Indictment or no, Henry Cuellar will likely be re-elected

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) has been indicted in federal court and has seen two of his trusted advisors take plea agreements in exchange for testifying against him and his wife Imelda. In spite of Cuellar’s legal challenges however, the congressman is still firmly on track to be re-elected in November for seven principal reasons.

First, Texas has already held its primaries way back in March. Unlike in 2022, Cuellar was unopposed in the Democratic primary this time around. He is therefore firmly entrenched as the party’s nominee unless he voluntarily bows out.

Second, unlike in 2022, when Republican leaders in Washington and Austin recruited and backed a top-tier candidate to compete in Cuellar’s 28th Congressional District, this year these same GOP elites did not get involved in the primary. As a result, the Republican Party will be saddled in November with one of two sub-optimal candidates, depending on the upcoming runoff election.

Third, the Texas redistricting process of 2021 left the district slightly more Democratic than it had been during the previous decade. In 2022 Cuellar easily defeated Republican Cassy Garcia by 13 percentage points, a margin of victory 8 points better than Beto O’Rourke’s gubernatorial campaign in the district.

Cuellar is an institution in Webb County, which accounts for one-third of the district’s population. He has represented it in some capacity for almost 40 years. His career began in the Texas House of Representatives, between 1987 and 2001, and he has served in the U.S. House since 2005. In 2022, Cuellar won 71 percent of the vote in Webb County in his race against Garcia. Although many Webb County Democrats will vote for Donald Trump in 2024, when they get to the third contest on their ballot, they will likely continue to vote for Cuellar. 

As for Bexar County, where another third of the voters live, Democrats there tend to be more progressive and are thus far less likely to back any Republican, whatever their feelings about Cuellar.

Fifth, since the Republican Party elites did not actively recruit a high-quality candidate to run in the 28th District this year, they are left with one of the two candidates who organically emerged from the GOP primary process in March and will compete in a low-turnout runoff May 28. 

In March, Jay Furman won 45 percent of the vote, followed by Lazaro Garza’s 27 percent. Garza, who is definitely the underdog in this race, is a retired businessman and a political unknown. Furman is a retired naval commander and first-time candidate whose policy positions on key issues are comparable to those of the most conservative House Republicans. Furman, who closely identifies with Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), has called on Republican Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to resign for colluding with the Biden administration.

In, sum, the profile of Cuellar’s most likely Republican opponent will make it exceptionally difficult for Furman to win over Democratic and independent voters, who have voted for Cuellar in the past.

Sixth, of the 13 House Democrats from Texas, Cuellar has by far the most favorable image among Texas Republican Party business and political elites. Cuellar holds policy positions that are closer to those of Republicans than any other Texas Democrat, and many moderate Texas Republicans actually find themselves more often in agreement with Cuellar than with their own Republican representatives in Congress. Many moderate Texas Republicans would actually prefer Cuellar return to D.C. if their only other option is someone like Furman.

As a result, we should not expect a significant number of influential Texas Republicans and Republican donors to push too hard to try and defeat Cuellar this November, in contrast to 2022.

Finally, over the last three decades, South Texas has had more than its share of criminal indictments and allegations of malfeasance by elected officials. Unlike many of those cases, where the criminal activity had direct negative effects on the lives of voters (for example, through theft or misuse of public funds), Cuellar’s alleged crimes have little to do with the district’s voters, few of whom can probably locate Azerbaijan on a map. (Fortunately for Cuellar, fewer than 100 Armenian Americans live in his district.)

A federal indictment is never a good thing for a congressional re-election campaign, but for Congressman Henry Cuellar this recent indictment will not prevent him from being re-elected in November of 2024 and then returning to the U.S. House of Representatives in January of 2025 for his 11th term.

Mark P. Jones is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies at Rice University. He is a professor in the department of political science, a political science fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, and faculty director of the Master of Global Affairs Program.