Eric Gay/AP Photo
Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas speaks to supporters during a campaign event, May 4, 2022, in San Antonio.
On May 12, just a couple of weeks ago, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman let this slip: “According to multiple sources familiar with new polling data, Blue Dog Reps. Kurt Schrader (OR-05) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) are now trailing progressive opponents.” This made some sense. Schrader was running in a district that featured mostly new territory for him, against an opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who had garnered the unprecedented support of several local Democratic parties. And Cuellar’s race was upended by the leaked Supreme Court draft overturning Roe v. Wade; he was the only House Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have maintained a woman’s right to an abortion. Jessica Cisneros, Cuellar’s opponent, highlighted that vote and the Supreme Court decision, and it was showing in the numbers.
Both Blue Dogs would enjoy outside support from corporate interests. Schrader had the endorsement of President Biden. But Cuellar had something that Schrader didn’t: active and full-throated support from the House Democratic leadership, including fundraisers and robocalls from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, plus a campaign visit from the latter. The impact of that was clearly seen on Tuesday night: Cuellar looks to have sneaked through by a razor-thin margin, while Schrader lost his bid for re-election rather badly.
More from David Dayen | Alexander Sammon
What happens next will be revealing about the leadership’s true priorities. Both McLeod-Skinner and Cuellar (if he pulls it out) will compete in light-blue seats in November with what political prognosticators have characterized as a slight lean to the Democrats at best. Each seat would be equally crucial to Democrats’ long-shot chances of holding the House. Each would have a virtually equal case to warrant resources from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the general election.
But Cuellar was just personally dragged across the finish line by the likes of Pelosi and Clyburn, while McLeod-Skinner doesn’t have those relationships. Will she get the air cover she needs from the DCCC or its House Majority super PAC? Or will a disproportionate amount of money and attention go to saving Cuellar instead?
The two present very different cases for national party investment. McLeod-Skinner won thanks to a swell of support from local political groups and activists, and a relatively high degree of enthusiasm that will translate to turnout come November. Cuellar won in exactly the opposite manner. The creaky Democratic machine summoned just enough money and institutional influence to beat back the energies of local activists and political groups in South Texas, whose enthusiasm will not carry over to the man unlovingly known as “Trump’s favorite Democrat,” making November’s general a much tougher spot for Democrats to hold.
Cuellar, incidentally, also sports an “A” rating from the NRA. Just as with his anti-abortion vote, he is alone among House Democrats on gun rights. The massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 130 miles from Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo, happened while voters cast their ballots on Tuesday. In a month that featured two signature, wrenching political events, the House leadership decided to support the most uniquely out-of-step Democrat on these issues in America, while claiming to be fighting for the exact opposite outcomes.
Currently, with the Texas secretary of state’s office reporting all votes counted, Cuellar leads by 177 votes out of 45,211, a difference of about 0.4 percent. Cisneros could in theory call for a recount, though in a late-night session with reporters, Cuellar already suggested he would fight that effort, saying, “We have very good attorneys, and if we need to, we will defend our election victory.” Cuellar also has more than a little experience with the travails of recounts, managing to come up with 200-odd votes that flipped the outcome from a defeat to a victory in his second congressional race in 2004.
Cuellar undoubtedly would have lost without support from the Democratic establishment, which was comically misleading about his record. In her robocall, Pelosi called the congressman “a fighter for hard-working families,” and Clyburn called him “an unapologetic champion for good-paying jobs,” despite Cuellar being the only House Democrat—a pattern with him—to vote against labor unions’ top priority this Congress, the PRO Act, which would make it easier to organize workplaces.
Pelosi also spent Election Day on Morning Joe talking about the importance of a woman’s right to choose, less than 48 hours after recording a robocall for the sole anti-abortion House Democrat.
Outside spending in the race was roughly even. While Cisneros benefited from a half-million-dollar ad campaign from the pro-choice PAC of EMILY’s List, Cuellar was helped late by the super PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a Latino-focused super PAC, as well as Mainstream Democrats PAC, the super PAC of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. The latter ran an ad claiming that Cuellar “opposes a ban on abortion,” basing this on his belief in exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Cuellar’s lone Democratic vote against stopping a judicial ban on abortion was not part of the ad.
This dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin maneuver was also seen in a mysterious newspaper sent to homes called the “South Texas Reporter,” something that has never existed before or since. A Whois lookup shows that the South Texas Reporter web address was only purchased in late April.
The paper’s top headline is “Cuellar Cleared,” a reference to an FBI raid on his home back in January. The article claims that Cuellar was told he is not a target of the probe, which apparently involves Azerbaijani business interests. However, the FBI has not formally cleared Cuellar of any wrongdoing. Elsewhere, the paper includes a hit piece about Cisneros “breaking up” the marriage of her high school teacher after a “low down fling.” This oppo research was shopped to the Daily Mail and New York Post and is reiterated here, as well as in a billboard in the district paid for by a firm owned by a Cuellar donor. Cuellar claimed that the newspaper was not sent by his campaign, and he disavowed the hit piece on Cisneros. Despite there still being no disclosure as to who funded these dubious buys, the cost of flouting federal election law is extremely minimal, especially compared to Cuellar’s other issues—the FBI remains a much more powerful force than the FEC.
In a race as close as this one, any or all of those factors could have made a difference. What shows is that the full spectrum of support for Cuellar, from corporate outside spending to the House leadership, saved him. “I also want to thank Whip Clyburn for his steadfast support,” Cuellar wrote in his statement declaring victory, singling out the man who visited San Antonio to campaign and fundraise for him.
In addition to Schrader, Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux lost her re-election campaign badly in Georgia on Tuesday, in a member-on-member race against Rep. Lucy McBath. The gerrymandered district, meant to push two Democrats into one seat, is solid blue, and McBath had significant outside support.
Bourdeaux, Schrader, and Cuellar were three of the “Unbreakable Nine,” who demanded that Democrats sever passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill from the Build Back Better Act, which predictably doomed the latter. Another of those nine, Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX), quit to become a lobbyist. Bourdeaux got essentially no help from the corporate interests that put her up to stalling the Biden agenda, and Schrader’s support was minimal. Whether they get the kind of lucrative post-congressional job that Vela snagged remains to be seen.
Prospects look just as dim for the once-vaunted Blue Dog coalition, the slightly larger version of the Unbreakable Nine cohort but without the clear corporate sponsorship of the group No Labels. The ranks of that caucus have thinned dramatically in this cycle already. Bordeaux is gone, Schrader is gone, Cuellar has barely clung on for one more term. Other members, like Stephanie Murphy and Jim Cooper, are retiring. The remaining members are largely in their seventies and face stiff re-election campaigns in the general. There’s a strong case to be made that between half and two-thirds of that 16-member group will not be in Congress come 2024. All the corporate money in the world has been unable to stanch the leftward flow of the Democratic caucus or repopulate the group around New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
Cuellar, alone among the corporate Democrats who angered the base and had to face voters, retained the backing of the establishment leadership. It potentially sets up an interesting case study for the general election. In 2018, when a DCCC-backed candidate lost the primary to Kara Eastman in a district around Omaha, Nebraska, the campaign committee did not make any meaningful contributions to her campaign against Republican Don Bacon. Eastman was overwhelmed with outside ads and lost by a few points.
These discretionary decisions can often create self-fulfilling prophecies about what kinds of candidates can win in swing districts. If Cuellar gets millions in air support and McLeod-Skinner (a fairly mainstream Democrat) gets nothing, the argument that Cuellar is a better fit for a general election can be made, but the playing field won’t exactly be level. And both candidates will need help fending off Republicans in a tough environment for Democrats nationally.
We will see if who Cuellar knows, and what narrative higher-ups might want to present about general-election candidates, will win out in November.
