By Jim Ellis — Friday, Feb. 21, 2025
House
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo)
Reports are surfacing that the GOP leadership is attempting to recruit Webb County Judge (referred to as County Executive in most places) Tano Tijerina who is a new Republican. Saying that, “hard work, faith, family, and freedom” were “no longer pillars in the Democrat party,” Tijerina converted to the Republican Party in December. Now, the party leaders hope he will challenge Rep. Cuellar in 2026.
Henry Cuellar was first elected to Congress in 2004 and has since become the most bipartisan member of the House Democratic Conference. He is also facing a federal indictment on bribery and money laundering charges with a trial scheduled to begin in the Spring with jury selection currently scheduled for March 31. It remains to be seen if the Trump Justice Department moves forward with this case.
Despite being under a well-publicized indictment, Cuellar was re-elected to an 11th term in November with a 52.8 – 47.2 percent margin over retired Navy Commander Jay Furman (R) who moved to the district from another state for the singular purpose of opposing Cuellar.
Therefore, with Furman having little in the way of local connections or history within the district the Congressman was easily able to out-raise his opponent and ended the campaign with a better than 3:1 spending advantage. Thus, Furman’s unfamiliarity with the local region made him a weak candidate though he was still able to out-poll Rep. Cuellar in three counties.
The 28th District begins in the eastern sector of San Antonio and then moves south all the way to the Mexican border. Tijerina’s Webb County, which houses the city of Laredo, is the district’s largest entity encompassing approximately 35 percent of the CD’s population. Bexar County, where San Antonio lies, is the second largest of the district’s nine counties, holding about 33 percent of the constituency.
CD-28’s population is 72 percent Hispanic, yet in the 2024 election President Donald Trump carried the South Texas region — the first time a Republican had done that since 1912, according to the Down Ballot political blog statisticians. He topped Kamala Harris in the Cuellar District by a 51-48 percent clip.
The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates TX-28 as D+7, but the latest statistics might suggest a tightening of that rating. Dave’s Redistricting App calculates a 55.2D – 42.7R partisan lean, and the Down Ballot data organization ranks the district as the 53rd most vulnerable seat in the Democratic Conference.
While Rep. Cuellar still maintains a partisan advantage, his edge is far from insurmountable. Tijerina has averaged 88.2 percent of the vote in his three countywide elections, which makes him a very formidable prospective opponent.
At this early point in the 2026 election cycle, conversion opportunities for either party appear few and far between, and virtually non-existent in Texas. Should the Republicans successfully recruit Tijerina into this race, the GOP would have scored a clear point in their favor and a new seriously competitive challenge race would soon form.