I just read a very good article from Buzzfeed about what Beto’s campaign means for my beloved Lone Star State going forward. I’d urge you to read it, and I’d like to highlight what I think are a few vitally important points from Beto’s phenomenal campaign:
1) How many barriers to registering to vote and then actually being able to vote we face in Texas every election. I don't think that the talking heads who endlessly criticize Texas voters and non-voters, yet have never actually spent any real time down here, truly realize just how many obstacles and roadblocks have been put up by Texas Republicans to keep our fellow Texans from voting over the past few decades. If anyone is interested, I can go into depth about a lot of these problems, but I’ll leave that for another time.
Having spent Election Day helping run the Texas call center for 866-OUR-VOTE, I can tell you firsthand, that the way we run elections in Texas is horrendous. From the state down to the local level, confusion, misinformation, intimidation, and a host of problems with undermanned and under-resourced polling locations plagued Election Day, and yet, Texans turned out to vote at almost Presidential election levels.
Put simply, our responsibility as Texans is to dismantle these barriers in every way possible to ensure that every eligible Texan is given the chance to register and then cast their ballot. Our democracy demands nothing less from each and every one of us.
2) While Beto lost the battle, his campaign, and the way it approached the Texas electorate was nothing short of groundbreaking and may end up winning the war for Texas in the long run. His campaign built a Democratic infrastructure virtually from the ground up, and he certainly had long coattails. Texas Dems picked up 2 US House seats, 11 State House seats, 2 State Senate seats, Harris County is now entirely blue (and as a Houstonian that feels damn good to say especially with Lina Hidalgo, our new County Judge, and Diane Trautman, our new County Clerk), counties like Fort Bend (which started voting Democratic in 2016), Williamson, Hays, and even Tarrant County voted Democratic like they haven't done in ages. While we all certainly wanted Beto to win, what his campaign accomplished was truly inspirational, and just as, if not more, importantly has laid the groundwork for the next generation of Texas Democrats.
If I were the Texas GOP, I'd be legitimately shaking in my boots right now. They've spent decades gerrymandering, suppressing the vote, and making it virtually impossible for people to register to vote, and yet on Tuesday, Texans from across our great state fought back for the first time in a long time. And Beto's campaign, along with the passion and energy of other fantastic Democratic candidates, and everyday Texans across the Lone Star State, put the Texas GOP on notice. Don't mess with Texas Democrats and don't mess with Texas voters.
So instead of being bummed out, or sad, or disappointed, I'm choosing to look at this as a chance, the first real one in decades, to shift our state away from the ruinous and corrupt policies of our state's GOP, and put us on a path back to good governance and stewardship under Democratic leadership by breaking the Republican stranglehold on Texas. And while that fight didn't start or end on Election Day, it sure got a shot of adrenaline on Tuesday. This fight's not over, and it won't be over in 2020, but I sure like where us Texas Democrats stand today better than where we stood in times past. So to my fellow Texas Kossacks, and any and all Texas-friendly Kossacks, take some time to recouperate, regroup, and reenergize, because we've still got to finish taking our state back!