Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez identify as Democrats, and Americans generally respect how people identify. Their party affiliation says Democrat, and nobody needs to deadname either congressman a Republican. Their congressional voting records, unfortunately, keep complicating their promise to democracy. Three neighboring congressional districts in South Texas share similar political terrain. Their populations are overwhelmingly Hispanic, their communities live with the re

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina filed for Congress in December 2025 with no campaign experience above the county level. Four months later, he had outraised an eleven-term incumbent, landed a spot on the NRCC's inaugural priority list, and picked up a public nod from one of South Texas's most active Republican organizing groups. That is not the trajectory of a first-time candidate finding his footing. His feet are firmly planted on solid ground. Per FEC filings, Tijerina raise

The Most Republican Democrat in Congress Faces the Most Democratic Republican in Texas Tano Tijerina spent a decade winning Webb County elections as a Democrat. He won in 2014, 2018, and 2022, each time under the same party banner, each time in a county that had been blue so long that the color felt geological. Then Trump carried Webb County in November 2024, and Tijerina announced on Fox & Friends that he had always been a conservative and that the Democratic Party lost him

Donald Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar on December 3rd. By December 9th, House Democrats were preparing to restore the Laredo congressman to his position as ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. It took six days for a man accused of selling his influence to foreign interests to reclaim control over more than $65 billion in annual federal spending. Cuellar doesn't just vote on border security. He decides which DHS programs get funded a

President Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda on December 3, wiping away federal bribery and money laundering charges that threatened to send the couple to prison. Cuellar was grateful on social media. On the same day, however, Cuellar filed for reelection as a Democrat. The heartfelt gratitude he expressed to Trump lasted approximately as long as a gentleman's handshake before a duel. By Sunday, Trump was raging on Truth Social, his