What Went Down During The May 24 Primary Elections

Sarah, I think all the focus on the Cuellar/Cisneros, moderate/progressive feud has distracted from how competitive this race could be this fall. Whoever pulls this out (and maybe even more so if it’s Cisneros) will be facing strong headwinds in the Rio Grande Valley. The movement towards Trump from 2016 to 2020 in the region was basically unmatched anywhere else in the country. The counties along the U.S.-Mexico border saw an average shift of 16 points towards the president.

Going into tonight, Sarah, I was under the impression that Cuellar has a slight edge. He’s a conservative Democrat, yes, but there’s a reason why he’s been in office since 2005. He’s a conservative because it works down there! And it’s unclear whether South Texas — which swung red in 2020 — is ready to have a progressive representative like Cisneros. That said, Cisneros, and other groups aligned with her candidacy, attempted to paint this race as a referendum on how much voters care about abortion access. Cuellar has quite the reputation as an anti-abortion Democrat, but it’s not immediately clear how much that turned off voters in the district.

Additionally, what does it say about Texas’s 28th District that two candidates who are so different from each other still appeal to large swaths of the electorate? Politically speaking, is the 28th a really unique place?