OP: Corpus Christi is symptomatic with all of South Texas. In other words, La Palanca swings both ways now.
Specifically, what Battleground Texas failed to understand is that many college educated Hispanics with professional jobs are very family oriented and conservative by nature. These are the folks that have been here for generations, work their ass off, are very Christian, and maybe have served in the military. They resent illegals getting "free stuff" and they resent the deadbeat tatted up gangbangers who have all their baby mamas on welfare. They don't buy into the LULAC and La Raza drivel because they cannot relate to it. Many of these folks are voting Republican. So if you get 30 or 40% of them to vote Republican instead of 20%, it swings the state and will make Texas even more red.
And Voter ID will keep folks from voting multiple times on voter registration cards of dead people and family members who have moved. That is why it "looks" like turnout was low along the border when in reality more people were just voting once. This is a fact.
Combine fair elections with my first synopsis and you get more Republicans in office in South Texas.