Key U.S. House race in South Texas draws star power in closing days
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, an entrenched incumbent representing a traditionally solid blue stretch of South Texas, is running for his political life as Election Day approaches Tuesday.
He faces a spirited challenge from Republican Cassy Garcia, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in one of the most expensive House races in the country, as Republicans look to expand the battleground map and take control of the U.S. House.
Over the final days of the race in the 28th Congressional District, each candidate has called on a high-profile closer: Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to appear with Cuellar at a rally Monday in Laredo, and Cruz concluded his 17-state bus tour for GOP candidates by headlining a Friday rally for Garcia along with U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Hays County, in Selma, outside San Antonio.
Cuellar, the rare conservative Democrat in Texas, is coming under heavy fire as the GOP is hoping to build on the relative success former President Donald Trump found on the Texas-Mexico border in 2020.
“It’s a bloodbath on the airwaves,” said Sergio Mora, who hosts the political podcast Frontera radio and is a former Webb County Democratic Party chair. “It’s very sensationalistic. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
In a 30-second video ad posted Nov. 1 by the National Republican Congressional Committee, Cuellar is labeled as “crooked” and a “dirty politician” for having taken a contribution years ago from the wife of a Mexican cartel money man.
More:Here are the House races to watch in Tuesday's midterm election
The Cuellar campaign denounced the ad, saying that when Cuellar found out about the connection, he donated the money to charity.
“Cassy Garcia has resurfaced a 10-year-old story and launched a blatantly false ad just seven days before Election Day in a desperate attempt to smear Congressman Cuellar’s reputation and save her losing campaign,” a Cuellar campaign statement said. Cuellar went on to cite a Spanish saying that this was “patadas de ahogado,” which means kicking while you’re drowning.
But Democrats are taking no chances, and the House Majority PAC, which is the political action committee aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded to the latest GOP attacks with a $100,000 infusion last week to support Cuellar, adding to the millions of dollars Democrats have poured into the campaign.
“Cuellar does have an advantage,” said David Wasserman, the House expert for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analytical outlet. “He’s battle-tested.”
Cuellar survived a hard-fought primary challenge from the left, winning a runoff against immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros in May by only 289 votes. Wasserman gives a slight edge to Cuellar because he withstood attacks from the left that Wasserman said help him in the general election against Republican attacks from the right. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, is scoring the race as a toss-up.
Garcia has challenged Cuellar on ethics partly because the traditional GOP lines of attack against Texas Democrats — abortion, guns, the border — are not that effective against him. Cuellar was the sole Democrat to vote against codifying abortion rights in 2021; he is a gun rights advocate, and most significantly, he regularly criticizes the Biden administration for failing to secure the border.
Asked Thursday on Fox News to respond to Garcia’s criticisms about his failure to act on “the worst border crisis in the nation’s history,” Cuellar got personal. He brought up Garcia’s husband, a Border Patrol agent who the congressman said would call him to come speak to new cadets.
More:Editorial: A recap of Statesman endorsements in Tuesday's elections
Garcia’s campaign responded in an indignant tweet because Cuellar seemed to question whether she was married to the agent. “Henry Cuellar’s comments about Cassy Garcia were highly inappropriate and disgusting,” said Brittany McGivern, a spokeswoman for her campaign. “He should apologize immediately.”
Garcia does not name her husband publicly to protect his identity.
FBI raid on Cuellar's home and office
Cuellar, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2004, is vulnerable on ethics because the FBI raided his home and office at the beginning of the year. The FBI has not said why it staged the dramatic entries, and no charges have been filed. Cuellar says his lawyer was told he is not the target of the investigation.
That isn't stopping Garcia from using the raid as part of a multipronged attack.
“Every day, I meet voters, including many Democrats, who tell me prices are too high, the border is broken, and four out of nine counties in our community don’t have doctors,” she told the American-Statesman. “They’re also fed up with Cuellar’s scandals. ... it’s bad enough he’s under a criminal investigation, now it turns out he took campaign cash from an associate of Los Zetas. I shouldn’t have to say this, but members of Congress should never take money from a Mexican drug cartel.”
The race ranks eighth among all House elections in the amount spent by candidates, with $14.8 million spent through Oct. 19, according to opensecrets.org, a nonpartisan organization.
South Texas races
It is the first election since political districts were redrawn with new census data, a process that gave Texas two additional seats in the U.S. House and empowered Republicans to move aggressively on the border districts — the 15th, 34th and 28th districts — which are the only competitive races in the state. All other districts are drawn to clearly favor either Republicans or Democrats.
More:Texas' early voting turnout in 2022 falls short of midterm early vote in 2018
The 34th District, which runs from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, features two incumbents, U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, R-Los Indios, elected in a special election in June, and U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who currently represents the 15th District. Most handicappers are scoring the race as a toss-up.
In the 15th district, which includes a section of the Rio Grande Valley at McAllen and stretches north to near San Antonio, two political newcomers are facing off: Republican Monica De La Cruz, an insurance agent, and small business owner Michelle Vallejo. De la Cruz is rated as likely to win, according to Wasserman at the Cook Political Report and Sabato at the University of Virginia.
Cuellar, for his part, is confident. “We’re looking at the numbers. We’re going to win this race,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Bill Clinton to campaign for Henry Cuellar in final days of race
