Everything’s bigger in Texas. And this weekend saw one of the biggest wins in the state for Democrats in years. Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat running for state Senate in the state’s 9th District, trounced his opponent in a district that was Trump won by 17 points in the 2024 election. Rehmet beat his opponent, Republican Leigh Wambsganss, 57%-43% in a runoff Saturday. But Trump quickly distanced himself from the results, claiming he didn’t know anything about it. Even though he totally did.
Lavora Barnes, former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, joined Susan J. Demas and Sam Osterhout on The Weekly Assignment to give some insight into the race and more.
Barnes reflected on the win and encouraged Democrats to build off that momentum: “I think independents continue to support candidates on that Democratic side of the aisle because they see that what’s happening on the right has gone too far. And I think one of the things that we need to think about doing is finding ways to increase our turnout, right? Because there are going to be races where we’re still going to need the Dems to turn out heavily in order for us to win, even while the independents come over and the Republicans stay home. And we can’t count on the Republicans staying home forever. Like, that’s just not how this is going to work.”
The conversation also highlighted last week’s FBI raid of Georgia’s election office in Fulton County. While the “investigation” claims to be about Trump’s false claims of a rigged 2020 election, Barnes warns that it could be a trial run to mess with midterm elections later this year.
Give to Lincoln Square
“The fact that the federal government wants to seize anything that has anything to do with it, that wants to get involved in any way, is clearly an attempt to subvert that election, to make it harder for you to vote, to make it harder for you to keep that vote private, all of those things are of concern to me,” said Barnes.
Our weekly assignment for this week is to keep the pressure up on your Senators on funding for DHS/ICE. Polling shows ICE is more and more unpopular and we need to continue to strike, so call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and let your voice be heard today.
Share
