One of the hottest House Democratic primary races of the year is about to get even hotter as it moves to a true one-on-one race between Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose home was recently raided by the FBI, and challenger immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros, who is backed by Democrats in the left-wing “Squad,” in a runoff.
Cuellar came close to narrowly fending off Cisneros’s challenge in a primary for Texas’s 28th District on Tuesday. She has the help from the left-wing Justice Democrats PAC that also put insurgent Democrats such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in office. But a minor third candidate in the primary, community organizer Tannya Benavides, scooped up a handful of percentage points and kept Cisneros and Cuellar from crossing the 50% mark.
Cuellar was less than 2 points ahead of Cisneros as of Wednesday morning. Election Day for Texas primary runoffs is May 24.
The primary race comes about a month after the FBI raided Cuellar’s home as part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan and U.S. businessmen with ties to the country.
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This is Cisneros’s second shot at trying to unseat Cuellar, having come within 4 points of doing so in 2020. Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for her, as did Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
In her campaign, Cisneros hammered against Cisneros’s moderation. Cuellar, a 17-year incumbent who has the support of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is one of the House’s most conservative Democrats.
“We don’t sell out to private prisons, Kochs, or insurance companies,” she said in one campaign ad, referencing Cuellar getting backing in 2020 from Americans for Prosperity Action, affiliated with billionaire Charles Koch.
We don’t have his lobbyists or his machine.
We have faith.
Faith that our people deserve better.
I’m running for Congress because I believe in Medicare for all, reproductive rights, and good-paying union jobs.
They put faith in their money. We put faith in our dreams. #TX28 pic.twitter.com/CpjRCJwnvK
— Jessica Cisneros (@JCisnerosTX) February 22, 2022
Cuellar, meanwhile, painted the “Medicare for All” supporter Cisneros as an extremist.
“We cannot have leaders that are uncompromising and extreme,” Cuellar said in an ad. “I will always vote in the best interest of our constituents.”
The FBI raid on Cuellar’s home complicates the race for Cuellar.
He addressed the raid in a late January video that put his modest childhood home, rather than the large home that the FBI raided, as its backdrop.
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“I am fully cooperating with law enforcement and committed to ensuring that justice and the law is upheld,” Cuellar said in the video. “There is an ongoing investigation that will show that there is no wrongdoing on my part.”
Democrats have a mild partisan advantage in Texas 28th District, a sliver that stretches from the San Antonio area to the southern border and Rio Grande valley. But Republicans hope that the gains that former President Donald Trump made in the area in the 2020 election, combined with a favorable national electoral environment, could allow them to pick up the seat.
