After Trump Pardons Cuellar, TX-28 Moves to Leans Democratic

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— In what was a surprising bipartisan move last week, President Donald Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (D, TX-28), who was indicted on corruption and money laundering charges.

— Though the state’s new GOP-drawn House map faced some legal hurdles, the Supreme Court recently greenlit the mid-decade gerrymander for 2026.

— Republicans will very likely net seats under the new Texas map, though Cuellar may have actually gotten a more favorable district.

— Considering his pardon and the new lines, we are moving Cuellar from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.

— To the delight of national Republicans, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D, TX-30) made a late entry into the Senate race. We are holding the race at Likely Republican.

Table 1: Crystal Ball U.S. House rating change

The happiest Democrat in Texas?

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D, TX-28) may be the happiest Democrat in Texas. Last week, the long-serving South Texas Democrat got two favorable breaks: one was legal while the other was electoral.

In May 2024, the Department of Justice indicted Cuellar on money laundering and public corruption charges, alleging the long-serving member took nearly $600,000 from entities in Azerbaijan and Mexico. Despite these charges, Cuellar was reelected by about 6 points even as, at the presidential level, his South Texas district swung about 15 points to the right; after Joe Biden carried TX-28 by a 53%-46% margin in 2020, Donald Trump carried it by that same amount in 2024. Cuellar’s ongoing legal jeopardy—specifically, the possibility that he’d eventually resign or end up in prison—was the most obvious reason why we had this otherwise strong electoral performer’s race rated as a Toss-up.

However, in a shocking move last week, Trump announced via social media that he had pardoned Cuellar. Given the president’s transactional modus operandi, surely, many of us thought, Cuellar would either switch parties or retire. But, while Cuellar had some nice words to say about Trump, he filed for a 12th term as a Democrat and made it clear that he’d not be leaving the party. In a subsequent post over the weekend, Trump went on to take a less-than conciliatory tone towards Cuellar, blasting him for “disloyalty.” Perhaps there were things going on behind the scenes here that we don’t know about; perhaps not.

In any case, Trump’s pardon reportedly came as an unwelcome surprise to House Republican leadership. Rep. Richard Hudson (R, NC-9), who leads the National Republican Congressional Committee, acknowledged that it complicates their path to flipping TX-28. Hudson’s comments came even after Republicans landed a credible recruit for the race in Webb County (Laredo) Judge Tano Tijerina, who switched to the GOP last year (county judges are effectively county executives in Texas).

Then there is the matter of mid-decade redistricting. Though a lower court ruled that Republicans couldn’t enact their updated gerrymander for the 2026 elections, on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the new map to stand.

The map that Texas legislators passed this summer has been continuously heralded in media reports as one that could give Republicans up to 5 additional seats. However, since we first analyzed this refreshed gerrymander, we have pointed out that the redrawn TX-28 is clearly the shakiest potential GOP flip. In fact, the new version may actually be friendlier to Cuellar than the outgoing one.

One could argue that the new 28th is Trumpier, not more Republican, than the version it replaces. With the changes mappers made to the seat, Trump’s 2024 margin in the district would have gone from 7 points up to just over 10. But, down the ballot, the district could be more amenable to Cuellar personally. Map 1 illustrates this.

Map 1: Old vs new versions of TX-28 with 2024 data

The light blue counties represent the areas that the district is gaining for 2026. These include part of populous Hidalgo County (McAllen) as well as several smaller, and more conservative, counties. In 2024, these light blue areas were placed in districts where Republican incumbents won handily—Democratic candidates here still ran 5.6% better than Harris, losing collectively by 2.2% instead of 7.8%. Throughout his career, Cuellar has represented most of the area that will be added to the district for 2026, so we’d expect he’d have even more room to overperform as a well-established quasi-incumbent.

Cuellar himself is from Laredo, in Webb County, which is in the purple area. Within this section of district, which was held over from the 2022 version of the seat, Cuellar ran almost 25 points better than Allred and 28 points ahead of Harris. Tijerina, of course, has also won elections in Webb County, so Republicans are hoping he could erode Democratic margins there. While it is hard to quantify, one factor that could benefit Republicans, at least at the margins, is that unlike their 2024 candidate, Jay Furman (who is white), Tijerina is a Latino man.

But, with his legal woes seemingly behind him, and with a potentially better district to run in, we feel comfortable enough upgrading Cuellar’s chances. We are moving TX-28 from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.

Texas Senate race stays at Likely Republican

The candidate filing period in Texas ended on Monday—though there were a couple of surprising developments, we are not making any other immediate rating changes in the state.

In what is the state’s highest-profile race, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D, TX-30), who was not seen as a likely Senate candidate until the last few weeks, made a late decision to enter the contest. Crockett’s entrance into the race seems to have prompted the aforementioned Allred to drop his second Senate run and seek a return to the U.S. House. Electorally, Allred was probably the most proven potential candidate in the race: though he lost by almost 9 points to Cruz last year, he ran further ahead of Harris than some other incumbent Democratic senators across the country did. Though other Democrats are running, the March 3 primary is looking like a two-way race between Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico, a legislator from the Austin area who is known for using his training as a Presbyterian seminarian to defend Democratic stances.

Both major Democratic Senate candidates have shown a degree of media savvy in the Trump era: while Crockett has had viral moments in committee hearings, Talarico got some national attention this summer as a vocal critic of the GOP-led state remap. Crockett, though, is probably the more polarizing option—earlier this year, for example, she derided Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who was confined to a wheelchair after an accident earlier in his life, as “governor hot wheels.” According to Reese Gorman of NOTUS, national Republicans worked covertly to encourage Crockett’s candidacy.

The Republican primary for Senate, on the other hand, seems like it could easily head to a May 26 runoff. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is perhaps the personification of a “generic Texas Republican” from the pre-Trump age, continues to find himself struggling to get much above one-third of the vote in a three-way race. Cornyn’s major rivals are state Attorney General Ken Paxton (a very polarizing option himself) and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R, TX-38). Though the president himself has stayed neutral so far, Paxton might be the most “Trumpy” candidate while Hunt, who is still probably to Cornyn’s right, has emphasized the idea of generational change. Though Paxton enters the primary with considerable baggage—in 2023, he was impeached by the state House and, more recently, his wife filed for divorce, claiming that he was unfaithful—he may actually be a slight favorite for the nomination.

We are holding the race at Likely Republican. As friend of the Crystal Ball Drew Savicki summed up recently, Texas Democrats just have very little room for error. While Crockett and Paxton would represent the weakest candidates each party could realistically offer, Republicans could afford more defections from their voter bloc, while the Democratic nominee will need to be both extremely strong with his or her own voter base and also have considerable appeal to the middle of the electorate. Crockett may be able to produce the former but we doubt she can produce the latter. Talarico may not be able to strike that balance, either (Texas just remains a difficult state for Democrats overall).

J. Miles Coleman is an elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ and a political cartographer. Follow him on Twitter @jmilescoleman.

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Views expressed in this column are those of the author, not those of Rasmussen Reports. Comments about this content should be directed to the author or syndicate.