Bobby Pulido, the Tejano music star running as a Democrat for Texas's 15th Congressional District, asked women on social media to send him explicit pictures and openly promoted pornography sites, then dismissed the posts as lost-in-translation humor when reporters came asking.

A New York Post review of Pulido's Twitter history uncovered a trail of Spanish-language posts stretching from 2013 to 2018 in which the 55-year-old Latin Grammy winner solicited sexual photos from female followers, shared links to pornography websites, and made crude remarks about women's bodies, including a 2016 comment aimed at then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and actress Chloë Grace Moretz.

Pulido is challenging Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz in a South Texas district that both parties consider competitive. His campaign scrubbed several of the pornography-related posts after the Post contacted his team, and Pulido later posted a video calling the questions "recycled tabloid nonsense." But the posts themselves, many of which were archived before deletion, tell a different story than the one his campaign wants voters to hear.

Pulido asked a female follower for a photo of "your t**" in 2014

In one 2014 tweet, Pulido wrote, in Spanish, "I want a photo of your t** signed by @grupo_pesado," referencing the Mexico-based Tejano band Grupo Pesado. The post was a reply to a since-deleted message from another user who had tagged him.

That same year, Pulido posted a shirtless image of himself with a caption that translates to "I read you guys with this face, friends..." The post carried the tone of someone performing for an audience he assumed would never be examined in English.

A year earlier, in 2013, a Twitter user with the handle @AlieenLugo left a sexually charged comment on one of Pulido's photos. Ten days later, Pulido replied: "gracias! Besos", "Thanks! Kisses." His campaign declined to say whether any further interaction took place. The @AlieenLugo account has since been deleted.

Pulido's online conduct fits a pattern that has dogged other Democratic candidates caught using social media to pursue sexual interactions with followers and constituents.

Pornography links, crude jokes, and a deleted Clinton tweet

The explicit photo requests were not isolated incidents. Pulido also tweeted that "it's impossible to have Twitter and not watch porn" and informed his followers about a website called "youporn," calling it "cool." In a separate post, he shared a direct link to the pornography site XVideos, commenting on "homemade porn while sleep-deprived."

On July 4, 2018, he posted a message, still live as of the Post's review, that translates to: "We all have that friend who's always sending porn via WhatsApp. Thanks, but an occasional photo or video is enough for me."

In 2016, Pulido commented on a photo of Hillary Clinton and Chloë Grace Moretz holding donuts. His remark, translated from Spanish: "Girl, this is what happens to you after a natural childbirth..." He deleted that tweet after Mediaite contacted his campaign about it earlier this year.

His campaign's approach to the posts followed a consistent pattern: deny, delete, deflect. When the Post asked about the pornography-related tweets, Pulido's team scrubbed them. When Mediaite flagged the Clinton comment, the tweet disappeared. When the full scope of the posts became public, Pulido posted a video on his campaign account calling it all a "tired song and dance."

"Mexican humor" defense drew more scrutiny, not less

In a video message posted July 20 on his campaign's X account, Pulido offered his most direct response to date:

"Years ago, I joked around with my fans on Twitter, mostly in Spanish. Look, I'm from South Texas, and Mexican humor is sarcastic, brutal, and full of slang that doesn't necessarily survive the Google Translate test."

He added: "Some of these old tweets, they went too far, that's my bad, and I've apologized."

But the defense that crude sexual solicitations were simply humor lost in translation did not hold up well under additional reporting. Fox News reported that Pulido also appeared in a 2010 music video for "Dias de Ayer" that depicted him engaging in lewd behavior, including appearing to expose himself to a woman on a plane. The same reporting surfaced a post that appeared to show Pulido urinating on Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star, along with Spanish-language posts containing extreme profanity directed at the president.

The AP noted that Pulido admitted embarrassment over some of his old posts and conceded that his humor "doesn't translate." His own Democratic primary opponent, Ada Cuellar, said at the time: "He doesn't really understand the issues or have the solutions that I have."

Democrats have faced a string of candidate-conduct problems in recent months, including sexual misconduct allegations that upended a Maine Senate race and raised broader questions about the party's vetting process.

Pulido's ties to a convicted child sex offender remain unresolved

The social media posts are not the only liability shadowing Pulido's candidacy. The Post had previously reported on his long professional relationship with Frankie Caballero, a former bandmate convicted in 2014 of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl. Caballero served a four-year prison sentence. Pulido continued to tour with him after his release.

In a 2019 appearance on a YouTube show hosted by comedian Jose Luis Zagar, Pulido boasted about going to get Caballero "out of jail," skipping over the nature of the offenses. Breitbart reported that Caballero's criminal history spans three decades and includes charges ranging from cocaine possession to assault by strangulation, in addition to the child sex offense conviction.

Caballero's son, Frankie Caballero Jr., also has a sex-offense record. Court records from the Texas Department of Public Safety show that the younger Caballero pleaded guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing a 14-year-old. He has described himself as having "grown up touring" with Pulido.

Pulido's spokesperson previously said the candidate "didn't post Caballero's bail or pick him up from jail or prison" and "was just riffing to Zagar about how he gave Caballero a chance to perform." The campaign offered no further explanation for why Pulido maintained a touring relationship with a man convicted of assaulting a child.

The unresolved questions around Pulido's conduct add to a growing list of Democratic candidates facing scrutiny over their personal behavior even as the party asks voters to trust its judgment on character and accountability.

Scrubbed posts and a campaign that won't answer questions

Pulido's campaign has declined to explain the 2013 exchange with @AlieenLugo and has not addressed whether any of his social media interactions with female followers went beyond the posts the Post uncovered. The campaign's strategy, delete the posts, issue a video, and call the coverage tabloid gossip, relies on the assumption that voters in the 15th District will not look too closely.

That assumption may be tested. The posts were written in Spanish, on a platform where Pulido interacted with fans who followed him as a musician, not as a politician. He was not a public official when he wrote them. But he is asking to become one now, and the record he built in those years, soliciting explicit photos, sharing pornography links, joking about women's bodies, and maintaining a professional relationship with a convicted child sex offender, is the record voters will weigh.

The broader pattern of Democratic candidate implosions over personal misconduct has already cost the party competitive seats in other states. Whether Texas's 15th District joins that list depends on whether Pulido's "lost in translation" defense holds up better in a general election than it has under press scrutiny.

A candidate who blames the language barrier for years of crude sexual behavior online is not offering an explanation. He is offering voters a reason to look harder.