits by data center developers, because local governments are afraid of being sued by billionaires. Pfluger took rebuttal time and said the light touch was the point. “It’s exactly the right amount. It’s not too much and it’s not nothing. And that’s why we passed it.”
On artificial intelligence, Reynolds called it shortsighted for Trump to dismiss the risks, said data centers never land in the backyards of the people who build them, and argued for federal guardrails. “We must not have a congress beholden to the data centers,” she said. Pfluger backed a light touch so the United States can compete with China.
Asked about the Protect College Sports Act, Pfluger reminded the room he was a student-athlete at the Air Force Academy (and, he didn't say it, but we know he was a Central Bobcat quarterback).
“I know about being a student athlete,” he said. Mass transfers and what he called the wild west for college athletes should end. He said Congress has the jurisdiction and women’s sports need protection. The bill, co-written by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., passed the Senate 77-22 on Sept. 28 and is not yet law. Reynolds said she had no strong opinion either way, and treated the women’s-sports argument as a “boogeyman” about transgender athletes that she said is not a factor in Texas.
Tariffs were the next affordability fight. “Tariffs are a tool, not an ideology,” Reynolds said. She blamed Trump’s tariffs for low cotton prices and said the taxing power belongs to Congress, which should take it back. Pfluger said free trade requires fair trade, that Brazil had been dumping cotton into the U.S. market, and that he is proud Trump is holding countries accountable. On Canada, he said Ottawa was given every chance at a deal and chose to keep taking advantage. Reynolds said she had a problem with the Canada tariffs, that Canada was trying to deal and the U.S. offer was unfair, and that “we are not in the world alone.”
On Iran and Operation Epic Fury, Reynolds called the campaign inept. “We have destroyed the careers of high-ranking leadership in the Pentagon. We have no exit strategy and don’t know what a victory will look like,” she said, and said it is the president’s job to tell Congress the plan. Pfluger, who said he served 26 years in the Air Force and flew the F-22, including over the Strait of Hormuz, said Iran had orchestrated attacks on U.S. interests for 47 years before the war and can never have a nuclear weapon. He contrasted the campaign with the Afghanistan withdrawal. “Unlike the previous administration with a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, where we had 13 service members killed, this president cares about doing the right thing.”
On Ukraine, Reynolds said the country is not ready for another war, but she supports financial aid and sanctions on Russia as cheaper than World War III. She added that the U.S. should be prepared to defend NATO allies. She noted the United States is the only member to have invoked Article 5, after the Sept. 11 attacks. Pfluger said he believes in peace through strength, that he is the only member of Congress who has worn a NATO patch, and that he served in Europe for two years. Ukraine is not a NATO ally, he said, but stopping communism matters. “Appeasing another country doesn’t work.” He said he will always vote to fund the military, and that every Democrat voted to defund it two weeks ago.
A daylight-saving-time question was the lightest of the night but also the one that broke format. Pfluger said he had seen wide support across 136 town halls and telephone town halls and had voted for permanent daylight time. Reynolds said she had no strong stance and would go with the majority. She then turned to Pfluger, tapping a pen like a prosecutor examining the witness, and asked directly whether his repeated “radical left” line meant her. Moderator Ferguson let out a nervous laughed off camera. “I just want to know if you’re referring to me, because you’re running against me,” Reynolds said. “I’m not trying to be snarky. But truly he’s running against me, and I don’t think I am a radical leftist.” Pfluger did not answer the question. He said he welcomed the conversation.
On Flock cameras, Reynolds said she is not a fan of the surveillance state and that getting crime-clearance data has been like pulling teeth. “To me, it looks like a money grab by these companies that have convinced our local police officers that they must have this lest more cars are stolen,” she said. “Right now, they’re everywhere. It’s insane.” She said she could support limited funding if the data showed the cameras solve crimes. Pfluger said Congress should protect privacy, that the decision belongs at the state and local level, and that he has voted to increase law-enforcement funding every year he has been in Congress.
On the debt, put to the candidates at about $40 trillion, Pfluger said the One Big Beautiful Bill cut the largest amount of spending ever, that Republicans trimmed $1.5 trillion while passing the largest tax cut in history, and that every federal agency, especially the Pentagon, should be audited. Reynolds said the cuts hit the most vulnerable, then pointed at what she called a federal subsidy of about $60,000 a year per deputy for an immigration-related program, including $895,000 a year to Venice, Florida. “If we’re cutting waste, that’s great,” she said, but not by aiming the cuts at programs people depend on.
Reynolds volunteered the ICE answer before Pfluger could frame it. “Here, I’ll say it before he does. I want to get rid of ICE,” she said. She called for a smaller interior-enforcement agency aimed at the worst offenders, and said locking up children and mothers does not make the country safer. Pfluger said the 11th District bore the brunt of the Biden-era border surge, cited local tragedies, and said he has voted every time to fund ICE. “I stand always against open border policy,” he said, and pledged continued support for Customs and Border Protection and ICE if re-elected.
Asked where each sits relative to the Democratic Socialists of America on the far left and so-called Christian nationalism on the far right, Pfluger said he thinks about families dealing with problems and pointed to a veterans’ caucus he said has passed bipartisan bills. Reynolds said she thought she was pretty far left until district conversations showed voters have more in common than they are told.
“The people at the top are lying to us because they want us turned against each other so we don’t turn against them,” she said. She then read what she said were Pfluger’s recent lines, including praise for White House adviser Stephen Miller and a claim that Democratic policies are evil and that the party has been taken over by people who demonize America and love socialism. The bell cut her off. Pfluger answered on immigration, not the quotes. A wide-open border policy is not love of country, he said. “It was heartless. Many people died making that trek across our borders.”
On antisemitism, Reynolds said it is intolerable and that she has no interest in protecting a racist or a bigot. Pfluger said it is sad that Jewish students live in fear, said he backed a bill denouncing what the “AOC squad” was doing, put a lot of the problem on the radical left, and said he will protect Israel. He said he wished New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani would address his own side.
Beef was personal for Pfluger. “I’m a seventh-generation Texan. My family still ranches in Kimble County and Concho County. This is personal to us,” he said. He said his office called the White House after talk of importing Argentine beef and told them people in the district are hurting. He does not want beef imported from Argentina or anywhere in South America, he said, and he helped write the 2026 farm bill, which he said has passed the House and is blocked by Senate Democrats. Reynolds said imports do not fix rising beef prices. She wants more domestic meat processing, country-of-origin labels, and more beef produced at home. “I would fight like hell” to end the Argentine imports, she said.
On Social Security, Reynolds said benefits will be cut in about seven years without action, and that the fix is lifting the wage cap, which she put at $172,000. The 2026 taxable maximum is $184,500. “Right now, someone receiving a paycheck of $2 million to $3 million is paying the same Social Security taxes as someone making $172,000,” she said. Pfluger said Republicans have already moved to shore up the program through the Working Families Tax Cut Act, mainly by going after fraud, and called for a bipartisan committee to do the rest.
Health care closed the policy list. Pfluger said he wrote a bill to cut medical bills 15 percent that Senate Democrats blocked, and that a rural health fund in the working-families bill has already helped a hospital in Winters, among other hospitals. Reynolds said the Big Beautiful Bill cut rural hospital funding, and that taking billions away and restoring a third of it is not a win.
Pfluger closed where he opened. “I love representing this district. This is where I’m from and where I was raised. In Congress I have delivered,” he said. Reynolds said this Congress is not working for the people it is supposed to work for. She said she would work to get big money out of elections, ban stock trading and ownership by members, and set term limits.
Early voting runs Oct. 19–30. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Democrat Claire Reynolds and Republican Rep. August Pfluger squared off in a debate on Oct 5, 2026.
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