Commentary: Shortly after the November elections that saw Donald trump reelected for his second term and Veronica Escobar receiving less than 60% of the vote for the first time in her reelection campaign, she announced she would be stepping down from her national Democratic roles and begin “focusing on the El Paso community during the next two years.” On the surface her commitment to El Paso seems – as she has framed it – a response to the threat to El Paso’s economy by the Trump national agenda. However, it is likely that her refocus to El Paso’s political scene has more to do with preserving her political future than countering the Trump administration. Here is why.
The surge of the Republicans in El Paso in the November elections is one of several factors that changed the calculus for Escobar’s political future. Escobar was first elected to Congress in 2018, taking over the seat vacated by Beto O’Rourke. Escobar defeated Republican Rick Seeberg and Independent Ben Mendoza with 67.5% of the vote. Almost 75% of the Democratic ballots cast in that election were straight-ticket voters. In 2017, state law was changed to eliminate straight ticket in Texas, however, it was not implemented until the 2020 elections.
Before Joe Biden stepped down from his reelection bid for a second term, Veronica Escobar was a co-chair in Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign. She joined several other Democrats, including Chris Coons who was also a national co-chair.
As one of Biden’s reelection campaign co-chairs, Escobar frequently found herself defending Biden on border issues although she publicly disagreed with them. Worse for Escobar, was supporting a candidate that was not up to the task of being reelected. When Biden clearly botched the July 2024 debate against Trump, Escobar said that “it was not the night any of us wanted,” before circling back and arguing that Biden “is our nominee,” pushing back on calls for Kamala Harris to step in as the Democrats nominee for president.
Trying to play both sides of the Democratic Party’s fractured support for Biden or Harris, Escobar criticized calls for Harris to step in, saying “I don’t find the public statements to be helpful either to the party or to our nominee,” while adding that Democrats have “every right to speak on any issue just as I do.”
When Harris took over for Biden, the Democrats decided to ignore Texas as a possible battleground in 2024. Escobar told the Texas Tribune that she agreed with the decision because, according to her, “there are states that are obviously far more critical” to achieving the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.
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Beto O’Rourke Steps In
It was Beto O’Rourke who opened his congressional seat for Escobar when he decided to run against Ted Cruz, which he lost. O’Rourke ran for president in 2022 and then against Greg Abbot. Recently he has been rumored to be wanting to run again for a Texas seat.
But what O’Rourke has been making headlines for this week is his criticism of Joe Biden.
O’Rourke said that Biden “failed this country in the most important job that he had.” O’Rourke told Pod Save America that “the decision that Biden and those around him made to run for reelection” might lead to losing “the greatest country this world has ever known.” O’Rourke joined other Democrats in criticizing Biden after Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book alleged that Biden and supporters hid Biden’s deteriorating mental state during the 2024 elections.
The book, Original Sin, argues that in 2024 “five people were running the country,” and “Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.” The so-called election autopsy lays out how Biden supporters “worked hard to conceal the president’s worsening cognitive state.” The “systematic denial” of Biden’s mental state “was pivotal in wrecking prospects that a viable 2024 Democratic presidential nominee would have enough time to gather momentum” to defeat Donald Trump, according to Norman Solomon’s editorial in The Nation. Solomon argues that “Biden has given the Democratic Party an imprint of moral corrosion and weak messaging.”
Escobar supported Biden as did Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez up until Biden withdrew from the race. As Solomon explains, the Democratic Party “prefers” idealizing the leadership instead of dealing with issues head on, even today.
Escobar seems to hope – keeping the party failures of 2024 – that idealizing the party leadership around her will motivate support for her in 2026.
The book has raised questions about how the party’s efforts to keep Biden on the ticket, although he was not up to the task, would affect the elections in 2028 for Democrats. According to Politico, the Biden fiasco not only caused the Democrats in 2024, but “their inability to admit it, some Democrats fear, could hobble them in 2028.
Pete Buttigieg told Politico that the party “maybe” would have done better without Biden, but for the most part, “leading Democrats, many of whom attested to Biden’s fitness when he was still on the ticket, are ducking” the issue of supporting Biden in the failed 2024 elections.
The issue is not that they knew, but that the leading Democrats knew about Biden’s declining state while helping to cover it up.
As more details about Biden’s declining mental state in 2024 begin to trickle out in the coming months, the question that Veronica Escobar will have to answer is what she knew, and if she participated in helping to cover up what Beto O’Rourke described as losing “the greatest country this world has ever known.” Escobar has only months to begin framing her response to Biden’s mental state before having to begin preparing for her reelection camping next year.
Veronica Escobar Reelection In 2026
Escobar must again defend her congressional seat in 2026, first in the March primaries and likely in the November ballots. Last November she told Bob Moore that she “expects national Republicans, who have invested heavily in Rio Grande Valley congressional districts in the last two elections, to target her in 2026.”
Escobar, as of this morning, has not addressed the book’s revelations, although talk about Biden’s mental state in 2024 has been making headlines for three days now.
As the senior member of El Paso’s Democrats, Escobar is the defacto leader of the El Paso Democratic Party forcing El Paso Democrats not to criticize her openly in fear of being targeted by the Democratic Party establishment. Escobar, nonetheless, blames unnamed Democrats “for not supporting the party in elections.”
The 2024 mayoral election between the two front-runners, Brian Kennedy and Renard Johnson, who was elected, exposed a local Democrat Party fractured between at least two factions trying to gain control of the local Democratic Party apparatus.
The Fractured El Paso Democratic Party
Before Escobar announced that she would begin to focus more on El Paso, a fractured El Paso Democratic Party emerged from the 2024 elections. The mayoral race saw a clearly Republican PAC funding the Renard Johnson campaign. The heavy Republican funding of Johnson’s campaign exposed the duplicity of Escobar and other Democratic Party leaders between Democratic Party ideals and the influence of Republicans in local politics. The divide is led by Cesar Blanco, a supporter of Escobar, who openly supported Johnson even when it became clear that the Republican PAC was heavily supporting Johnson. Escobar, although critical of Republican influences in the local politics and acknowledging that she will be likely targeted next year by Republicans, has yet to criticize Johnson or Blanco for the Republican PAC’s influence in the mayoral race.
Blanco and Johnson are important to Escobar’s chances of reelection next year and openly criticizing them is like criticizing Biden’s mental state while she was working as campaign co-chair. So is Oscar Leeser.
Rumors persist that Oscar Leeser may be considering running against Escobar in 2026. But the most likely rumor remains that Leeser will seek to challenge Ricardo Samaniego in 2026. Leeser has not publicly stated what his intentions are. Nonetheless the local Democratic Party remains rudderless with Escobar focusing her efforts on picking Democratic Party leaders to keep in office while criticizing others for the inroads made by Republicans last year. The most obvious scapegoat for the local party’s demise is the chair, Michael Apodaca who has yet to address the failures of the local party’s failures in 2024 or that of the Democrats in the national elections.
Say what you will about Biden but he was the one that won the primary thus the Democrats selection to run for president.
Also regardless of Biden’s health he would have surrounded himself with qualified people vs the ignorant fools that trump has surrounded himself with oh and the lack of national security, DOD leadership, FAA issues, NOAA, NWS and FDA firings that only endanger the lives of Americans al at the hands of trump and his clown show.