(Headline USA) Hopeful “Squad” member Jessica Cisneros, who had been endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other leftist Democrats, lost her congressional bid to incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar this week in an unsurprising yet blistering defeat for congressional so-called progressives.
Cuellar, one of the only pro-life Democrats left, was declared the winner of the Democrat nomination for Texas’s 28th congressional district after a recount this week, which showed he led with 289 votes. The final numbers were 22,901 votes to 22,612.
Cuellar declared victory before the recount was called, but Cisneros demanded a recount in early June after early projections showed she was within a few hundred votes of Cuellar. Several high-profile Democrats, including chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., called on Cisneros to concede.
Cuellar celebrated his victory in a statement on Tuesday.
“As I said on election night, ‘the margin will hold’ — and it has not only held but grown,” he said. “To those who did not vote for me, as your Congressman I will continue to work diligently for you in Washington.
“While we may differ on certain positions, we share a common ground on many issues to improve our communities and strengthen families.”
In her concession statement, Cisneros blamed her loss on “a corrupt political machine, Republican-funded super PACs, the Koch brothers, private prisons, Big Oil, the Chamber of Commerce, dark money groups, Big Pharma, and nearly the entire Democratic Party establishment in Washington.”
“With this close of a margin, it’s clear that without their aggressive interference in the lives of South Texas families, we would have won,” she added.
