Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast. I
am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the trip Cast,
joined as usual by the trip Text.
Speaker 2: I mean you are your editor in chief of everything.
That's everything that I can see in this building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that other voice you hear, of course, eleanor
Klibanoff and now I'm forgetting your title too.
Speaker 2: It's been a long couple of days law and politics
reporter at the Texas Tribune, which maybe give context.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we are we are joining you. We are
recording this on the Tuesday of July eighth, but we
are you will probably be hearing this in the future,
as we are recording another podcast today on the flooding
that happened in the Hill Country.
Speaker 2: The Tribune is sort of on breaking news alert, so
I'm glad we're going to pivot into a flood episode.
Speaker 1: But for this week, we are beginning what is going
to be, I guess, a series of two podcasts looking
forward to the twenty twenty sixth election. I had to
check myself there to make sure that that's correct. It
is indeed almost twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Since it is currently twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: It is currently twenty twenty five. I believe crazy?
Speaker 2: Do you know? And I'm sorry we will get into this,
but do you know that because we are past July second,
twenty twenty five, we are closer to twenty fifty than
we are to two thousand.
Speaker 1: That is indeed shocking, horrifying. Yes, you know, time flies.
I have nothing to say I'm going to say about that. Yes, yes,
But today we are going to focus on the Democratic
Party and we are joined by a special guest, Kendall Scudder,
the new chair of the Texas Democratic Party. Hello, Kendall,
thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks so much for having me. Y'all. I've always
been a list so now it's a weird experience getting
to be.
Speaker 2: On Great to have a listener, a listener and a fan,
A longtime listener, first time caller.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. We asked that you still listen to
the podcast even though you're on it, so yes, you
can keep those listen.
Speaker 2: You don't transcend to a new plane where you don't
have to listen anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't know are y all the same way, where
like you can't listen to your own voice if you
try to listen to it, it sounds weird, so this
might be an episode I have to skip.
Speaker 1: That's fair, all right, Well, maybe just like play it,
you know, like play it on your phone, and just
like leave your phone in the other room, you.
Speaker 2: Know, share it with your networks and have them listen
to it.
Speaker 3: You go, there, you go.
Speaker 1: I will say, you have a very good radio voice,
so that I do understand everyone.
Speaker 2: I don't listen anxiety.
Speaker 1: And yes, all right, well, chairman, we are going to talk,
like we said, about the twenty twenty six elections. But
before we do that, I actually want to look back
a little bit. You are fairly new to your position.
You were elected in March, I believe, after your predecessor
resigned mid term. In the aftermath of you know what,
was a pretty painful and I think we can say
unsuccessful twenty four election statewide, the party the top of
the ticket for president losing by fourteen percent, the Senate
candidate Colin all Read losing by nine percent, during a
time where at times during that cycle folks were thinking
that Texas might be competitive. That election obviously brought about
a considerable amount of soul searching in the Democratic Party
in Texas, and beyond your election, came amid that soul searching.
Can you just sort of remind folks who might not
have fault paid attention to that race, what was your
kind of message, what was the vision you were selling
to the party? Looking forward after and admittedly pretty tough
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what I I think was probably the
most interesting about that election is that I come from
the grassroots. I'm not really of the political apparatus in Austin.
I'm a farm kid from East Texas who ended up
moving to Dallas and being elected as one of the
directors of the Dallas Central Appraisal District, And so I'm
kind of this outsider of that space. And for me,
I feel like the organizing, grassroots piece of our party
has been neglected all across the state. It's been this
idea that you could just stick a sack of flower
in the oven and expect it to make biscuits every
election cycle. You know, you just raise a whole bunch
of money and try to buy your way out of
a loss. But you can't do that. I mean, we
have a lot of steps that we have to go
through if we want to have success in this state.
And that means organizing in every corner of this state,
not just in the major metros. There's forty mid sized
cities with over one hundred thousand people in them. They
deserve a little bit of love too. And you know
these rural communities all across the state, a lot of
which we don't even have democratic county chairs in. I
mean over twenty percent of counties in Texas don't have
Democratic county chairs. We just have not been building the
apparatus in Texas, in my opinion, in a way that
can be successful. I also am a firm believer that,
you know, as that farm kid from East Texas, that
the party's kind of gotten away from its key message,
and it's that we're the party of the little guy.
My granddaddy was born on a farm in East Texas
that only had electricity because of Franklin Roosevelt, Sam Rayburn,
the New Deal of the Democratic Party. And when our
family lost everything after the big droughts in nineteen fifty nine,
we depended on programs in Linda Johnson's Great Society in
order to survive. You know, that used to be who
our party was, a party of big, bold ideas that
helped working people and poor people, and we would disrupt
systems and take on billionaires and banks and whoever. We
had to to make sure that the little guy had
a seat at the table. And I'm trying to bring
that back for the party. That needs to be the
focus of everything that we do. I'm not saying that
the party hasn't made an effort at that, but it's
not been the center of all of our messaging and
all of our discussion discussions. So for me, everything that
we talk about, everything that we do, everything that we
are building for the next soccle is centered around how
do we help the little guy? How do we help
a work and family be able to get ahead in
a society that just feels like it's stacked and stacked
against them every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I wonder if you agree
with this assessment. But there was like a weird sort
of sense of complacency among some Democrats in Texas, even
though the party has you know, essentially lost every election
this century. I think, you know, people maybe looked at
the demographics of this state, the changing demographics, and said, oh, well,
you know, there is this sort of inevitable shift, if
not to the left, at least to the middle. You know,
twenty sixteen the presidential ticket, Democrats lose by sixteen points
twenty sorry, twenty twelve, they lose by sixteen points. Sixteen,
they lose by nine points. Twenty twenty, they lose by
six points. The state's becoming more urban, the state is
becoming more diverse. That means the state is becoming democratic.
And then we get to twenty twenty four and all
of those trends get reversed. You know, Hispanic voters go
way to the right way to Trump. Even in the
big cities, you see a bit of a shift to
the right. And maybe there's this idea of Okay, we
can't just let demographics be destiny. We need to do
something about the message here. Do you agree with that assessment?
Is that where the party is right now?
Speaker 3: I partially agree with that assessment. I think that it
is kind of in order to have this discussion, you
also have to have it about the fact that a
fifth of our voters stayed home Democrats. You know, we
had a million people in Texas that voted for Joe
Biden and chose to stay home in twenty twenty four, So,
you know, did they get redder in those areas, or
did our people decide we weren't worth voting for. And
I'm just going to be honest. I mean, if you
want to fix the situation, it's not about self preservation.
Sometimes you got to look in a mirror and acknowledge
that you made some mistakes. And so I think that
the party needs to do some of that. You know,
we need to figure out what we did wrong and
figure out what we can do to make it right.
I personally believe that it's because, you know, when you're
in a coalition party like ours that has so many
diverse interests and groups inside of it, you have to
focus on the things that connect every single person in
that coalition, And to me, it's that everyone of them
pay bills and every single one of them are trying
to get along in this life that is just more
and more expensive. Since Republicans have taken over the state,
I'd remind you that it was before I entered kindergarten,
since a Democrat has held statewide office in Texas, and
because I am a thirty five year old, one of
the only millennials in the country leading to major party.
You know, in the last thirty years, do you feel
like your taxes have gone down. Do you feel like
your community's more safe? Do you feel like your schools
are better? Do you feel like your hospitals are better?
Do you feel like your bridges and roads have gotten better?
Because the only difference between thirty years ago and now
is that Democrats ran the state thirty years ago, and
for the last thirty years, Republicans have been chipping away
at all of these wonderful projects and programs that we've
had in Texas that help working people and that we're
designed to make us this beacon for business and for
opportunity people in the country wanting to come to Texas.
You know, Republicans have eaten away at that over the years.
And now we don't know that when we flip a
LT switch to the electricity is going to come on.
We don't know that whenever a natural disaster hits, we're
going to get the emergency services warnings that we need
to stay safe. We don't have the top schools in
the country anymore. We're funded forty third, forty fourth in
the nation now and this big beautiful bill that just
passes going to shut down you know, three hundred hospitals
in this country in rural communities, a lot of those
in Texas where people aren't even going to get access
to life saving medical care when they need it, or
even primitive healthcare when they need it. Life has not
gotten better under Republican leadership. And it's our responsibility to
make clear to people, you know, what that looks like
and to point it out. And I think we've just
kind of allowed it to happen and thrown our hands
in the air and said, well, it is what it is.
We just need demographics to change to take the state back.
I think we got to be more aggressive, and we've
got to get to a point where we're reminding people
every day what it looks like under a Republican administration
versus democratic administration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I feel like this is like, you know,
I talk about this experience a lot, but I this
last election cycle wrote a story that was like, you know,
is our Texas Supreme Court seats vulnerable because of their
people are so unhappy about their rulings on abortion? And
then I was like, back in our archives and you know,
we've written a version of that story every you know,
are these seeds vulnerable because of their COVID rulings? Are
these seats vulnerable because of you know, their rulings on
you know xyz thing. I mean, there's so many things
that actually think national Democrats but also Texas Democrats and
individual people are like good at saying I'm unhappy with
what lawmakers have done on this, I'm unhappy with what
the governor is doing on this. I'm it's outrageous what's
happening here. But that's not translating into votes.
Speaker 1: I mean, you talk.
Speaker 2: About people staying home. What is the disconnect there that
people are saying, I'm not happy with what the Republicans
are doing, but I'm still not going to vote period
or not going to vote blue.
Speaker 3: Well, look, i mean the most conservative speaker in Texas
history was elected with fifty five percent of the votes
coming from Democrats, you know. I mean, if I can't
tell the difference between Democrat and a Republican, I don't
know how a voter is supposed to be able to.
If you take that million voters and you ask them
why they chose to stay home, they'll say things to
you like the Democrats don't fight hard enough that whatever
we elect them, they sit in the middle and negotiate
away the things that are important to us. We've got
to get back to a point where we don't put
things like you know, cordiality above the fight for working people,
that when we walk in a door, we're going to
flip whatever tables we have to to protect working people
from the onsught of attacks that are coming from billionaires
in banks. And it's one thing to say it, it's
another thing to do it. And I don't think that
they have seen that coming from Democrats. I mean, the
most big, bold policy we've seen from Democrats aside from
I mean, we saw some giant infrastructure investments in the
Biden administration that haven't had enough time to come to fruition.
But if you're talking about programs that have had time
to come into fruition, the ACA, I guess is the
biggest Democratic accomplishment. And even that was us coming to
the table with a center idea that Republicans chipped away on,
and then we took away things like the public option
that would have given people access to competitive healthcare costs.
You know, it's a shame to me when the Democrats
don't walk in the door with big, bold, progressive ideas.
If you don't have that healthy side of the spectrum
in politics, the people who are counting on us are
going to struggle, and that's what I think has happened.
So I'd like to see the Party get back to
situations where we're unapologetic advocates for the working poor and
for the working class. And you know, that's what I'd
like to see the Party do. I'm going to work
with our legislators. I think a lot of them that
I've talked to have been on board that idea. We
just had to focus and stop thinking that this onslaught
and this flooding of the end zone of their Trump administration,
you know, nitpicking. That is the way forward. We have
to have a fifty thousand foot view and some vision
and a guide on how to get there.
Speaker 1: I want to somewhat question a little bit of your
framing here, particularly around the idea of like, you know,
we have heard people say for a long time, right,
Texas isn't a red state or a blue state. It's
a non voting state, right. And there's this idea of like,
if we could just get more this is the Democrats speaking,
if we could just get more people to the polls,
you know, the people, the poorer folks, the people of color,
all those types of folks, like we can we can
shift the election in this state. One of the few
kind of public polling entities that tests not you know,
expected voters. What's the term I'm looking for here, Well,
we'll go with yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, like yeah, sorry,
but actually just like eligible voters, not even just registered voters.
It's the Texas Lyceum poll that comes out every I
think a couple of years or something, or maybe it's
every year, and they the poll this year like really
got into my head because I think it disrupted some
of those expectations. Greg Abbott's approval rating in this group
was fifty five percent. Donald Trump's was fifty four percent.
The state had moved dramatically to the right on issues
of immigration compared to four years ago, and things like that.
It on the other hand, you talk about working class
issues and things like that. I mean, we look at
what happened in the New York mayoral primary with Mom Dummy,
who was really pushing some of these economic populist ideas
and everything like that. And if you look at the
precincts where he won, he won in the wealthy areas
and not the poorer areas. I mean, how sure are
you that those voters, those working class voters are actually
going to respond to that progressive message you're pointing to,
because I think you look at some of the polls
and history suggests that that's not always the case.
Speaker 3: Well, this is the biggest difference between democt rights and
Republicans in my opinion. We don't forge our ideas based
on who's going to politically respond to them. We forged
them over what the right thing to do is. And
what the right thing to do is to make sure
that somebody that gets out of bed every morning and
works their ass off in order to put soccer cleats
on their kid, you know that they get an opportunity
in this economy that's rigged so that the people at
the top are constantly raking in record profits while all
the rest of us are left at the bottom groveling
for crumbs. And you know whether or not that translates,
I mean, well, we'll have to see. But we as
a party have always made decisions based on what the
right thing to do is, and that hasn't always worked
out for us in pan But that's just kind of
a crux of how weird different than them. That's what
we do. I'll also point out that these holes are
a snapshot of a moment in time, and that's fine.
You know, I don't know what was happening in the
news at the time that that license pulled.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what I will tell you was before
a big beautiful bill. It was sure. Yeah, that poll
I remember talking about at the time it was in
the field. About three quarters of the time that was
out in the field was before Liberation Day, before the
tariffs came in. So you are correct in pointing out
that a lot has happened since then, for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was exactly where I was going with
that was Number one. In just three months, Donald Trump
pushed the largest tax increase in working class families in
my lifetime with these tariffs. Number two, this big beautiful
bill pass where the richest people in this country will
now pay a lower baseline tax rate than the poorest,
which is just straight up and moral that a billionaire
would pay less in taxes than their waiter, than their secretaries,
than their golf caddies, than their top secret cabana boys. Right,
it's not acceptable. And when all of that is flushing
through us, when people are getting their healthcare gutted through Medicaid,
when rural hospitals are going to shut down because of
that lack of funding, When we are seeing energy rates
increasing because they failed to fund those programs for alternative
energy that have always been funded. As these things start
to hit, you're going to see it different, Stapshot in time.
Our job is to make sure that people know what
we stand for. And I'm not here to chase polls.
We're going to do what's right. That's what we've always
done and that's who we're going to be.
Speaker 2: But right, and I think that you know framework, so
that North start sounds like you guys have of like
we're going to do what's right and like sort of
you know, try to sell I presume, try to sell
that to voters and like if they come with us
on that, great, but you do need to win elections
to implement, you know, what you all see as like
what is right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, when people see, you know, so many years
of Republican dominance, how do you sort of get them
to stay aboard with the Texas Democrats and maybe even
join you know, what has been for to your point
thirty years, you know, a losing party.
Speaker 3: I would argue that we have a seismic shift right
now in the way that we're operating as a party
in addition to kind of the seismic shifts that are
happening in the realignment of the electorate. But as a party,
I mean, when you put a thirty five year old
for the Progressive Caucus in charge of the way that
you're operating, I think you're sending a pretty strong message
that things are going to be done differently than the
way that we've been doing them. Our organizing is going
to be different, our messaging is different. The way that
we conduct our coordinated is going to be different. The
way that we go and solicit funds is going to
be different. I mean, I'm everywhere I go. We're building
a grassroots movement across this state where we're going to
be trying to lean on our grassroots donors so that
we aren't reliant on the super wealthy and corporate donors
to be able to function as an organization. And when
we do that, we're able to be faithful to the
people who fund our organization, and that's the working class
and working people across the state. It doesn't happen overnight
you can't make a U turn on the Titanic. But
we're working right now to rebuild what it means to
be a Texas Democrat. And if the National Party isn't
going to be here with us, and they're not here
to help, that's fine, that's their thing. I think it
means something a little bit different to be a Texasmocrat
than being a National Democrat. And we're going to lean
into the policies of Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson and
Lloyd Benson, and you know, we're going to make sure
that people understand that Texas Democrats get big things done.
Speaker 1: So I am noticing your invocation of the working class.
You're clearly a very big point of emphasis for you.
I don't think you're the only Democrat in this situation.
You know, there are many people who believe that the
failures of twenty twenty four, both nationally and in the state,
were in part because a rejection by the working class
of whether it's real or perceived, an idea of the
Democrats going a little too far on the wokeness perspective. Right,
the social issues, social issues, race, all the you know, gender.
Speaker 2: Issues, particularly right like this real tension around gender issues
and you know trans you know, how much are we
talking about issues of gender exactly?
Speaker 1: Am I to take by the messaging that we're hearing
from you today a sign of agreement on that? Do
you feel like the Democrats should maybe, if not even
change their positions, at least deemphasize some of those social
issues and focus more on the economics.
Speaker 3: When you're a part of a coalition party, you have
a lot of different people, with a lot of different
walks of life and different perspectives. And the way I
view it is that if you're willing to respect everybody
sitting at the table, you're welcome at it. And where
I'm from, you just be nice to people, mind your
own business. And that is how I think we're going
to continue to operate as a party as we always
have been. I'm not throwing anybody overboard. The coach after
losing a game doesn't go into the press junk it
and blame the running backs. Okay, that's not how this works.
But I do think we can get to a point
where people say, you know, kind of, actually, I'll make
a point, kind of like they do about Donald Trump.
You hear people say this all the time. You know,
the guy's a total asshole. We don't like him. We
think he goes too far on X, Y and Z.
But I did feel like in his first term he
was throwing down and fighting for us. I disagree with that.
I think that is a bad assessment, but I hear
it a lot. You've heard it a lot. I'm sure
I can see why you're nodding. We've got to get
to a point as a party where people will say
that about us. You know, I don't have to agree
with them on everything that they do all the time,
and I may not understand this issue, and I may
not appreciate where they're out on this issue, but I
did feel like when they were elected they were throwing
down and fighting for us, and it's worth it. Nobody
agrees with every political party one hundred percent of the time,
except for the chairmen who are elected and required to.
So I would say that we have to get to
a point where we're treating everybody with respect. Basic human
dignity is a baseline being nice to people, minding our
own business, and leading with the issues that impact every
member of our coalition. And fun fact about trans people.
They pay bills to every single person in our coalition
is struggling to get by because we don't have massive
old barons and billionaires in West Texas within our coalition.
Our people are struggling to pay their bills, to pay
their electric rates, to pay their insurance rates, to pay
their property taxes, all of them skaha. I'll remind everyone
that when the Democratic budget two sessions ago, we tried
to double your home set exemptions, and every single Republican
voted against it. We tried to give a ten percent
rental rebate to renters, every single Republican voted against it.
We tried to expand medicaid, every Republican voted against it.
We are the ones advocating to make sure that work
can people get an opportunity. It's our obligation to make
sure they see it. If they haven't in the past,
that's our bad. We need to fix it.
Speaker 1: All right. Shall we talk a little bit about twenty
twenty six? All right, twenty six, let's do it. I
would say one thing that the Democrats do have going
from them is a pretty solid and prominent bench of
candidates who have you know, high name recognition, you know support,
you know. The Dallas Morning News wrote this story not
too long ago about four of those people, Beto Rourke,
James Tall, Rico, Colin Allred, Joaquin Castro, all kind of
coming together to discuss whether how they might run, and
their interests in running, and where they might all piece together.
I think there is a general idea of maybe the
Senate is the best place to run statewide if you're
a Democrat right now, particularly if if Ken Paxton is
able to primary John Cornyan, particularly given the just massive,
massive amounts of money and pretty strong popularity in the
polls of the governor Greg Abbott. But I think there's
also a sense even among those candidates that maybe the
best thing for the Democratic Party isn't to have four
people running for Senate and no in any of those
other seats. I'm curious, just, first of all, are you
involved in those conversations. Are you trying to help these
candidates and other candidates sort of make the right decision
for the party in terms of what sets up the
best slate for them.
Speaker 3: Well, first, let me say this is a little less
news oriented and kind of personal, but I'll say it's
weird to me to be in those conversations, because you know,
I'm still adjusting to it. I got elected one hundred
days ago, and you know, I come from a family
that just had nothing, and so it's just this wild,
you know, acclaim to the Texas public school system that
I'm even able to be sitting in this chair and
doing it, and just I'm just appreciate the opportunity to
be here. So yeah, I've been having a lot of
conversations with folks. What I'll say is that I love
all my Democrats equally, that unlike my cohort in the
Republican Party, I don't involve myself in those inter party spats.
My job is to hold the team together, to be
a coach, to make sure that we're all moving in
the same direction, working on a team to get more
Democrats elected. So I think we have a really great
slate of candidates. I've had conversations with all of them.
Most of the time. My conversations say, you do what
you feel is best for Texas first, and what you
feel is best for yourself second. And you know it's
all going to come out in the wash. It'll be
fine because I don't think primaries are bad. If primaries
were bad, Republicans would have been losing this state for
the last thirty years, right. I mean, just because you
have a contested primary, that doesn't mean you're going to
lose an election. I think that Democrats spending money on
engaging and turning Democrats out to vote would be a
good thing, you know, as long as we're treating everybody
with respect in that process, and we're not being tacky,
and we're not getting back into the huge, vitriolic fights
of the Richards and Maddox fights of nineteen ninety. But
I think we're going to be fine. So that's kind
of what I told them. You know, we as a
party are here to help them with their data systems
and helping them with filing. We're happy to do, you know,
whatever a party does to interact with these folks. I
think it's a miscalculation to assume that the Senate race
is the only race that is viable. Anybody that's doing that,
I think is making a big mistake. I think the
Senate race is viable for obvious reasons that people who
listen to trip cast already knows. There's no reason to
rehash it. But if you look at the governor's race,
he just passed a coupon to put rich people's kids
in fancy private schools in the backs of poor people,
and it's going to shut down schools without a doubt
across the state. I don't even think it's really disputed
that that's going to happen. And so you have that.
You have a lieutenant governor who just fought to do
something that literally no one's asking for, that's decriminalized all
THHC project products. You have Republicans up in arms about it.
The guy's already pretty unpopular, and now he's going to
have people in his own side that are going to
be refusing to because he's just completely out of line
with what Texans want. You have a comptroller's office that's
job is to administer this about your program. You have
a land commissioner's office that's in charge of protecting our
public lands at a time where pollutants are running rampant.
And we have a railroad Commission's office where, you know,
when we have an unstable electric grid. I think that
the office that regulates energy is really important. I think
every office that we have has a real viable opportunity
if we seize this moment, if we build in every
corner of this state. And if we spend our time
defining ourselves and not allowing Republicans to define us. We
have let Republicans lead us around this state and we
chase them around like a lost puppy, and we say, oh,
don't say that about us. That's not true, that's not true. Well,
if we don't have a cohesion message about who we
are and what we stand for, the people can't define
us by who we are. They define us by what
Republicans say we are right and they say we don't
support strong borders and we don't support public safety. Well,
I'm sorry. Last I checked, and Patrick is who just
passed a new cash prop for the cartels, and Greg
Abbott is who just pushed for gun policies that arms
those cartels, keeping all of our communities less safe. We
are not people who are here to conceive those issues.
We need to define who we are and stick with it.
That's what I intend to do is to make a
very clear presentation of who we are as a party.
We're a party for the working class, a party that
gets out of bed every day to take on the
billionaires and the banks to protect people who are depending
on them. To keep your community safe, and to make
sure that we're making your schools better for your kiddos.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you think it is important though? I
mean so as we record this, it is earlier, and
maybe things will have changed by the time people almost guarantee.
But right now, Colin already is in the Senate race.
We're wonder looking to see what the other three do.
Do you think it's important that that group in particular
avoids a clustering into that race and seeks out other
ones are Do you think you're a either way.
Speaker 3: They're gonna do what they feel it best for the
state and what's best for themselves. And that's fine. Like,
I literally this is I think where I'm me and
kind of my generation are different. Like we're not as
risk adverse as the Democratic Party in the past. I
didn't come onto this podcast with a script of talking
points I'm going to make sure I hit today. It's
you know, we're just here to have a conversation. That's
where I think my generation is different. Look, they're gonna
duke it out if they want to duke it out.
I don't think it's bad for Democrats to spend money
reach out to Democrats. In fact, there are some Democratic
strongholds in this state. When I'm doing precinct analysis that
had thirteen percent turnout in a presidential year, I think
having Democrats spending money on turning those people out to
votes important. So, if anything, I think the primary could
be great for us. It'd be healthy. We haven't had
one for a long time. The last time that we
had a really well funded primary here I think was
probably the Obama Hillary situation in eight where we started
to see the party move and seismically start shifting in
the right direction. So you know, it's going to happen
the way it's going to happen as long as they're
what I would encourage them, and what in all of
my conversations with them it's been is, you need to
make do what you feel is right, but make sure
that you're treating everybody with respect. You know, we're not gonna,
you know, knock down the barn just so that you
know we can get ahead a little bit, but you know,
treat everybody fairly, and let's have an honest discussion about
where we want to see the party go.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got these four names that people are
talking about a lot, and it's a good amount of
enthusiasm around them, but also, you know, each or many
of them can sort of come with their own baggage, right,
I mean, bet o'rourk has lost several state wide races.
Colin already coming off of a bruising loss, you know,
James Hillerico a pretty fresh face, untested.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: If let's say, I mean, if they're all fighting off,
you know, for the Senate or even the Senate and
the governor, are these like really high profile races, what
do you make of the bench below them? I mean,
we've got, like you said, comptroller, attorney general. We also
have you know, any number of smaller positions we need
to fill in, you know, really, you know, we're going
to have races on you know, even state legislature and
things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is where my job as state
party chair of the Democratic Party in Texas actually isn't
the hardest job. A lot of places it is, and
a lot of facets it is. But as I go
around and talk to other state chairs around the country,
what's different for us is that we've got so many
people in this state and we're so geographically diverse that
even if we haven't been able to win some statewide races.
We have some real talent in a lot of places,
so you know, the bench below them is only below
them because you know they haven't been resourced. I think
we have a lot of stars all over the state.
We have lots of great county judges, we have lots
of great das, We have lots of great county commissioners,
we have lots of great city council people. I mean,
we have some good folks that are in elected office
around the state. So we have a bit of an
embarrassment of riches in that. Yeah, they can go ahead
and slog out what they're going to do. But you know,
if we have issues on we don't have a problem
filling out a statewide ballot because of our talent. I
guess that's the point I'm making. I don't lose a
second of sleep at night worried about who's going to
be able to pinch hit because we just have a
lot of talent. They just haven't had an opportunity to
move up. Because I mean, let's call it like it
is and be a little honest. Our party's electeds tend
to be quite a bit older than they are in Republicans.
That's just statistically true, and it's caused a lot of
younger talent to just kind of be sitting in the waiting,
And so there's plenty of people there ready to step
up if given the opportunity.
Speaker 1: There is, of course not a shortage of money among
Democrats in Texas, at least among people who support Democrats
in Texas. There are wealthy Democratic donors in this state.
I think often the question for the state party is
can they convince those wealthy folks to spend the money
here as opposed to supporting races outside the state. You know,
this is a race where I think Democrats nationally are
going to find it very very important to try to
win back the House when the Senate, How are you
going to convince those folks to spend locally as well?
How can you show people that that is a good
investment when there's so much at stake elsewhere across the
country as well?
Speaker 3: Well? If they're listening today, I know a great statewide
party that they can invest their resources. You know, here's
the argument that I would make. We are not going
to make gains in this state unless we are making
investments in long term infrastructure we have been looking at
the election right in front of us and not been
looking down the road at how we build up long
term success. And that's how organizing apparatus has fallen as
defunct as it has. We're working to rebuild that and
that continues on with our data systems that we have
that we operate with all of our campaigns. It continues
all with our compliance mechanisms, our voter protection mechanisms, everything
that we have in our party. It requires long term investment.
If you invest in a candidate, that's fine, they need
the help, but they're going to spend it all in
one election and whether they win or they lose, that's
over and the party's still going to be here. And
so what we've been trying to convey to people is that,
you know, it's a new day in the Texas Democratic Party.
We have a laser focus on building for long term success.
I think most people have probably seen the redistricting maps
after the United States Census, and that makes Texas a
very high priority for the nation. And if we are
not doing the work now, we are going to be
in a bad position six years from now, and so
we're laser focused on it. That's what we're telling Texas donors.
If you want to send money out of the state,
you know places around the country need it too, That's fine,
but understand that neglecting the fight that we have right
here at home is going to reach very long term consequences. Luckily,
I don't think that we're seeing people afraid to invest
in Texas. I think we have a little bit of
donor fatigue, but I think that people our donors are
smart people. Are our activists are smart people. They understand
that this doesn't just you don't just wake up and
fix this overnight. It's going to take time, and hopefully
in this upcoming year we can show some progress. You know,
progress looks to me like moving the needle statewide. It
looks to me like flipping seats down ballot to show
that we're having success on the ground and moving in
the right direction. If we're doing that and continuing the
trend line moving in the right direction for us, I
think we continue to lock those donors in long term.
Speaker 1: Do you it feels like in some ways there's been
like two different ways for a Democrat to run statewide
in recent years. It's been the sort of you know,
go everywhere hold the rallies and Lubbock and San Angeles
on the table. I'm just trying to make it that explicit, yeah,
or the sort of like, you know, play go, go
to the middle, play the traditional you know, go for
the big cities, run the TV ads, but maybe not
make such a big splash and the grassroots will come
with you. Do you have an opinion on how that
should look in twenty twenty six, like O, which of
those paths is the right way to go?
Speaker 3: It is? Well, okay, look number one, I've already done
events in forty five different counties across the state of Texas.
I think you can assume where my natural inclination is
on that question. But I'll tell you I think it's hilarious,
honestly that every election cycle we have this discussion where
the party that put a man on the moon is
trying to figure out if we have the ability to
organize in both rural and urban areas. It's not rocket science, Okay,
we are a party of big, bold ideas. We should
be able to walk into gum. At the same time,
I think you've got to do a little bit of both.
You've got to make sure you're milking votes out of
urban areas. You've got to make sure that we're not
emorrhaging in rural areas of the state. But there's a
piece of that discussion, in my opinion where I think
my vision's a little different than others. That is missing.
The piece of that that is missing is the forty
mid sized cities with them were one hundred thousand people
and then in this state, I'm sorry, Luddick is not rural.
Am Marilla is not rural. You're talking to a guy
who grew up in New Boston, Texas. Sant Angelo is
not rural. They are mid size cities. They should be
treated as population centers. Beaumont, Texas is bigger than Richmond, Virginia. Laredo,
Texas is bigger than Richmond, Abilee or Lubbock, Ambilla twice
that size. So as a party, it's not just about
do we do better in rural or do we run
up our numbers in urban it's why aren't you walking
into population centers and why are you not organizing there
to treat them like their population centers. And it's unacceptable
for us to have giant cities that in any other
state are population centers that we don't have precinct chairs
in or don't have a county chair in, and we're
fixing that. We're going to be showing up in all
of those communities and making sure that we're not hemorrhaging
the way that we always have. When we do that,
you're going to see repercussions across the state. And so
I think it's all things and a part already a
big bulld id issh should be able to do all
of that organizing because it's nothing more than shaking people's hand,
look at them in the ID, telling me what you
stand for, and ask them for their vote. It's not
that complicated.
Speaker 2: I want to ask about one specific group that was
a big storyline after the twenty twenty four election, which
is Hispanic voters. You know, traditionally voted Democrat. Now you
know really, I mean obviously pivoted in twenty four. Do
you see that as still up in the air. What
is the party doing to try to regain those voters?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, let's be honest about what's happening in
that community. What's happening in that community is the same
as what's happened in the white community, where you have
seen billionaires that are on the conservative side of the
spectrum buy up a lot of media markets and push
far right news to people without presenting it as such,
and so they're getting a lot of misinformation on their
Spanish language media, and Democrats have not met them there.
The Texas Democratic Party doesn't have a Spanish language department.
The National Democratic Party doesn't have a Spanish language coms department.
Texas is unique because we are thirty percent of people
speaking Spanish at home. If you start to look at
our border and swing communities, it's closer to sixty seven
seventy percent of people speaking Spanish at home, and we're
not meeting no where they're at. We have to show
up not just geographically in people's communities. We have to
not only talk about the issues that are important to them,
but we also have to show up where they're consuming news.
And it's the same thing with young people too. You
know young people. You know we saw in the last
cycle they kind of moved away from the Democratic Party.
I would argue it's a turnout thing, but you know,
Democrats weren't showing up where they consume news. I mean,
I'm going to say something that's going to shake all
of your listeners who are liberal to the core. Ready,
I've never watched Rachel Maddow. I'm thirty five. I don't
have cable like people my age and in my age group.
That mainstream formerly mainstream media is not where we're consuming information.
We have to meet people where they're consuming it. And
so this ties in with the conversation on his spending
voters because Democrats have not been meeting people where they're
consuming news. We haven't been present in people's communities, and
we have an obligation to fix it. I think we've
also failed to make a really salient point on border
security and on immigration. I mean, just sin Stone it that.
I don't know why it's so hard to get Democrats
to say that we support strong borders. Every one of
them do. I've never met a Democrat that says that
they don't support strong borders and keeping communities safe. But
what they're supporting is modernizing the way that we're doing it.
And I don't know why Democrats are so adverse to
talking about it. I think it's because it's a real
complex issue and they get in their heads, you know.
They Democrats sometimes can be a little too smart for
their own good and they spend too much time kind
of trying to think about over analyzing things when you
just have to speak to people their guts and let
them know who we are and what we're standing for.
We want to keep your community safe. We want to
make sure that your kids able to get the same
opportunities that you had. And I'm only able to sit
here as the chair of the Texas Democratic Party because
I had a high quality public school out in East
Texas and that opportunity is being taken away from kids
all across the state, including South Texas and then the
Rio Grandee Valley and the Democrats are here standing on
the front lines. Every single Democrat voted against vouchers.
Speaker 1: All right, well, chairman, thank you for taking the time
to talk to us. It's been a very interesting conversation.
We will be back soon here from the other side
of the aisle on this but that's it for today.
Thank you again, Chairman, Thank you to our producers, Robin Chris,
thank you Eleanor, and we will talk to you all soon.