Friend, what a year it’s been. We’re deeply proud of our accomplishments since launching in Spring 2021, and we want to share with you just how far we’ve come.
We started Ground Game Texas with a simple idea: investing in year-round organizing works. So our very first initiative in April and May of this year was piloting a get-out-the-vote effort in Grand Prairie, Texas (between Dallas and Fort Worth). After we invested $5,000 in staff to knock doors and make calls, our scrappy but determined team helped elect two Black City Council candidates for the first time in 40 years.
In Austin, we piloted our first municipal ballot initiative to end enforcement of low-level marijuana possession. Our team gathered nearly 35,000 signatures from registered City of Austin voters — 15,000 more than we needed to qualify for the ballot, and a clear indicator of the enthusiasm voters have for progressive policy.
But in the process of our Austin field program, we discovered another huge and previously unexplored benefit to our work that could be massive when these programs are deployed at scale. Our organizers found that many of the folks they talked to were either not registered to vote at all or were registered at an outdated address. This has long been a problem with traditional, voter-file-based voter contact programs. Ground Game Texas takes a new approach by collecting up-to-date data about where petition signers live, and adding new registrants to the rolls who support our campaign.
So far, the data are supporting our work. Based on the results in a recent November 2021 election in Austin, Ground Game Texas petition signers were overall 129% more likely to vote than other eligible Texans.
It has already been a busy year, but we are only getting started. To respond to the challenge of low voter turnout in South Texas, we recently launched a living wage ballot campaign in Mission, Texas, which will require the City of Mission and contractors working with the City to offer a $15/hr minimum wage to all city employees and contractor employees.
In the months ahead, we’ll continue to work with allies in the Rio Grande Valley to bring the living wage campaign to other cities in the newly drawn Congressional District 15 — and help ensure the district retains progressive representation.
We will also start additional marijuana decriminalization initiatives in four cities, including San Marcos and Killeen. And one of our most exciting projects is a city charter change in El Paso that would adopt a “climate policy” for the City and consider the climate impact of every major City decision, including budget decisions, procurement contracts, and new developments.
Let’s do a little math here: if each of our local or regional campaigns boosts turnout by thousands of voters, we’re looking at directly mobilizing more than 100,000 new progressive voters helping to decide the next Governor of Texas.
But having a winning strategy isn’t enough. Every time we launch a new campaign, that means hiring campaign staff, recruiting volunteers, knocking doors, and producing flyers and mailers — and we have less than a year until the big election in November 2022 to scale up our work across Texas.
Ground Game Texas is building a progressive Texas from the ground up, one city at a time, and we could never do it without supporters like you.
Thank you,
Julie Oliver & Mike Siegel
Paid for by Ground Game Texas PAC
This email was sent to [email protected].
PO Box 310, Austin, TX 78767 | [email protected]