With the smoke of an epic meme and social media war clearing, U.S. Rep. Ernest "Tony" Gonzales seemed Tuesday night to have narrowly eked out a win in a runoff election against The AK Guy. 

Brandon Herrera, an 07 Firearm Manufacturer responsible for the .50 caliber BMG Kalashnikov AK-50 and probably best known for his un-apologetically pro-gun social media channels, had some 14,616 votes tallied in Texas's 23rd congressional district Republican runoff by Wednesday morning, against incumbent Gonzales, who counted 15,023. With 95 percent of the votes counted, many media outlets called the race for Gonzales.

A retired Navy crypto Master Chief who entered Congress in 2021, Gonzales has been seen as a moderate at best and an outright anti-gun RINO at worst. For good reason.

In 2022, he was one of only 14 House Republicans to cast their lot with the chamber's Dems to pass the 80-page Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most sweeping federal anti-gun legislation in a generation. The Biden administration has repeatedly cited the BSCA as the authority to install new rules such as the ersatz universal background check guidance that took effect this week. 

Other moves to side with Democrats in Washington earned Gonzales rare public censure from the Republican Party of Texas. Nonetheless, the more establishment incumbent out-raised Herrera by a factor of over 3 to 1, running with the benefit of a $4.5 million war chest against the challenger's more paltry $1.4 million.

Gonzales will face Democrat Santos Limon in the November general election.

As for Herrera, he is proud of his campaign, saying, "We made them fight for their lives."

And he always has the AK50 to fall back on.