John,
It’s been a week since the election in Fort Bend, Texas. Now that the dust has settled, we wanted to go over the results and map out our next steps:
We’re feeling good about where things stand. While the results weren’t what we had hoped for, we mobilized 1,100 volunteers, knocked on 41,000 doors, and broke a state record for turnout in a special election runoff.
We made the GOP fight for it. Eliz's opponent had to rely on a $1.5 million campaign contribution from his own wallet to defeat us. Gov. Abbott himself spent the final week busing in volunteers. We even heard that Donald Trump was tapping into his list of local volunteers to combat our people-powered team.1
We have a playbook that will work all throughout Texas. If we can do all that with just three weeks of lead-up in a single House District, imagine what we can do when we mobilize volunteers in every corner of the state?
So, what comes next? We’re already hard at work ID’ing the next candidates to endorse. And we’re all chomping at the bit to get back out there. But in the meantime, we really need to focus on building our resources up so we can go all out between now and November.
A lot of these races will be long shots — there’s no denying that. But we’re used to being the underdogs. And if we’re successful, not only will we flip the Texas legislature in a transformational way, but we’ll also have the grassroots infrastructure necessary to hold onto those majorities in the future.
Looking forward to making history with all of you again.
- The Powered By People Team
1: Patrick Svitek (Texas Tribune) on Twitter
