Can you make a slightly more informed post? First off, not many people can just move, and doing so would just mean more republicans left. Most urban areas in Texas are quite liberal, but the rural area brings it back. Also, voter suppression is not a uniquely Texan idea. That and anti-abortion laws have also appeared in states like Alabama. Some of us in Texas are trying to fight for others, so please take that into consideration.
I can certainly do that, as there is a lot behind my long-standing and justified hate for that state. I am not sure to what degree discussion of downballot elections such as U.S. House seats and state legislative seats is allowed in this thread, as this is primarily about U.S. politics on the national level, from what I understand. So I will not be giving a complete picture at this point when it comes to Texas.
Said explanation is below, which is rather long.
I am well aware that voter suppression and anti-abortion is not unique to Texas, but it is by far the largest state where there is honestly no hope of turning it around for a long time, and I feel that it is a state that we need to sacrifice in order to help preserve the rest of the country that is even remotely sane and compassionate. You are certainly right that the urban areas are liberal, with Houston being the most prominent among them. However, your statement that the rural area brings it back is by far the most important point. There are far too many pro-fascists in these areas that have no intention of changing their minds no matter how much voter outreach is devoted to them. Now, some people may argue that the suburban trends may make this up, but I have studied them carefully, and they will not have much of an effect until 2028. This is especially true with the hard shifts in Texas Hispanics towards the Republican party in 2020. In particular, the underperformance in the Rio Grande Valley with Hispanics was
unreal. The Democratic organizations in Texas are very incompetent and unwilling to properly manage their resources to prevent further losses in 2022. Which brings me to my next paragraph.
Time and time again, the Texas Democratic Party has continued to drop the ball and has shown an unwillingness to learn from previous mistakes. A lot of it is due to the intense urban/rural and black/brown divisions that prevents the Democrats there from making any serious headway. As an example of this, the Executive Director of the Texas Democratic Party got chased out of office at the beginning of the year, and almost all of the senior staff members left with him. This demolishing in leadership appears to happen every 2-6 years, which is really not encouraging.
As a result of their lack of organization, they have had a
terrible record of winning voters and turning them out, especially when it comes to Hispanic voters. The best example that I can cite is the special election in Texas’ 6th district back in May. This was a district that voted for Trump in 2020 by only
3 points, and yet the Democrats got locked out of the runoff because of a MASSIVE lack of proper coordination efforts and effective voter outreach measures from Democrats in that area. This lockout was entirely avoidable, and Democratic campaigns and groups
completely botched their efforts. There were several Democratic internal polls that indicated that there was a serious risk of a top-two Republican lockout, and the Democratic county parties and local grassroots organizations needed to force several candidates out to guarantee a spot in the runoff. They did not do this, and the resulting lockout caused enthusiasm and energy for future volunteer events to severely drop as a result. Needless to say, the poor performance of Democrats in special elections like this demonstrates that they are not capable of developing a coherent message that can appeal to a majority of voters in swing areas.
What the Democrats in Texas need to do is to put all of their efforts in either state senate races, state house races, local municipal races, or offices that they already hold. This is called building from the bottom up. The Texas Democrats should not participate in federal or statewide campaigns for offices held by Republicans at all. The bench is far too weak to the Democrats to develop a credible offensive against many of the currently Republican-controlled congressional districts or statewide offices in 2022. All of the big stuff should wait until 2024 at the very least.
Unfortunately, the Texas Democrats have not gotten this message, and are busy wasting their money on pointless campaigns to unseat Greg Abbott (which is not going to happen in 2022 cycle, no matter how hard they try), or on “fool’s gold” districts such as Texas’ 23rd district. Or they solely stick to voter registration drives, which do help, but are *far* from sufficient to make any lasting change. The consequence is that the Democrats are going to lose even more ground in the 2022 elections, as I am already seeing them lose ground in Texas’ 34th district, which is a district that swung towards Donald Trump in 2020 by over 17 points. The Republicans are already running a credible candidate there, and the Democrats are still trying to get their act together in trying to field a credible replacement for the district’s representative (Filemon Vela), who retired in March.
All of the operatives I know with significant organizational knowledge know the incompetence of the Texas Democratic party, and are instead focused on campaigns in other states. Chief among them are the U.S. Senate races in Arizona and Georgia in 2022. Texas does not have a Senate race in 2022, which means that there is not going to be too much interest on its statewide elections for that cycle. Which is why I suggested drawing allied voters from Texas to Arizona and Georgia, as putting these elections in the Democratic column will mean the difference between true democracy and a return to fascism under the control of Mitch McConnell.
All of the above comes from talking with activists and volunteer coordinators who were on the ground in Texas over the past several years. Before I say anything further, I would like to ask the following questions: What part of Texas do you live, and which county? And how involved are you in
local races? I am not talking about statewide or federal races here, but state legislative, municipal, and other types of offices? I might have some helpful words of wisdom based on the failures that I have observed from previous campaigns that I have lent my aid to in the past.
To the moderators (or anyone who knows the rules for this thread): Is linking to campaign websites or activist groups that focus on downballot elections allowed? While I have personally given up on the state in order to focus on a pressing need to help other states that have earned my support, I would be willing to direct anyone interested in attempting to fix Texas’ mess to some races and county parties that would be somewhat effective.
I close by repeating that I feel for the Texans who do not support the pro-fascist bullshit that has developed there, and hope that they have a better life in the next world. I do understand that not many people can just move, which is unfortunate, as Texas is probably going to be Republican sink that will house the worst type of trash for many decades, due to the tax-related migration patterns of those heading to the state.