This election cycle, plenty of talk statewide and even nationally has been on who will get Texas’ District 28 Democratic nomination between longtime incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar and progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros.
Cisneros gave Cuellar — who has been in the role since 2004 — a rare challenge for the spot in 2020, racking up 48.2% of the vote.
Considering Cisneros had another year to build upon her challenge and Cuellar had his home and office raided by the FBI in January, the possibility of Cuellar being unseated seemed to be a real possibility.
Yet the 2022 primary election finished with Cuellar and Cisneros heading for a runoff election on May 24 after they received 48.5% and 46.8% of the vote, respectively.
But there’s more to it than that. Digging into the data shows some interesting developments this time around.
Here’s some of the most intriguing developments when it comes to the numbers from the 2022 primary regarding District 28:
Voting was down considerably
While there’s certainly been a lot of interest regarding the District 28 seat, the voters of that district didn’t exactly show up to the polls to reflect that.
The primary election in 2020 came in a presidential election year, which led to significantly more voting in the District 28 race. Cuellar gathered 38,834 total votes to claim the 51.8% majority. Cisneros was right behind him with 36,144 votes, giving the two a combined 74,978.
But in 2022, Cuellar gathered just 23,552 votes, and Cisneros also saw her total dip to 22,745. While Tannya Benavides was an added competitor this time around, her 2,289 votes hardly made up the gap.
Overall, the difference is significant, as the 48,586 votes cast toward this race in 2022 is 26,392 fewer as compared to 2020. The total was also seen in Webb County with 28,753 votes being cast in 2020 for the two candidates compared to 20,176 for all three this election.
Cuellar made gains in Webb County despite FBI investigation
While many wondered if the FBI investigation would irreparably harm Cuellar’s campaign, Webb County voters didn’t seem to be impacted much.
Cuellar won Webb in 2022 racking up 59.49% of the vote compared to Cisneros’ 37.47% and Benavides’ 3.04%. The more than 22-point win in Webb is significantly higher than the margin of victory in 2020 when Webb County gave Cuellar 55.1% of the vote compared to Cisneros’ 44.9%.
As for total votes, Cuellar’s votes in Webb County did fall to 12,003 after reaching 15,853 in 2020. However, Cisneros was instead the one who had the most significant dropoff this year as she received 7,560 votes this time as opposed to 12,900 the previous election.
Benavides’ presence may have cost Cisneros
While Benavides had just 4.7% of the overall vote in the primary, her impact in the race may have been more significant than many realize.
Overall, Benavides racked up 2,289 votes. As another progressive Democrat, her political stances much more closely align with those of Cisneros than the longtime Blue Dog Democrat in Cuellar. It’s not too farfetched to believe the majority of those voters would have preferred Cisneros.
Meanwhile, Cuellar finished with just an 807-vote advantage over Cisneros in the race. Thus if Benavides had not participated in the election and at least 68% of her votes went to Cisneros, District 28 would have had a new representative. More specifically, Cisneros would have needed to pick up 1,483 of those 2,289 votes to defeat Cuellar.
Greater San Antonio’s impact in the District 28 race
Redistricting this year gave San Antonio a bigger say in the election process for Cuellar’s spot, and it was evident during the primary election.
While Cisneros wasn’t close to Cuellar in Webb County, she dominated Bexar. Cisneros picked up 73.4% of the vote, landing 8,768 in total. Cuellar’s had just 2,473 votes, as he was actually closer to Benavides’ 700-vote total than he was of winning the county.
Similarly, Guadalupe County went heavily in favor of Cisneros, who recorded 2,779 votes for a 73.6% advantage. Cuellar had only 662 votes in Guadalupe while Benavides had 333.
Overall, the two counties combined for 11,547 votes going to Cisneros as opposed to 3,135 for Cuellar and 1,033 for Benavides.
Can Republicans flip the District 28 seat?
This week, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisian political analysis site at the University of Virginia, changed its rating from the District 28 seat from “Leans Democratic” to “Toss-up.” Among the reasons listed were Cuellar’s FBI raid and Cisneros’ progressive leaning.
So can District 28 flip red? Well, if the numbers from the primary election are any indicator — there’s absolutely no chance.
In the election, Cassy Garcia forced a runoff in the seven-person field going up against last year’s lone runner in Sandra Whitten. Garcia gained 23.5% of the vote compared to Whitten’s 18%. They finished ahead of Steven Fowler (13.5%), Willie Vasquez Ng (13.3%), Ed Cabrera (13.3%), Eric Hohman (11.9%) and Rolando Rodriguez (6.5%).
But as a whole, Republican votes didn’t come close to approaching their Democratic counterparts. In fact, all seven totaled 24,967 votes, which together barely edged both Cuellar (23,552) and Cisneros (22,745) individually.
Democrats had 48,568 combined votes, nearly doubling the GOP’s total.
Zapata’s status as a red county
During the 2020 election, there was a lot of interest statewide in the fact that border county Zapata flipped red — potentially signaling that the GOP was better reaching Hispanic voters.
But in the 2022 primary, Zapata didn’t look like a red county in the slightest when it came to the District 28 race.
In fact, Whitten won the county while only picking up 54 total votes. And none of the other six candidates even eclipsed double digits as they combined for 38. The seven together couldn’t even outpace Benavides, as the third-ranked Democrat alone had 156 votes.
Cuellar won Zapata County with 2,489 votes while Cisneros came in second at 794.
