{"id":12475,"date":"2020-12-03T18:14:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T18:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=12475"},"modified":"2020-12-03T18:14:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T18:14:38","slug":"despite-disappointment-texas-dems-stoked-for-future-election-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=12475","title":{"rendered":"Despite disappointment, Texas Dems stoked for future election gains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
In Texas, at least 66% of the 17 million registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 general election. That\u2019s 6.6 percentage points higher than total turnout in 2016.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Photo: 12019\/Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By ROZ BROWN
<\/strong>Texas News Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 In the days leading up to the November 3 election, political pundits saw signs the historically red state of Texas might vote for Joe Biden. That didn\u2019t happen, but Democrats say they\u2019re optimistic about a turnaround in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Democrats gained ground in some cities and suburbs, President Donald Trump won Texas by roughly the same percentage of votes as in 2016.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claude Cummings, vice president of Houston\u2019s District 6 of the Communications Workers of America, said voters in most large metropolitan areas voted Democrats into office, but more field work is needed in smaller communities to reach Black and Latino voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs bad we felt about not delivering Texas to the Biden-Harris ticket, because we really thought we close enough to do that, the good news is we still flipped some more counties to blue,\u201d said Cummings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cummings said the CWA did more with its labor partners than ever before \u2013 spending money on radio, phone banking, door knocking and direct mail. But the pandemic prevented face-to-face conversations with potential voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derrick Osobase is the Texas state campaign coordinator for the CWA in Austin, and said exit polls showed voters related most to the messaging about financial stability and security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe feel like our program has been effective,\u201d said Osobase. \u201cBecause we really lead with a working-class message around good jobs, about regulation of companies. We were able to lead on issues \u2013 how to put people back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas has 254 counties, and Cummings said to capture more of the vote share in 2024, Democrats need to bring their message to smaller counties where political activism may be lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no Democratic candidates running, there\u2019s no Democratic presence,\u201d said Cummings. \u201cSo, we\u2019re going to have a very difficult time winning statewide offices unless the same infrastructure that we helped build into the larger counties are built into the smaller counties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cummings added that despite being smaller than many other unions, and with many of its members out of work and staff laid off, the Communication Workers\u2019 canvassing operation was the largest of any union during the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ROZ BROWNTexas News Service AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 In the days leading up to the November 3 election, political pundits saw signs the historically red state of Texas might vote for Joe Biden. That didn\u2019t happen, but Democrats say they\u2019re optimistic about a turnaround in 2024. While Democrats gained ground in some cities and suburbs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12476,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12475\/revisions\/12476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}