One reason I’m so optimistic about Texas Democrats winning this year’s Toss Up elections is candidates like Hank Gilbert, who has been putting up one helluva fight for Texas’ First Congressional District. Rancher, Aggie, former high school agriculture teacher, and experienced candidate Hank is the ideal contrast to Louie Gohmert. And Hank isn’t shy about calling out his opponent’s bullshit.
In July 2020, Hank Gilbert organized protests in Tyler and Nacogdoches against the use of federal forces occupying American cities: “Under this president, we are seeing militarized federal agents use weapons of war including sonic weapons and tear gas against Americans in Portland. This is unacceptable in every way.”
Hank has helped register African American voters in census tracts where <25% were registered. He is reaching out to Christians in his district with a message about Louie’s hypocrisy, and his family charity, recently renamed after his deceased wife, helps battered women.
Thus far, Hank Gilbert has raised over $640,000, which is almost 5 times greater than the amount our previous TX-01 Democratic candidate raised for the 2012-2018 elections combined. He’s spending “approximately $23,000 per week on targeted digital advertising to persuadable voters,” and he’s made the largest east Texas TV buy by a Democratic candidate in 16 years!
This is partly due to the respect Hank earned while running for Texas Agriculture Commissioner in 2008 and 2010: “even though he was outraised and outspent, he outperformed every other Democrat on the ticket, coming in at 43 percent in a race during a cycle where the gubernatorial nominee did not break 30 percent. Hank visited all the state's 254 counties — more than once — and was the first statewide Democratic candidate since Ann Richards to mount a serious campaign in East Texas, West Texas, and the Texas Panhandle.” Visiting all 254 counties and talking with voters everywhere — that’s my favorite approach to campaigning!
Hank has 23.7K Twitter followers because he’s a fun follow even when he’s not taking on Ukraine Louie with his latest tv ad:
Trump-lapdog and conspiracy theorist Louie spends most of his time now running around smearing Joe and Hunter Biden, but he did make time on Monday to post this crappy tweet:
Louie Gohmert @replouiegohmert
Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett! You got this.
Thank you to @realdonaldtrump for the brilliant nomination and @senatemajldr for all the hard work.
Also, Happy Birthday to Hillary Clinton! We couldn’t have done this without you. #3TrumpJustices
Not tired of #WINNING.
It’s way past time to send that jackass to an early retirement! Let’s help keep that ad — which Hank’s polling shows to be the most effective attack on Louie in conservative, largely rural TX-01 — on tv through Election Day: HelpOutHank
Helping Hank will help turn out voters for Joe and Kamala and so many other great Democratic candidates in TX-01. Please follow @Hank4Texas and help share his messages. Sending GOTV texts to TX-01 Democrats would be a huge help as well.
HankForTexas.com
Wish I could vote for Hank, but I don’t live in his district, and I’m not affiliated with his campaign.
Friday, Oct 30, 2020 · 7:30:46 PM +00:00 · nomandates
Hank has been running a coordinated campaign with two awesome, young downballot candidates in his district (he also donated hundreds of dollars to each of them):
Audrey Spanko @AudreySpankoTX is running for TX-SD-01, which we didn’t even contest in 2016.
71.9% of CD-01 is in TX-SD-01, and 61.2% of SD-01 is in CD-01. AudreySpanko.com
Julie Gobble @Julie4Texas is running for TX state HD-06. We hadn’t run a candidate in that state house district in two decades.
100% of TX-HD-06 is in CD-01. Julie4Texas.com
See the comments or their campaign sites for more info, please!