EL PASO, Tx., December 18, 2025: Congressperson Veronica Escobar is running for reelection in 2026. She is unopposed in the March primary after it was determined that her opponent, Arturo Andujo, did not have the necessary qualified signatures on the petition he submitted to be on the ballot. On the Republican primary, there are six candidates seeking the GOP nomination in March. The nominee will face Escobar in November.
However, it is important to note that although there was a Republican voter surge in 2024, it is unlikely that there would be enough of a Republican shift in El Paso to unseat Escobar.
As part of our comprehensive coverage for the 2026 elections, El Paso Herald Post will start profiling candidates in a non-partisan fashion to help prepare voters before they cast their ballots. Each profile will differ depending on several factors, including election profile, office in contention and time permitting. Some candidates may have more than one profile completed during the election season.
Today’s comparative review focuses on Veronica Escobar, who will likely keep her seat in 2026 because of the voter profiles of El Paso’s voters.
We have broken this profile down into four sections covering her tenure as El Paso’s congressperson since 2019. Our topics focus on measurable political roles, legislative activities, leadership within the Democratic Party and her influence on the Democratic caucus. We are also including comparative highlights to offer voters a comparison of Escobar against her peers.
Democratic Party Leadership Visibility
Escobar was elected in 2019 to represent the Texas 16th congressional district. She was the first woman elected to represent El Paso, according to her campaign website. She was one of two women Latinas at the House. She adds on her campaign website that “she is the only Texan in leadership in both the House and the Senate in both parties.”
But in the national Democratic Party stage, Escobar ranks below top party leaders when it comes to influencing party politics. Many of her Democratic peers serve in formal leadership groups like Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-8) or Robert Julio Garcia (D-CA-42). Garcia was elected in 2022 and 2023. Both have achieved higher profiles than Escobar even though both were elected years after Escobar first arrived in Washington.
Committee Assignments
Escobar has been appointed to significant House committees including the Armed Services, the Judiciary and Appropriations. Her policy focus has been healthcare reform, gun control, immigration reform, reproductive justice and veterans’ issues. Although these appointments are notable, the committees offer little in the way of influencing the party’s legislative agenda, like an assignment on the Ways and Means Committee would offer. Her appointment to the Appropriations Committee, however, does provide her with some legislative power.
Political Visibility
Escobar’s political visibility at the national level is limited by the proposed legislation she has offered that does not offer high visibility. However, Escobar is helped along by her co-sponsorship of Democratic packages like food insecurity, but she remains one of around 200 co-sponsors diminishing her visibility among her party peers.
She has developed a strong local identity among El Paso’s voters but at the expense of losing political visibility among the party at the national stage.
Overall Standing Among Peers
Escobar’s standing among her Democratic Party peers can be summed up as representative of ethnicity and gender among the party’s politics, but because of her modest history of bills passed at the House, she is symbolic in terms of ethnicity and gender for the party’s leadership. In her six years in Congress, Escobar has not achieved a position on the top five Democratic leadership posts at the House, and her legislative agenda is too focused on single issues like healthcare or immigration leaving budget priorities and strategy to her peers.
Veronica Escobar’s political tenure at the House is best described as holding a mid-tier level among her peers at the national Democratic Party apparatus.
Generally, Escobar has represented El Paso in Congress as an El Pasoan among peers from larger communities with more access to political power.
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