On Tuesday, Rep. Henry Cuellar of south Texas threw some shade at the group, Justice Democrats, backing his Democratic primary opponent, Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old lawyer from Laredo.
“I mean it’s this group called the Justice Democrats. I think they’re not Democrats quite honestly,” Cuellar said of the recently formed progressive political action committee. “They’re socialists and they want to impose their vision to Texas and we certainly know that in Texas our vision is very different from… what I call these Justice Democrats, which are really socialists. They’re not really Democrats.”
Justice Democrats was formed in 2017 by former staffers of the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. The group helped elect Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Ro Khanna, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar during the 2018 midterms.
Many of these members of Congress were targeted earlier this week in a series of racist tweets by President Trump, who is attempting to brand this group of lawmakers as socialists.
In January, Justice Democrats labeled Cuellar their number one target ahead of the 2020 elections and vowed to recruit someone to challenge him.
Cisneros announced her campaign against Cuellar last month, running on proposals like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.
A campaign spokesperson told The Signal in June that Cisneros’ platform doesn’t fit in with the politics of South Texas.
“This is not the Bronx, this is the border,” the spokesperson said, referring to AOC’s congressional district.
The South Texas district is quite different than AOC’s New York district, the former being more culturally conservative.
