There will be many interesting and highly competitive Democratic primaries for Congress next year, but this could be the biggest of them.
Veronica Escobar
El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar has officially started her run for Congress.
Escobar, a Democrat, submitted paperwork Friday to the Federal Election Commission to begin a campaign for Texas’ 16th Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, is giving up the seat to run for U.S. Senate in 2018.
Escobar is expected to make the campaign official Saturday, when she’s invited supporters to a “special announcement” in El Paso.
Escobar, who is close with O’Rourke, was almost instantly seen as a potential candidate to replace him when he announced in March he would challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. She already has his backing in her bid for Congress.
In recent weeks, Escobar had also received support from a draft effort by a national group, the Latino Victory Project. If elected, Escobar would become the first Latina member of Congress from Texas.
Escobar announced that she wasn’t running for re-election as County Judge back in June, which basically convinced everyone she was in. Escobar’s main competition, at least so far, is El Paso ISD Trustee Dori Fenenbock, who has raised a bunch of money already. I doubt Escobar will have any trouble catching up, and she ought to be able to use money she previously raised for her county office. The race that matters here is the primary – CD16 is strongly blue, so the primary winner is pretty much guaranteed to win in November. When that primary will be, in March as usual or later thanks to the ongoing redistricting fight, remains to be seen. The other point of interest will be in who files to succeed Escobar – it would not be a surprise if one or more State Reps from El Paso takes a shot at it. Keep an eye on this one, for if nothing else it should add another female member of Congress from Texas, bringing our state up to the grand total of four, modulo the other potentially competitive races.
I’ve already gone through her social media and website.
Boring
No ideas, no solutions