Dear John,

If the things we fought for in this election still matter to us, then we must continue the fight.

That’s all I know for sure.

How we can be more effective in this fight, what we can learn from our mistakes and our opponents’ successes, how we can better connect to the deepest needs and aspirations of the people we seek to serve – that is what we must focus our efforts on answering. We should do this by listening to our neighbors, our fellow Texans and Americans. And as the data becomes available (typically we get full election numbers sometime in the first quarter of the following year) we should pay attention to what it tells us.

But I think it’s critical that we begin by listening, with humility and a deep desire to understand, to the people who voted for Trump, to the people who voted for Harris and to the people who didn’t vote at all. We must be open to hard truths and be willing to challenge our assumptions and those things that have become comfortable and convenient for us.

We must also resist any temptation to abandon the fight. To do so would cede the country completely to Trump, someone who will continue to exploit our badly broken democracy to amass even greater power and control. We know that because of what he’s done before and what he tells us he will do in the future. Unchecked, that will lead to an America no longer governed by rule of law, a tyranny whose government is no longer of, by and for the people.

Though we are tempted to despair, we must remember that action is the antidote. There is no amount of worrying or finger-pointing, no quantity of Twitter or cable television, that can get us where we want to be. For me, action means moving my body (running, hiking, walking, biking, etc.), being with friends and family, meeting up with neighbors (especially those with whom we disagree) and staying in motion. It means committing myself to the work ahead, continuing to register voters, to work on campaigns (there is mayoral run-off in El Paso, lots of doors to knock here), and finding ways to help and volunteer in my community.

To all of our Powered by People volunteers and donors: while we will have a more complete picture after we are given access to the full voter data that will be released sometime in the first quarter of 2025, it is clear that the work we pursued this year shows promise.

After spending the better part of 2024 registering and confirming the registration of young voters across Texas and then staying in touch with them on a peer-to-peer basis (versus impersonal mass emails or texts) to help them to vote, we have some preliminary indicators through early voting (minus Election Day – that’s in the data coming in Q1 2025).

Overall, the voters in our network turned out at a rate nearly 7% higher than the statewide average. And perhaps more importantly, the young voters (18 to 29 years old) in our network turned out at a rate 22% greater than the statewide average for young voters. This was the result of thousands of hours spent meeting new voters on college campuses and other public spaces and thousands more spent staying in touch with these voters all the way through 7pm on election day. Our volunteers texted 285,421 times with the voters in our network – reminders on early voting, sharing poll location and voter ID information, answering questions and encouraging first time voters to help them overcome the voter suppression and intimidation measures for which Texas is infamous.

My deepest gratitude to all who made this work possible, whether by volunteering your time or devoting your resources. I will share more findings from our work as they become available. Those findings, and the feedback I get from volunteers and voters, will inform the work that we pursue in 2025 and beyond.

It’s a tough time. I hope we can rise to the challenge before us, keep the faith in one another and in this great country, and find a way to win without compromising our core beliefs and values.

I’m grateful to be in this fight with you.

Beto