Congressman Tony Gonzales represents Texas’s Twenty-Third District, which stretches from western San Antonio all the way to the outskirts of El Paso. Its area is larger than that of 26 states, but Gonzales says his upbringing gave him the education he needed to represent this unwieldy stretch of land: He spent his first years in central San Antonio and his middle school years living with his grandparents in Camp Wood, a town of five hundred or so two hours west of the city. After serving for twenty years in the Navy, Gonzales first entered politics as a Department of Defense fellow in Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s office. In 2020, after three-term Congressman Will Hurd announced his retirement, Gonzales ran for his seat. Even though Hurd was…