Meet The Candidates: Dax Alexander For Texas Congressional District 01

A grassroots challenger in one of Texas’s toughest districts.

This series is called Meet The Candidates. Over the next nine months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is Dax Alexander?

Dax Alexander has been doing the unglamorous work for years. Voter registration tables. Community clean-ups. Grassroots organizing in and around Tyler. He’s an active member of the Smith County Democratic Party, a software developer by trade, and the kind of guy who spends his free time playing disc golf at Lindsey Park.

Alexander talks a lot about inclusion, opportunity, and making sure rural communities aren’t left behind. That matters in East Texas, where too many families feel ignored by Austin and Washington alike. He’s running on the idea that every community deserves a fair shake, whether you live in downtown Tyler or way out on a county road with spotty cell service.

On the issues, he checks many core progressive boxes with a practical Texas frame. He supports expanding Medicaid and investing in rural healthcare so people don’t have to drive an hour for basic services. He opposes voucher schemes that drain public school funding. He backs universal background checks and red flag laws. He wants fair wages, paid family leave, affordable childcare, and serious action on climate change. On immigration, he rejects the performative wall politics and calls for humane, bipartisan reform that actually works. Most of all, Dax is running as someone who believes Congress should answer to regular people, not billionaires or party bosses.

The district.

Let’s start with the blunt reality, Texas Congressional District 01 is one of the reddest districts in the state. Flipping it in November would not just require a good Democratic year, or even a strong Democratic year. It would require a political earthquake... kind of like what we saw with Taylor Rehmet, last week. According to Texas Legislative Council data, TX01 has a Voting Age Population that is 63.1% Anglo and 36.9% non-Anglo, with turnout rates already very high for a rural district. The district behaves like an R+30 or worse seat. That means Democrats are not trying to make up a few points here. They are trying to overcome a structural partisan gap that has been baked into East Texas politics for generations.

For a Democrat to win TX01, three major things would all have to happen at once. First, there would need to be a massive statewide Democratic overperformance. Not just competitive, but overwhelming. We are talking about a scenario where Democrats are winning Texas statewide by five to seven points, suburbs across the state are collapsing for Republicans, and national conditions are so bad for the GOP that even safe districts start wobbling. If TX01 is in play, it means places like Collin County, Denton County, and even Montgomery County have already moved dramatically left.

Second, flipping the district would require a total transformation of the electorate in East Texas. The current voting base is older, whiter, and extremely reliable. Democrats would need to generate record-level Black turnout in places like Tyler, Longview, and Nacogdoches, while simultaneously producing a surge in Hispanic voter registration and participation that the region has never seen before. The Black community makes up nearly one-fifth of the voting-age population, but historically turns out at lower rates than white voters in this part of the state. Winning TX01 would require Obama-level enthusiasm and turnout, without an Obama on the ballot. At the same time, Democrats would have to dramatically cut Republican margins among rural white voters, turning 75–25 counties into something closer to 60–40.

Third, there would almost certainly need to be an extraordinary Republican collapse at the candidate level. Even then, Democrats would need enormous outside investment and flawless execution. In raw numbers, the math is brutal. Democrats probably start with something closer to 90,000-100,000 reliable votes. That means finding 60,000 to 70,000 brand-new Democratic votes in a district that has never produced them before.

If you forced strategists to sketch out a theoretical path, they would focus on a few pockets of potential growth: Smith County around Tyler, Gregg County around Longview, and Nacogdoches with its university population. Those are the only places where Democrats can realistically hope to narrow margins over time. But even sweeping improvements there would likely still leave the party short of victory. That is why, in practical political terms, TX01 is not a flip target. The realistic goals for Democrats are to build stronger county parties, register voters year after year, develop local candidates, and slowly move the district.

Flipping TX01 this November would require a perfect storm of national conditions, unprecedented shifts in turnout, and a GOP meltdown. It is technically possible, but also a long shot. If a Democrat ever wins TX01, it will not just be a local upset. It will be a flashing neon sign that Texas itself has turned blue.

The incumbent.

The incumbent is Nathaniel Moran, and no I’m not going to make fun of his name, because I’m a mature adult. But if you were trying to design a caricature of everything broken about modern Texas Republican politics, you’d end up with someone who looks an awful lot like him. Moran is a textbook partisan backbencher who votes exactly how the Republican leadership tells him to vote and then comes home to East Texas to pretend he’s a bold conservative warrior for “freedom.” In reality, he’s just another rubber stamp in a red tie.

Moran has backed efforts to gut reproductive rights, undermine public education, slash social programs, and protect corporate interests at the expense of working families. When it comes to healthcare, he has opposed expanding access while representing a region full of rural hospitals on the brink of collapse. On economic issues, he reliably sides with big donors and lobbyists instead of the people in his own district who are struggling with high costs and stagnant wages. He talks a lot about “East Texas values,” but somehow those values never seem to include affordable medicine, decent jobs, or functioning infrastructure.

Nathaniel Moran is not some uniquely terrible outlier. He’s painfully ordinary, another safe-seat Republican who knows he doesn’t actually have to work very hard because the district has been gerrymandered and conditioned to re-elect him no matter what he does. Right now, all it has is Nathaniel Moran, doing the bare minimum and calling it leadership.

Alexander has three primary opponents.

In Dax Alexander’s own words.

Below are some questions I asked Alexander, based on previous reader polls, along with his answers.

Q: Do you support a Green New Deal or similar large-scale federal climate action plan?

Yes, we need not just climate action, but climate justice. We need to work to stop global warming and move toward sustainable manufacturing. We have to hold big corporations accountable for the damage they’ve done, and we need to offer incentives for those working for sustainable, eco-friendly growth

Q: Do you support federal student debt cancellation and tuition-free public college?

Yes, college should be readily available for anyone who wants to attend, and we should offer the same benefits for technical schools and trade schools.

Q: Should the U.S. demilitarize the southern border and repeal harmful immigration policies?

Yes. Immigrants deserve due process, dignity, and a real path to citizenship. Our current system is complex, dehumanizing, and isn’t making us safer or allowing people to join our great nation.

Q: Do you support a federal jobs guarantee and large-scale public investment in housing, transit, and care infrastructure?

Yes, we need federal jobs guarantees, basic living wages, and supplementation for transit and healthcare at the bare minimum.

Q: Do you support DC statehood, Puerto Rico self-determination, and expanding voting rights through federal law?

Yes. Being a part of America should allow for participating in the most vital part of our democracy.

Bonus Question: How will you engage and energize disillusioned or low-turnout voters, especially young people, communities of color, and the working class?

As a former disillusioned young person, I’ll talk to them the way I wish someone talked to me, with genuine compassion, empathy, and an eagerness to make government work for them, not the billionaires and political elites. I will also meet people where they are, instead of expecting them to find me.

No one is pretending this race is simple.

The numbers are brutal. The history is brutal. But politics doesn’t change because someone waits for perfect conditions. It changes because people decide to start the work long before victory looks possible. That’s what Alexander is trying to do.

Whether TX-01 flips this year or ten years from now, the path to that future runs through candidates like him, people willing to talk about rural healthcare, public schools, wages, and dignity in communities that rarely hear those conversations from a Democratic perspective.

You don’t build a two-party Texas overnight. You build it one campaign, one voter, and one conversation at a time. Right now, Dax Alexander is doing his part.

And in East Texas, that matters more than people realize.

You can find out more about Dax Alexander on his website, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.

• February 17, 2026: First Day to Early Vote

• March 3, 2026: Primary Election

• Who Will Be On The 2026 State Ballot?

• Who Will Be On The 2026 Federal Ballot?

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.

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