The Blast - October 8, 2025

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The Blast | Texas Tribune
October 08, 2025

By Renzo Downey and The Texas Tribune Politics Team

12 days until early voting begins
27 days until the November election
31 days until the 2026 primary candidate filing period begins
61 days until the 2026 primary candidate filing deadline

IN TODAY’S BLAST

  • The 2026 health care battle begins

  • Leach on Roberson “bloodlust”

  • Dems blast Abbott’s Guard deployment

THE 2026 HEALTH CARE BATTLE BEGINS

As the government shutdown moves into its second week — with no end in sight — Democrats are hoping to use the opportunity to attack Republicans over the issue they say needs to be addressed immediately: expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits.

In Texas, that means going after the one sitting Republican on their target list: Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg. 

Democratic leaders see 2026 shaping up as a potential redux of the 2018 midterms, when they flipped the U.S. House on the heels of Republican efforts to repeal the ACA. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee believes the ACA messaging will be especially potent in Texas’ 15th Congressional District because it has some of the highest ACA uptake in the country. The district, which runs from Hidalgo County at the border to counties east of San Antonio, contains 141,000 ACA enrollees who claim the tax credit. (That’s in its current configuration; De La Cruz will be running in a district with different boundaries if a federal court upholds Republicans’ redistricted map, though many voters being added to the 15th are coming from the neighboring 28th District, where residents also use the tax credits at a high rate.)

Of the 35 Republican-held seats the DCCC is targeting this cycle, De La Cruz’s district has more ACA enrollees who use the subsidies than all but one — Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in South Florida.

Health policy organization KFF projects that if the tax credits expire at the end of the year, premiums will rise by an average of 152% among ACA enrollees who qualify for credits in De La Cruz’s district.

“She would rather rip health care away from her own constituents and continue to raise costs than stand up to the extremists that control her party,” DCCC spokesperson Madison Donzis said in a statement. “Texans deserve a representative that actually fights for them, not someone who bends the knee at every turn and puts billionaires over working families.”

To that end, the DCCC launched a digital ad campaign — albeit a four-figure one — messaging on ACA tax credits against De La Cruz, both as part of an initial buy in all of their in-play districts and a second one targeting districts with a high percentage of voters of color.

De La Cruz, for her part, has cosponsored a bipartisan bill to extend the credits for one more year, her spokesperson noted. 

The issue is at the center of the ongoing shutdown fight, with Democrats insisting that the subsidies should be renewed as part of negotiations on a spending bill to restore federal funding. Republicans have said those discussions should be done separately, and many have called for the tax credits to be dramatically reformed or replaced altogether by alternatives, such as expanding health savings accounts. 

De La Cruz’s field of Democratic challengers includes Tejano musician Bobby Pulido, whom Democrats in Texas and Washington are enthusiastic about.

The National Republican Congressional Campaign, for its part, also launched a four-figure ad buy blaming vulnerable Democrats for the shutdown, including targeting Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen and Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch.

— Gabby Birenbaum

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LEACH ON ROBERSON “BLOODLUST”

In a wide-ranging conversation with Trib godfather Evan Smith at the LBJ School on Monday, state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, challenged the clamoring by some Republicans for the execution of Robert Roberson, whose contested capital murder conviction has become sharply politicized ahead of his scheduled death next week.

Leach has helped lead the lawmaker campaign to delay Roberson’s execution and get him a new trial. On Monday, he said he “never thought” the subpoena a House committee issued to Roberson last year the day before his scheduled execution “would work, but it did.” The subpoena ultimately triggered a temporary stay of Roberson’s execution.

He also revealed that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was barring him and other lawmakers from being in the viewing area if/when Roberson’s execution takes place. (Roberson has a few outstanding appeals in state and federal court.)

It “seems to me to be a sad bloodlust for Roberson on behalf of some,” Leach said. “Some of our opposition will say, ‘Well, this weakens the justice system. Just execute him.’ The problem is some of these people would execute a jaywalker if they could.”

Leach explained his evolution from a death penalty advocate to a death penalty supporter with greater skepticism of the system, resulting from his deeper involvement in several capital cases, including those of Jeff Wood and Melissa Lucio. He disagreed with Pope Leo’s recent comments that someone who is anti-abortion but also pro-death penalty is not really “pro-life.” 

“I think he’s wrong,” Leach said. “Our most fundamental duty as elected officials is to protect innocent life, period. That is our most fundamental duty, and I take that to heart.”

Some other tidbits from the conversation:

  • Leach declined to comment on whether he’d run for state Sen. Angela Paxton’s seat if she decides to run for the 32nd Congressional District. “You want to go to the audience for questions?” he joked in response to the question. “I haven't talked to my wife about it yet. I can’t talk to you about it.” 

  • He also said he could not vote for Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, but would in the general election if he became the nominee. Leach, one of the House’s impeachment managers during Paxton’s 2023 trial, said the attorney general has “refused accountability” for over a decade. “If he refuses to get on a debate stage with John Cornyn and now Wesley Hunt and answer tough questions, then he should be totally unacceptable to every single Republican primary voter in the state,” Leach said. 

  • Leach also declined to endorse a candidate for attorney general, saying the Republican field could still change before the December filing deadline.

  • And on increasing political violence and division, Leach attributed the rise at least in part to social media and the 24/7 news cycle. He added, notably, that, “the president’s rhetoric doesn't help. And I proudly have his endorsement, and I’m grateful for that. But there used to be a limit on things that we said to one another.”

— Kayla Guo

DEMS BLAST ABBOTT’S GUARD DEPLOYMENT

Texas Democrats are demanding Gov. Greg Abbott immediately bring the Texas National Guard back home, arguing this week’s deployment to Illinois puts the troops at risk and sets a dangerous precedent.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, and nine other Democratic Congress members sent a letter to Abbott on Tuesday urging him to “decline, withdraw, and refuse any cooperation or support for the deployment” of the Guard to any other state. 

“Texans did not join the National Guard to be used as a political weapon aimed at fellow American citizens in another state,” the letter said. “Turning them into a domestic police force in another state – especially over that state’s objections – erodes public trust and undermines the Guard’s core mission.

The letter calls on Abbott to request President Donald Trump rescind his order for the Texas National Guard to be deployed to Illinois and Oregon. These mobilizations follow protests against the increasingly aggressive methods used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to detain undocumented immigrants in both states.

The other nine Texans to sign onto the letter were:

  • Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin

  • Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas

  • Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin

  • Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso

  • Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston

  • Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston

  • Rep. Al Green, D-Houston

  • Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch

  • Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth

Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen were the two members of Texas’ Democratic delegation who did not join Castro’s effort. Both are among the most conservative Democrats in the House and have broken with their party on immigration votes — and will be looking to win crossover voters in their South Texas districts after being targeted by the Texas GOP’s mid-decade redistricting.

Despite Illinois suing the Trump administration to stop the “unlawful” National Guard deployment, hundreds of troops from Texas arrived in the Chicago area Tuesday, according to Texas Democratic lawmakers and news reports. A court will consider the case on Thursday. 

A federal judge already temporarily blocked Trump from sending National Guard troops from other states to Portland. 

The Democratic lawmakers contended that the deployment was illegal because Trump did not provide a clear explanation for why the soldiers were needed. 

“If any other state deployed their National Guard to Texas without our consent,” the letter said, “we would call that an invasion of Texas.”

— Marijke Friedman

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  • TX-09 and TX-34: President Donald Trump’s political team recently met with Rep. Briscoe Cain and Eric Flores, candidates for Texas’ 9th and 34th Congressional Districts, respectively, as part of an effort to vet 2026 candidates, per Mica Soellner of Bloomberg Government.

  • HD-15: Young political operative and former congressional candidate Christian Collins told The Blast this week he will not run for the district north of Houston being vacated by Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, in the 2026 primary. Collins had told The Blast in July that he had postponed his campaign launch in the wake of deadly Central Texas flooding. This week he said he did not plan to run for anything at the moment, having just organized the Texas Youth Summit, a conference of young conservatives he founded that drew a massive crowd last month, and ahead of his wedding later this year. “I would love to look at that in the future — just one step at a time though,” Collins said. 

  • HD-72: Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, announced he is running for reelection. The 10-term lawmaker was one of the few anti-voucher Republicans who survived opposition from Gov. Greg Abbott last year, but he voted for the ESA bill earlier this year and was rewarded with endorsements from Abbott and President Donald Trump. Darby has drawn one primary opponent so far: Navy veteran Cole Galloway. 

  • HD-133: Rep. Mano DeAyala, R-Houston, announced he is seeking reelection to a third term. He overcame a primary challenge last year from John Perez, who was backed by Attorney General Ken Paxton as part of Paxton’s effort to oust GOP incumbents who voted for his impeachment in 2023. DeAyala does not yet have any primary opposition in the 2026 contest.

  • Rev. Teresa Welborn, the senior pastor at University United Methodist Church in Austin, delivered the homily at today’s service for Dave McNeely, the longtime Texas political journalist who died Aug. 30 at 85. Addressing journalists at the service, Welborn said McNeely was “determined in his commitment to quality reporting — a commitment that lives on in each of you.” She added: “You who are committed to shining a light on reality, you report the truth no matter how hard or terrible it may be, no matter the risk that accompanies the telling of it. Because we know that denial of the truth does not lead to freedom.”

  • Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat who has been preparing a run for governor in 2026, is scheduled to hold a rally in Brownsville on Wednesday evening next week.

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“With the Texas National Guard now in Illinois, here’s what you need to know about the unit” by Alejandro Serrano and Alex Nguyen of The Texas Tribune

Do you or someone in your office have a birthday you’d like mentioned? Email us.

(Oct. 8) Former state Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo

(Oct. 9) State Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin

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