Zapata County Republican Chairwoman Jennifer Thatcher was shocked when she learned earlier this month that President Donald Trump had pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar, freeing him from legal peril for the federal corruption charges he faced.
By pardoning Cuellar, she said, Trump removed the Laredo Democrats’ main vulnerability, which Republicans had hoped to capitalize on in next year’s midterm election.
“The pardon felt like it was undermining the GOP’s efforts,” Thatcher said. “It just caused so much mixed messages for all of us. We’re just trying to sift through it.”
Republicans across Texas’ 28th Congressional District have ramped up their efforts in recent years to unseat Cuellar, who is now seeking his 12th term. Local party leaders have continued to project confidence about their odds in the days since Trump’s pardon — and yet, a number of them told The Texas Tribune they were left confused, disappointed and less confident than before.
“It's been a long time since I have felt disappointed in Trump, but I'm extremely disappointed in this,” said Mary Wilson, the Duval County Republican Party chair, adding that she was puzzled about why Trump would issue a pardon that could potentially hurt Republicans’ chances in the midterms.
Until the pardon, Cuellar and his wife were set to stand trial in April for various corruption-related charges. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted the pair in May 2024 on a dozen counts of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy, stemming from allegations that Cuellar had accepted $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-run oil-and-gas company and a Mexican bank.
Republicans at the local and national levels had planned to seize on the indictment, especially after the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew Cuellar’s district over the summer to become more favorable to the GOP. Now, one of the party’s biggest talking points against Cuellar has been diminished.
Reynaldo Montemayor Jr. — who lives in Cuellar’s home base of Webb County — said that he at first felt disappointed and surprised by the pardon. But in the days since, Montemayor, who is a precinct chair for the Webb County Republican Party, has come to accept the pardon due to his trust in Trump’s leadership.
Still, Montemayor said he’s unsure of how the pardon will impact the congressional race. Maybe it will prove to be the kiss of death for Cuellar among his party, Montemayor speculated, as it indicates the congressman is favored by the most hated man in the Democratic Party, perhaps turning some Democrats against Cuellar.
“It could play out in our favor,” he said. “We’ll see, because ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ can play against him in that sense.”
Cuellar drew two challengers in the March 3 Democratic primary: Andrew Vantine and Ricardo Villarreal.
In Washington, the National Republican Congressional Committee — House Republicans’ campaign arm — have included Cuellar’s seat on a list of top GOP pickup opportunities for the midterms. They’d made sure to highlight Cuellar’s legal troubles when talking about the race.
“Cuellar is broke, indicted, and completely out of touch with South Texans’ values,” NRCC spokesperson Reilly Richardson said in a statement to the Tribune last month prior to the pardon. “Cuellar is spending his time fighting off corruption charges and his own political headaches.”
Last week, the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections forecaster, changed its rating for the race from “Toss Up” to “Lean Democrat,” citing Trump’s pardon of Cuellar. The NRCC did not respond to a request for comment about how the pardon impacts their effort to unseat the Laredo Democrat.
Ahead of 2026, Republicans are rallying behind Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, who national GOP recruiters see as a promising candidate to unseat Cuellar.
But Trump put Republicans campaigning to flip District 28 in a difficult position, said Álvaro Corral, an assistant political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Tijerina likely won’t want to publicly disagree with Trump’s pardon, Corral explained, yet Republicans may also want to keep reminding voters about the allegations against Cuellar.
“It’s probably a little tricky to be in his shoes,” Corral said. “President Trump, to a certain extent, and the pardon sort of undercuts him a bit.”
Even though the pardon could make Tijerina’s campaign more difficult, the Republican county executive said he remained confident about his prospects.
“I did not launch my campaign because Congressman Cuellar was in trouble, I am running because South Texas is in trouble,” Tijerina, a former Democrat who switched parties last year, said in a statement. “Henry stopped fighting for South Texas years ago, instead working for his DC bosses and their special interests. That isn’t South Texas values. South Texans deserve honesty and common sense from their representative, not political games.”
Cuellar, meanwhile, has expressed palpable relief that his legal battle has come to an end. Last week, he was restored to his powerful position as the top Democratic member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, which he had to forfeit after his indictment.
“This pardon gives us a clean slate,” Cuellar said in a statement on X. “This decision clears the air and lets us move forward for South Texas.”
Thatcher, the Zapata County Republican chair, noted that the pardon could complicate the GOP’s attempts to strengthen their majority in Congress.
“It just made the effort by Republicans to flip his seat in Texas more difficult,” she said. “We’ve been trying for so long. We’ve had so many go up against Henry.”
As part of a broader effort to protect their party’s control of Congress, the GOP-run Texas Legislature redrew District 28 to make Cuellar’s path to reelection harder — one of five Democratic-controlled seats targeted under the new map. Trump won the district by 7 percentage points in 2024. Under the new map, he would’ve carried it by 10. The redrawn district remains anchored in Webb County, while adding territory in Hidalgo County — a major population hub in the Rio Grande Valley that includes McAllen — and dropping voters in the San Antonio area.
Given the redistricting push, and the pressure Trump placed on Texas GOP leaders to go through with the unusual redraw, some Republicans were confused about why Trump would pardon Cuellar.
La Salle County Republican Party Chair Susan Storey Rubio said it was disheartening to see.
“We actually thought justice was going to be served,” she said. “We were in hopes that the Cuellar era had come to an end.”
Immediately after the pardon, Storey Rubio was fearful for Republicans’ chances in District 28. But now she thinks the pardon has the potential to energize both Democrats and Republicans against Cuellar.
Several days after the pardon, Trump ranted on Truth Social about Cuellar’s decision to file for reelection with the Democratic Party, suggesting that the president may have expected Cuellar to switch parties in return for clemency.
Even though Cuellar is one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, Wilson, the Duval County GOP chair, said it made no sense for Trump to expect Cuellar to flip parties.
“Why did Trump think Cuellar would switch?” she asked. “It seemed very unwise.”
Jorge Tovar, a pastor and the vice chair of the Webb County Republican Party, said he’s confident the Republican nominee will come out on top in District 28 next year. He framed the pardon as just a reminder to Republicans that they have to put in the work to flip the seat.
“I don’t think it will affect us at all,” he said. “We need to always work hard. Always go out there and get the vote out.”
Disclosure: University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.