This article was produced in partnership with The Nation.
A few hours after Jessica Cisneros voted at her local polling station—a Pep Boys auto shop near Laredo’s Sal Si Puedes neighborhood, where she grew up—the 26-year-old attorney began to knock on doors for one of the last times of her campaign. After nine months, it was finally Election Day. “I just want to reach as many voters as possible, because that’s what this is really coming down to,” she said. “It’s just a matter of, are we going to get to voters in time?”
Cisneros had the support of national progressive groups, which wanted to help her defeat longtime incumbent Henry Cuellar in Congressional District 28. Justice Democrats, EMILY’s List, and labor unions had turned their firepower on South Texas—block-walking, running phone banks, and funding a blitz of ads and mailers. Cuellar, a Blue Dog Democrat, has long been a party pariah: a pro-gun, anti-abortion, fiscal hawk with close ties to the oil and gas industry, private-prison operators, and congressional Republicans.
