As soon as the news that Veronica Escobar was challenging her opponent’s signatures to be on the ballot broke on Friday, the calls, texts and emails from some of El Paso’s Democratic Party officials started to come in. Many of these messages came from individuals that refused to speak to us about the attempted “coronation” of the Democratic Party’s chairman last Monday. Now they were wanting to talk about the removal of Arturo Andujo by Escobar’s campaign for lack of enough signatures to be on the ballot. But they had a condition, they wanted to remain unnamed for this article for fear of retaliation from Escobar supporters.
Stories without attribution are problematic because without attribution the credibility needed for a political story is missing. But attribution also requires exposing party officials to retribution by other party officials. Some stories, however, are important to know even if people are off the record. So, what’s the story?
Two things stood out in the messages delivered. The first was that many of the people expressing their displeasure in Escobar’s challenge of the petition signatures had refused to talk to us about the attempted coronation of Richard Genera by Michael Apodaca. Their refusals were simply, “no,” to “it’s just the way things are done, there’s no story there” as one person said. The second was that almost every message centered around “what’s Veronica afraid of” to “why?”
What we have been able to glean from the messages is that several party officials are baffled by Escobar’s insistence that she remove from the primary ballot an individual that had “no chance” to win.
One individual succinctly wrote that the “optics are bad” so close after the Apodaca/Genera controversy, adding that “Veronica is afraid to be upstaged by a nobody.” They weren’t insinuating that Andujo would defeat Escobar, but rather the “she didn’t want to campaign” for the primary. Another added that “it makes her look petty.”
One person who called started with “I’m going to trust that you will keep your commitment to keep me confidential, but I need to tell you that you will be tempted to write about her, but you should note that Escobar’s team did what a campaign is supposed to do – watch over their candidate.” This is the first time this individual wanted to talk to us, and they refused to answer questions, like why the congresswoman was so invested in keeping a challenger off the primary. From what the individual said, we were supposed to accept that Escobar’s team was doing their job to protect the congresswoman.
That may have been what they believed, but a common theme among the other callers was that she was depriving voters of the opportunity to hold constructive debates over the future of the local party. A few even said that she was trying to silence progressives. The caller who “trusted” us to keep them confidential was likely trying to discourage this story, they even asked if we had heard from other people connected to the party.
Among the dozen or so messages, the underlining issue was that Escobar was depriving voters of debates over party ideology.
Andujo appears to be a progressive candidate wanting to run as part of the wave of social Democrats across the nation in recent elections. But El Paso is not Detroit or New York. Although politicians like Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani have successfully begun to make inroads into the Democratic Party leadership across the nation, El Paso’s local party leadership remains largely intact with Escobar firmly at the head of the local party apparatus.
The lack of willingness by almost every member of the local Democratic Party to go on the record proves that Escobar still wields considerable power locally. But that hasn’t stopped many from reaching out in the hope that they can drop enough insider details to expose what Escobar really fears in 2026.
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Escobar Fears Her Political Power Erosion
Between all the messages behind cloaks of secrecy is that Veronica Escobar fears losing in 2026. No not the election, although that is a small possibility, but rather her dwindling political power. Some, however, who reached out to us don’t particularly care about Escobar’s political power, but rather the continued erosion of El Paso’s Democratic Party.
Veronica Escobar is faced with several issues in 2026. The first is that Escobar fears a Zohran Mamdani-like candidate surfacing in El Paso. One appeared in 2020 and she spooked Escobar. In 2020, Verónica Carbajal nearly unseated Dee Margo putting her into the runoff against Oscar Leeser. Carbajal went on to endorse Leeser, who has worried Escobar with rumors that he would challenge her. He did not. It is the Carbajal political clout in 2020 that begun the slow erosion of the local party’s leadership, the rise of the local progressives, and as many expressed the old guard was fading away.
Escobar, who at one time was the progressive challenger of the party had now become part of the leadership being targeted by the younger and hungrier challengers, aka, the progressives. And, like the people Escobar challenged as she fought her way up the party ranks, the old leaders pushed back trying to hold on to power.
This time, things are different. For one, the Republican voters surged last year, and second, Escobar herself has said her party has failed the American people when it came to immigration. For Escobar, the issue of immigration is not as simple as she wishes it was because her family works on both sides of the issue – protection and enforcement – an untenable dichotomy.
The Immigration Problem for Escobar
National politics has worried Escobar. In 2023, Escobar acknowledged to Politico that Congress, of which she is a member, “have failed over and over” on immigration. This was at a time when Joe Biden was president, and the Democrats had control of Congress.
In essence, Escobar acknowledged that her party, the Democrats dropped the ball and let Donald Trump win a second term.
The problem for Escobar on immigration is that her husband has been an immigration judge since Trump’s first term, and remains to this day even after the Trump Administration has been purging immigration judges too lenient towards immigrants. Apparently, Trump’s immigration officials find Escobar’s husband palatable enough for their immigration agenda. The unasked question is why?
In 2019, a complaint was filed alleging “a culture of hostility and contempt towards” immigrants in El Paso’s immigration courts. Singled out by the complaint was Escobar’s husband for his use of “troubling” standing orders and for granting the government more time to submit evidence, while limiting the same to detainees.
As county judge, Veroncia Escobar infamously defended the $24 million annual federal contract the county accepted to jail migrants at the local jail after then-County Commissioner Vince Perez challenged it as anti-immigrant. Escobar reasoned that the county needed the money.
But immigration is not the underlining issue that scares Escobar because for the most part, El Paso’s voters are oblivious to the two sides of Escobar on immigration, and the reality is that most El Pasoans don’t vote on immigration issues. What really worries Escobar is the loss of political power.
The Erosion of The Local Democratic Party
When a Republican PAC infamously funded a significant part of Renard Johnson’s campaign for mayor last year, the party establishment was consciously silent on the matter, even when César Blanco endorsed Johnson in the non-partisan election even after it become clear the Republicans were actively funding it.
Both Apodaca and Escobar have remained conspicuously silent about Republicans meddling in the mayoral election, and on Blanco endorsing a candidate largely funded by Republican money. In essence, they abdicated the party platform.
Since Carbajal’s near unseating of Margo in 2020, the local party has fractured into two significant political groups, one led by Escobar and the other by Oscar Leeser. The infighting between the two groups has led to the erosion of the party over the last couple of years with three groups now vying for control of the El Paso Democrats.
On one side is the standard bearer, Escobar against the other two: Leeser’s group and Wesley Lawrence’s progressives.
Faced against this is the Republican surge in 2024.
Escobar’s election lead has steadily dropped since 2022 when she kept her seat with 64% of the vote. Last year, her lead dropped to 59%. That and Trump’s return to the White House led her to announce that would step away from her national leadership roles and instead focus on El Paso going forward.
One individual that messaged us told us that party members fear that the El Paso Democratic Party has been in decline since Apodaca took the helm. Apodaca, according to him, does “whatever Escobar orders,” including the attempt to put Genera in place as the next party chair. Escobar is “splitting the party” apart and allowing “progressives such as Lawrence” to get a foothold in the party, we were told.
Yet another individual told us when we contacted them on Sunday to ask about what we were hearing about regarding party politics, that what is tearing apart the party are the members “who refuse to wait their turn.” This particular individual has been active in the party since the 1990’s. Most would define them as part of the old guard unwilling to let go of the reigns of power.
Americans have been trending towards socialism since 2021 giving rise to the progressive arm of the Democrats nationally. Zohran Mamdani’s recent win in New York is both an example of an ideological shift among voters, at least in New York, and the rise of progressives among the Democrats.
But does that translate into El Paso’s Democrats?
No, because there does not seem to be a progressive surge growing in El Paso, instead it is a Republican surge, but more importantly, an erosion of the Democrats’ power base in El Paso.
Many El Paso Democrats seem to be bothered by Escobar’s removal of Andujo from the primary ballot. Not because he was a threat to her but because it is both “bad optics” and the stifling of progressive voices locally, depending on who you ask.
As for Escobar, her push to ensure a friendly party chair and to remove a primary challenger has more to do with her fear of losing political clout among the party faithful than her losing in 2026. That’s what most of those we communicated with agreed on.