NY Times: “In South Texas, another test is developing over the power of identity politics and whether liberals can answer the fears that conservatives are stoking about “open borders,” “critical race theory” and rising crime. In the primary campaign for Texas’ 28th district, it is Mr. Cuellar’s experience versus Ms. Cisneros’s storytelling: the powerful and connected versus the underdogs, the community, the “pueblo.”
There have been many changes here since Ms. Cisneros first challenged Mr. Cuellar, but the most significant may have been the shock for both parties of seeing Hispanic voters lurch toward Mr. Trump in 2020. Zapata County, just south of here, is heavily Latino; Hillary Clinton won it by more than 30 points in 2016, then it went to Mr. Trump by about five points. Ms. Clinton’s 60-point margin in Starr County, which is 96 percent Latino, shriveled to a five-point advantage for Mr. Biden.
In response, Ms. Cisneros is running a campaign against the 17-year incumbent that could easily have been engineered by a Republican. She still favors Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, more liberal immigration policies and abortion rights, but those have not been her focus.
Instead, she has played up her biography and hit Mr. Cuellar hard on rising prices. She has portrayed him as a Washington insider, greasing his pockets with money from big corporations, and presented herself as embodying the struggling community he left behind.”