The Movement Is Coming And The Machine Knows It

The base is awake and the momentum is moving left.

By now, we’ve all seen that Colin Allred has announced his run for Senate. If you missed it:

I had to watch it twice, because I thought it was the same ad as last time. Then I realized that he had worn a light blue shirt in the previous ad. He has also launched his new website. Noticably absent is his platform, same as last time.

I did not support Colin Allred during the last Democratic primary, and I have no intention of supporting him during this Democratic primary. Lone Star Left is a staunch supporter of progressive ideals and an evangelist of the left-leaning Texas Democratic Party platform. Allred is neither a progressive nor a subscriber to the Texas Democratic Party’s ideas.

That being said, I’d vote for a dead armadillo’s ass before I voted for any Republican. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.

(Sorry, communists, this newsletter believes in reform.)

But before everyone panics. And believe me, I almost had to breathe into a paper bag today. We need to discuss Allred’s popularity… and his chances…

I know there’s a fancy-pants consultant in Washington, DC, who has been conducting orchestrated, controlled polls that show Allred has good chances. Probably the same people who were polled last time, when Cruz got 1 million more votes than Allred. However, I’d like to show you what I’m seeing on social media. On Day 1.

From Facebook:

And Bluesky:

We could look at Twitter, too, but it’s more of the same…mixed in with a bunch of incels accusing Allred of being too radical and cutting kids genitals off (they’re unwell and Twitter is basically 4Chan now).

Regardless, I intentionally put myself in social media spaces where Texas Democrats tend to congregate, and Allred’s campaign announcement has not generated excitement (and the screenshots above are just a small sample).

Texas Democrats have not forgotten how Allred threw trans people under the bus during his debate with Cruz, or how he voted to send more weapons to Israel while they were bombing family encampments, or how he didn’t show up to campaign during the last election. And I would say they haven’t moved past it.

As one person on Bluesky posted, Allred is part of the rigged political system that DC is pushing on us. Another person on Facebook said that grassroots leaders and voters across Texas want change. Repeatedly, Texas Democrats have said they are tired of establishment centrists and want progressive fighters to lead with conviction and moral clarity.

But it isn’t time to panic yet. Remember, even a dead armadillo’s ass is better than a Republican and until we get this primary election in swing, Allred can play that part in blue.

To move to the left, or to be in the center? That is the question.

Did you catch the 817 Podcast this weekend? I was listening in the car today and heard them mention my name. I won’t lie, I had a little ‘Heyyy, that’s me!’ moment.

But they were talking about what I’ve been discussing a lot lately, about the ideological journey of the Texas Democratic Party, and voters in general, and what it’s going to take to get Democratic voters in the Lone Star State really excited and out to the polls in numbers. During the interview with Tarrant County Democratic Chair candidate Dr. Allison Campolo, host EJ asked her thoughts on the differences between DC Democrats and Texas Democrats, as well as moderates and progressives.

(The ideological discussion in particular starts at 22 minutes, if you want to skip to that part, and YouTube doesn’t start where it’s supposed to.)

Campolo said she was a big fan of being an out-and-loud, bold progressive. She agrees with Chairman Scudder on that. Did he say that? Even better if he did. And she agrees with everything that every speaker at that Bernie rally said.

Campolo went on to discuss how she struggled to understand why centrists or moderates are succeeding. Allred didn’t. He did worse than what Beto did in 2018. She made sure to do the political thing and said she had nothing against Allred, but progressives have a much stronger grassroots message, whereas centrists have the backing of the establishment.

Her final thought about what we should do (on the ideological front)? “We should put our faith in that bold, progressive messaging.”

Then they mentioned there might be five or six candidates for the Senate…

That’s when I started hyperventilating.

Not because we don’t need to primary Colin Allred, because we do. We already have Terry Virts, who is not really being discussed. He’s running for the Senate as a Democrat, plus he’s an astronaut 🧑🏻‍🚀. I don’t know much else about him, I’ll have to fill y’all in when I find out more.

But word on the street is that the reason why everyone is more interested in the US Senate race and less interested in the Governor’s race is because of polling. Everyone is polling well in the Senate race. No one is polling well against Abbott.

But what if Talarico, Castro, and Beto all decided to run for the Senate as well?

Y’all really have to be a Texas Democrat to understand what a traumatic experience being a Texas Democrat is.

Are we going to tear each other down instead of building a message that gets our people to the polls? That’s the fear.

Have we had really serious state Democratic primaries in Texas? When?

Lupe Valdez v. Andrew White? Meh. MJ Hager v. Royce West? Yawn. Joe Jaworski v. Lee Merritt v. Rochell Garza? Jaworski and Merritt were cordial, even leaning into bromance territory, but Garza was nowhere to be seen. Uneventful. Mike Collier v. Michelle Beckley? Lol.

I don’t know. We have had some Democratic primaries, but they haven’t been knock-down, drag-out affairs. Maybe Democrats are just too nice for that. Or maybe we just haven’t had that many hard-hitters in one race.

A larger primary pool can be beneficial by increasing voter engagement and turnout, especially among casual or disillusioned voters. This will help build infrastructure earlier (organizers, data, messaging). It will receive more media coverage, which can energize a party and highlight ideological diversity.

But what if they do?

Colin Allred won’t win the primary. And please do not shoot the messenger, but I am not convinced Beto will either. I know there are tens of thousands of Texans who will drive off a cliff for Beto and will always vote for him if his name is on the ticket. There are also Democratic voters who are scared of losing again, who don’t want to have their hearts broken, and might be unwilling to take that gamble in a primary if others seemed like sure things.

A Democratic primary for US Senate, if all those people threw their names in, would likely end up in a runoff between Castro and Talarico. I’m 100% basing that on my gut feeling, based on everything I know about Texas politics and Texas Democratic voters. (My intuition is only wrong 27% of the time. Some people call that “betting odds.”)

My fear is not that Talarico or Castro would let their campaigns get ugly or tear each other apart. My fear is that their supporters will. And then the losing faction will stay home in November. Because we know people do that… because why…. I don’t know… but 1.4 million Texas Democrats stayed home in 2024.

Why?

Because voting is too hard? They didn’t know there was an election? Voter suppression? Texas is allegedly going to be red anyway? Gaza? The economy? Kamala Harris? Colin Allred? A mix of all of it?

What if one, Talarico or Castro, ran for the Senate and the other ran for the Governor, and they ran in tandem? Supporting one another and others on the ballot, like we saw at their rally last week? And they’re hitting every county, with a heavy focus on urban areas? Then, does that polling with Abbott even matter, because the entire game changes?

But then someone would have to get over their ego fear of bad polls. And that’s a whole other story.

So, should we be worried about Colin Allred?

Not really. Not right now. He doesn’t have the momentum, and he doesn’t have the excitement. Unless something dramatic shifts, he won’t win this primary.

That being said, if he does win? Then he becomes our blue armadillo’s ass. And we’ll vote for him because even an uninspiring Democrat is better than a Republican who wants to burn it all down.

But we’ve got time. With more than five months of uncertainty ahead and a filing deadline in December, that’s a wide-open window for progressives to step forward, build coalitions, and offer a vision people believe in.

Through Kendall Scudder’s unapologetically progressive party leadership, through Greg Casar and Al Green standing firm on moral ground, and through candidates like Zohran Mamdani reminding us that when the message is bold and clear, people show up.

This moment doesn’t belong to the consultants. It belongs to the movement. So let’s stop worrying and get to work.

• November 4: Constitutional/TX18/SD09 Election

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