Democrats didn’t “win”! Trump just sabotaged the GOP.
Democrats have been building momentum in the state since the disaster of 2014. Dem turnout has climbed from the 1.4M low water mark that year. An enormous part of that was driven by the Beto engagement strategies and permanent campaign apparatus begun in 2018.
By comparison, NY Dems turnout out 3.4M voters in '26. California turned out 5.1M. Texas Dems turned out 5.4M.
Compare Texas to Florida, Virginia, Ohio… Nobody came close. This was as dramatic a swing as the elections in Hungary and Serbia. And all credit goes to Texas locals, who organized cadres fully independent of the national party.
Texas isn’t as red as people think. The GOP took over the Texas legislature for the first time ever in 2003, and gerrymandered the shit out of it to prevent themselves from losing the state. The majority of the US House delegation from Texas were Democrats from the founding of the state through 2002. Then in 2004, the gerrymandering allowed them to flip it from majority-Democrat to 2/3 Republican.
And we have to keep it going. For as long as ive lived in the state its been purple, but overwhelmingly went red because of gerrymandering, and more importantly lack of engagement by democratic voters. They felt it was pointless, because republicans always win, and controlled so much of the government. I assumed even if dems turned out that there would be shenanigans to prevent a republican loss. Yet here we are.
Democrats have been building momentum in the state since the disaster of 2014. Dem turnout has climbed from the 1.4M low water mark that year. An enormous part of that was driven by the Beto engagement strategies and permanent campaign apparatus begun in 2018.
By comparison, NY Dems turnout out 3.4M voters in '26. California turned out 5.1M. Texas Dems turned out 5.4M.
Compare Texas to Florida, Virginia, Ohio… Nobody came close. This was as dramatic a swing as the elections in Hungary and Serbia. And all credit goes to Texas locals, who organized cadres fully independent of the national party.
Texas isn’t as red as people think. The GOP took over the Texas legislature for the first time ever in 2003, and gerrymandered the shit out of it to prevent themselves from losing the state. The majority of the US House delegation from Texas were Democrats from the founding of the state through 2002. Then in 2004, the gerrymandering allowed them to flip it from majority-Democrat to 2/3 Republican.
And we have to keep it going. For as long as ive lived in the state its been purple, but overwhelmingly went red because of gerrymandering, and more importantly lack of engagement by democratic voters. They felt it was pointless, because republicans always win, and controlled so much of the government. I assumed even if dems turned out that there would be shenanigans to prevent a republican loss. Yet here we are.
I’m still surprised. I’m waiting for the Texas legislature to do some lame duck shenanigans to strip power from the governor and lt governor at least
I know theyre already looking to strip the power to set the agenda in the legislature from the lt. Governor.