Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX- 28) said the quiet part out loud during a campaign office opening. He pledged loyalty to Nancy Pelosi, promising his supporters that he would vote for her for Speaker of the House as his first action in his next term if he is re-elected. Then, after that, his focus will be only on his district. What an odd thing to say as an endangered conservative Democrat in a race considered to be a toss-up.
Rep. Henry Cuellar is the only pro-life Democrat currently serving in the House. He is a border hawk and a vocal critic of Biden’s border crisis. He takes pride in being a moderate who works with Republicans. The point is that he does not usually sound like a typical House Democrat. Yet, he sure sounded like one as he opened a new campaign office in his district.
At the opening of his new campaign office in Texas, Cuellar told reporters that he could be counted on to vote for Pelosi to remain as House speaker. “My first vote is for Nancy Pelosi — no ifs, no but — but then after that, it’s my district,” Cuellar said, according to a Texas Tribune newsletter Wednesday.
It sounds as though he is putting his district second to Pelosi. That is an unusual position to take for Cuellar, as he also prides himself on constituent support. He has been in the House since 2005. He is well-known and respected by voters in his district, which includes Laredo, Mission, Rio Grande City, and San Antonio. Cuellar has been challenged in primary races in recent election cycles from the progressive left, by candidates recruited and supported by far-left groups like Justice Democrats. Members of The Squad, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have supported his Democrat primary opponents and come to Texas to campaign against Cuellar. You get the picture.
Cuellar squeaked by with a win in the Democrat primary in May. He is a seasoned politician who is now running against a conservative Latina Cassy Garcia.
Cuellar began his political career in the Texas House of Representatives, where he served from 1987 to 2001. He also served as Texas secretary of state in 2001.
Cuellar has five advanced degrees, earning him the title of the “Most Degreed Member” serving in the House, according to his official House website.
He isn’t afraid to call out Kamala Harris or Joe Biden on their dereliction of duty on the southern border.
Cuellar has a history of moderate voting in Congress, being the only House Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, a major Democrat-backed pro-abortion legislation, and also recently called out Vice President Kamala Harris, the border czar, after she claimed that the border was secure.
“My message remains the same. The border is not secure, and we need to be doing more to dissuade migrants from coming to the United States,” Cuellar told Fox News Digital.
Cassy Garcia says Cuellar is all talk, no action. She makes the point that his loyalty to Pelosi is not in line with the values of the district’s voters.
“Henry has been in office since I was in kindergarten. That’s a long time. He has lost touch with our community. And this is evidenced by the fact that he votes 95% of the time with Nancy Pelosi, whose San Francisco values do not align with those of South Texas,” Garcia told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” in September.
“The reality is that he has voted against infrastructure for the southern border, and that’s why the National Border Patrol Council is endorsing me and not him in this race,” she said.
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Garcia said she has spoken to voters in the district about Cuellar’s involvement at the border. “They tell me he’s been there too long, and he says all the right things but has done nothing to secure our southern border,” she added.
I assume that Cuellar was making the point that he’ll vote for Pelosi for speaker because she has supported him in his re-election campaigns, choosing him over his progressive primary challengers. Still, with Hispanic support shifting, slowly but surely to Republican candidates in Texas, especially in Democrat-controlled districts, embracing San Fran Gran Pelosi doesn’t seem like a good move for Cuellar. Much of his support comes from voters who prefer a more moderate representative.
Garcia’s resume includes working for Senator Ted Cruz as his deputy state director. Cruz has campaigned for her. She was appointed by Trump in July of 2020 to serve as Commissioner for the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative.
Cassy Garcia was born in Edinburg, Texas. Garcia earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas at Pan American (Rio Grande Valley). Her career experience includes working as the deputy state director for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and the regional field representative for the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture.
Three wives of border patrol agents are fed up with the Biden border crisis and are running for office as Republicans this cycle. Mayra Flores is one. She won a special election in June and made history in her district, TX-34. That district has been under Democrat control for over 100 years before her victory. One of the main focuses of her campaign was the southern border. Voters responded to her message. She is running for re-election now to serve a full term. Her race, like Garcia’s, is ranked as a toss-up. Garcia is following the same path as Flores. Her husband has been a Border Patrol agent for 26 years. Garcia is particularly alarmed about the deaths of migrants who try to cross the Rio Grande River.
Working as the state deputy director for Sen. Ted Cruz made Cassy Garcia consider running for political office herself. Hearing from her husband — a border patrol agent of 26 years — about what was going on at the Southern border convinced her she had to do it.
“[He] says the administration is not doing its job and not enforcing laws that are on the books; he has seen it all getting worse,” Garcia, who will not reveal her husband’s name or station over security concerns, told The Post. “There is a morgue in Laredo that is at capacity with the bodies of unidentified immigrants.”
The 41-year-old said she is particularly pained by the deaths of migrants attempting to enter the United States from Mexico in her district — including at the perilous Rio Grande.
According to NPR, more than 800 migrants died while trying to cross the river during the fiscal year that ended September 29.
“Children die because the mothers [trying to get across for illegal entry into the United States] don’t realize how fast the current is,” said Garcia. “Every single day, the agents do search-and-rescue and pull bodies up from the river. One mother was trying to come across and lost the grip of two children. The four-year-old drowned and the one-year-old was pulled out but died.”
Border Patrol agents suffer from PTSD-type symptoms as they try to handle the humanitarian crisis on the southern border. Garcia notes that Biden’s apathy about border control is not a humanitarian position to take. It leads to the chaos we see now. Drug cartels control parts of the border, human traffickers exploit migrants for profit, the numbers of unaccompanied minors is at historic highs. Who better to address the problem than a candidate who understands the Biden border crisis at the level she does?
It would be quite a feat for Garcia to knock off Cuellar in this race. Polling looks to be non-existent but Real Clear Politics lists it as a toss-up, which leads me to believe that she has a real shot at winning. That is great news for Republicans.
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