As Joe Biden narrowly defeated Bernie Sanders in Texas, an establishment Democrat in the state appeared fended off a progressive primary challenger in a closely watched House race. Congressman Henry Cuellar defeated Jessica Cisneros by a few thousand votes, leading with nearly 52% of the vote.
Cuellar is one of the few conservative Democrats remaining in the House — he opposes abortion rights and is a strong advocate for gun rights. Meanwhile, 26-year-old Cisneros, who was a former intern for Cuellar, has a slew of endorsements from progressive political figures like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. Cisneros was also endorsed by EMILY’s List, a politically powerful organization which aims to elect pro-abortion rights Democratic women.
Acknowledging defeat on Twitter Wednesday morning, Cisneros said that “this is just the beginning.”
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“The first thing we had to defeat was the culture of fear – and our movement was victorious in proving we’re within striking distance of bringing fundamental change to South Texas,” Cisneros wrote.
Cuellar, who was first elected in 2004, and has never had a competitive primary challenger until now, had the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who recently rallied with Cuellar in Texas to show support.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Cuellar has voted in line with President Trump around 45% of the time since Mr. Trump entered office, even though Hillary Clinton defeated Mr. Trump by nearly 20 percentage points in Cuellar’s expansive Southern Texas district in 2016.
