What Went Down During The May 24 Primary Elections

Well, even though abortion seemingly opened an avenue of attack for Cisneros against Cuellar, who is anti-abortion rights, it hard to say yet if it mattered much. Currently, Cisneros leads by about 1 point, 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, but two counties Cuellar carried easily haven’t reported anything yet, according to ABC News. Still, Cisneros could benefit from the outstanding votes left to be reported in Bexar County (San Antonio), so this race is very much up in the air. But that’s sort of what we expected after Cuellar led 49 percent to 47 percent in the primary. I guess it’ll be easy to say that abortion mattered if Cisneros wins, but it will be harder to parse whether that’s true.

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.