Eric Gay/AP Photo
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), center, joins a rally for Democratic congressional candidates Jessica Cisneros, left, and Greg Casar, right, February 12, 2022, in San Antonio.
Tuesday night began the long anticipated 2022 midterm cycle, one with huge stakes for Democrats as they hope to hold onto their fleeting majority in the House and the Senate. Results trickled in while President Biden delivered his first formal State of the Union, and many anticipated those returns would serve as a referendum on what’s been a bumpy first year in office, one marked by Democrats’ moderate faction torpedoing the president’s agenda, while seeking open antagonism with the party’s progressives.
At first glance, Texas’s results look like a triumph for progressives, who came away with some major victories, and didn’t lose any top-priority races. The biggest breakthrough came by way of Texas’s 35th Congressional District, a gerrymandered deep-blue seat with pockets in Austin and San Antonio. Austin city councilman Greg Casar won the Democratic nomination outright, crushing the field with over 60 percent of the vote in a four-way contest. Endorsed by seemingly every major progressive group but the Democratic Socialists of America, Casar’s victory is a huge win for the left in Congress, which after just one round of primaries is already sure to add one more member to the ranks of “the Squad.”
Notably, Casar pushed for cuts to Austin’s police funding and supported the decriminalization of outdoor camping, putting his victory deeply at odds with national Democrats’ newly fulsome embrace of police departments and expanding police budgets. Casar’s victory became clear at the same time Joe Biden delivered a chest-thumping rejection of “defund the police” movements, one that was met by a standing ovation from congressional Democrats. Also notable was Casar’s disavowal of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement on the campaign trail, which led to his breakup with DSA, a sign that after Nina Turner’s loss in Cleveland, progressives are steering clear of confrontation with the deep-pocketed Democratic Majority for Israel PAC. Casar will represent a newly drawn district that features working-class and multiracial parts of metro San Antonio and East Austin.
Progressives also triumphed in Texas’s 30th District south of Dallas, though in less resounding fashion. Jasmine Crockett, a state lawmaker who built something of a national reputation by leading the opposition to Texas’s draconian and restrictive new voting laws and was endorsed by some national progressive groups like the Working Families Party, easily won her race for the seat being vacated by the retiring Eddie Bernice Johnson, but fell just short of the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a May 24 runoff. Crockett was endorsed by Johnson personally.
Meanwhile, in South Texas’s 28th District, progressive immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros is also headed for a runoff against nine-term incumbent Henry Cuellar, after neither managed to breach the 50 percent threshold needed to secure the Democratic nomination. At last count, Cuellar looked to be slightly ahead, though another progressive candidate, Tannya Benavides, won nearly 5 percent of the vote share, which would have been more than enough to put Cisneros over the top. The runoff will be the third time Cuellar and Cisneros have squared off since 2020; two years ago, Cuellar beat Cisneros by four points.
Cisneros’s improved result in a district that has more favorable turf for her in Bexar County looks heartening for progressive groups, some of which have already called the runoff a triumph. There are plenty of ways to see in the returns a path to victory, with Benavides out of the race.
For well over a decade, Democrats have claimed to be just one cycle away from becoming a truly competitive force in Texas.
But it’s hard not to also see some disappointment in the result. The recent FBI raid of Cuellar’s house and campaign office hangs like a pall over his candidacy. Nearly every national Democratic organization sat out the race after that raid, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is notorious for meddling in Democratic primaries. It’s a far cry from 2020’s contest, which concluded with Nancy Pelosi coming to South Texas to campaign on Cuellar’s behalf. Pelosi’s campaign operation donated to Cuellar in the early goings of the 2022 contest, but didn’t contribute another cent after the FBI turned up. The only incumbent protection outfits to endorse and stand by Cuellar post-raid were Bold PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm, and Rep. Steny Hoyer personally. Cuellar himself wasn’t meaningfully on the trail in the race’s final weeks.
Yet Cuellar’s ability to push the race into a runoff is a testament to the power of the local political machine he’s built, and its capacity for inertia, as well as his substantial campaign coffers, a multimillion-dollar fundraising advantage. Even the most moderate of Democrats is aware that if Cuellar does triumph as the 28th District Democratic nominee for a tenth time, the general election will be brutal. Already, Republicans believe they have an outside shot in a Rio Grande Valley district that swung wildly away from Joe Biden and toward Donald Trump in 2020. And Republicans have found messaging on Democratic corruption, real or imagined, to be an immensely successful campaign strategy. The footage of the FBI rifling through Cuellar’s Laredo mansion will make that all the more effective.
Cuellar should face stiff competition to become the Democratic nominee. He was the only House Democrat to vote against a bill codifying Roe v. Wade as law, which died in the Senate just this week. He was the only House Democrat to vote against the PRO Act, which would greatly expand union enrollment. That means that both organized labor and pro-choice groups in the Democratic Party could make a meaningful push for Cisneros down the line. Given the salience of the abortion fight in Texas specifically and nationwide, and with the Court primed to vanquish Roe in this session, it’s almost impossible to see how national Democrats can accommodate Cuellar going forward.
For well over a decade, Democrats have claimed to be just one cycle away from becoming a truly competitive force in Texas. Those pronouncements have quieted. The state’s rightward surge continued last night as well. Trump-backed candidates dominated statewide. Gov. Greg Abbott romped in his primary race. Beto O’Rourke won the basically uncontested Democratic nomination to take him on in November, but his odds look only slightly more hopeful than his presidential aspirations were.
Also yet to be seen is the role of Texas’s stringent new voter restriction laws. In both Harris and El Paso Counties, nearly 30 percent of mail-in ballots were flagged for disqualification, according to the Guardian US’s Sam Levine. That’s a stunningly high number, and gives a sense of just how impactful those laws will ultimately be. In a tightly contested general election, that could be more than enough to swing the outcome.
Still, there’s plenty of reason to see progressivism ascendant in Texas after last night’s results, at least within the Democratic Party, and no moderate resurgence to match, despite the moderate wing’s attempt to lay Biden’s failures at the feet of progressives. But those progressive successes might be found more readily in open seats than in contested primaries like years prior. As a retirement wave has set in amongst the Democratic caucus’s oldest members, that’s reason enough to be hopeful about a distant future. If House Democrats are forced into a minority after November, the composition of the House Democratic caucus will continue to grow more progressive and more assertive.
