Colin Allred
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and the Texas Democratic Party are launching a coordinated campaign to consolidate resources for races up and down the ticket, the party and Allred campaign announced Wednesday morning.
The initiative, dubbed “Texas Offense,” will allow candidates down the ballot to share data and information resources, letting different Democratic candidates better coordinate as they knock on doors, call voters and engage in other campaign activities. It’s the party’s first coordinated campaign of its kind focusing on the grassroots in over 20 years. Allred is running to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Throughout my football career at Baylor and the NFL, I’ve always played defense. But now, along with Texans from all across our state, we are fully on offense to beat Ted Cruz,” Allred said in a statement. “I am a fourth-generation Texan, and no matter what Ted Cruz says, this election is about giving 30 million Texans a Senator who will do the job for all of us. Our grassroots campaign of Texans is ready to win because we cannot afford six more years of Ted Cruz.”
“Texas Democrats are fired up and ready to beat Ted Cruz,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party. “This is a historic partnership that will help galvanize grassroots excitement for Congressman Allred across our state. One conversation at a time, with Texans talking to Texans – we are going to send Ted Cruz packing.”
Having a coordinated campaign prevents duplicating outreach efforts by different Democratic candidates to the same audiences, said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project.
“In Texas, that’s important because you got such a large diverse state,” Angle said. “You’ve got giant urban centers as well as significant suburban areas, and then you’ve got the rural parts of the state. And so having a framework for people who are coordinating to work efficiently is really important.”
The coordinated campaign does not allow candidates to share money across the board. Candidates for state office face restrictions in sharing financial resources with federal candidates.
Allred will officially unveil the initiative at a Houston rally on Sunday — 100 days before Election Day. Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Amanda Zurawski, an Austin woman who sued Texas over its abortion restrictions and has since become a Democratic campaigner, will both be present.
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The Democratic consolidation differs from past Democratic statewide campaigns, which were largely solo operations.
“Some candidates have done a better job than others in celebrating and bringing down ballot candidates along and uplifting them alongside what they are doing,” former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who led a widely watched but unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2014, said in an interview. Praising Allred, she added: “I feel like this coordinated effort is a true reflection of how he functions. He is a former football player. He is a team player to his core.”
Some Democratic campaigns for U.S. House have coordinated in the past. U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, a North Texas Democrat, coordinated with other candidates to turn out the Democratic vote in the 1990s, Angle said. But Angle said it was not on a statewide scale.
It’s always seemed like whatever the top-ticket statewide campaign was in a given year, they did their thing, and the next top-ticket statewide campaign that came along did their thing, with each one starting from scratch. Some were better than others at working with downballot candidates, as Wendy Davis says, but there was never any consistency and no continuity. Whatever happens this year, I hope at the end of it we have something to build on for the next election. I don’t know why it’s taken so long to get to this point, but better late that never.
There is/was actually a director-level position in the TDP that is supposed to coordinate these. The fact that most people can’t tell that is probably a sign of something.