Texas's 28th congressional district

Not only West Texas, but also South Texas.

Steve, you wrote a piece this week about Henry Cuellar, the embattled congressman of TX-28, who's had quite a bit of drama llama stuff happening over the past year or so.

Uh, stuff involving Azerbaijan, gold bars, presidential pardons, and, uh, a Republican challenger who himself used to be a Democrat, running against a Democrat many people thought might become a Republican.

Tell us what's going on in South Texas.

Yeah, I think, um, I think the whole bit, you, you mentioning for, uh, disloyalty, which, you know, in Trump's mind is kind of the original sin, right? For not, for not switching parties for getting this pardon.

But yeah, I remember when that, when that, uh, news broke about the charges against him, it was a pretty big news day for the Texan.

But I also remember when we recalculated our Texas Partisan Index for, uh, TX-28, you know, to say, "Okay, so what is, what does it look like now?" You know, if you're taking-- The way our TPI works is we take the two most recent elections, and we sort of combine all of the election results to get, like, a general vote share of Republicans versus Democrats.

Um, it actually went from D 51% to D 53%.

I recommend watching a deep dive on the implications for what happens over the next few weeks in South Texas and how that particular region could play a major role in which party ends up in control of the U.S. House next year.

The 28th District, Congressman Henry Cuellar looking to hold off Republican challenger Democratic turncoat and Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina displaying a fair amount of ego and referring to himself in third person in this video.

Similar factors for Congressman Vicente Gonzalez in the 34th District against Republican and former federal prosecutor Eric Flores.

And the 15th, which has been the most dramatic story down there, with Democrat Bobby Polito's rise to threaten Republican Congresswoman Monica de la Cruz.

Only 28% of the people that we surveyed in Texas 28 approve of Donald Trump.

Well, you just brought up Texas' 28th district.

That's where Democratic incumbent Henry Cuellar is facing a, a Republican challenger, and it's a very competitive race.

Guess what? Trump won that district by 10 points as well in 2024, but now you guys have him approval in the 20s, right?

This was, uh, put out yesterday or the day before.

But in a place like Texas 28, which is our friend Henry Cuellar, it's plus 31 with Latinos.

In Bobby Palillo's district, it's plus 25 with Latinos.

In Vicente Gonzalez, it's plus 24.