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Just four years<\/span> ago, a progressive primary challenger with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., fell 281 votes short<\/a> of toppling scandal-stained<\/a> incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.<\/p>\n Cuellar went on to win the general election in the 28th Congressional District. Then he won again in 2024, despite a federal bribery indictment. In December, President Donald Trump granted Cuellar a pardon from federal charges.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s assist might have generated a serious primary challenge for a Democrat elsewhere, but Cuellar does not have any well-funded opponents this time around in Texas\u2019s primary elections on Tuesday.<\/p>\n That trend has repeated itself along the Texas border. In districts where progressives once drew national attention<\/a> and fundraising dollars<\/a>, a handful of candidates in the left lane are mounting shoestring campaigns.<\/p>\n Texas politicos chalked that phenomenon up to the disappointment from the defeat of progressive candidates in 2022 and 2024, mid-decade redistricting that made several seats in Texas more conservative, and concerns from national groups that some Latinos have permanently swung to the right after voting for Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a decided progressive shift, especially among Democratic voters who are desperate for real change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Some observers, however, believe that there\u2019s a chance that Democrats may overlearned the lessons of 2024, when Trump made historic inroads<\/a> among Latino voters along the border.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a decided progressive shift, especially among Democratic voters who are desperate for real change,\u201d said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. \u201cBut I think they\u2019re desperate to find candidates who can articulate that.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the candidates who is vying for progressive votes Ada Cuellar, an emergency room doctor who has tapped her retirement fund as national donors line up behind a centrist competitor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ada Cuellar, no relation to Henry, is running in the Democratic primary against Tejano music scion Bobby Pulido in the 15th Congressional District, which stretches from McAllen on the border to the suburbs of San Antonio. Pulido has cast himself as the candidate most attuned to the district\u2019s attitudes on social issues such as guns and abortion rights.<\/p>\n Washington Democrats are gushing over Pulido\u2019s prospects to win over Republicans in a district that went 58 percent to 40 percent<\/a> for Trump over Kamala Harris in 2024. Only a shotgun-wielding centrist like Pulido has a chance, the theory goes.<\/p>\n Cuellar disagrees. While she eschews the \u201cprogressive\u201d label \u2014 she considers herself an \u201cindependent Democrat\u201d \u2014 she is running on a platform that includes support for Medicare for All and abortion rights.<\/p>\n \u201cThe establishment has misread the moment, and they really shouldn\u2019t have made a pick here,\u201d said Cuellar. \u201cI really think they shouldn\u2019t make picks in general.\u201d<\/p>\n Early polls, including one conducted by Cuellar\u2019s campaign, showed her far behind the singer. The $824,000 that Ada Cuellar has loaned her own campaign, though, appears to be evening the score.<\/p>\n \u201cThey really shouldn\u2019t have made a pick here. I really think they shouldn\u2019t make picks in general.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n And national groups are rushing to prop up Pulido. Blue Dog Action is running ads<\/a> responding to Cuellar\u2019s attacks on Pulido over his views on abortion, for example. The centrist Democratic PAC spent close to $1 million in support of Pulido in February alone, campaign finance records show.<\/a><\/p>\n Cuellar is not the only candidate in the progressive mold running without national support.<\/p>\n In the 34th Congressional District, policy researcher Etienne Rosas is trying to take on conservative Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez \u2014 with $7,900 in cash on hand<\/a> compared to the incumbent\u2019s $1.3 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gonzalez co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition and voted in favor of the January appropriations bill<\/a> to fund the Department of Homeland Security, factors that would make him a tempting target for progressives elsewhere. Still, national groups have stayed away.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, as a socialist myself, I\u2019ve been kind of dismayed how much little outreach leftists that have a national platform have done to this district,\u201d Rosas said.<\/p>\n Rosas is hopeful that support from local Democratic Socialists of America members will give him a people-power boost. Still, he wishes that more national progressives would turn their eyes to the border.<\/p>\n Gonzalez\u2019s campaign did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n National progressive groups and political figures have had a mixed record in supporting campaigns in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n In 2020 and 2022, Henry Cuellar faced serious primary challenges from immigration legal aid lawyer Jessica Cisneros in his district, which stretches from Laredo to the outskirts of San Antonio. Buoyed by the backing of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, she fell short by a few hundred votes of toppling Cuellar on her second try.<\/p>\n In the 15th Congressional District, where Ada Cuellar and Pulido are competing now, Michelle Vallejo secured the Democratic nomination in 2022 and 2024, first as a progressive, then as more of a centrist.<\/p>\n Vallejo drew national support, but that was not enough to put her over the top in two races against Republican Monica De La Cruz. In a January 2025 report<\/a>, the local group Cambio Texas said that Vallejo\u2019s campaigns fell short in part because she relied too heavily on national groups.<\/p>\n The report was also critical of national progressives\u2019 alleged overreliance on \u201cpurity tests\u201d and \u201cideological language.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen progressive messaging fails to resonate with Texas voters, the problem often lies with the messenger,\u201d argued the group, whose executive director at the time, Abel Prado, is now serving as Pulido\u2019s campaign manager. \u201cWinning elections requires a willingness to engage with people outside one\u2019s own social or political comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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Down in the Rio Grande Valley<\/strong><\/h2>\n