Texas Democrats look to rally behind their ticket, draw national attention at state convention

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is headlining the event, as Democrats seek to drum up support and excitement for James Talarico and other down-ballot candidates ahead of November.

After a contentious primary, Texas Democrats will host their state convention in Corpus Christi this week and look to rally the party behind their ticket ahead of what they hope will be a midterm election that turns a cascade of seats blue.

In what’s being billed as the largest gathering of Democrats in the country this year, Texas Democrats are looking to harness their momentum to seize perhaps their best chance since 2018 to establish Texas as a major battleground state that will be crucial for the national party to invest in as a means to retake the Senate and to maintain a long-term path to the White House. Over two and a half days beginning Thursday, Texas Democrats will choose their state leadership heading into a critical midterm, decide the party’s policy priorities, attend campaign and organizing trainings and hear from their statewide candidates and other prominent Democratic speakers.

“We’ve had a lot of constructive disagreements over the last few months during the primary cycle, but I think the convention signifies our move towards unity, our move towards the common shared vision of flipping the state blue,” said Jordan Villarreal, a Denton city councilman and member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, the state party’s governing board. “A lot of people across the nation and in our state are looking at this convention as a show of force, a show that we’re serious.”

Democrats have been locked out of state power for decades, each election cycle bringing new promises of a blue Texas followed by heartbreak and fingerpointing. But Texas Democrats are looking toward November again with high hopes, this time fueled by voter discontent with the Trump administration, massive turnout in the March Democratic primary and rising star U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico’s scandal-plagued opponent in Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Those conditions have helped turn national attention to the state, with the convention’s speaker lineup featuring the most Democrats with national profiles in several years.

Among the headliners are U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats; Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, who is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid; U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey; Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico; and Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, a congressional candidate who was temporarily expelled by the Tennessee House over a gun control protest in 2023. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin is also on the lineup, and Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Texas’ 15th Congressional District, is set to perform a free public concert on the first night of the convention.

“I’ve heard, I don’t know how many times over the years, ‘oh, Texas is in play,’” said Terri Burke, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “No, Texas has been an ATM machine for the rest of the country. And for the first time, we’re seeing lots of national attention on Texas.”

Much of the national spotlight was first sparked by state House Democrats’ walkout last year over Republicans’ unusual mid-decade effort to redraw the state’s congressional map in favor of the GOP. It has stayed on through high-profile, competitive U.S. Senate primaries on both sides of the aisle, with Talarico and Paxton’s contests both driving national headlines. In a notable show of national support, former President Barack Obama appeared in Austin with Talarico and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, last month.

Several of the national speakers slated for this year’s convention reached out to the TDP to indicate they wanted to come speak to Texas Democrats, Burke said, adding, “That tells you that Texas is getting a lot of attention, and Democrats are excited about that.”

Republicans have seized on Sanders’ planned keynote, working to tie Democratic candidates in Texas to his brand of democratic socialism to cast them as too far to the left for the state.

“There’s one thing that sums up today’s Democrats more than anything else: The keynote at their state convention is Bernie Sanders,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at the Republican state convention this month. “The people essential to ensuring that Bernie Sanders socialism never hijacks Texas are the patriots I’m looking at right now. When Republicans unite, we are unbeatable.”

Democrats, meanwhile, largely dismissed the Republican attacks, pointing to Sanders’ popularity among Latino voters — who will represent a critical swing vote in November — during his presidential runs and his characteristic populist and anti-oligarchy platform.

“People should have affordable health care, people should have an affordable place to live,” said Kardal Coleman, chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party. “If we think about the core tenets of what Bernie Sanders’ platform stands for, there are a lot of people in Texas who resonate with that populist message.”

The speaking lineup also drew some criticism from Democrats online, who noted that the initial list of headliners was largely white. Jen Ramos, a SDEC member, said she supported spotlighting more people of color on stage, but noted that the TDP had not yet announced all of its finalized speakers at the time.

Engaging with black voters is a key issue for the party this year, after Talarico’s bitterly fought primary divided Democrats and saw supporters of his opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, accuse him and his voters of anti-black racism — largely based off an allegation he disputes that he labeled a formal rival a “mediocre black man,” and the case made by many of his supporters that Crockett would be less electable in a general statewide election. Black voters broke overwhelmingly for Crockett over Talarico in the primary.

Crockett, one of the state’s most prominent and outspoken black Democrats, told The Dallas Morning News that she did not plan to attend the convention, and she cast doubt on black voters’ unity behind Talarico and the broader statewide ticket.

Since the March election, Talarico has sought to shore up his support with black Texans. He has met with black leaders around the state, visited black churches and universities, released a plan to combat maternal mortality — which disproportionately affects black women — and earned endorsements from groups like Texas Organizing Project, which backed Crockett in the primary and works to mobilize black and Latino voters.

A major objective of this year’s convention will be to bring Democrats together behind their sprawling slate of candidates — from Talarico and Hinojosa at the top of the ticket to the party’s legislative candidates and beyond — while introducing some of the candidates further down the ballot to the party’s most engaged base.

In a bid to maximize their flips and send votes up the ballot, Texas Democrats recruited a candidate to run in every state and federal race this year, a first for either party in modern state history. A coalition of the state’s biggest Democratic groups, including the state party and Texas Majority PAC, also launched a $30 million coordinated campaign to support candidates all along the ballot. National Democrats, too, are targeting their most ambitious list of Texas House seats in years, looking to flip a dozen districts and defend three of their own, which would put Democrats two seats shy of a majority.

“Showing a united front is the big key — whatever we can do to work together to get as many Democrats elected in the fall,” said Teddy Shaw, executive director of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee. “From my perspective, I feel like the candidates are all working well together — we just need to get everyone else to feel like we are doing well together.”

Republicans, too, sought to drive home a message of unity to defeat Democrats at their convention in Houston this month, though signs of fracture were abundant, including the ouster of the sitting party chair, boos to greet House Speaker Dustin Burrows’ address and an effort to reject Muslim delegates looking for a place in today’s Texas GOP, which has fixated on Sharia law.

The Democratic convention is expected to draw around 6,500 attendees and cost the party roughly $700,000, according to a TDP spokesperson. It is taking place in Corpus Christi, which is facing a historic water crisis.

Ramos said party leadership chose Corpus Christi as the site of the convention years ago, before the water shortage was known about, to avoid overlapping with the FIFA World Cup. Dallas and Houston, along with 14 other North American cities, are hosting the World Cup.

“We have been working hands on with folks in the Corpus Christi area to make sure that we are not negatively impacting the water issues,” Ramos said, adding that local officials asked the party to keep the convention — and its associated tourism boost — in their city.

Texas Democrats will also elect their party’s leaders going into the critical midterm after a bitter chair race. TDP Chair Kendall Scudder is running for a full term after the party’s governing board elected him to take over for former chair Gilberto Hinojosa, who stepped down after the party’s underperformance in 2024. Scudder is being challenged for the role by Monique Alcala, who served as executive director of the party from August 2023 until Scudder’s election, and Marco Orrantia, a former TDP staffer of the past decade.

Alcala has pitched herself as a veteran operative with the fundraising and organizing chops to set the party up for success in November. She criticized Scudder’s leadership over the party’s fundraising, strategy and treatment of its staff, several of whom were pushed out from their positions when Scudder deemphasized the TDP’s Austin headquarters to open offices around the state — a move that party leaders outside the state’s biggest urban centers praised. Alcala was endorsed by state Reps. Mary González of Clint and Erin Zwiener of Driftwood, in addition to several Democratic candidates, activists and strategists.

“I’m running for chair because I know how to win,” she said. “I’ve seen what state parties are capable of doing, and I know for sure that the state party is not doing what it needs to do in order to win in November.”

Convention leadership earlier this month nixed candidate speeches from the event’s Friday agenda, citing a “packed schedule of speakers.”

Scudder did not respond to an interview request. He has won significant endorsements among the delegates that will decide the race, including the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, and his supporters point to his efforts to replenish the party’s coffers, improve relationships with local Democratic leaders and build the full candidate slate and coordinated campaign as positive achievements under his tenure. Other Democrats added that they saw the race as Scudder’s to lose and a sideshow to the important business of staying unified ahead of the midterms.

“I see it more of a distraction than anything else,” Shaw said. “This is a time for us to all come together and do as much as possible to win in November. So I’m hopeful that it goes smoothly and we don’t have to worry about it anymore after this weekend.”

Democrats expressed optimism that, notwithstanding disagreements about general election strategy or party platform proposals, which will be voted on at the convention, the party was looking ahead and focused on winning in November.

“People are excited, and they understand who the opponent is,” said Jared Hockema, chair of the Cameron County Democratic Party. “It’s people that don’t have our interests in mind — and the folks that are running on this ticket are folks that are running to protect the interests of Texans.”

“This convention is going to be talking about that,” he added. “That’s going to be the point — to carry that message forward and make sure that everybody understands that as Democrats, we’re fighting for every Texan — and the Republicans are not.”

Source: Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune

Photo Credit: Delegates and attendees during the first general session of the Texas Democratic Convention in El Paso on June 7, 2024. Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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