This article was corrected to make clear that Anchondo was a supporter of Clinton and not Obama.
Behind the scenes of the election in El Paso’s mayoral race is a proxy war among the Democrats for control of the party apparatus. Infighting for political power among party operatives is not new, but the race for mayor has added a new dimension – a power play using proxies. Over the last few weeks, El Paso News spoke to party operatives, observers and candidates to understand the larger picture of the mayoral race. To get frank assessments and opinions from several individuals we agreed to keep them confidential because many feared retaliations from party officials.
Although most of the individuals we spoke to did not characterized the mayoral race as a power play for control of the Democratic Party, their combined assessments led to the larger picture of the proxy war because after the discussions about the wealthy and El Paso’s public policy at city council several individuals pointed to two elected officials that were not running for office, but seem to have a stake in the outcome of the mayoral election.
The two politicians, who are not running, was a common thread among some of the individuals we spoke to. Others focused on how a Renard Johnson win, or a Brian Kennedy win along with the winner of the contest between Alexandra Chávez and Monica Reyes would lead to changes in the city’s public policies. In the end, the analysis shows that the battle between Renard Johnson and Brian Kennedy is a proxy war for El Paso’s Democratic Party.
To understand the proxy war, it is important to understand what a proxy war is and who benefits from a win between Johnson or Kennedy.
Most observers following the Renard Johnson and Brian Kennedy mayoral election have only noticed the two contenders to be the next mayor of El Paso. Some may have noted the Republican PAC and the amount of money spent in the election.
In political science, a proxy war is a conflict between two belligerents who aren’t actively engaged in a conflict but are represented by proxies in the larger battle.
The race to be the next mayor of El Paso is between Renard Johnson and Brian Kennedy and to them that is the conflict. However, there is a political power struggle behind the scenes between Oscar Leeser and Veronica Escobar who have taken sides in the Johnson/Kennedy fight.
Veronica Escobar Versus Oscar Leeser
The power play started to surface when rumors began that Oscar Leeser’s next political campaign was to seek to unseat Escobar from her congressional seat. This has led to several recent events that have, likely unwillingly, made Johnson and Kennedy the proxies for Escobar and Leeser.
Leeser has yet to publicly announce what his intentions are after he leaves office in January. There is speculation that he will seek to run against Escobar as well as that he will seek to unseat Ricardo Samaniego.
But the rumor of Leeser seeking Escobar’s congressional seat has her concerned because she continues to lose votes in each election cycle, several people have observed. Escobar’s political future began to change in 2020 when a then-unknown mayoral candidate emerged as a viable political candidate in El Paso.
In 2020, Verónica Carbajal’s showing in the mayoral election where she nearly outperformed Dee Margo in the election, led political observers to suggest that Carbajal could unseat Escobar.
The suggestion worried Escobar so much that it led her to opine on Facebook that she did nothing to impede Carbajal from forcing Dee Margo out of the eventual runoff between Oscar Leeser and Margo. Supporters of Carbajal alleged on social media that the reason Carbajal did not make it into the runoff was because Escobar had intervened in the race.
The rumors of Escobar’s alleged intervention to keep Carbajal out of a runoff would have ended as nothing more than online gossip had Escobar not given the rumors credence by denying any involvement. It is important to note that behind Carbajal were two other Democratic Party politicos, José Rodriguez and his wife Carmen Rodriguez. Both have held or run for office. Carmen Rodriguez ran for office in 2005 and is a member of the Community First Coalition that criticizes the large amounts of money spent on local political campaigns.
In the end, Verónica Carbajal endorsed Oscar Leeser who went on to win the race. Most recently, Carbajal has endorsed Kennedy for mayor.
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What seemed to worry Escobar the most, at the time, was Carbajal’s political infrastructure. Over time, Carbajal’s political infrastructure has declined and her “progressive movement” has not had a successful candidate. Alumni of El Paso’s progressive movement, Kenneth Bell and Wesley Lawrence are the two most recent examples. Neither succeeded in their recent elections. Carbajal, herself, was not able to win the District 2 seat last year even though she had the better name recognition than her opponent.
Carbajal has now become a minor player in the politics of the local Democratic Party.
However, fighting among the leadership in El Paso’s Democratic Party is common and has been ongoing for years with new leaders emerging from each fracas.
The Fight Over Clinton Versus Obama
Although the proxy war has brought the Republicans into the mix, the El Paso’s Democratic Party has a history of infighting among themselves. In 2008, when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton outpolled Barack Obama in El Paso, it led to a split among the El Paso Democrats. On one side were the Obama supporters and on the other side were the Clinton supporters. This eventually led to a split among the Tejano Democrats who split into two groups, the Paso del Norte Tejano Democrats and the Mexican American Democrats (MAD), with the former remaining part of the State Tejano Democrats.
At the time the so-called “old guard” were led by then-party chair Danny Anchondo who represented the group aligned with the Clinton backers. Norma Chávez, who represented District 76 at the state legislature, was a supporter of Obama. A political insider said that her support of Obama cost her her election. The Clinton supporters were led by then Congressman Silvestre Reyes and Eliot Shapleigh, the state senator at the time.
In the runup to the 2008 primaries, El Paso Democratic Party leaders were faced with newcomers becoming engaged in the political process because the Party process had been changed to allow the membership to select the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Obama was contending for the spot against Clinton.
Among the newcomers to El Paso’s Democratic Party included Marisa Marquez, Joe Moody and Veronica Escobar. Central to the infighting was long-time Democrat Paul Moreno who lost his seat to Marisa Marquez in the March 2008 Primaries. The political power play was a “push to change the traditional, good-ol’-boy political system” in El Paso, according to several observers. The Unity campaign that sought to generate support for Clinton included “young Democrats” who had recently become involved with the party. Among them was Escobar.
Calling the Obama supporters the “yo-mama thing,” Moreno formed their own Chicano Democrats group with other veteran Democrats. At the time, Moreno said that he formed the group because “people who have not been around politics for any amount of time in El Paso do not know how it operates.” He was referring to the newcomers Escobar, Marquez and Moody, among others. As to what he was referring to with his reference about “how it operates,” we were told it had to do with the newcomers leapfrogging over those who had put in their time for the next political seat.
Moreno, who had been an El Paso Democratic leader for around 40 years, was losing political clout among El Paso’s new political elite. Norma Chávez was angling to replace Moreno along with Don Williams. Both were helping to shepherd Escobar, Marquez and Moody into the party’s leadership.
But the friendliness between Chávez and those she helped into the local party apparatus did not last long. By 2009, the animosity between Chávez and Marquez grew to the point that Chávez infamously sent Marquez a text message telling her “U R not my friend,” disinviting her from her graduation party that was paid for by lobbyists.
Leap forward to 2020, and Escobar now formed part of the “old guard” and Carbajal was leading the challengers to the “old guard.”
However, unlike Escobar’s success challenging the party’s leadership, Carbajal’s political missteps after 2020 led her to lose significant political clout.
For Escobar, Carbajal’s diminishing political clout left Escobar without a serious challenger to her leadership role at the Democratic Party. But the rumors of Oscar Leaser challenging her for her seat left her uneasy according to several people we spoke to. On the surface there was another challenge for Escobar that was not fully understood until the November 5 election, Irene Armendariz-Jackson.
Irene Armendariz Jackson
It is unlikely the Irene Armendariz-Jackson will unseat Escobar but she has been relentlessly challenging Escobar for her seat since 2020, running as Republican. Armendariz-Jackson led the effort to recall Cassandra Hernandez after Hernandez was reprimanded for the misuse of her city-issued gasoline card. The recall effort was led by Irene Armendariz-Jackson.
Soon after Armendariz-Jackson announced the recall effort, Michael Apodaca issued a statement on behalf of the El Paso County Democratic Party. Apodaca asked the Democrats not to sign the recall petition. However, the El Paso Democratic Party later issued a statement stating that the Party believes “that the community should make the decision on this recall and that’s why, as a party, we’re not going to take a position on the issue.”
On November 6, 2023, Armendariz-Jackson issued a press release stating that the recall effort had failed.
The Republican Surge
In 2020 Irene Armendariz-Jackson challenged Veronica Escobar for the U.S. House of Representatives District 16 seat held by Escobar. Armendariz-Jackson lost with 35.3% of the vote. In 2022, Escobar again kept her congressional seat with 63.6% of the vote. Escobar held a clear advantage over Armendariz-Jackson.
However, the November 5 election showed that voters were not overwhelmingly supporting Escobar as they did before. Whether it was a Republican surge, or an erosion of Escobar’s political clout is not yet clear, or even if it was an anomaly as Election Day voters have not been released by the Election’s Department, but the fact remains that Escobar lost voters in the most recent election.
Soon after the election, Escobar issued a statement stating that she will be stepping away from her national leadership roles and instead begin to focus on El Paso.
The Battle For Political Control Of The Democratic Party Apparatus
Escobar’s announcement may seem on the surface to be about the Republican takeover across the nation but some individuals we spoke to are perplexed. “Shouldn’t she be working at the national level,” to protect El Paso, one individual expressed, while others expressed similar observations.
For Escobar, the issue does not seem to be a danger of El Paso’s Democratic Party stranglehold in El Paso’s politics, but rather it appears to be more of a concern of the challenge that Oscar Leeser represents to her.
However, Leeser has let several individuals know that he will be running against Samaniego in 2026.
Therein lies the proxy war being fought by Renard Johnson and Brian Kennedy for the mayoral seat. On the surface it may seem like it is about the future of the city’s public policy agenda but behind the scenes there is the battle for Escobar’s political future.