I worked for Henry Bonilla for every term except the last one. I received a call from one of his campaign workers during that last campaign telling me he was going to start negative campaigning against his dem opponent. I said then, he will lose if he resorts to this. He did not need to do this. He was popular and well respected. He did..and he lost. Even though I had said he would, I was stunned when he did.
It seems he lost the Mex-American votes and had some troubles after redistricting. I doubt negative campaigning had all that much of an effect. After all, his opposition campaigned negatively and it didn’t hurt Rodriguez.