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Re: Democrats are in danger of losing three congressional strongholds in South Texas
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Mable Rosh
Apr 28, 2022, 9:30:09 PM4/28/22
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In article <XnsABE3E8...@149.28.46.74>
Lord wrote:
>
> Black Lives Don't Matter, just shoot them.
>
WASHINGTON — Fending off the Republican advance in South Texas
this fall was already going to be a taller-than-usual order for
Democrats. But few Democrats anticipated it would be this hard.
Thanks to a succession of self-inflicted choices, fallout from
redistricting and some flat bizarre circumstances, Democrats are
confronting a mind-numbing set of complications in their fight
to hold on to three seats in South Texas. And national polling
indicates Democrats have no room for error if they want to hold
off a Republican challenge in a region that was once a
historical Democratic stronghold.
The seats in question are held by U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of
Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen. A third vacant seat
recently belonged to Filemon Vela of Brownsville, who stepped
down to take a private sector lobbying job.
“For Democrats, there may simply be too many fires to put out at
once,” national political analyst David Wasserman, of the Cook
Political Report, said to The Texas Tribune.
Democrats have been united and energized in recent days in their
opposition to Gov. Greg Abbott ordering security checks of
trucks crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that has ground
trade in the region to a halt.
But they have multiple other vulnerabilities to contend with: In
the 28th Congressional District, the FBI raided Cuellar’s home
and campaign just ahead of his primary campaign. (His attorney
has since said that Cuellar is not the target of the
investigation.) In the neighboring 15th Congressional District,
Gonzalez is vacating his once-safe, now-ripped-apart-by-
Republicans district for safer ground, making it even harder for
Democrats to hold on to his old seat. And in the 34th
Congressional District, Vela abruptly resigned late last month,
setting off a summer special election that could put a
Republican incumbent on the ballot for that seat in the fall.
Going back to the 1980s, these three neighboring districts have
traditionally made up South Texas, a region of the state with a
high proportion of Hispanic voters that has leaned left
politically. Emerging from the Rio Grande, each district
stretches from border town population centers north through
ranchland.
“Each of the South Texas districts has some unique
circumstances, but they could all add up to a big headache for
Democrats and make it more difficult to retain control of the
House,” said Nathan Gonzales, a political analyst and publisher
for Inside Elections.
Nationally, Democrats have a slim margin of control in the
House, and even losing one South Texas seat could jeopardize
Democrats’ hold on the gavel. Currently, there are 23
Republicans and 12 Democrats in the Texas U.S. House delegation.
Per Wasserman, who rates the competitiveness of U.S. House races
for a living, Democratic circumstances are becoming dire.
“President Biden's anemic approval ratings with Hispanic voters
and on the immigration issue could already be putting TX-15 out
of reach (now that it's a Trump seat), and the FBI raid and a
Vela-triggered special election are massive distractions for
Democrats in TX-28 and TX-34, respectively,” he wrote in an
email to the Tribune.
House Democratic operatives say they’re ready for the fight.
Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, said there are “challenges and opportunities
in South Texas” and Democrats are not taking anything for
granted.
“We’re confident in our Democrats in South Texas and our ability
to run smart, nimble campaigns that will win in November,” she
added.
34th Congressional District
Vela came to office in 2012 after a fresh round of
reapportionment created the new 34th District.
He announced in March 2021 that he wouldn’t seek reelection in
his district. But he upgraded his retirement announcement to a
full-blown resignation on March 31, vacating his office nine
months earlier than expected.
That move set off what will be a confusing special election in
which the winner will hold the seat for only a matter of months,
while creating an opportunity for Republicans to gain an
advantage for the main event in November where they will face a
more difficult district.
District 34 was redrawn by the Legislature last year to be a
more safe seat for a Democrat, making it the Republicans’
hardest South Texas target in November. If the new map had been
in place in 2020, President Joe Biden would have carried the
district by 16 points.
But Vela’s exit means there will now be a June 14 special
election that still adheres to the old district map, where Biden
won by only 4 points, which could make it easier for a
Republican to win. If a Republican wins the special election, it
could boost their name recognition when they compete again in
November.
Democrats are now dealing with a resulting scramble in South
Texas.
Gonzalez is running for Vela’s open seat in November — after
switching districts because redistricting tilted his district
boundaries toward Republicans. Gonzalez already declined to run
in the special election, given that he is still a sitting member
of Congress.
There’s also little incentive for other Democrats to run for the
special election. At best a candidate would be able to hold the
office for a few months while not being allowed to run for
reelection for the full term in November, since that primary has
already been settled. Gonzalez won the Democratic primary for
Vela’s seat in March.
“I wish we had a member till the end of the year,” Gonzalez said
in an interview. “But it is what it is, and under the
circumstances we gotta deal with what we have.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are giddy about the special election
contest. The GOP nominee for the two-year term, Mayra Flores, is
in the race.
“We see an opportunity to try and pick off this seat in the
special,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional
Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC that controls much of
the party’s House campaign general election spending.
“And if Mayra Flores wins, it gives her a significant jump-start
of a fall campaign against a weak candidate in Vicente
Gonzalez,” he added.
For Republicans, the stakes are historic: Should Flores win the
special election, she will become the first Republican Latina
elected to Congress from Texas. If that’s the case, her fall
campaign against Gonzalez would mark the first member-versus-
member federal race in Texas since 2004, when Republican U.S.
Rep. Pete Sessions defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Martin Frost
for a newly drawn Dallas seat after a mid-decade round of
redistricting.
It is unclear how much Democrats will spend on a special
election.
“Why would we want to spend a boatload of money for an election
that is meaningless?” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto
Hinojosa said of the special election in an interview. “There’s
not a doubt anywhere that Vicente Gonzalez is going to be sworn
in in January of 2023.”
The most formidable Democrat running in the special election is
former Cameron County justice of the peace and commissioner Dan
Sanchez, who announced his own campaign last week.
Gonzalez, who will face Flores in November for the two-year term
no matter what comes to pass over the summer, predicted a
Democratic victory in the special election that “will take the
wind out of the sail of most of the Republicans in South Texas,
after we win that special.”
“It’ll be a preview of what’s coming in November,” he added.
For his part, Vela said he’s not worried that his exit will hurt
Democrats’ chances for retaining the seat.
“Vicente is going to slaughter Mayra Flores in the November
election,” Vela said in an interview on his last day in
Congress. “I don’t think it’s going to be even near close.”
Flores responded in kind via text: “Congressmen Vela and
Gonzalez will find out the hard way that South Texas Hispanics
know the national Democratic Party has abandoned us in favor of
radical policies that harm our communities.”
15th Congressional District
First elected in 2016, Gonzalez ran for Congress when the 15th
District was once a safe Democratic seat.
This past fall, Republican state lawmakers gutted that original
15th District in redistricting, turning it from a seat Biden
narrowly carried in 2020 to one that Trump would have won by
almost 3 points. Gonzalez secured the 34th District nomination
on March 1.
The destabilization of the 15th District is a direct result of
Republican redistricting. Gonzalez did not flee his old seat for
a friendlier one. Republicans did it for him, drawing a
conspicuous peninsula out of the 34th District to bring in the
Gonzalez residence, separating him from nearly all of his old
constituents.
Members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts, and
his move leaves behind an open-seat race for the 15th District,
now the most endangered Democratic-held seat in Texas.
The Republican emphasis is on the 15th District, demonstrated by
GOP nominee Monica de la Cruz Hernandez’s designation as a House
GOP “Young Gun,” or top-tier candidate. GOP activity could
expand further, though, as campaign committees are known to add
candidates to these lists over the course of the cycle.
Two Democrats are battling it out in the May runoff: attorney
Ruben Ramirez and businesswoman Michelle Vallejo.
Vallejo has the backing of state and national groups and
politicians, including EMILY’s List, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia of Houston and
state Reps. Terry Canales of Edinburg and Mando Martinez of
Weslaco. Ramirez has endorsements from Gonzalez, Vote Vets PAC
and the Blue Dog Democrats, a group that pushes for moderates.
Both candidates have union endorsements.
More broadly, Gonzalez told the Tribune that national Democratic
groups were failing South Texas Democrats. He called the DCCC, a
member-driven institution with which he has clashed in the past,
“asleep at the wheel when it comes to South Texas.”
But there is an equitable amount of Democratic frustration on
Capitol Hill for having to deal with the open-seat race and the
Vela vacancy.
DCCC staffers say the committee has hired two staffers in the
15th District and the committee is in the process of expanding
that staff and opening a headquarters there as well.
28th Congressional District
And then there is Laredo.
In January, the FBI raided Cuellar's home and campaign office.
The FBI has yet to elaborate on why it conducted the raids so
close to the election, a highly controversial move by the
Department of Justice.
Cuellar has proclaimed his innocence. But six weeks later, he
found himself in the first Democratic runoff of his
congressional career.
Cuellar’s attorney Joshua Berman told the Tribune that a DOJ
official told him that Cuellar was not the target of the
investigation. The DOJ did not comment when asked to verify the
claim.
But it was not merely the ugliness of an unexplained raid. For
the last three years, liberals have been trying to chase Cuellar
out of office and spending big against him. Their candidate is
attorney Jessica Cisneros, who challenged Cuellar two years ago.
She is at the vanguard of the progressive left in Texas, but she
is running in a district where many Catholic voters do not agree
with her social positions — particularly on abortion.
“It’s not so much a problem that there would be no incumbent
running, it’s that Cuellar’s rival could be too far left for the
general electorate,” said Wasserman, the political analyst,
reflecting a consensus that Republicans privately hold.
Cisneros’ campaign manager Regina Monge said pundits like
Wasserman have it all wrong.
“Voters like Jessica because she’s independent, not accepting a
dime of corporate money and represents change from the status
quo. She’s focused on the issues that matter to South Texans:
health care and good jobs,” she said.
Republicans Cassy Garcia — a former staffer to U.S. Sen. Ted
Cruz — and activist Sandra Whitten are currently in a runoff
election for the GOP nod to take on whomever wins the Cuellar-
Cisneros nomination fight. Garcia recently picked up an
endorsement from U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Republican enthusiasm
House Republicans argue Democrats’ South Texas problems are
rooted in policy. Ever since Democrats underperformed in 2020, a
widespread consensus settled on the notion that positions like
defunding the police and the Green New Deal from out-of-state
politicians did significant damage to the party in South Texas.
“South Texas has become Democrats’ worst nightmare,” wrote House
GOP campaign spokesperson Torunn Sinclair, blaming Democratic
policies on the border, energy and economy in an email to the
Tribune. “Trends show South Texas is already leaning Republican,
and Democrats have done nothing to reverse the trend, and their
policies are making it worse.”
Moses Mercado, a Washington-based Democratic lobbyist who grew
up in the Rio Grande Valley, blames Republican control of
redistricting for much of the South Texas turbulence.
“This is their dream,” he said of Republican ambitions in South
Texas. “They created the mess.”
What is clear: Both parties are organizing here in ways they
have not before. National party staffers are on the ground, and
the cheap television markets will likely feature political
commercials on loop by September.
“We’re changing how we do business in South Texas this cycle,”
said Robinson, the House Democratic campaign spokesperson. “The
DCCC is reaching voters earlier than ever before, we’re being
intentional about how we communicate with Hispanic voters in the
Valley and we’re resuming in-person organizing after Democrats
put public health over politics in 2020.”
We can’t wait to welcome you in person and online to the 2022
Texas Tribune Festival, our multiday celebration of big, bold
ideas about politics, public policy and the day’s news — all
taking place just steps away from the Texas Capitol from Sept.
22-24. When tickets go on sale in May, Tribune members will save
big. Donate to join or renew today.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/14/south-texas-democrats-
cuellar-vela-gonzalez/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom
informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.
Learn more at texastribune.org.
Democrats are incompetent.
Lord wrote:
>
> Black Lives Don't Matter, just shoot them.
>
WASHINGTON — Fending off the Republican advance in South Texas
this fall was already going to be a taller-than-usual order for
Democrats. But few Democrats anticipated it would be this hard.
Thanks to a succession of self-inflicted choices, fallout from
redistricting and some flat bizarre circumstances, Democrats are
confronting a mind-numbing set of complications in their fight
to hold on to three seats in South Texas. And national polling
indicates Democrats have no room for error if they want to hold
off a Republican challenge in a region that was once a
historical Democratic stronghold.
The seats in question are held by U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of
Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen. A third vacant seat
recently belonged to Filemon Vela of Brownsville, who stepped
down to take a private sector lobbying job.
“For Democrats, there may simply be too many fires to put out at
once,” national political analyst David Wasserman, of the Cook
Political Report, said to The Texas Tribune.
Democrats have been united and energized in recent days in their
opposition to Gov. Greg Abbott ordering security checks of
trucks crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that has ground
trade in the region to a halt.
But they have multiple other vulnerabilities to contend with: In
the 28th Congressional District, the FBI raided Cuellar’s home
and campaign just ahead of his primary campaign. (His attorney
has since said that Cuellar is not the target of the
investigation.) In the neighboring 15th Congressional District,
Gonzalez is vacating his once-safe, now-ripped-apart-by-
Republicans district for safer ground, making it even harder for
Democrats to hold on to his old seat. And in the 34th
Congressional District, Vela abruptly resigned late last month,
setting off a summer special election that could put a
Republican incumbent on the ballot for that seat in the fall.
Going back to the 1980s, these three neighboring districts have
traditionally made up South Texas, a region of the state with a
high proportion of Hispanic voters that has leaned left
politically. Emerging from the Rio Grande, each district
stretches from border town population centers north through
ranchland.
“Each of the South Texas districts has some unique
circumstances, but they could all add up to a big headache for
Democrats and make it more difficult to retain control of the
House,” said Nathan Gonzales, a political analyst and publisher
for Inside Elections.
Nationally, Democrats have a slim margin of control in the
House, and even losing one South Texas seat could jeopardize
Democrats’ hold on the gavel. Currently, there are 23
Republicans and 12 Democrats in the Texas U.S. House delegation.
Per Wasserman, who rates the competitiveness of U.S. House races
for a living, Democratic circumstances are becoming dire.
“President Biden's anemic approval ratings with Hispanic voters
and on the immigration issue could already be putting TX-15 out
of reach (now that it's a Trump seat), and the FBI raid and a
Vela-triggered special election are massive distractions for
Democrats in TX-28 and TX-34, respectively,” he wrote in an
email to the Tribune.
House Democratic operatives say they’re ready for the fight.
Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, said there are “challenges and opportunities
in South Texas” and Democrats are not taking anything for
granted.
“We’re confident in our Democrats in South Texas and our ability
to run smart, nimble campaigns that will win in November,” she
added.
34th Congressional District
Vela came to office in 2012 after a fresh round of
reapportionment created the new 34th District.
He announced in March 2021 that he wouldn’t seek reelection in
his district. But he upgraded his retirement announcement to a
full-blown resignation on March 31, vacating his office nine
months earlier than expected.
That move set off what will be a confusing special election in
which the winner will hold the seat for only a matter of months,
while creating an opportunity for Republicans to gain an
advantage for the main event in November where they will face a
more difficult district.
District 34 was redrawn by the Legislature last year to be a
more safe seat for a Democrat, making it the Republicans’
hardest South Texas target in November. If the new map had been
in place in 2020, President Joe Biden would have carried the
district by 16 points.
But Vela’s exit means there will now be a June 14 special
election that still adheres to the old district map, where Biden
won by only 4 points, which could make it easier for a
Republican to win. If a Republican wins the special election, it
could boost their name recognition when they compete again in
November.
Democrats are now dealing with a resulting scramble in South
Texas.
Gonzalez is running for Vela’s open seat in November — after
switching districts because redistricting tilted his district
boundaries toward Republicans. Gonzalez already declined to run
in the special election, given that he is still a sitting member
of Congress.
There’s also little incentive for other Democrats to run for the
special election. At best a candidate would be able to hold the
office for a few months while not being allowed to run for
reelection for the full term in November, since that primary has
already been settled. Gonzalez won the Democratic primary for
Vela’s seat in March.
“I wish we had a member till the end of the year,” Gonzalez said
in an interview. “But it is what it is, and under the
circumstances we gotta deal with what we have.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are giddy about the special election
contest. The GOP nominee for the two-year term, Mayra Flores, is
in the race.
“We see an opportunity to try and pick off this seat in the
special,” said Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional
Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC that controls much of
the party’s House campaign general election spending.
“And if Mayra Flores wins, it gives her a significant jump-start
of a fall campaign against a weak candidate in Vicente
Gonzalez,” he added.
For Republicans, the stakes are historic: Should Flores win the
special election, she will become the first Republican Latina
elected to Congress from Texas. If that’s the case, her fall
campaign against Gonzalez would mark the first member-versus-
member federal race in Texas since 2004, when Republican U.S.
Rep. Pete Sessions defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Martin Frost
for a newly drawn Dallas seat after a mid-decade round of
redistricting.
It is unclear how much Democrats will spend on a special
election.
“Why would we want to spend a boatload of money for an election
that is meaningless?” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto
Hinojosa said of the special election in an interview. “There’s
not a doubt anywhere that Vicente Gonzalez is going to be sworn
in in January of 2023.”
The most formidable Democrat running in the special election is
former Cameron County justice of the peace and commissioner Dan
Sanchez, who announced his own campaign last week.
Gonzalez, who will face Flores in November for the two-year term
no matter what comes to pass over the summer, predicted a
Democratic victory in the special election that “will take the
wind out of the sail of most of the Republicans in South Texas,
after we win that special.”
“It’ll be a preview of what’s coming in November,” he added.
For his part, Vela said he’s not worried that his exit will hurt
Democrats’ chances for retaining the seat.
“Vicente is going to slaughter Mayra Flores in the November
election,” Vela said in an interview on his last day in
Congress. “I don’t think it’s going to be even near close.”
Flores responded in kind via text: “Congressmen Vela and
Gonzalez will find out the hard way that South Texas Hispanics
know the national Democratic Party has abandoned us in favor of
radical policies that harm our communities.”
15th Congressional District
First elected in 2016, Gonzalez ran for Congress when the 15th
District was once a safe Democratic seat.
This past fall, Republican state lawmakers gutted that original
15th District in redistricting, turning it from a seat Biden
narrowly carried in 2020 to one that Trump would have won by
almost 3 points. Gonzalez secured the 34th District nomination
on March 1.
The destabilization of the 15th District is a direct result of
Republican redistricting. Gonzalez did not flee his old seat for
a friendlier one. Republicans did it for him, drawing a
conspicuous peninsula out of the 34th District to bring in the
Gonzalez residence, separating him from nearly all of his old
constituents.
Members of Congress don’t have to live in their districts, and
his move leaves behind an open-seat race for the 15th District,
now the most endangered Democratic-held seat in Texas.
The Republican emphasis is on the 15th District, demonstrated by
GOP nominee Monica de la Cruz Hernandez’s designation as a House
GOP “Young Gun,” or top-tier candidate. GOP activity could
expand further, though, as campaign committees are known to add
candidates to these lists over the course of the cycle.
Two Democrats are battling it out in the May runoff: attorney
Ruben Ramirez and businesswoman Michelle Vallejo.
Vallejo has the backing of state and national groups and
politicians, including EMILY’s List, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
of Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia of Houston and
state Reps. Terry Canales of Edinburg and Mando Martinez of
Weslaco. Ramirez has endorsements from Gonzalez, Vote Vets PAC
and the Blue Dog Democrats, a group that pushes for moderates.
Both candidates have union endorsements.
More broadly, Gonzalez told the Tribune that national Democratic
groups were failing South Texas Democrats. He called the DCCC, a
member-driven institution with which he has clashed in the past,
“asleep at the wheel when it comes to South Texas.”
But there is an equitable amount of Democratic frustration on
Capitol Hill for having to deal with the open-seat race and the
Vela vacancy.
DCCC staffers say the committee has hired two staffers in the
15th District and the committee is in the process of expanding
that staff and opening a headquarters there as well.
28th Congressional District
And then there is Laredo.
In January, the FBI raided Cuellar's home and campaign office.
The FBI has yet to elaborate on why it conducted the raids so
close to the election, a highly controversial move by the
Department of Justice.
Cuellar has proclaimed his innocence. But six weeks later, he
found himself in the first Democratic runoff of his
congressional career.
Cuellar’s attorney Joshua Berman told the Tribune that a DOJ
official told him that Cuellar was not the target of the
investigation. The DOJ did not comment when asked to verify the
claim.
But it was not merely the ugliness of an unexplained raid. For
the last three years, liberals have been trying to chase Cuellar
out of office and spending big against him. Their candidate is
attorney Jessica Cisneros, who challenged Cuellar two years ago.
She is at the vanguard of the progressive left in Texas, but she
is running in a district where many Catholic voters do not agree
with her social positions — particularly on abortion.
“It’s not so much a problem that there would be no incumbent
running, it’s that Cuellar’s rival could be too far left for the
general electorate,” said Wasserman, the political analyst,
reflecting a consensus that Republicans privately hold.
Cisneros’ campaign manager Regina Monge said pundits like
Wasserman have it all wrong.
“Voters like Jessica because she’s independent, not accepting a
dime of corporate money and represents change from the status
quo. She’s focused on the issues that matter to South Texans:
health care and good jobs,” she said.
Republicans Cassy Garcia — a former staffer to U.S. Sen. Ted
Cruz — and activist Sandra Whitten are currently in a runoff
election for the GOP nod to take on whomever wins the Cuellar-
Cisneros nomination fight. Garcia recently picked up an
endorsement from U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Republican enthusiasm
House Republicans argue Democrats’ South Texas problems are
rooted in policy. Ever since Democrats underperformed in 2020, a
widespread consensus settled on the notion that positions like
defunding the police and the Green New Deal from out-of-state
politicians did significant damage to the party in South Texas.
“South Texas has become Democrats’ worst nightmare,” wrote House
GOP campaign spokesperson Torunn Sinclair, blaming Democratic
policies on the border, energy and economy in an email to the
Tribune. “Trends show South Texas is already leaning Republican,
and Democrats have done nothing to reverse the trend, and their
policies are making it worse.”
Moses Mercado, a Washington-based Democratic lobbyist who grew
up in the Rio Grande Valley, blames Republican control of
redistricting for much of the South Texas turbulence.
“This is their dream,” he said of Republican ambitions in South
Texas. “They created the mess.”
What is clear: Both parties are organizing here in ways they
have not before. National party staffers are on the ground, and
the cheap television markets will likely feature political
commercials on loop by September.
“We’re changing how we do business in South Texas this cycle,”
said Robinson, the House Democratic campaign spokesperson. “The
DCCC is reaching voters earlier than ever before, we’re being
intentional about how we communicate with Hispanic voters in the
Valley and we’re resuming in-person organizing after Democrats
put public health over politics in 2020.”
We can’t wait to welcome you in person and online to the 2022
Texas Tribune Festival, our multiday celebration of big, bold
ideas about politics, public policy and the day’s news — all
taking place just steps away from the Texas Capitol from Sept.
22-24. When tickets go on sale in May, Tribune members will save
big. Donate to join or renew today.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/14/south-texas-democrats-
cuellar-vela-gonzalez/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom
informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.
Learn more at texastribune.org.
Democrats are incompetent.
Justin Peters
May 10, 2022, 7:50:10 PM5/10/22
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