House Republicans are spying a surprise opportunity to flip another Democratic-held district after the Laredo, Texas, home and campaign office of Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Wednesday.
Cuellar, 66, a centrist and frequent target of Republicans and the Left, has been impossible to dislodge since winning a seat in Congress in 2004. But Cuellar could be unexpectedly vulnerable beginning March 1, when he stands for renomination against a liberal challenger in the Democratic primary — or this fall, against a Republican, if it turns out the congressman is the target of a federal investigation and the inquiry extends deep into the election year.
“What’s Henry Cuellar hiding?” said Torunn Sinclair, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, signaling the GOP is preparing to make a play for his seat in light of developments. The GOP is targeting dozens of Democratic-held House seats amid signs that a red wave is building for the 2022 elections.
Few details about the unfolding federal investigation, including whether the congressman is the target of the inquiry, were known Thursday afternoon. Even among Democratic and Republican operatives in Texas, there was little in the way of gossip or speculation regarding what might have sparked the action taken by federal authorities, although it did not go unnoticed that Cuellar’s campaign manager, Colin Strother, had deactivated his Twitter account.
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Asked for comment on the FBI raid, Cuellar’s congressional office on Capitol Hill emailed a short, opaque statement to the Washington Examiner: “Congressman Cuellar will fully cooperate in any investigation. He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld.”
Redistricting was kind to Cuellar.
The 28th Congressional District still stretches from San Antonio to the Mexican border and includes a significant chunk of South Texas’s Hispanic communities. But the boundaries of Cuellar’s newly configured 28th District are more hospitable to the Democratic Party, making the congressman less appetizing for Republicans in the midterm elections. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in this district 52.8% to 45.8%.
But with the gains Trump made in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas in 2020, combined with trends showing Republicans improving their support among Hispanic voters generally, the 28th District could be a very attractive target for the Republicans. That would be especially true absent Cuellar as the Democratic nominee, should he step aside or lose his primary, but also true if he is running for reelection under the cloud of an FBI investigation.
“Voters across the RGV, and border region, are moving away from Democrats, and especially those Democrats who have not vocally opposed Biden’s purposeful destruction of border security,” a Republican operative in Texas said. “Cuellar is unique in that he has been an early and vocal critic of Biden’s border disaster.”
In other words, Republicans would really like their chances in this district if they were running against Jessica Cisneros, the liberal challenging Cuellar in the Democratic primary. That is especially the case because Republicans do not view a plus-7 Biden district in south Texas as a safe Democratic district. In 2010, Republican challenger Blake Farenthold defeated then-Rep. Solomon Ortiz in a similar district that President Barack Obama had won by 7 points.
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Meanwhile, Cisneros held off from immediately criticizing Cuellar. In a statement released in response to the FBI raids on Cuellar’s home and campaign office, Cisneros said only that she is “aware of the news” and “closely watching as this develops.”
