Texas Democrats are facing an uphill battle during the 2022 elections — even more so than in years past.
Nationwide, Republicans are looking to gain ground by attacking President Joe Biden's record and capitalizing on his low approval rating. In Texas, Democrats must contend with both an emboldened GOP and new political districts approved last fall that cemented Republican dominance in the state and reduced the number of competitive U.S. House and statehouse districts.
They're also recovering in the wake of a disappointing 2020 election for the party, when they underperformed after predicting that a blue wave would sweep the state and Democrats would win control of the statehouse. In reality, Republicans maintained control of the Texas House and held off challengers in several competitive U.S. House races.
Democrats maintain that, although they did not win at the polls, they still saw victories, including an increase in voter turnout and wins at the local level.
But party leaders are facing continued pressure from some within their ranks to make drastic changes and address shortcomings of the party's strategy that they argue have produced lackluster results for decades.
Going into 2022, experts say the party will have to be on the defensive, holding on to the seats they have and focusing on widening their margin of victory in those districts.
Party leaders say they are focusing on statewide and local races during the general election, while doubling down on voter registration efforts in certain corners of the state.
"There's a lot at stake for the leadership of the Texas Democratic Party, and a lot more people are paying attention, including myself," said Julie Oliver, an Austin-area Democrat who ran two unsuccessful campaigns against Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Williams in 2018 and 2020 and who has since launched Ground Game Texas, a nonprofit focused on year-round organizing on different progressive issues.
"We're going to hold their feet to the fire because we want to win," she said. "We're tired of losing."
Democrats to resume in-person campaigning
Gilberto Hinojosa, longtime chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said increasing voter turnout during the 2020 election was a win in itself, and one the party intends to replicate in 2022.
Texans turned out to vote in record numbers during the general election, and the early vote alone surpassed the entire turnout for the 2016 presidential election.
"Even though we didn't reach the winning numbers we wanted to reach, that was just another election cycle where we've improved our performance significantly," Hinojosa said. "Hopefully, we can further increase and put our statewide candidates in the position of winning this election cycle. We're not counting our chickens before they hatch, but we know what we need to do to continue to improve our performance statewide, and every time it gets a little better."
Part of the problem in 2020 was the pandemic, which Hinojosa said limited in-person campaign opportunities because of an edict from the national party to cease events that could pose a risk of spreading COVID-19.
In addition to campaigning in person, Hinojosa said another shift the party will make in the new year is focusing on registering more voters in parts of the state with highly concentrated Hispanic populations, including South Texas, El Paso and pockets of San Antonio and other major cities.
They'll also focus time and resources on rural areas in the state.
"That's what killed Beto last time around," Hinojosa said, referring to Beto O'Rourke's 2018 challenge to Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. "We won in urban areas, including Tarrant County, but we were slaughtered in some of the rural areas in West Texas, the Panhandle and in East Texas."
But Oliver said the strategy the party is employing does not go far enough. Instead, she said leaders need to commit to working year-round to advance popular Democratic issues like a $15 minimum wage, Medicaid expansion and decriminalizing marijuana.
"This goes to the leadership of the Texas Democratic Party not being able to deliver and wanting to do things the old way," Oliver said, noting that she doesn't see party leadership "holding candidates accountable and asking candidates who are sitting in safe seats who have lots of cash to participate in the process and build up the infrastructure that is so necessary in our state."
Leadership changes for Texas Democratic Party
The party has seen some leadership changes in the wake of the 2020 election, including the departure of the two top staffers in January: executive director Manny Garcia and deputy executive director Cliff Walker.
In addition, a group of State Democratic Executive Committee members wrote Hinojosa a letter in December 2020 demanding change after the party's "embarrassing loss" and describing party leaders' response to the election outcome as "disingenuous and disconnected with reality."
At least one candidate has emerged to challenge Hinojosa to lead the party: Kim Olson, a former candidate for agriculture commissioner and Congress.
"I have a pretty good perspective of where the party has fallen short in building the infrastructure and foundations for their candidates and campaigns to stand on," Olson said. "In validating that, you saw our 2020 results, which were very, very disappointing for as much hype."
She said the party needs to do a better job of coordinating the efforts of its local party chairs and other stakeholders, recognizing that they have different spheres of influence and interests that could be harnessed towards a common mission — instead of stepping on each others' toes.
Olson also argues that the party needs to improve its messaging across the board by tailoring communications from the party to specific demographic and geographic groups. She said rural areas in particular need more attention from the party.
Hinojosa said the concerns Olson has raised in her bid for party chair are already being addressed.
"This woman has run for office several times and has never been able to get elected," he said. "She couldn't even win the primary in the congressional race. I'm not sure what knowledge she has to change the way things are going right now, in terms of building the party."
In the short term, Olson said her strategic vision prioritizes defending the seats Democrats won in 2018 and ensuring that Republicans don't pick up additional seats in the Texas House. If Republicans get to 101 members, Democrats would lose the ability to break quorum.
"Texas has to hold," she said. "That should be our messaging."
But Hinojosa disagrees. He was quick to shoot down the suggestion that the party needs to be on the defensive in the coming cycle and said that instead they will be pushing for gains at the local level, including school boards and county leadership, as well as statewide.
"Everybody wants to see wins, but how can you say that we've not made a substantial improvement in Texas when 75% of the people in this state live in Democratically controlled counties?" he said. "We picked up 12 seats in the House in 2018, and we've now picked up more than half the courts of appeals in Texas. ... If that's not moving the ball forward, I don't know what is."
