John,
Now that we've had a few days to rest and recharge after a whirlwind sprint toward the Texas primary, we're thinking a lot about our next steps and the runoff battle ahead in TX-28 for our Green New Deal champion Jessica Cisneros.
Since last week, we've gotten a lot of questions about what this runoff means and the path forward. We think it's important for the movement to understand how we got here and where we're going, so we wanted to take a few moments to make sense of it all:
Um, what is a runoff election anyway?
Okay, so you're probably most familiar with plurality voting. That's when the winner of a primary or general election is the candidate who gets the highest number of votes.
But ten states — including Texas — conduct runoff elections as part of their party nomination process.
During a primary election, if there are more than two people in the race, to win a candidate has to receive 50%, plus one, of the vote. If no one reaches that magic number, then the top two vote-getting candidates head to a runoff election (in this case, Jessica and Henry Cuellar).
It should probably come as no surprise that the origins of runoff elections are fundamentally racist, engineered by segregationists in primarily southern states to make it harder for Black and brown voters to make their voices heard and for Black and brown candidates to win.
What does the runoff mean for Jessica? It seems bad!
Okay, hear us out: THIS IS A WIN.
Big Oil's favorite Democrat Henry Cuellar is one of the most corrupt and special interest-compromised members of Congress, period. As Texans froze to death during the Texas Freeze last winter, Henry Cuellar spent his time cozying up to the people responsible for the climate disaster: fossil fuel corporations. In the 2022 cycle alone, Cuellar has received more than $100,000 from fossil fuel corporations.
It was always going to be an uphill battle for Jessica and our movement to take on this corporate special interest powerhouse. Yet, we made it clear that the power of people over money is stronger. We made nearly one million voter contact attempts in TX-28 alone, and we're more energized than ever.
So how do we help Jessica win?
MORE OF THE SAME.
We're ready to double down on the same work we engaged in during the primary — making hundreds of thousands of voter contact attempts in the district for Jessica and setting the record straight on Cuellar's corruption.
But we're clear-eyed about the path forward. These runoffs are going to be incredibly expensive and turning out voters again for the second time in less than three months will be no small task.
Grassroots supporters like you make this work possible. Let's show everyone what we're capable of and bring it home for Jessica.
In solidarity,
Paris, Sunrise