John,
Remember Trump’s inauguration? It wasn't even a year ago. All of the corporate titans and tech billionaires in supplication, pledging their fealty… soon to be followed by the major law firms, the Ivy League universities, the media corporations, even Congress and the Supreme Court… really, anyone with any kind of conventional power was bending the knee to this would-be dictator… it was enough to make you puke… and to tempt us to despair.
But instead, we chose to fight.
We decided that action would be the antidote to despair, the key to victory, and the one thing in our control that can make a difference.
This is a long email (about 7 minutes) but I want to tell you the action our Powered by People team took in 2025 to meet the challenge. It made a huge difference, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.
It started with listening. Showing up in every part of Texas to bring people together for no-holds-barred town hall meetings. We wanted to hear what was on people’s minds. Yes, their concerns but also their solutions to overcoming the very real challenges we face. People—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, non-voters alike—having conversations eyeball to eyeball. No question off limits, everyone allowed a chance on the mic.
We held town halls in Republican strongholds, places Trump had just won with 70% of the vote. Amarillo, Wichita Falls, Tyler. We had them in suburbs too: Mansfield, Rosenberg (with my friend Tim Walz), Denton, Garland, Humble. And we did the same in bigger cities, from San Antonio and Laredo to Beaumont.
Town hall in Garland
Town hall in San Antonio
Everyone in the room learned from everyone in the room. In this age of misinformation and state-sponsored propaganda, it brought us together on the same page of truth, ready to take action. One moment that stood out was when a woman in Humble talked about what it means to have her health care taken away.
Those community meetings at the start of the year led to unprecedented action in the streets. People coming out in force for the Hands Off march in April and the No Kings protests after that.
Texas showed up, with events in the places you might expect but also in small towns and rural communities. Powered by People organizers were there every step of the way, registering voters, signing up volunteers, and getting folks added to our network to help them turn out in the next election.
We protested Trump’s cuts to foreign aid, his destruction of public education, his “Big Beautiful Bill” that takes the ability to see a doctor away from millions of people while funneling billions to his ultra-rich donors, his attacks on our democracy and our Constitution, the masked, plain-clothes officers he has sweeping our neighbors off the street without a badge or a warrant or any semblance of due process.
And we took it directly to him. When Trump invited himself to give the commencement at the University of Alabama in May, we went to Tuscaloosa and joined thousands of students and community members to offer a powerful, positive alternative to his selfish and destructive authoritarianism.
Together in Alabama
But as spring turned to summer, it became clear to all of us at Powered by People that protesting wouldn’t be enough. We couldn’t just be against things. We needed to be for something.
So we hit the road to share a big, bold, positive, unapologetic vision for our future. One that tells people exactly how Democrats will deliver when we win power, incorporating what we had heard during our town halls earlier in the year.
We held rallies in Fort Worth (with our friend Bernie) and Amarillo to lay it all out. A future where you can afford to see a doctor, buy a home, send your kids to world-class public schools, and only have to work one job. A future where we have a real democracy; one where we no longer turn our backs on our friends and allies around the world.
With Bernie in Fort Worth
We took this Texas vision to the rest of the country, holding town halls in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. We even held a memorable one in Berlin (Germany—not Texas) with Democrats Abroad to make sure that U.S. citizens living outside the country can use their power to vote to help win critical elections. Thousands of people came out to these events, allowing us to make them into big organizing opportunities… registering folks to vote and plugging them in to volunteer shifts in their local communities.
Town hall in Oklahoma City
Town hall in Charlotte
While traveling to other states this summer, we also had the opportunity to build our coalition and our movement. We worked directly with partner organizations that share our priority of bringing people together and taking action. That meant joining the summer meetings of the Young Democrats of America, the NAACP, UnidosUS, and Netroots Nation.
All of this work—the travel, the organizing, the coalition building—was put to the test when Donald Trump ordered Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans to give him five more seats in the House of Representatives… a direct attack on Texas and an effort to seize political power before the first votes of 2026 were even cast.
But we weren’t caught flat-footed. In fact, we chose to aggressively fight the President and take our case to the country.
I couldn’t be more proud of how Powered by People stepped up to lead this redistricting fight. As Republicans began to redraw the maps in order to steal five Democratic seats, we took action.
We protested at the Texas Capitol and testified inside of it. We hosted a 6,000 person rally in Austin (with our friends Joaquin Castro, Jasmine Crockett, James Talarico, Gina Hinojosa, and Greg Casar). We held organizing events in Houston, Abilene, and El Paso. We brought together thousands more in Fort Worth, reminding Trump and the rest of the country that, while the rich and powerful might be genuflecting in anticipatory obedience to the little dictator, in Texas, our knees don’t bend.
Rally in Austin
During TV interviews, podcasts, and out-of-state events, we connected the dots for our fellow Americans about why what happens in Texas matters to them (Trump is trying to steal these seats in order to hang on to power in the House because if he loses his majority, there will finally be a check on his lawlessness, accountability for his crimes and corruption, and real hope for a better future for this country). We got off the back foot and on to the front foot, leading the call for Democratic-controlled states to fight fire with fire by redrawing their maps to cancel out the Texas gerrymander (thank you, California). We would no longer await the punch thrown by these would-be fascists. Instead we would throw ours first and throw it harder.
Rally in Fort Worth
But we didn’t just raise awareness, we raised resources too. When the heroic Texas Democrats left the state to break quorum and stop Trump’s power grab, we had their backs. And we continued to have their backs when they returned. Thanks to our grassroots supporters, Powered by People donated over $1 million to the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, the Texas House Democratic Caucus, and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus over the course of the special session.
Turns out Republicans don’t like when we fight back. For standing against Trump’s Texas gerrymander, Ken Paxton accused me of bribery, tried to shut down Powered by People entirely, and even asked a judge to imprison me.
Did that stop us?
No. We continued to fight aggressively, taking Paxton to court, and winning in front of an all Abbott-appointed appeals court. I’m sure Paxton knew he could never prove his lies, but I’m also just as sure that his intent was to bury us in legal action and bankrupt us by turning the full power of the State of Texas against us. What he didn’t count on was that we were never, ever going to give in. Though the months-long fight cost us more than $400,000 in legal fees, our supporters stayed with us through the thick of it and helped us emerge stronger than ever.
So strong that we decided to do what’s never been done before—work with allies across Texas to fill every single seat on the ballot with a Democrat.
We hit the road to recruit Democratic candidates in every part of the state. We hosted candidate recruitment events in breweries and bars, in church meeting rooms and community centers, on campuses… anywhere we could gather people to remind them what’s at stake and what we can do to meet the moment. And we weren’t just in the districts that are safe for Democrats. We were in Pearland, Waco, College Station, McKinney, and Fort Worth just to name a few.
Candidate recruitment event in San Antonio
Candidate recruitment event in Waco
And here’s the result: Democrats filed to run for 39 out of 39 Congressional seats, 16 out of 16 State Senate seats, and 150 out of 150 State House seats. We’ve scoured the state records (which have been digitized back to 1974) and we can’t find another year where Democrats fielded a candidate for every seat.
But we know that it’s not enough just to have candidates on the ballot. They have to have our support too. That’s why Powered by People is organizing on the ground and on college campuses throughout the state. We are registering voters, building new voter relationships and signing up volunteers on campuses like Rice, University of Houston, UT, Austin Community College, UTSA, UTEP, and El Paso Community College. And we know this work works; the young voters who we met and registered and stayed in touch with in 2024 turned out at a rate of 79.5% (versus 42% nationally and 37% in Texas).
Voter registration event at University of Houston
Finally, there was everything that our Powered by People volunteers were doing when I wasn’t physically with them. When the media wasn’t there. When it wasn’t being documented for Instagram or TikTok. It was the voters being registered every single day. The volunteer shifts happening in every part of the state. The organizing for down ballot races like Senate District 9. And the texts sent, phone calls made, community events attended, action taken.
John, we had a big year and we’re not slowing down now. We’re only going to turn it up in 2026. That's how we can win a U.S. Senate seat, critical Congressional races, state legislative seats... that's how we take back power, and use it to deliver for the people.
Thanks for being in the fight with us.
Beto
