Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder already knows what he’ll be doing the day after the midterms: loading signs and T-posts into the back of his pickup and recruiting candidates for the next election.
It’s not that he’s not hopeful about Tuesday. But he’s been through enough disappointing elections to know that rebuilding a party takes more than one promising cycle — especially in deep-red Texas, where Democrats haven’t won a statewide race since 1994.
“We didn’t lose Texas overnight,” Scudder tells Katie Couric Media. “We’re not going to win it overnight.”
For Scudder, that work began long before he took over the state party at 35, becoming one of the youngest state party chairs in the country. Raised by two moms in East Texas, he says he started knocking on doors at 12, when Republicans were pursuing legislation that threatened to remove children from families like his own.
That experience shaped a political philosophy he describes in distinctly Texan terms: Government should treat people fairly, provide a useful service, and then “get the hell out of your life.”
Now, he’s trying to persuade voters that Democrats can deliver on that vision, and persuade his own party to change how it reaches them.
Showing up across Texas
Scudder believes a major reason Democrats have struggled to win in Texas is that they haven’t invested enough in organizing beyond the state’s biggest cities, like Houston, Dallas, and Austin.
When he became chair, he says, local leadership positions sat vacant, and communities outside the biggest metropolitan areas weren’t getting the attention they deserved. “You can’t lock a bunch of consultants in a room in Austin to buy your way out of this problem,” he says.
His response? Recruit local organizers and candidates who can build relationships that last beyond a single election — and give voters a Democratic presence in communities the party has too often overlooked.
He points to Texas House candidates like Diana Loya, a mother and school district employee from Dumas running in the Panhandle’s District 87, along with Sean Huffman of Paris in District 1 and Jacky Hernandez of Beaumont in District 21.
He argues those candidates can make the party’s message more credible because they know the communities they’re asking to represent.
“I think you win from the bottom up, not from the top down,” Scudder says.
Giving voters something to vote for
Scudder also believes Democrats need to reconsider what they’re asking voters to support.
In their efforts to protect the country’s institutions from President Trump, he argues, Democrats lost sight of why many Americans were frustrated with them in the first place — a disconnect underscored by a June Gallup poll that found confidence in 14 major U.S. institutions averaged just 27 percent, near a record low.
“They completely lost sight of the fact that those institutions that they were fighting to protect did not serve the people that trusted us to fight for them,” he says.
His prescription is to offer something more ambitious. Instead of simply promising to preserve Social Security, talk about expanding it. Instead of focusing only on access to a doctor when someone gets sick, explain how people could get care before that happens.
And when voters lose faith in Democrats, Scudder says, the response shouldn’t be to argue with them.
“You own up to it,” he tells us. “You admit when you make a mistake and you do what you can to make it right.”
The case for investing in Texas
Scudder wants national Democrats to do more. He’s not alone in wanting more support: Prominent Latino leaders, including Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego and Texas Rep. Greg Casar, urged the Democratic Governors Association to invest $10 million in Gina Hinojosa’s bid for governor in the Lone Star State this year, though the contributions didn't pour in to that extent.
For Scudder, seeing the Republican Governors Association invest far more in Texas than its Democratic counterpart is “extremely frustrating.” He also suggests Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who chairs the DGA, should expect questions about that decision if he returns to Texas seeking support in a presidential primary.
But Scudder is quick to add that the problem extends beyond Beshear or his organization. “We have traditionally just not had the investment that other states do,” he says.
Part of the challenge, he acknowledges, is the cost of reaching voters across such a sprawling state. Texas has roughly 20 media markets — compared with 14 in California and 10 in Florida — and the price of campaigning statewide can give national donors sticker shock. James Talarico’s fundraising totals in his bid for Senate may turn heads, but to Scudder, they simply reflect what it takes to compete. “That’s about how much money he needs to run a campaign in Texas,” he says.
And with billionaire donors like Elon Musk backing Republicans, Democrats face more than the cost of getting their message out. But Scudder says competing against deep-pocketed donors is familiar territory.
“We’re used to this,” he says. “The old billionaires out in West Texas have been spending gobs of cash against us for a long time, and we’ve had to learn how to exist in that environment.”
Scudder hopes the organizing happening now will make Texas a more compelling investment for national Democrats. Until then, he’s counting on the local networks he’s been working to rebuild.
“We’re going to do organized people against organized money the way we’ve always done it,” he says.
