A New Dawn is Coming for TX Democrats

What's really happening behind the scenes.

I’m hopeful about the future of the Texas Democratic Party & its prospects for 2026. That’s sadly not a statement many have made in the past few years, or longer. But it is the truth. Let me tell you why.

The Coming Dawn for TX Democrats

Right now, we’re in the twilight before dawn. On March 29th, this Saturday, a new dawn will rise.

Shortly after the November election, long-time Texas Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa submitted his resignation, effective upon the election of a new chair on March 29th.

To be clear, I’m a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC), though I’ve long been sidelined because I founded and led the Texas Progressive Caucus. We work to return the Democratic Party to its New Deal, progressive populist roots. Our Party has suffered ever since it started depending on the oligarchs.

In December, the SDEC gave its Nominations Committee guidelines for who can become a candidate and the authority to determine who is and isn’t eligible to become a candidate. Nominations certified the eligibility of the following candidates for State Chair:

• Kendall Scudder

• Patsy Woods Martin

• Lillie Schechter

• Delia Parker-Mims

• Aaron Arguijo

• Meri Gomez

• Rabbi Misha ben-David

• Rev Steve Miller

These folks are good Democrats. Several would likely do a great job as TDP Chair.

In January, the Texas Progressive Caucus hosted a forum for these candidates at the LBJ Ranch. Over 200 people attended in person and another 1,000 watched online. We had so many people, it nearly crashed the local cell tower (had Democrats been in power, I’m sure we would have rural broadband by now, so you can thank a Republican for bad rural connectivity).

Later, the TXPC surveyed Democrats across Texas on what they want to see in the next TX Democratic Party Chair.

What they said: they are pissed and they want change.

These 700+ Texas Democrats chose Kendall Scudder, so the TXPC endorsed in early March. In the spirit of transparency, we even shared a full report and breakdown of the voting.

Things were going smoothly, until…

The Storm before Dawn

About a week after the TXPC’s endorsement, the TDP’s general counsel suddenly claimed that Scudder was ineligible to run for State Chair because Scudder held a seat in a local appraisal board.

I won’t rehash all of the TXPC’s arguments about why appraisal boards are **NOT** county or state seats; you can read our reasoning here.

What you need to know is that a team of 40+ SDEC members immediately got to work drafting a letter called “Democracy. Or What.”

The letter calls for a free and fair election. It demands that no candidate be ruled ineligible this close to the election. Counsel and others had November, December, January, and February to raise the eligibility issue. But they didn’t.

This action angered Democrats all across the state. To many, it smelled of a dirty trick. Over 1,000 Democrats from across Texas have signed the letter.

Not all signers are Scudder supporters. Many are not. This is an issue greater than any one candidate. It’s about democracy.

In the name of party unity, Scudder resigned from his seat on the Dallas appraisal board. While it should have been unnecessary for him to do so before the election, we respect his decision.

So problem solved, right?

Maybe, but maybe not.

We are hearing rumblings of a renewed effort to disqualify a progressive candidate.

One of the reasons I and other progressive leaders from around Texas founded the TXPC is to change the operating culture within the TDP. Look at it this way: for 150 years, Texas Democrats only had to fight themselves to win. The term “Yellow Dog Democrat” came about from a joke that even a dead dog would beat a Republican so long as the dead dog was a Democrat. That’s 150 years of ingraining a culture of infighting, for whoever won the primary won the election.

This isn’t just a Texas problem. These kinds of things are common. Hell, even when FDR got his start in politics in the 1910s, he cut his teeth fighting the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine.

This is all to say that Democrats are historically great at fighting each other. I can’t necessarily say the same about our skills at fighting Republicans. Improvements are happening behind the scenes—better coordination, better usage of technology, and more—that will pay great dividends in 2026 and beyond, and I hope even more changes will accelerate after March 29th. It also helps that we have some true fighters like progressives Jasmine Crockett and Greg Casar, plus a number of others in the Texas Legislature.

The TXPC was founded to turn the TX Democrats into a powerful movement able to fight the Trumplicans and take back our state. That requires making our party more small “d” democratic to better tap into the 7.2 million Texas voters who don’t vote. Getting even a small chunk of these voters to turn out could get us over the finish line.

Democrats want full, fair, and transparent democracy. That’s what we’re fighting for. Will you join us?

We’ll know more by Saturday. Stay tuned.