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**MAY 25, 2022**

Will Progressives in Swing Districts Get the Cuellar Treatment From
Democratic Leadership?

BY DAVID DAYEN AND ALEXANDER SAMMON

In recent House primaries, Nancy Pelosi saved Henry Cuellar but threw
Kurt Schrader to the wolves. Now what?

On May 12, just a couple of weeks ago, Cook Political Report's Dave
Wasserman let this slip
:
"According to multiple sources familiar with new polling data, Blue Dog
Reps. Kurt Schrader (OR-05) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) are now trailing
progressive opponents." This made some sense. Schrader was running in a
district that featured mostly new territory for him, against an
opponent, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who had garnered the unprecedented
support of several local Democratic parties. And Cuellar's race was
upended by the leaked Supreme Court draft overturning Roe v. Wade; he
was the only House Democrat to vote against
the Women's Health Protection
Act, which would have maintained a woman's right to an abortion.
Jessica Cisneros, Cuellar's opponent, highlighted that vote and the
Supreme Court decision, and it was showing in the numbers.

Both Blue Dogs would enjoy outside support from corporate interests.
Schrader had the endorsement of President Biden
.
But Cuellar had something that Schrader didn't: active and
full-throated support from the House Democratic leadership, including
fundraisers and robocalls from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
and House
Majority Whip Jim Clyburn
, plus a
campaign visit
from the
latter. The impact of that was clearly seen on Tuesday night: Cuellar
looks to have sneaked through by a razor-thin margin, while Schrader
lost his bid
for re-election rather badly
.

What happens next will be revealing about the leadership's true
priorities. Both McLeod-Skinner and Cuellar (if he pulls it out) will
compete in light-blue seats in November with what political
prognosticators have characterized as a slight lean to the Democrats at
best. Each seat would be equally crucial to Democrats' long-shot
chances of holding the House. Each would have a virtually equal case to
warrant resources from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
in the general election.

But Cuellar was just personally dragged across the finish line by the
likes of Pelosi and Clyburn, while McLeod-Skinner doesn't have those
relationships. Will she get the air cover she needs from the DCCC or its
House Majority super PAC? Or will a disproportionate amount of money and
attention go to saving Cuellar instead?

The two present very different cases for national party investment.
McLeod-Skinner won thanks to a swell of support from local political
groups and activists, and a relatively high degree of enthusiasm that
will translate to turnout come November. Cuellar won in exactly the
opposite manner. The creaky Democratic machine summoned just enough
money and institutional influence to beat back the energies of local
activists and political groups in South Texas, whose enthusiasm will not
carry over to the man unlovingly known as "Trump's favorite Democrat,"
making November's general a much tougher spot for Democrats to hold.
Cuellar, incidentally, also sports an "A" rating from the NRA
.
Just as with his anti-abortion vote, he is alone among House Democrats
on gun rights. The massacre at Robb Elementary School

in Uvalde, about 130 miles from Cuellar's hometown of Laredo, happened
while voters cast their ballots on Tuesday. In a month that featured two
signature, wrenching political events, the House leadership decided to
support the most uniquely out-of-step Democrat on these issues in
America, while claiming to be fighting for the exact opposite outcomes.

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Currently, with the Texas secretary of state's office reporting all
votes counted, Cuellar leads by 177 votes out of 45,211, a difference of
about 0.4 percent. Cisneros could in theory call for a recount, though
in a late-night session with reporters, Cuellar already suggested he
would fight that effort, saying
, "We have
very good attorneys, and if we need to, we will defend our election
victory." Cuellar also has more than a little experience with the
travails of recounts, managing to come up with 200-odd votes that
flipped the outcome from a defeat to a victory in his second
congressional race in 2004.

Cuellar undoubtedly would have lost without support from the Democratic
establishment, which was comically misleading about his record. In her
robocall, Pelosi called the congressman "a fighter for hard-working
families," and Clyburn called him "an unapologetic champion for
good-paying jobs," despite Cuellar being the only House Democrat-a
pattern with him-to vote against labor unions' top priority this
Congress, the PRO Act, which would make it easier to organize
workplaces.

Pelosi also spent Election Day on Morning Joe
talking about the importance of
a woman's right to choose, less than 48 hours after recording a
robocall for the sole anti-abortion House Democrat.

Outside spending in the race was roughly even
.
While Cisneros benefited from a half-million-dollar ad campaign from the
pro-choice PAC of EMILY's List, Cuellar was helped late by the super
PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a
Latino-focused super PAC
,
as well as Mainstream Democrats PAC, the super PAC of LinkedIn founder
Reid Hoffman
.
The latter ran an ad claiming that Cuellar "opposes a ban on abortion
,"
basing this on his belief in exceptions for rape, incest, and the life
of the mother. Cuellar's lone Democratic vote against stopping a
judicial ban on abortion was not part of the ad.

This dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin maneuver was also seen in a mysterious
newspaper
sent to homes called the "South Texas Reporter," something that has
never existed before or since. A Whois lookup
shows that the
South Texas Reporter web address was only purchased in late April.

The paper's top headline is "Cuellar Cleared," a reference to an FBI
raid on his home back in January. The article claims that Cuellar was
told he is not a target of the probe, which apparently involves
Azerbaijani business interests. However, the FBI has not formally
cleared Cuellar of any wrongdoing. Elsewhere, the paper includes a hit
piece about Cisneros "breaking up" the marriage of her high school
teacher after a "low down fling." This oppo research was shopped to the
Daily Mail and New York Post and is reiterated here, as well as in a
billboard in the district

paid for by a firm owned by a Cuellar donor
.
Cuellar claimed that the newspaper was not sent by his campaign, and he
disavowed the hit piece on Cisneros. Despite there still being no
disclosure as to who funded these dubious buys, the cost of flouting
federal election law is extremely minimal, especially compared to
Cuellar's other issues-the FBI remains a much more powerful force
than the FEC.

In a race as close as this one, any or all of those factors could have
made a difference. What shows is that the full spectrum of support for
Cuellar, from corporate outside spending to the House leadership, saved
him. "I also want to thank Whip Clyburn for his steadfast support,"
Cuellar wrote in his statement declaring victory
,
singling out the man who visited San Antonio to campaign and fundraise
for him.

In addition to Schrader, Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux lost her re-election
campaign badly

in Georgia on Tuesday, in a member-on-member race against Rep. Lucy
McBath. The gerrymandered district, meant to push two Democrats into one
seat, is solid blue, and McBath had significant outside support.

Bourdeaux, Schrader, and Cuellar were three of the "Unbreakable Nine,"
who demanded that Democrats sever passage of the bipartisan
infrastructure bill from the Build Back Better Act, which predictably
doomed the latter. Another of those nine, Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX), quit
to become a lobbyist. Bourdeaux got essentially no help from the
corporate interests that put her up to stalling the Biden agenda, and
Schrader's support was minimal. Whether they get the kind of lucrative
post-congressional job that Vela snagged remains to be seen.

Prospects look just as dim for the once-vaunted Blue Dog coalition, the
slightly larger version of the Unbreakable Nine cohort but without the
clear corporate sponsorship of the group No Labels. The ranks of that
caucus have thinned dramatically in this cycle already. Bordeaux is
gone, Schrader is gone, Cuellar has barely clung on for one more term.
Other members, like Stephanie Murphy and Jim Cooper, are retiring. The
remaining members are largely in their seventies and face stiff
re-election campaigns in the general. There's a strong case to be made
that between half and two-thirds of that 16-member group will not be in
Congress come 2024. All the corporate money in the world has been unable
to stanch the leftward flow of the Democratic caucus or repopulate the
group around New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

Cuellar, alone among the corporate Democrats who angered the base and
had to face voters, retained the backing of the establishment
leadership. It potentially sets up an interesting case study for the
general election. In 2018, when a DCCC-backed candidate lost the primary
to Kara Eastman in a district around Omaha, Nebraska, the campaign
committee did not make any meaningful contributions

to her campaign against Republican Don Bacon. Eastman was overwhelmed
with outside ads and lost by a few points.

These discretionary decisions can often create self-fulfilling
prophecies about what kinds of candidates can win in swing districts. If
Cuellar gets millions in air support and McLeod-Skinner (a fairly
mainstream Democrat) gets nothing, the argument that Cuellar is a better
fit for a general election can be made, but the playing field won't
exactly be level. And both candidates will need help fending off
Republicans in a tough environment for Democrats nationally.

We will see if who Cuellar knows, and what narrative higher-ups might
want to present about general-election candidates, will win out in
November.

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revolt. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

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