Friend, 

There’s a new electoral map being pushed by Texas Republicans, and it does exactly what you’d expect — eliminate competitive seats, ignore the growth and influence of communities of color, and further rig the system in their favor.

I want to show you exactly what I mean by looking at Killeen, Texas.

Killeen is a working-class, racially diverse Fort Hood army base community in Central Texas, about 60 miles south of Waco. It’s currently split between two congressional districts — Texas 31st and Texas 25th, where I ran against Republican incumbent Roger Williams in 2020. 

Our theory going in was that we could beat one of Texas’ worst gerrymanders. Texas’ 25th spans across 13 counties and was drawn by Republicans in 2011 to disenfranchise young, Black, and Latino voters, both rural and urban. 

Despite our powerful grassroots momentum, racial gerrymandering won out — and so did my right-wing, multi-millionaire opponent, who didn’t even live in his district.

But instead of addressing this injustice, the new GOP-drawn map makes things even worse — lumping Killeen into a new, majority-red district that spans over 300 miles west, all the way to Odessa and Midland.

To add insult to injury, the new map shifts TX-25 significantly westward, out of the Fort Worth suburbs and into rural areas, giving an even bigger advantage to my old opponent Roger Williams.

Killeen’s fate says it all — the new map is a partisan power grab that fails to accurately reflect the 2020 Census data that shows 95 percent of Texas’ population growth came from people of color and was centered in urban and suburban communities. The people of Killeen, and Texas, deserve better.

But there’s nothing Republicans would love better than us giving up, friend, which is why we’re going to adapt our strategy and fight back.

The new GOP-drawn state legislative districts are just as rife with racial and partisan bias — but in the case of Killeen, they also present us with an opportunity. Even though the map aims to “crack” Killeen in half, diluting the power of its residents of color, the new 55th House District is only Republican +5 — a margin we can beat.

How do we beat it, and flip other winnable seats around Texas? By investing in the work that actually wins elections — local organizing around popular issues, and face-to-face conversations year-round.

Friend, will you make your first donation to Ground Game Texas today? We’re in the middle of scaling up our work to communities across Texas, and if we’re going to counteract GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering, we need to invest NOW, while there’s still time to unlock massive turnout in 2022.

Support Ground Game Texas

They won’t stop trying to rig the system against us — and that’s because they fear nothing more than the power of an organized progressive movement. If we put the time, resources, and work into Ground Game Texas’ transformative political strategy, this map won’t be able to stop us.

In solidarity, 

Julie Oliver