WASHINGTON — National Republicans are pulling money out of Texas’ 28th Congressional District, a tacit acknowledgment of the difficulties they face in defeating Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar this fall — even after the GOP redrew the seat specifically to oust him.
Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC that serves as the main piggy bank for House Republicans, is removing $3 million the group had reserved for future airtime in the 28th District, according to a source familiar with the group’s spending. The money will be reallocated to run ads in the neighboring 15th and 34th Congressional Districts. The latter seat, like the 28th, was redrawn last summer with the intent of flipping to GOP control. Republicans are playing defense, meanwhile, in Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s 15th District.
The triaging is the latest demonstration that Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting plan is not as ironclad as they had once hoped. The Legislature redrew the map in 2025 with the purpose of picking up five congressional seats, including Cuellar’s Laredo-based district.
They did so removing the parts of the district in the San Antonio area and replacing it with new territory in Hidalgo County — a heavily Hispanic county in the Rio Grande Valley that Donald Trump carried in 2024, a first for a GOP presidential nominee in decades.
While the new shape of the 28th District transformed it from a seat Trump won by 7 percentage points to one he would have carried by a 10-point margin, it also narrowly increased the percentage of the vote won by House Democrats, according to Cuellar — a data point he is quick to bring up when asked about his chances.
Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a longtime elected official and former Democrat who changed parties in 2024, is Cuellar’s Republican opponent this cycle. He was considered one of the GOP’s prized recruits this cycle, with Republicans optimistic that a confluence of Cuellar’s legal woes, a redrawn district, national GOP investment and Tijerina’s background would overwhelm Cuellar’s Teflon-like survival ability.
The money shift comes after Speaker Mike Johnson rallied yesterday with Tijerina and other South Texas Republican candidates. In an interview from Texas, Johnson told Fox News that “the polling is wrong.”
Public polling of the race has been scarce, but a Texas Southern University poll from August found Cuellar leading by an 11-point margin. Polling has routinely shown Trump’s approval rating sagging with Latino Texans, after the president posted his best-ever margin with Hispanic voters in 2024.
CLF has already spent $4.6 million on the race to date, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.
The two South Texas districts where CLF is rehoming the $3 million — held by De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, and McAllen Democrat Vicente Gonzalez — were both carried by Trump by double-digit margins, underscoring the depth of red territory Republicans are having to defend under a difficult midterm climate. In both districts, the majority of eligible voters are Hispanic. Trump won the 15th Congressional District, held by De La Cruz, by 18 percentage points, and won Gonzalez’s redrawn seat by 10 points.
Cuellar, arguably the most moderate Democrat in the House, won his 2024 race against an underfunded, white Republican by a nearly 6-point margin in 2024 even as Trump carried the district. At this point last year, he faced a looming federal trial for bribery and money laundering charges on which he was indicted in 2024.
But the “King of Laredo,” as he’s been nicknamed, received a full pardon from Trump last December, on the same day he filed for reelection as a Democrat — a fact that Trump, who “thought there was a good chance” Cuellar would change parties, has publicly lamented.
Even before withdrawing the ad money, Republicans had publicly and privately acknowledged Cuellar is a formidable opponent.
In an interview in early September, Cuellar projected confidence about the race and his ability to win over Trump voters.
“If you look at the history, I have done better than any state or national Democrat in my district,” Cuellar said. “I always outperform, whether it’s Beto O’Rourke or whether it’s Colin Allred or anybody else — I get a lot of crossover from Republicans and definitely from independents. … We’ve had that historically, and we’ll get it again.”
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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