Who's working to help Texas turn blue?

November 30, 2020 6:04 PM

Looking ahead to 2022 and 2024, turning TX seems like a next step in turning the GOP into a minority party. Who is working on this?

Thinking about how to disable the GOP in the long run, and it seems like turning TX blue will help with reforming the electoral college and Senate reform, and generally take the wind out of the GOP's obstructionism. Who is working on organizing Democrats in the Lone Star State? Especially rural organizing.

Thanks!

posted by ichomp to Law & Government (7 answers total)

Beto O'Rourke's group Powered By People (poweredxpeople.org) is one I get emails from (often fairly useful emails).
posted by chromium at 6:31 PM on November 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

Also, my daughter gets emails from Common Cause Texas. Their website commoncause.org appears to be a national organization and not as informative - so look at https://www.commoncause.org/texas/our-work/.

[In both cases we signed up for the emails; they are not unsolicited. I use a separate email address for political stuff like this, in case I ever get too overwhelmed.]
posted by chromium at 6:47 PM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I did some outreach this year with Swing Left in Harris County. They do national work on this but they have a lot of focus in Texas.
posted by pazazygeek at 6:52 PM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Movement Voter Project funds grassroots organizing. They select local groups that don't only do election work, so they can build long term power but also win elections. You can see their selected Texas orgs here.
posted by cushie at 7:00 PM on November 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

Vote Forward does targeted letter writing campaigns, and I sent many to Texas this year. They point to studies on their website.
posted by bilabial at 8:13 PM on November 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure if the buried lede with this question is "what can I do to help?" or "who deserves credit?"

But like many purple states whose county and state government has been dominated by Republicans for decades, the problem is not a lack of potential democratic voters. Since O'Rourke and Hegar's Senate runs filled the state with advertising money its not even particularly a lack of cash. It's voter suppression.

So if you're asking who deserves credit, Lina Hidalgo's administration's efforts to expand ballot access in the Houston is probably the single most important thing going on right now in Texas:

The explosion of early voting in Harris County wasn’t set off by Trump alone. In 2018, a 27-year-old Colombian American immigrant named Lina Hidalgo narrowly defeated an 11-year Republican incumbent to become Harris’s “county judge,” its top elective position. In 2016, Harris spent roughly $4 million on administering its elections. Under Hidalgo’s leadership, the county pumped that budget up to $31 million: Enough money to triple the number of early voting sites in the county, and keep some locations open 24 hours during the final days of early voting, providing workers with an opportunity to cast a ballot, no matter what their shift schedules are like.

posted by caek at 8:14 PM on November 30, 2020 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: I would like to help rural organizers and support red-state Democrats.
posted by ichomp at 9:31 PM on November 30, 2020