Jessica Cisneros
A 26-year-old Laredoan, former valedictorian of Early College High School and current immigration and human rights attorney, Jessica Cisneros is announcing her campaign Thursday to run for Congress in 2020 to represent Laredo and the rest of Texas’ 28th District, which spans from San Antonio to Mission.
“I’m super excited to finally have the opportunity,” said Cisneros to Laredo Morning Times. “I’ve been working for it and praying for it, to be able to give back to my community here in South Texas. From a very young age, I’ve known that I wanted to give back to my community. I’ve been inspired by the people here in Laredo.”
Cisneros will have the chance to give Laredo’s Rep. Henry Cuellar a serious primary challenger in this very blue district, which has solely been represented by Democrats since it was created in 1993.
Cisneros is backed by Justice Democrats, the progressive advocacy group that famously recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her successful primary bid to represent New York’s 14th congressional district. And Cisneros’ platform reflects Justice Democrats’ core values, which have become emblematic of the progressive left. According to a release from the Justice Democrats, they include: fixing the U.S. immigration system, ending family separations, opposing the border wall, instating a $15 minimum wage and a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, the end of corporate money influencing elections, free public college, women’s health and reproductive rights, gun reform, expanding Social Security, and making the wealthy pay their fair share.
Cisneros has pledged to reject campaign contributions from corporate political action committees and lobbyists.
Since Justice Democrats first announced that they would be targeting Cuellar’s seat in the primary, doubt has poured forth about the likelihood of a liberal Democrat winning an election in Laredo. In a recent Texas Monthly story on this very topic, Democratic consultant Christian Archer says he believes the Justice Democrats have misunderstood this congressional district.
“(Justice Democrats) probably don’t know Laredo. … These are farmers and ranchers and people who grew up carrying a gun,” Archer is quoted as saying in the story.
Cisneros begs to differ. She said people believe this area is conservative in part because Cuellar, a conservative Democrat, perpetuates the idea.
“South Texas is its own district. We are placed in a very unique spot in terms of politics and also geographically, being right here on the border,” Cisneros said. “But fundamentally I think the big issues are being able to address things like poverty — the rampant poverty that we have here on the border — health care access and the jobs issue.”
See here for the background. I’m not going to offer an opinion on Cisneros’ chances of winning. I don’t know the district, I don’t know either her or Rep. Cuellar, and I don’t know what kind of campaign she will be able to run. As I noted in that link, the recent history of primary challengers to incumbent members of Congress does not offer a ton of hope, but times change and this particular kind of challenge has not been attempted before. The one bit of pushback I will offer is that CD28 is not actually “very blue”, it’s on the blue end of purple. Cuellar has never had a serious Republican challenger, in part I think because he always outperforms the partisan baseline, which is still pretty blue if not impregnably blue to begin with. This isn’t challenging Gene Green from the left; Cisneros would be advised to not take her district’s partisan leanings for granted if she won the primary. That’s not an argument for her not to run – one could make a case that a more progressive Democrat would do a better job than Cuellar does turning out Democratic voters, for example – just an observation on my part about the numbers.
The x-factor in this and all other primaries for 2020 is the very high turnout we’re going to get thanks to the Presidential cattle call. Will lower-information Democratic voters stick with the name they know? Will newer voters be more inclined to vote for a change? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. Be prepared to take any primary polling of the district with a big ol’ grain of salt. Vox, the Rivard Report, the Current, and Texas Monthly have more.
The Justice Democrats brought us Alexandria Cortez and Ilhan Omar. I can’t wait to see the winners they are going to run this time.
From Ballotopia:
“On March 22, 2019, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced that it would no longer do business with firms who also worked with primary challengers to Democratic U.S. House members and encouraged House members’ campaigns to do the same.”
Justice Democrats describe themselves as a party within a party, or as trying to change the democrat party itself. With the limitations it puts on itself and the shotgun style platform they have, which is trying to cover everything, how do they find enough time in the day? Their t shirts are union made, so they have that going for them.