As Democrats look ahead with increased confidence to the 2026 midterm elections, Republicans are narrowing their focus, considering specific races where the GOP can at least try to stem the tide. Near the top of the party’s target list is Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, whose Laredo-area district backed Donald Trump by seven points last fall.
If that weren’t enough to put him in Republicans’ electoral crosshairs, Cuellar was also criminally indicted last year and was facing a looming federal corruption trial. As recently as Wednesday morning, the National Republican Congressional Committee appeared eager to remind the public that the Democratic lawmaker was facing prosecution.
Hours later, however, Cuellar was no longer facing criminal charges — because Donald Trump pardoned him.
The developments are important for a variety of reasons, but for GOP officials, the clemency was a setback: The Republicans’ own president had just taken away a cudgel the party had hoped to use against one of their top 2026 election targets.
What’s more, according to an Axios report, Trump didn’t bother to give his ostensible allies a heads-up, either. From the report:
President Trump didn’t tell Speaker Mike Johnson that he was granting a ‘full and unconditional PARDON’ to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) before announcing it on Truth Social this morning, Johnson told Axios. … Trump’s pardon boosts one of House Republicans’ top political targets — and could hamper GOP efforts to protect their razor-thin majority in next year’s midterms.
The House speaker said on the record that he wasn’t notified in advance. Similarly, Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the current NRCC chair, conceded that he wasn’t told about the president’s plan, either.
Hudson told Axios that Trump’s move “certainly makes it tougher” for the GOP to flip Cuellar’s seat.
Oops.
As for the president’s rationale, at a White House event on Wednesday afternoon, Trump tried to blame Joe Biden for the series of events. According to the incumbent president, Cuellar was to the Democrats’ right on border security, which, in Trump’s mind-numbing conspiracy theory, led Biden’s Justice Department, career prosecutors and FBI agents to hatch an elaborate partisan scheme that empowered a Democratic White House to punish a Democratic member of Congress. In other words, Trump didn’t only clear the slate for a lawmaker accused of corruption while simultaneously undermining the work of federal law enforcement officials, he also hurt his own party’s electoral plans because of a ridiculous conspiracy theory that only the president believes. No wonder GOP officials in Congress sound frustrated.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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