KEEPING THE FAITH

By Beto O'Rourke -- "Powered by People"

By Beto O’Rourke, Former US Representative

Somehow, Texas seems to always produce the heroes who overcome the worst of the challenges we face.

Go back a hundred years and we were the epicenter of Klan terrorism, Jim Crow voting laws, and the most insidious forms of segregation. But against that injustice rose thousands of Texans who, against all odds, led the charge to change our country for the better.

Take Lawrence Nixon, who labored for 20 years to defeat the “white primary” laws that banned Black Texans from voting in 1944. Take Texas women Jane Roe and her two attorneys, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who won the landmark Roe v. Wade decision before an all-male Supreme Court in 1973, fundamentally changing this country’s understanding of a woman’s right to full personhood and citizenship.

Fast forward to today and you will find Texans in each of our 254 counties who share the same courage and tenacity to carry on this tradition and bring about the change that’s needed in our state. These are the heroes of today who will overcome our extreme gun laws, our no-exceptions abortion ban, and our cynical politicians who care more about catering to special interests than to the people they are purported to serve.

I founded Powered by People in late 2019 in an effort to bring these Texans together toward the common goal of electing good, moral leaders who will stop this state’s slide towards cruelty, corruption, and authoritarianism. 

We’ve structured this organization to truly be powered by people. Through a “distributed organizing” model, we empower volunteers to host their own block walk operations, run their own phone banks and text campaigns, and even train other volunteers to do the same.

With a state as big as Texas, there’s no other way to reach the number of voters, to knock on the number of doors, to have the number of conversations necessary to move the needle. 

Our volunteers live and work in every part of the state, allowing us to meet voters where they are. No neighborhood is too small, too big, too red, or too blue to receive the in-person, human-to-human contact that we know is essential to winning elections. 

During the 2020 election, we organized 20,000 volunteers who registered 250,000 voters, called and texted every Democrat in the state voter file, and ultimately drove the highest voter turnout that Texas has seen in nearly 30 years.

And while President Biden didn’t win in Texas that year, he lost our state by just 5.6 points — an incredibly low margin when you consider that Barack Obama lost Texas by nearly 16 points just eight years prior.

While the progress is evident, it can be easy for voters, volunteers, and donors alike to come out of a loss like that fatigued and despaired, wondering if all the hard work was worth it. But it’s important to remember: Texas last voted for the Democratic nominee for president in 1976; last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1988; last elected a Democrat to statewide office in 1994.

We’re bound to get knocked down a few times (maybe a lot of times) before we finally win. The question for all of us is: are we willing to get up again? For Powered by People, the answer will always be yes — because continuing this work in Texas is the best investment we can make for our country right now.

By 2030, Texas is projected to see the largest shift toward Democrats in the nation. Imagine what our country will look like when we register and turn out enough of these voters to deliver Texas’ 40 Electoral College votes — the equivalent of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Maine combined — to the Democratic nominee for president. 

And imagine what it will feel like when we flip the statehouse and elect Democrats to statewide office, allowing us to restore abortion rights, address gun violence, and make progress on every other issue of importance to us.

We are in this for the long-haul. We keep our eyes on the prize, knowing the steps we take today and over the coming years will ensure we ultimately come through for our country.

If you are looking for a place to invest your time and your energy right now, I encourage you to join this effort. No matter where you live in Texas or if you live out of state, you have a place on this team. You can sign up here: https://poweredxpeople.org/volunteer/.

Keep the faith.

Beto