Don’t Texas America

What Texas Can Teach the Democratic Party About the Path Forward

Every few years, Democrats like me will proclaim that Texas is on the verge of flipping blue. But the unfortunate truth is that no Democrat has won statewide here since 1990 when Governor Ann Richards pulled off a narrow victory.

The closest we came to breaking that streak was in 2018, when Beto O’Rourke nearly unseated Sen. Ted Cruz. Once a Romney Republican, Cruz bent the knee to Donald Trump who subsequently campaigned for him, giving him the boost that would lead to his reelection.

Still, O’Rourke’s momentum gave Democrats real hope. In 2020, Joe Biden lost Texas by single digits, improving Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margin by 3.4 points. It was the closest any Democrat presidential candidate had come since Bill Clinton in 1992. Even though Republican Sen. John Cornyn easily won reelection on the 2020 ballot, Democrats kept Texas in the national playbook, dreaming of a future in which they had finally cracked the code.

But in 2022 when O’Rourke ran for governor against Greg Abbott, those dreams collapsed. Abbott beat him by nearly 11 points—a crushing defeat for a candidate who once electrified the nation.

Then came the presidential election of 2024. The whispers of "Blexas" returned. But rather than a breakthrough, it was a blowout. Kamala Harris lost Texas by a staggering 13.7 points. Even in deep-blue Harris County, home to Houston, she won by only 5.3 points. Biden had won it by 13.

Down-ballot, Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred faced the fallout, losing to Cruz by 8 points. But that margin tells a deeper story. When you dig into the data, Allred’s performance stands out. He flipped multiple swing counties, including Tarrant, the state’s bellwether and earned over 5 million votes—1 million more than O’Rourke in 2018. Despite all this, Allred still came up short, losing to Cruz by nine points and a margin of victory three times larger than his win over O’Rourke.

In a midterm year with a Republican in the White House, Allred likely would’ve won. His strength in the suburbs, his appeal to independents, and his bipartisan coalition—including Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger—put him within striking distance.

But Allred’s story also serves as a warning. Every two years, statewide Democratic candidates in Texas are expected to do it all: turn out the base, persuade swing voters, raise tens of millions of dollars, build infrastructure from scratch, and somehow flip the second most populous state in the country. When they fail, the blame is placed on the individual alone.

The larger truth? That needed infrastructure should have been put in place years ago. But the Texas Democratic Party is infamous for its dysfunction. Donations are drying up, and without funding, county parties are left to fend for themselves. Often, they are left without paid staff or even functional websites. Rural counties are especially vulnerable to this neglect.

So when candidates step into the political arena, they’re expected to perform miracles. They need to build a statewide operation, create voter trust, lift up down-ballot candidates, and swing GOP voters—all in six months. It’s no wonder it’s been over 30 years since a Democrat won statewide.

This should be a cautionary tale for national Democrats, too. After the failure of the 2024 presidential election, trust in the party is low. Between the public battle over pushing Biden out of the race, the aggressive Trump digital machine, and the economic scars from the pandemic, a bad taste has been left in the mouth of Democratic voters.

Biden’s aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis only added fuel to the fire of those who claimed he never should have run for reelection. Early critics have been emboldened, saying they were right all along.

Meanwhile, the party is further splintering on ideological lines. Rep. Tom Suozzi says Democrats have veered too far left. Sen. Bernie Sanders argues the party has abandoned working people in favor of corporate interests. The most extreme example comes from Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg threatening to primary sitting Democrats he sees as “asleep at the wheel”—a move that’s drawn public pushback from DNC Chair Ken Martin and others. A big tent is one thing, but when the tent gets so wide that there's no clear message holding it up, the platform itself might fall apart.

Amid all this noise, planning for 2028 has already begun . Some are pushing for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who has won multiple elections in a deep red state. Others look to Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been praised for his ability to speak to conservative audiences. And of course, Kamala Harris remains a top contender—many believe she was the right person to go against Trump but just needed a fair reintroduction to voters.

But all these arguments have been made before—right here in Texas. People thought O’Rourke could close the margin in 2022. Now some are saying Allred could beat potential far-right candidate Ken Paxton in the 2026 Senate race. Maybe. But while we debate, county parties are gasping for air. School board wins bring hope, but they don’t build the infrastructure we need for midterms.

The same mistake keeps happening over and over again: thinking energy alone can carry us to victory, that backlash to Trump will be enough, that a single candidate can fix decades of dysfunction.

National Democrats are falling into the same trap. Post-election autopsies are important, but it feels like we’re beating a dead horse. Expecting presidential hopefuls to independently rebuild trust across the party is a losing strategy. You can paint the walls and replace the porch trim—but if the foundation is cracked and the studs are full of termites, it’s still not a home people want to live in.

It’s a clear sign of why so many voters are looking for a new political home—they feel like Democrats are more focused on being right than doing right. Polling consistently shows that one of the top words people associate with the party is “weak.” Voters are begging them to fight—but instead of uniting against Trump and his corrupt movement, too many Democrats are wasting energy fighting each other.

It’s time to end the infighting and start rebuilding from the ground up. Expecting a single candidate to clean up a mess decades in the making or pretending there’s only one reason they lost will only set them up for more disappointment.

Take it from someone who knows loss better than most: a Texas Democrat.