Episode 9

In this episode, I talk to Mathis Perkins, Oak Cliff Democratic precinct chair.

Most political conversations focus on policies or party lines, but what if the real secret to meaningful change lies in understanding human nature and community roots? Mathis, a Marine veteran, shares his perspective on the deep ties that shape our communities and how true progress begins from within.

From growing up on the hills of Oak Cliff to navigating a military career where precision and discipline shaped his outlook, he reveals how early lessons in service and involvement influenced a life dedicated to helping others. His insights challenge many common narratives, emphasizing that societal change isn’t about shortcuts or clickbait solutions. Rather, it’s about building resilience through education, community action, and persistent effort.

An Oak Cliff native through and through, what does Mathis think is the best and worst thing about Oak Cliff?

Thank you, Mathis!

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On Wednesday, April 22 — Earth Day—the City of Dallas moved one step closer to shutting down the toxic asphalt shingle plants of GAF in West Dallas and TAMKO in Joppa. I first wrote about these Toxic Twins when I joined the campaign last July, so I won’t delve into it again. Check it out here:

With this latest vote, the City of Dallas will set aside $200,000 from an emergency contingency fund to hire a consultant who will research the cost of potentially shutting down these outdated facilities operating under nonconforming use.

I grabbed a friend — who grew up in North Oak Cliff and knew about the RSR lead smelter plant in West Dallas from a bygone era — and attended the council meeting. We both made public statements.

The scene inside the chamber was a little surreal. It was completely packed, which differs from the vast majority of other council meetings. TAMKO had bused dozens of their employees, all dressed in black polo shirts, presumably to intimidate the activists and residents of West Dallas and Joppa. But what I found a bit odd was that only two or three TAMKO representatives — all from upper management — spoke. None of the rank-and-file employees approached the microphone. I guess I assumed that the company would allow its labor force to speak for itself.

As for GAF, they had no official representation. They’ve been mostly quiet during this campaign, preferring instead to maneuver behind the scenes.

But our side definitely showed out. All in all, 45 speakers made their voices heard on this critical environmental justice issue.

By far, the best speakers were the amazing students at White Rock Montessori. Their teacher is Ms. Gamber, who grew up on the Oak Cliff border with West Dallas and had taken her students to the area next to GAF to experience breathing the air. The students — 12 in total — attended virtually with Ms. Gamber and read their prepared remarks one by one. I couldn’t help but wish that more schools would give kids hands-on civics lessons like this. I’m not going to get on that soapbox today.

We stayed from 9 AM to 3:30 PM, when Council finally voted Yes on Agenda Item 39.

And we keep pushing forward.

Here is my statement:

Before we begin, I realize that city council elections in Texas are nonpartisan, meaning that candidates do not run as part of a political party. But we all know who’s actually a Democrat and who’s actually a Republican.

Happy Local Election Season! Early voting for local elections starts Monday, April 20. Election day is Saturday, May 2.

If you live within the Dallas Independent School District boundaries, there is a crucial investment in our students that we must support. At the price of $2.79 per month for taxpayers, this bond aims to build new campuses, eliminate more than 700 portable classrooms, improve safety, ensure modern technology, and make critical repairs to campuses.

And of course, city council races are also happening across the county. So go out and vote!

Also, because we’re going through another election cycle, I started diving into more oodles of data.

TLDR

• In May local elections in Dallas County, partisan Democrats and partisan Republicans tend to make up a great majority of the electorate.

• In November 2024, the City of Dallas passed Proposition D, which moved its local elections from May to November of odd-numbered years.

• The hope is, among other things, to increase democratic participation, which means a higher turnout. But the unspoken logic among reformers is that higher turnout automatically leads to less partisanship.

• According to the data, however, while the overall number of voters in November of odd-numbered years surpasses that of May, the share of partisans remains high in both scenarios.

• My suggestion to get inconsistent voters to cast their ballots for their local leaders? Read to find out.

Before we get into it, here it is again. Your favorite part of these long-winded Substack posts. The AI explainer video:

Background

As part of my work, I recently crunched numbers for a couple of city council campaigns in Dallas County. When I do this, I look up past election data and cross-reference it with demographic data to figure out the lay of the land. This time, however, since one of my particular races involves a partisan Democrat and a partisan Republican vying for the same seat, I decided to cross-reference the election data with how Democratic or Republican this community’s voters actually are. I do this by looking up the DNC Dem Support score, a proprietary calculation meant to suss out a voter’s partisan leanings, available on VAN, a huge database provided by the Democratic Party and one that most political insiders utilize or at least have heard of.

DNC Dem Support score

The DNC Dem Support score ranges from 0 to 100. The lower a voter’s score, the more likely they are to be a Republican. The higher a voter’s score, the more likely they are to be a Democrat. The calculation considers multiple factors when assigning scores, but much of it deals with how often voters visit the polls during primary elections in March.

For context, Democratic precinct chairs and officials, if they’ve been voting for a while, tend to score well into the 90s. I suppose the same can be said of their Republican counterparts and the likelihood that those Republicans score in the single digits.

Local elections in May

Result for a recent May election in this community

I gathered the data for a recent May local election in this candidate’s community, and I cross-referenced it with those voters’ political propensities. And what I discovered took me aback:

On the left stand the partisan Democrats, scoring at least 80. On the right are the partisan Republicans, scoring at most 19.99. Partisan Democrats comprised 53.04% of the total share for this election. Partisan Republicans made up 20.99%. Inconsistent voters, from a score of 20 all the way to 79.99, took only 25.97%.

What does this mean? It suggests that the people most passionate about their side of the political spectrum are the ones who care most about local elections, at least if they happen in May, a month not widely known as a voting month (as in the case of November or even March).

Result for that same May election in Dallas County

I thought that this might have been an anomaly - that this community’s residents somehow were more divided in May than the rest of Dallas County. So I collected the data for all of Dallas County for this same election, and the result largely mirrored that of the community:

For the county, partisan Democrats constituted 46.46% of the electorate while partisan Republicans accounted for 21.82%. Inconsistent voters clocked in at 31.73%.

So in both the individual community and the entire county, many more partisan Democrats and Republicans cast their ballots than inconsistent voters in the May local election.

Proposition D was passed to try to implicitly solve this problem

Any civic-minded community leader committed to doing the right thing by broadening the electorate, especially for local elections, would not sit idly by as essentially the same pool of Democrats and Republicans continue to battle each other at the polls. And that is the goal of Proposition D in Dallas.

Proposition D, passed in the November 2024 election with an overwhelming 65.13% of the vote, would allow Dallas residents to vote in city council elections “according to state law and as designated by city resolution or ordinance.”

That state law, Senate Bill 1494, authored by Dallas Democratic Senator Nathan Johnson in May 2025 allows cities to move their city council elections from May to November of odd-numbered years.

Going back to Dallas, City Council in November 2025 unanimously approved amending the charter to allow residents to vote in council elections.

So this three-step process, coordinated with Johnson at the state level and the Dallas City Council, now grants voters to choose their council members in the same cycle as the constitutional amendment election.

According to Council Member Chad West, there were three elements to this goal:

• Increase voter turnout

• Reduce voter fatigue

• Save city taxpayers money

We’ve almost surely achieved all three of these objectives. But the tacit hope among many change agents underlying the first of these three — increasing voter turnout — is that registered voters who don’t strongly align with a political party understand the importance of electing their city leaders if the election were held in a more traditional voting month like November, even if that year were odd-numbered. In reality, at least from what we observe in the next set of data, and without the presence of an inspirational and charismatic leader who runs citywide, we might not realize that hope.

Constitutional amendment elections in November

Let’s examine voters’ partisan leanings in a November election in an odd-numbered year. If we take the result of a recent November constitutional amendment in the same community that we witnessed for the May election, this is what we receive:

Again, more of the same. Tons of partisan Democrats and Republicans, and not many inconsistent voters. Democrats made up 40.10% of the share, Republicans made up 34.31%, and the rest settled for 25.60%.

I couldn’t create a chart for the entirety of Dallas County for November because VAN’s spreadsheet export doesn’t work for very large datasets. But we can reasonably assume that, much like how the election result for the county mirrored that of the community in the local election, the same partisan divisions took place in the constitutional amendment election.

So will we see a sudden spike of inconsistent voters marching to the polls in November 2027 to decide their local leaders? Perhaps not. Of course, other factors may come into play, but historical data suggests that we notice no significant difference.

What the move might actually do

What moving local elections to November of odd-numbered years has the chance to do, however, is encourage what I call the “lazy partisans” to make their voices heard. This group of voters is the partisan Democrats or Republicans who typically have no desire, or sometimes even forget, that an election in May is happening. Think of them as the friends you have on Facebook who comment on national and state politics with surgical precision but can’t grasp the basics of their communities’ zoning laws. Expect to see them coming out in droves.

In fact, for the community we’ve been inspecting, 4,722 more voters turned out in November than in May. That is an insane 2,609% increase.

Now, will all or even most of those 4,722 voters direct their attention toward the bottom of the ballot to choose their city council leaders after picking their preferred constitutional amendment propositions? Of course not. The undervote risk — when voters ignore down-ballot candidates and causes — presents a real problem in November. But that’s always the issue in any November election, whether it’s a constitutional amendment election, midterm election, or presidential election. We can more than safely predict that at least a good number of those 4,722 voters will select their desired council candidates.

But the fundamental issue, in my view, is not merely increasing voter turnout. We’ve already seen that more people in November of odd-numbered years really means more partisans. The challenge is to motivate inconsistent voters to care about their communities and community political leaders.

How to get inconsistent voters to vote in local elections

Think of these inconsistent voters as the ones you see who work hard to feed themselves and their families. They may privately complain about their landlords’ repeated lack of upkeep or the potholes they need to avoid as they drive to work. Because of this cognitive overload, many simply do not possess the bandwidth to think about electoral politics, and may not even realize that they can complain to their city council member’s office. Instead, they throw their hands up and skip voting altogether.

A number of possible solutions exist to invite these inconsistent voters into the civic fold. Readers of mine are aware that I consistently harp on about the responsibility of local Democratic parties to carry out the difficult, long-term infrastructural work of engaging community members at the local level. Unfortunately, local Democratic Party leaders too often treat that work as secondary to, in their eyes, the more pressing needs of winning elections. If we were serious about building sustainable power from the ground up, though, we would convey more urgency immediately.

But another and far easier method of drawing inconsistent voters to the polls in local elections sits right in front of us: move local elections to November of even-numbered years.

If we crunch the numbers for the community in question for November 2022, the chart looks much more optimistic:

Here, partisan Democrats make up 30.50% of the share while partisan Republicans take home 14.92%. Inconsistent voters? They won the prize: 54.58%.

For November 2024, the presidential election, VAN stopped me from exporting the spreadsheet because of the large amount of data. But if November 2022 gave us any indication, it’s that the result for November 2024 mostly stays the same, if not better, since even more people vote in a presidential election.

Again, will the risk of the undervote somewhat undermine the importance of picking your council members? Yes. But yet again, that risk will always persist. The primary difference between a November in an odd-numbered year and a November in an even-numbered year is not just overall turnout, but more of a chance for inconsistent voters to study their local issues and decide on local leaders.

That does not mean that revisiting Senate Bill 1494 encompasses the sole piece of moving local elections to November of even-numbered years. Politicians and local parties must work in tandem — politicians using their muscle to influence votes in the legislature, and local parties providing the grassroots pressure on politicians — to make a meaningful change in our electoral system.

Possibility of all of this happening?

So will we see local elections taking place in November of even-numbered years? Probably not, at least not in the foreseeable future. Years of research has to first be conducted to strongly suggest that, even though votes for local candidates in November of odd-numbered years now surpass the old model, the vast majority of those votes actually belong to lazy partisans who really should’ve visited the polls in the old model anyway.

Another more sinister reason that local elections will probably not take place in November of even-numbered years is that the Republican Party will never permit it. Republicans fear higher turnout, especially in November of even-numbered years, because they understand that higher turnout commonly means more Democratic voters. Unless we get a radical shift away from the Republican Party at the state level, we’re stuck with dependably partisan voters deciding their local political leaders.

And that is why, again, we need to begin the intentional work from the ground up now.

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Episode 8

In this episode, I talk to Donna Wilson, DeSoto Democratic precinct chair, election judge, and HIV activist.

Donna's journey from childhood trauma to fierce advocate reveals how a single diagnosis -- HIV -- can transform passion into action. Her unwavering commitment to voting rights, community outreach, and reproductive justice is a testament to how personal struggles fuel systemic impact.

I met Donna when I was working at the Dallas County Democratic Party in 2024. She invited me to a meeting at The Afiya Center, which at the time was a reproductive justice organization, and I assisted in showing their street team how to target voters. I still have fond memories of that Monday afternoon because it was the first time I helped a nonprofit understand data.

Here is a preview clip of Donna discussing how she dealt with a family member who told her that she got what she deserved with her HIV diagnosis:

Powerful and moving episode, indeed.

Also, being a precinct chair is not an easy job but it’s incredibly rewarding. If you live in Dallas County and are interested in the work, click here to learn more.

Thank you, Donna!

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You know what time it is: time for me to dive into this election data. This cycle proved especially difficult because of this year’s redistricting. Dallas County cut down the number of precincts by around 100, so I had to reorganize my data scaffolding before I crunched the numbers. Moral of the story: redistricting sucks.

TLDR

For the Senate race, Jasmine Crockett won 58.90% to James Talarico’s 39.87%. Talarico won predominantly affluent and white communities, and Crockett gained the support of predominantly black communities. Hispanic and other ethnic communities were much more split. Overall, this was a dominant performance for the Dallas Congresswoman, but it wasn’t nearly enough to help carry the state.

For the District Attorney race, Amber Givens obtained a shock victory, at least to me, to become the presumptive next DA of Dallas County. (She faces no Republican opponent in November.) She defeated incumbent John Creuzot, 53.85% to 46.15%. Givens built a diverse coalition of white, black, and Hispanic voters in mostly middle-class communities. Creuzot, on the other hand, won mostly white and affluent communities.

The plan for November? Hopefully learn from these two campaigns and build a Big Tent to win.

By the way, AI explainer video for you.

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Overall turnout

Senate race

Across the county, 18.95% of registered voters cast their ballots in the Democratic Senate race. Here are the top five communities that did so:

DeSoto: 37.27%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 30.93%
Cedar Hill: 29.34%
Southwest Dallas: 25.80%
The Hills: 25.36%

And the bottom five:

Rowlett: 15.01%
Irving: 14.22%
Sachse: 12.29%
Sunnyvale: 11.29%
Park Cities: 9.64%

Shout-out to DeSoto for winning this distinction. Democrats here consistently show up for elections big and small.

Unsurprisingly, the communities in the bottom five are, for the most part, conservative based on their past electoral history.

The Bellwether Award for this category goes to Richardson, whose 18.86% of registered voters visited the polls to decide between Talarico and Crockett. (Or, in the case of 1.23% of the county, whether they should instead throw their support behind Ahmad Hassan.)

District Attorney race

Across the county, 17.06% of registered voters cast their ballots in the District Attorney race. Here are the top five communities:

DeSoto: 35.58%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 29.26%
Cedar Hill: 27.76%
Southwest Dallas: 24.07%
The Hills: 23.76%

And the bottom five:

Preston Hollow: 12.77%
Irving: 12.25%
Sachse: 10.70%
Sunnyvale: 10.06%
Park Cities: 8.01%

DeSoto once again takes the top spot here, while the usual conservative suspects make their way to the bottom.

The Bellwether Award for this category goes to South Dallas, with 17.23% of its registered voters making their voices heard.

Talarico vs. Crockett

On to the more fun stuff. How did each candidate for Senate fare across Dallas County? As I stated in the beginning, Crockett beat Talarico 58.90% to 39.87%.

Top 5

Here are the top five communities that voted for Talarico:

Park Cities: 88.33%
Preston Hollow: 81.95%
Greenville: 76.23%
Northwest Dallas: 68.59%
Coppell: 65.03%

And here are the top five for Crockett:

The Hills: 94.07%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 93.25%
DeSoto: 93.20%
Cedar Hill: 88.19%
Southwest Dallas: 86.60%

For the most part, Talarico won the votes of low-turnout Democratic communities. Conversely, Crockett received support from high-turnout Democratic communities.

Rowdy Rowlett

The Bellwether Award for Talarico supporters goes to Rowlett, with 39.34% of its registered voters heading to his camp.

And guess which community received the Bellwether Award for Crockett supporters? That’s right, it’s Rowlett once again, with 59.86% of its registered voters casting their ballots for her. This upper-middle-class suburb in the northeast portion of the county is not known for being a Democratic bastion, with only 45.86% of its registered voters casting their ballots for Kamala Harris in November 2024.

If Crockett wanted to run up the score in her home county of Dallas, a more blue community would’ve better represented her share of support. For instance, if we take Talarico’s 71.3% victory in his home of Williamson County and apply it to Dallas County for Crockett, Pleasant Grove would’ve been that community, as she received 71.37% of the share there. Pleasant Grove voted 72.06% for Harris in 2024.

Underperforming in key areas compared to Harris in 2024

Now, if we inspect regions in Dallas County instead of communities, we’ll see a pretty clear story:

North: Talarico: 63.51%, Crockett: 35.31%
South: Talarico: 11.62%, Crockett: 87.82%
East: Talarico: 45.25%, Crockett: 53.49%
West: Talarico: 47.64%, Crockett: 50.20%

In the predominantly white communities in Northern Dallas County, Talarico won by a substantial margin. In the predominantly black Southern Dallas County, voters overwhelmingly gravitated to Crockett.

The more interesting dynamic is the more diverse communities in the East and West. Pleasant Grove is one of them, as we just mentioned. This southeast Dallas neighborhood is predominantly Hispanic, and Crockett vastly outperformed Talarico there. Similarly, the nearby suburb of Balch Springs easily voted for her with 73.43%.

But in Lake Highlands and Northeast Dallas, with large ethnic populations in neighborhoods like Audelia and Vickery Meadow, Crockett underperformed. She received 42.26% and 36.08%, in these communities, respectively.

To put that in contrast, in 2024, Lake Highlands voted 60.07% for Harris. Northeast Dallas rewarded her with 58.39%.

If we direct our attention to the western part of the county, the narrative reflects something similar to that of the east. In a black and Hispanic community like West Dallas, Crockett won their support with 65.53%. But in Irving and Northwest Dallas, with significant ethnic diversity, she garnered only 47.52% and 30.53%, respectively.

In 2024, on the other hand, Irving gave Harris 54.82% of its votes, and Northwest Dallas handed her 63.03%.

So by and large, voters in more diverse communities tended to choose Talarico over Crockett, even though those same communities awarded decisive victories to Harris just a year and a half earlier. The fact that Crockett won Dallas County by 19% is a testament to the fervent support of residents in Southern Dallas County. That backing, however, did not scale to the rest of the state. (It’s also worth noting that Talarico won huge swaths of the predominantly Hispanic Rio Grande Valley.)

Givens vs. Creuzot

This race, in my opinion, offers much more interesting insight.

I’m not going to get into the history of Amber Givens, Presiding Judge of the 282nd Judicial District Court, or the drama of why she chose to run against incumbent Democratic District Attorney John Creuzot. Because to me, even if that story informed the election results, it is still less fascinating than the actual outcome.

Givens beat Creuzot 53.85% to 46.15%.

Top 5

Here are the top five communities that voted for Givens:

West Dallas: 64.00%
Grand Prairie: 63.92%
Irving: 63.56%
Sachse: 63.35%
Addison: 63.32%

And the top five communities that voted for Creuzot:

Preston Hollow: 71.42%
Park Cities: 70.44%
North Dallas: 59.96%
Northwest Dallas: 57.39%
Greenville: 56.03%

We notice that Givens won with a more diverse — ethnically, economically, and politically — group of voters than Creuzot. Lower-middle- to middle-income communities, like West Dallas and Grand Prairie, joined racially mixed ones, like Irving, and even some conservative bastions, like Sachse. This alliance is what a true rainbow coalition resembles.

By contrast, Creuzot shored up support from mostly white and affluent communities, with the exception of Northwest Dallas. Preston Hollow, his political home base (if you know, you know), showed him the most love.

But what we also witness is the considerable drop of support from Preston Hollow to his #5 community in Greenville: 15.39%. The gap between #1 and #5 for Givens is only 0.68%. So the challenger performed much more consistently across communities than the incumbent, helping carry herself to victory.

South Dallas, stand up

The Bellwether Awards for Givens and Creuzot supporters go to South Dallas, with 53.92% and 46.08%, respectively. That is the same community that received the Bellwether Award for overall turnout in this same race. Also, in 2024, South Dallas broke for Harris with 84.65%.

What does this tell us? If South Dallas serves as the bellwether for anything in Dallas County, you know some shit went down. This race, unbeknownst to many observers, was going to shake things up for years to come.

But actually, the fact that a black and Democratic stronghold like South Dallas was only the bellwether, as opposed to boasting about its status as one of the top five communities that voted for Givens, is part of the real remarkable phenomenon here.

Givens voters compared to Crockett voters

The day after the election, I quickly assumed that the people in Southern Dallas County who voted for Crockett granted Givens the seat for DA. And perhaps, Givens managed to cobble together enough votes from elsewhere to guarantee victory. Almost the reverse, however, turned out to be true.

If we take the top five communities that voted for Crockett, we see a radical shift away from Givens. Here are those communities and how they voted for the next DA:

The Hills: 49.37%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 56.59%
DeSoto: 53.10%
Cedar Hill: 54.11%
Southwest Dallas: 51.46%

Those are 30- and 40-point yawning chasms between two candidates in two races. Clearly, voters in these communities did not feel nearly as comfortable with Givens as they did with Crockett.

It bears repeating, though, that Givens won precisely because of a diverse coalition mostly outside of Southern Dallas County, combined with just enough tepid response to her in that part of the county. Her local victory stands out as an example of how to build an actual Big Tent for Democrats in larger elections: Reach out to everybody to earn their support, and be nice enough to those who dislike you to hopefully have them change their minds or at least stay at home.

Onward to November

So let’s talk about that Big Tent strategy.

Since the Democratic Party’s devastating loss in November 2024, I’ve witnessed two camps of Democrats: those who want to reach out to people who hate us, and those who want to almost entirely focus on people who might vote Democratic.

The second group accuses the first group of being “moderate.” The first group claims that the second group is swinging too far to the left.

Both camps gloss over nuanced perspectives in favor of often simplistic, sweeping rhetoric. Without delving too much into it, the more appropriate approach is to relentlessly stick to the issues that matter to every single voter in the area you’re running to represent – no matter what party, or lack of party, they represent.

Talarico and Givens did that. Talarico’s unifying message of galvanizing against the corporatists who run this country, mixed with his religious takes of justifying why we must do so, is what won him the Democratic nomination for Senator in a state like Texas.

Givens, although stylistically different and more technical because of the position she occupies, did not shy away from naming the enemy and detailing several policy proposals in order to form what she calls “smart justice” for Dallas County.

Both candidates devised overarching themes for their campaigns and proceeded to attempt to include as many groups as possible into their coalitions by speaking the language of those groups. That is how you earn the trust of voters, and that is how you win.

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Episode 7

In this episode, I talk to Olinka Green, longtime social justice activist in Dallas.

Most of us never realize how personal history and deep-rooted activism shape the fight for justice. Olinka’s story reveals the raw truth of a life driven by childhood trauma, relentless resilience, and a unwavering commitment to community liberation. From witnessing violence at a young age to leading environmental justice tours and growing her own food, her journey serves as a powerful testament to how individual pain fuels collective change.

I have to say, this was also a really fun episode to record. I was desperately trying not to burst out laughing during some of the segments. If you’re not into cuss words and shit like that, this might not be for you. But below is one such segment, discussing the relationship between Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson. Jesse was stressing his ass!

Thank you, Olinka!

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Episode 6

In this episode, I talk to Connie Cook, former precinct chair in Cedar Hill and now living in South Carolina. Connie has been a longtime activist in multiple states. Before she got into Democratic politics, she was an ordinary nurse who transformed communities, fought corruption, and built political change in her hometown of Baltimore. Connie’s journey reveals the secrets behind effective organizing, union battles, and the relentless passion required to stand up for others, even in the face of adversity and systemic obstacles.

I met Connie when I was working at the Dallas County Democratic Party in 2024. She led the postcard events every Wednesday at the party headquarters, and she would bring the best homemade baked goods each week. After stealing way too many cookies and cakes from behind her back, I asked her to lead the postcard- and letter-writing efforts at the Redbird satellite office. It’s sad seeing Connie take her talents to Myrtle Beach, but as long as those Gamecocks know which county party came first, I’m good.

Also, being a precinct chair is not an easy job but it’s incredibly rewarding. If you live in Dallas County and are interested in the work, click here to learn more.

Thank you, Connie!

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This podcast is available in video and audio formats. Here’s how you can get it.

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TLDR

• For the November 2024, May 2025, and November 2025 elections, precincts with Democratic precinct chairs outperformed precincts without Democratic precinct chairs in terms of overall turnout.

• In terms of getting out the vote for Democrats, precincts with precinct chairs will help a community’s Democratic turnout, but only if that community already leans blue.

• Middle- and upper-income communities tend to fare best for Democratic turnout.

• Lower-income communities tend not to be affected by precinct chairs, especially in the two smaller elections, either in terms of overall turnout or Democratic turnout. Of course, exceptions occur.

• The takeaway? As I’ve been saying, the Democratic Party’s seemingly renewed vigor on recruiting new precinct chairs is great, but it’ll work mostly for communities that already boast an established history of at least leaning toward Democrats. For lower-income communities, the key is to not discuss politics. Instead, listen to their needs and get to work. This is the two-pronged approach that I’ve been clamoring about. More about that in the Conclusion section.

Background

Happy New Year! And Happy Midterm Election Year!

To celebrate the start of 2026 and the start of yet another insane election cycle, I’m doing what I love most: diving into political data. Specifically, I want to answer these questions: Do precinct chairs increase overall turnout? And do they help the Democratic Party’s turnout?

To help answer those, I compiled data from three election cycles in Dallas County: the November 2024 presidential election, the May 2025 local election, and the November 2025 constitutional amendment election. I believe that these three serve as a good representative sample of elections that everybody knows about (presidential) and elections in which hardly anyone votes (local).

We’ll be examining two key performance indicators (KPIs) for the November 2024 election and November 2025 elections: overall turnout and Democratic turnout. For the May 2025 election, since there is no clear line between Democratic and Republican candidates and issues in nonpartisan races, we’ll be looking only at voter turnout.

For each community in Dallas County, we’ll be querying precincts with precinct chairs and precincts without precinct chairs. In the end, we’ll gain a better understanding of how precinct chairs affect the county party during election cycles.

But before we begin, what exactly is a precinct chair?

A precinct chair is the lowest-level elected official. There are two precinct chair positions for each county precinct: one for Democrats and one for Republicans. Each of these precinct chairs has one overarching goal: to get out the vote for their party. That is why they are the worker bees of the Democratic Party: they do the dirty work that no one else wants to do, for no pay and hardly any glory. I focus only on Democratic precinct chairs, naturally.

And what is a precinct? It’s basically a small division of a county. These precincts are drawn and redistricted much like congressional districts and state house districts. In fact, when those larger districts get redrawn every 10 years (or whenever the Republican Party feels like it), they base their boundaries largely on precincts. Dallas County alone has over 800 precincts. Of those 800, many are too small to even realistically have people run as precinct chairs. But as of the November 2025 election, 53% of the county’s “real” precincts are served by Democratic precinct chairs.

For this analysis and all of the analyses that I undertake, I base the work off of the data scaffolding I describe here.

Some housekeeping items

• There are also foster precinct chairs. These are people who don’t reside in the precinct they represent. Some people adopt precincts because of a lack of Democrats within those precincts who want to become precinct chairs. In this analysis, I don’t distinguish between precinct chairs and foster precinct chairs. Both of these groups put in the same amount of work.

• There are a number of precincts in Dallas County with less than 50 registered voters and with no precinct chair, as I mentioned above. I’ve excluded these precincts, since counting them would skew the numbers. It’s already difficult to find Democrats to become precinct chairs in precincts with thousands of registered voters, let alone stumbling upon them in precincts with less than 50 voters.

• This analysis is done for communities with both precincts with precinct chairs and precincts without precinct chairs. Communities that have all their precincts filled (Park Cities in November 2025) and those that have no precinct chair (Balch Springs in November 2025) are excluded. Again, it would skew the data.

• The number of precinct chairs keeps changing each election. I account for those changes. I keep a record of precinct chairs for each election.

• The percentage of precincts with precinct chairs in each community is not a primary focus of this analysis. I’ll instead point out right now that even in economically disadvantaged communities with low voter turnout, the rates of precincts that have precinct chairs rival that of the county total. South Dallas is one example. I’ve talked about this phenomenon in a previous post.

• For simplicity and conciseness, all data is presented in text and list formats. If you prefer images, an AI explainer video can be found above.

• When we examine the effects of precincts with precinct chairs vs. those without, negative percentages denote instances in which precincts without precinct chairs turned out more voters than ones with precinct chairs. This usually happens in swing or right-leaning communities.

• To further make matters slightly simpler, I’ll refer to precincts with precinct chairs as “filled precincts” and precincts without precinct chairs as “unfilled precincts.”

November 2024 election

Overall turnout

Let’s begin by looking at the top five communities in Dallas County that turned out its voters during this election. I should note that Dallas County as a whole turned out 58.41% of its registered voters:

Park Cities: 77.60%
Sunnyvale: 76.55%
Coppell: 71.07%
Preston Hollow: 70.29%
Northeast Dallas: 7.95%

And here are the bottom five:

Piedmont: 42.05%
Pleasant Grove: 41.28%
Kleberg-Rylie: 41.14%
East Oak Cliff: 41.07%
South Dallas: 39.18%

Notice anything? Communities with money tend to have more time to think about voting. This throughline will reappear later.

And across almost every community, filled precincts outperformed unfilled precincts in terms of overall turnout. As a whole, Dallas County’s filled precincts turned out 6.06% more voters than its unfilled precincts. The results were the brightest in Southern Dallas County, where filled precincts outperformed unfilled precincts by an average of 8.87%. Even in the bare West — with Irving and Grand Prairie, which are not known for having tons of precinct chairs — filled precincts turned out more voters than unfilled precincts by 4.16%.

Here are the top five communities in which filled precincts did better than unfilled ones. The percentage represents the number of voters in filled precincts more than that in unfilled precincts:

Northwest Dallas: 19.89%
Lake Highlands: 19.36%
Farmers Branch: 14.01%
Far East Dallas: 13.70%
Southwest Dallas: 13.58%

And the bottom five:

Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 0.47%
Piedmont: 0.22%
Coppell: -2.95%
Sachse: -4.82%
Richardson: -12.59%

Coppell and Sachse, which voted for Kamala Harris with a share of 50.51% and 40.43% of registered voters, respectively, experienced more turnout in unfilled precincts than filled ones. As noted in the Housekeeping section above, this happens with swing or right-leaning communities.

Strangely, however, unfilled precincts also outperformed filled precincts in Richardson, a community whose 55.17% of registered voters cast their ballots for Harris, but whose unfilled precincts outperformed filled precincts by 12%. This one’s tough. There were three unfilled precincts in Richardson for this election cycle, and all of them seem ultra-conservative. The share for Harris across these three was paltry, and voter turnout here outpaced most of the rest of Richardson’s blue-leaning precincts.

This finding indicates that, in some cases, ideological drive in a small pocket of highly engaged conservative voters can briefly overpower the turnout efforts of filled precincts in the broader blue community. In examples like this, the Democratic Party’s approach of recruiting precinct chairs specifically for those unfilled precincts likely helps with both overall turnout and Democratic turnout.

Democratic turnout

As far as Democratic turnout, let’s focus on voters who chose Harris. For the county as a whole, 61.31% of voters picked her over Trump. Again, Southern Dallas County deserves most of that credit, with 80.08% of its voters picking the would-be first black female President of the United States. The North, the lowest-performing region for Harris, still went for her, with 53.85%.

Across the county, filled precincts turned out 4.95% more Harris voters than unfilled precincts, with Southern and Eastern Dallas County shining the brightest at 5.06% each.

Here are the top five communities in which filled precincts turned out more Harris voters than unfilled precincts:

Richardson: 11.11%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 8.99%
Kiest Park: 7.65%
Duncanville: 5.32%
Piedmont: 5.19%

And the bottom five:

Preston Hollow: -3.42%
Park Cities: -4.49%
Lake Highlands: -5.91%
Farmers Branch: -7.81%
Northwest Dallas: -14.07%

You’ll notice that all top five communities outpaced the county total of 4.95%. All but one of them are considered middle- or upper-middle class.

The outlier, Piedmont, an underserved and predominantly Hispanic community, bucks that trend. If you combine the fact that its filled precincts turned out 5.19% more Harris voters than its unfilled precincts with the fact that its filled precincts and unfilled precincts turned out almost the same rate of voters overall, imagine how deadly Piedmont would be in the Democratic Party’s arsenal. Unfortunately, however, as we’ll see later, Piedmont and similar communities show up like this once every four years. If we want them to show up more frequently, we need to focus on long-term relationship-building.

And yet again, more outliers abound. For the above listed communities whose unfilled precincts outperformed filled ones, all but one (Park Cities) voted for Harris by mostly healthy margins. (Preston Hollow was the lowest, at 52.31%.)

Northwest Dallas actually did better than the county total of 61.31%, with 63.03%. Does that mean that we should neglect Northwest Dallas because its unfilled precincts vastly outperform its filled ones? Of course not. We’ve seen what happens when we take largely Democratic communities for granted. Northwest Dallas, especially, with its highly diverse population and economics, needs to see and hear more from the Democratic Party to ensure that it goes nowhere. In 2024, 55% of its precincts were filled, beating the county total that year by about 6%. We can still nudge that up a bit.

In Park Cities, however, one of the most conservative and wealthiest communities in Dallas County, Harris lost with 32.64%, even though she did better in its unfilled precincts. I don’t think this really means anything, though. This is more a statistical anomaly than a bearer of some kind of news. Don’t hold your breath for Park Cities to vote blue anytime soon.

May 2025 election

Overall turnout

A local election doesn’t provide as much insight as a presidential election for a number of reasons:

• Local elections in Texas are nonpartisan. Sure, we all pretty much know who’s a Democrat and Republican, but a lot of times, Democrats and Republicans can run against each other.

• Not every seat is contested and not every precinct has an issue to vote on, which leaves a lot of voters unable to vote for anyone or anything.

• Local elections in Texas have embarrassingly low turnout. Unless something contentious is happening with a school board or city council, only the true political nerds exercise their right to vote.

So we’re basically made to look only at overall turnout. But even there, we have some insights to chew on. The county overall turnout stood at 8.35%.

Here are the top five communities for overall turnout:

Sunnyvale: 32.04%
Park Cities: 19.36%
Richardson: 18.13%
DeSoto: 14.54%
Coppell: 13.56%

And the bottom five:

South Dallas: 4.60%
Pleasant Grove: 4.55%
East Dallas: 4.23%
Kleberg-Rylie: 4.01%
Downtown: 2.51%

What is the difference between these two groups of communities? Primarily two: money and perceived importance of the election itself. Sunnyvale, Park Cities, and DeSoto are wealthier than average. DeSoto also had a good number of city council races and a mayoral race.

South Dallas, Pleasant Grove, and Kleberg-Rylie, on the other hand, all suffer from economic disadvantage. Kleberg-Rylie in particular, a community that had a city council race go to a runoff, still only turned out barely 4% of its voters.

And while Downtown Dallas doesn’t suffer from nearly as much financial hardship, their city council member had no opponent on the ballot.

As far as the difference a precinct chair can make? The county total for this KPI stood at 2.45%. Here are the top five communities whose filled precincts outperformed its unfilled:

Farmers Branch: 7.00%
Preston Hollow: 6.68%
Buckner Terrace: 6.63%
Far North Dallas: 6.07%
Southwest Dallas: 4.81%

And the bottom five:

Richardson: -1.04%
East Dallas: -1.27%
Rowlett: -2.03%
Southeast Suburbs: -2.20%
Coppell: -5.14%

For the top five, we see people in filled precincts located in middle- and upper-middle income communities vote at higher rates than their counterparts in unfilled precincts. The one community that breaks this cycle is Buckner Terrace. This is a largely black and Hispanic, lower-middle to middle-income community. We’ll be seeing this one pop up again.

For unfilled precincts that actually outperformed filled ones, we again see middle- and upper-middle income communities. This suggests that income serves as a stronger indicator for voting in local elections, rather than whether or not your precinct has a precinct chair. Let’s hang on to that for a moment.

November 2025 election

Overall turnout

Dallas County saw a 16.31% voter turnout during this past November’s constitutional amendment election. For the top five communities that turned out its voters, we see many of the usual suspects:

Sunnyvale: 29.24%
Richardson: 25.74%
DeSoto: 21.72%
Far North Dallas: 21.51%
Sachse: 20.75%

And the bottom five:

South Dallas: 10.10%
Balch Springs: 8.85%
Piedmont: 8.82%
Kleberg-Rylie: 8.38%
Pleasant Grove: 8.27%

Again, for the top five, it’s middle- or upper-middle class communities that care about voting.

For the bottom five, it’s the opposite. In fact, Piedmont, the community that offered a glimmer of hope during the November 2024 presidential election for finishing in the top five for precinct chairs turning out their neighbors at much higher rates, finished just a year later in a smaller election near the bottom of the list in overall turnout.

Next, let’s look at the the top five whose filled precincts outperformed its unfilled:

Lake Highlands: 10.95%
Far North Dallas: 9.12%
Buckner Terrace: 8.51%
Southwest Dallas: 8.42%
Far East Dallas: 7.53%

And yet again, middle- and upper-middle income communities appear. Except, again, Buckner Terrace.

As far as the bottom five are concerned, where unfilled precincts fared better than filled:

Rowlett: -1.11%
Cedar Hill: -1.62%
Sachse: -2.17%
Addison: -3.51%
Coppell: -5.29%

And what do you know, all middle- or upper-middle income communities.

This suggests that, just like the May 2025 election, communities with money have more time to think about voting, regardless of whether or not their precincts have precinct chairs.

Democratic turnout

Determining Democratic turnout for this election required some executive decision-making. As I noted in the post in which I delved into this election at length, the Dallas County Democratic Party made recommendations for each of the 17 propositions, but not every Democrat agreed with them. So I came up with a calculation to cut through that noise. As it turns out, Democrats at large in Dallas County tended to agree with each other about which propositions to vote for and against, regardless of party guidance.

Here are the top five communities in which Democratic precinct chairs convinced their neighbors to vote for progressive propositions:

Buckner Terrace: 0.0271
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 0.0265
Far North Dallas: 0.0165
Cedar Hill: 0.0164
Kiest Park: 0.0145

The values assigned to the communities are more proprietary calculations than they are actual percentages. The importance here is the list of communities.

Middle- and upper-middle income communities appear here, with Buckner Terrace grabbing the top spot.

Finally, here are the bottom five:

Sachse: -0.0028
West Dallas: -0.0038
The Hills: -0.0103
DeSoto: -0.0154
Northwest Dallas: -0.0176

For this list, you’ll notice higher-income communities and Democratic strongholds. Sachse and DeSoto, although on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have the money to not worry about whether or not they have precinct chairs in order to visit the ballot. The Hills, West Dallas, and Northwest Dallas, even though they may not appear in every top five, still contribute large percentages of its registered voters to Democratic causes.

Conclusion

So, what does this all mean?

The data confirms that precinct chairs matter mainly in higher-turnout presidential elections and established blue communities, boosting both overall and Democratic turnout. However, their impact is significantly muted in off-year elections and lower-income communities, where income appears to be a stronger turnout indicator.

And because of that, we need to more intelligently direct our efforts toward different kinds of communities. As I stated after the November 2025 election, we should essentially devise a two-pronged approach to organizing: a short-term sprint that prioritizes middle- and upper-middle income Democratic strongholds, and a long-term marathon that focuses on many of the communities that appeared on today’s lists.

I should make it clear: Lack of voter engagement, especially in off years and especially in communities that enjoy reasonable levels of filled precincts, is not the fault of precinct chairs. This post’s data, along with data from previous posts, demonstrates the consistent, underwhelming nature of the party’s lack of organizational intentionality.

We need leadership from the top to not just recruit new precinct chairs, but to recruit a whole new band of allies under our big tent. Those allies are the grassroots organizations and organizers — the ones that don’t necessarily even associate with the Democratic Party — that have been doing the work that matters most to people’s everyday lives and gaining little attention from the party.

We must zero in on relationship-building in lower-income communities by supporting local, non-political grassroots organizations and addressing everyday needs to build trust and constant engagement.

Imagine, say, if we conducted more attention toward communities like Piedmont and Buckner Terrace? These are ones that, based on the data, already display potential, but need an extra push from the Democratic Party. The work we put in now will pay dividends in the future.

Absent this intentional, two-pronged shift in strategy, we should expect these same, underwhelming data patterns to repeat in every November election for years to come.

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Episode 5

In this episode, I talk to the father-daughter duo of Julio Chaparro and Aggi Alvarado. Julio immigrated from Mexico to Dallas in the 1980s, and is now the co-chair of Justice for Joppa, located in the historic Freedman’s community of Joppa in Southern Dallas.

They share their experiences of local activism, the challenges of gentrification, and the power of community resilience. Explore how Julio’s immigrant story fuels his determination to create a healthier future for Joppa and their fight against industrial pollution caused by TAMKO, the billion-dollar asphalt shingle company.

Thank you, Julio and Aggi!

And also, I can’t resist. Immigrants… WE GET THE JOB DONE!

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I want to invite everyone to two very special and free events that Downwinders at Risk is hosting. I’ve previously written about Downwinders: It’s the DFW environmental justice organization whose Toxic Twins campaign aims to amortize the TAMKO asphalt shingle plant in Joppa and the GAF asphalt shingle plant in West Dallas.

Since July, when I wrote that post, Dallas council members had taken notice of the organizing efforts. In fact, on November 21, Council Members Adam Bazaldua (who represents Joppa), Laura Cadena (who represents West Dallas), Chad West, Zarin Gracey, and Paula Blackmon signed the five-signature memo to request a consultant to give Council a dollar amount for the amortization of these two plants. This item was placed on the agenda and will be discussed on Wednesday, December 10 at City Hall.

This is the necessary and first real step to this process, and it’s been a long time coming. Our work, however, is far from over. Thank you to those who have volunteered. If you want to speak at City Hall on December 10 to make sure they approve this item, let me know. We’ll have everything ready for you.

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Bus tour

The first event is a bus tour. It’ll be a mix of narratives from historians and community leaders, and a chance to hang out together while learning more about our city.

Here are the details:
Date: Saturday, December 6
Time: Bus leaves at 9:30 AM
Meetup: Good Coworking at 1808 S Good Latimer Expy, Dallas, TX 75226
RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/Dallastoxictour

Movie screening

Now, the bus tour will be fun and everything, but I wasn’t involved in it. So if you can only make one event, let me sway you to join the team that I was on: the movie screening.

We will watch about 30 to 45 minutes of a documentary that Downwinders is putting together about the many ways that residents of Joppa and West Dallas have been living and resisting the Toxic Twins. Starting with the RSR lead smelter in the 1930s all the way to the current polluters of today, we will explore how the city of Dallas has willingly supported the health deterioration of black and brown neighborhoods.

Following the screening, we will have a panel of community residents and subject matter experts. We’ve also invited Council Members Bazaldua and Cadena. Will they show up? That’s the fun part! Moderating this panel in which Bazaldua may or may not be there is Matt Goodman, formerly of D Magazine and now cofounder of The Lab Report Dallas.

Here are the details for this one:
Date: Saturday, December 13
Time: 12 PM to 3 PM
Meetup: Pegasus City Brewery at 1508 Commerce St, Dallas, TX 75201
RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/ToxicTwinsDoc

See you then and let’s start saying bye to 2025 the right way!

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Episode 4

In this episode, I talk to Michele Saranovich, Democratic activist and Dallas County precinct chair of Precinct 2049. That’s my precinct! I met Michele when I knocked on her door one day in 2022 to invite her to our neighborhood Democratic Halloween party. That same party was the one that Colin Allred attended, and it’s the picture that hits your inbox that accompanies every one of these bangers.

She shares her journey from reporting on the nascent nuclear energy movement in the state of Washington to her pivotal role in environmental policy and nuclear waste management in Washington, D.C. Discover her insights on the evolution of energy policies, the challenges of being a woman in STEM in the 1970s, and her transition to local politics in her new home of Dallas.

It was fun catching up with my precinct chair! Being a precinct chair is not an easy job but it’s incredibly rewarding. If you live in Dallas County and are interested in the work, click here to learn more.

Thank you, Michele!

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This podcast is available in video and audio formats. Here’s how you can get it.

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Source: Dallas County Elections Department

Now that this year’s constitutional amendment election is over, let’s take a look at how Dallas County performed and what we can glean from the results.

TLDR: Based on the data, Texas is still fundamentally a conservative state, and it’ll take us a while to change that. As far as Dallas County is concerned, we need to focus more on turning out likely Democrats in communities of color. That also probably applies to urban counties in general.

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Voter turnout

First and foremost, many more people voted in this election than in the November 2023 election. In November 2023, 11.96% of registered voters in Dallas County visited the polls. This year, 16.31% of registered voters cast their ballots. A big win! Of course, voter turnout is usually better in a year after a presidential election than in a year after a midterm. But this year especially, with No Kings protests, Texas Democrats leaving the state because of Republican gerrymandering, California Democrats passing their own version of gerrymandering, and just Trump in general, people felt more motivated to vote.

Senate District 9

Although not in Dallas County, the race for Senate District 9 in neighboring Tarrant County delivered the biggest sign of hope for Texas Democrats. Taylor Rehmet finished first in a three-candidate field, receiving 47.6% of the vote in a historically Republican district, and will be heading into a runoff with MAGA darling Leigh Wambsganss, who garnered 36% of the vote.

We can credit Rehmet’s strong performance to his inspiring story, sticking to issues that actually matter to people, and the grassroots organizing that has taken place in that district. At least some of that organizing can be connected to the work by the 817 Gather community. This Tarrant County group of progressives does not explicitly associate with the Democratic Party, concentrating instead on local issues and giving activists actionable items each week on its podcast and each month in their in-person meetings. The Democratic Party needs to take some cues from them, which is something we’ll briefly mention again later.

Outside of Senate District 9, however, the picture is less clear. While voter turnout far exceeded that of two years ago, the results fundamentally remained the same. I won’t go into each local race in Dallas County, as that would take far too long and candidates facing each other in nonpartisan races sometimes represent the same party. I’ll instead discuss the voting results of the 17 propositions and what that might tell us about the future.

Texans at large still voted conservative

First, let’s acknowledge that Texas voters passed all 17 propositions. That includes the bad ones, like Proposition 12, which allows Governor Greg Abbott to appoint a majority of the independent commission that disciplines judges, the ones he condemns as “activist judges.” We Texas Democrats simply cannot brush this off. Over the past week, I’ve witnessed Texas political insiders and casual liberals alike pivot to Zohran Mamdani becoming New York City’s next mayor or the possibility that Gavin Newsom will be our next presidential candidate. Frankly, for now, I don’t care. Despite two massively successful No Kings protests, countless visibility protests, and general anger directed at Trump and the Republican Party, Texans decided to grant more power to state Republican politicians.

You may believe that voters may not have read or were confused by the wording of the propositions. I confess that I thought that as well, posting on social media the day after the election that “vibe voting,” the act of going to the voting center without a clear idea of the contents on the ballot and relying on feeling and energy, contributed to the passing of all 17 propositions. How can all this insanity be happening and people are still giving Abbott more power? I wondered. Once I crunched the data for Dallas County, however, another narrative, one that had little to do with vibe voting, arose.

Turnout for Dallas County

We’ll examine that data by first looking up the recommendations made by the Dallas County Democratic Party (DCDP). Here’s their short guide:

Next, we’ll inspect how turnout fared across Dallas County and list the top five communities where voters made their voices heard. I use my own breakdown of communities that I mentioned in a previous post.

Coming in at the top five are…
Sunnyvale: 29.24%
Richardson: 25.74%
DeSoto: 21.72%
Far North Dallas: 21.51%
Sachse: 20.75%

Congratulations to Sunnyvale! You guys are always overlooked. Richardson, DeSoto, Far North Dallas, and Sachse round out that list.

And the bottom five belongs to…
South Dallas Area: 10.10%
Balch Springs: 8.85%
Piedmont Area: 8.82%
Kleberg-Rylie: 8.38%
Pleasant Grove: 8.27%

What’s the big difference between these two groups of communities? Money. As I’ve stated before, people with more income tend to have more time to think about voting. We’ll touch on this again later in this post.

How did each proposition do throughout Dallas County?

Because I love this stuff, and because I know you love it too, here is how each proposition did. First, let’s take a look at each proposition’s performance throughout the entire county. The percentage represents the percentage of people who voted for the proposition. We’ll also keep in mind how DCDP recommended each proposition.

Proposition 1 (DCDP recommends FOR): 76.55%
Proposition 2 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 54.38%
Proposition 3 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 47.74%
Proposition 4 (DCDP recommends FOR): 74.87%
Proposition 5 (DCDP recommends FOR): 56.88%
Proposition 6 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 45.01%
Proposition 7 (DCDP recommends FOR): 84.88%
Proposition 8 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 64.16%
Proposition 9 (DCDP recommends FOR): 62.00%
Proposition 10 (DCDP recommends FOR): 85.69%
Proposition 11 (DCDP recommends FOR): 74.85%
Proposition 12 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 49.49%
Proposition 13 (DCDP recommends FOR): 76.63%
Proposition 14 (DCDP recommends FOR): 73.45%
Proposition 15 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 60.14%
Proposition 16 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 60.27%
Proposition 17 (DCDP recommends AGAINST): 44.80%

Next, let’s break it down to the community level. Here are the top five communities that voted for each proposition.

Proposition 1 (DCDP recommends FOR)
The Hills: 84.96%
DeSoto: 83.98%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 83.97%
East Oak Cliff: 83.78%
Southwest Dallas: 82.78%

Proposition 2 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Park Cities: 81.97%
Sunnyvale: 80.31%
Sachse: 72.89%
Rowlett: 67.40%
Preston Hollow: 66.31%

Proposition 3 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Sunnyvale: 71.71%
Sachse: 65.16%
Park Cities: 64.63%
Rowlett: 59.70%
Garland: 58.52%

Proposition 4 (DCDP recommends FOR)
East Dallas: 78.77%
Lake Highlands: 78.63%
Sachse: 77.53%
Downtown Area: 77.45%
Richardson: 77.35%

Proposition 5 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Park Cities: 77.20%
Sunnyvale: 72.38%
Sachse: 69.53%
Preston Hollow: 65.88%
Richardson: 64.28%

Proposition 6 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Park Cities: 73.26%
Sunnyvale: 69.36%
Sachse: 61.92%
Preston Hollow: 56.97%
Rowlett: 55.29%

Proposition 7 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Sachse: 90.00%
Sunnyvale: 89.66%
Rowlett: 88.67%
DeSoto: 88.21%
Cedar Hill: 87.51%

Proposition 8 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Sunnyvale: 86.33%
Park Cities: 83.44%
Sachse: 80.58%
Rowlett: 75.76%
Garland: 71.04%

Proposition 9 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Park Cities: 78.99%
Sunnyvale: 77.59%:
Sachse: 73.65%
Preston Hollow: 68.16%
Rowlett: 67.71%

Proposition 10 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Sachse: 92.09%
Sunnyvale: 91.98%
Rowlett: 89.96%
Cedar Hill: 88.78%
DeSoto: 88.19%

Proposition 11 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Sachse: 82.81%
Sunnyvale: 82.62%
Rowlett: 81.14%
DeSoto: 78.99%
Cedar Hill: 77.80%

Proposition 12 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Sunnyvale: 74.49%
Sachse: 68.35%
Park Cities: 64.61%
Rowlett: 64.20%
Garland: 61.97%

Proposition 13 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Park Cities: 88.50%
Sachse: 86.47%
Sunnyvale: 85.65%
Rowlett: 84.10%
Preston Hollow: 82.85%

Proposition 14 (DCDP recommends FOR)
Garland: 76.06%
DeSoto: 75.98%
North & West Oak Cliff: 75.94%
The Hills: 75.84%
Buckner Terrace Area: 75.70%

Proposition 15 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Sunnyvale: 83.36%
Park Cities: 76.36%
Sachse: 75.90%
Rowlett: 73.69%
Southeast Suburbs: 70.95%

Proposition 16 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Sunnyvale: 85.56%
Park Cities: 80.97%
Sachse: 77.13%
Rowlett: 73.06%
Mesquite: 69.81%

Proposition 17 (DCDP recommends AGAINST)
Park Cities: 71.91%
Sunnyvale: 70.85%
Sachse: 61.91%
Rowlett: 56.15%
Preston Hollow: 54.11%

If you’ve bothered to make it this far and you’re familiar with Dallas County, you’ll notice a pattern: In general, more left-leaning communities voted with DCDP’s recommendations, and more right-leaning communities voted against.

But how do we know for sure that certain communities tend to vote Democratic while others vote Republican? Shouldn’t we have data for that as opposed to relying on vibes?

Well, I’m glad you asked! The best way to suss out a community’s political leanings is by looking at how they voted in the most recent presidential election.

Here are the top five communities that voted for Kamala Harris in November 2024.
The Hills: 90.04%
East Oak Cliff: 86.48%
South Dallas Area: 84.65%
DeSoto: 84.59%
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 83.44%

And here are the bottom five.
Coppell & Lewisville: 50.51%
Rowlett: 45.86%
Sachse: 40.43%
Park Cities: 32.64%
Sunnyvale: 32.52%

Notice a trend between these two lists and the 17 previous lists?

The Hills (comprised of Highland Hills and Singing Hills), East Oak Cliff, and DeSoto, among others, remain consistent Democratic bastions that the party must rely on. Conservative communities on the other hand, like Sunnyvale, Park Cities, and Sachse, tended to vote against DCDP’s recommendations and also voted for Trump.

Dispelling a myth about voting habits in this election

Before we move on, I want to address a claim that some Democrats, including myself, make: People go to the polls and don’t really know what they’re voting on. While this may be true for bigger elections, when infrequent voters stroll to the polls knowing who they want as president but have no clue which municipal bond to support, it actually may not ring true for smaller elections.

If you vote in an odd-year election, chances are that you’ve done your research. We can see that this cycle. DCDP made some recommendations that many progressives, including other county Democratic parties, disagreed with. Proposition 5 (tax exemption on animal feed) and Proposition 9 (inventory and equipment tax exemption) are two such examples. For those, the staunchly conservative strongholds of Park Cities, Sunnyvale, Sachse, and Preston Hollow all agreed with the county party.

But that also means that people, for the most part, put more effort into voting than we may give them credit for. If people truly did vibe vote, the results in this election would not have proven nearly as consistent. That also means, unfortunately, that all the conservative propositions passed not because of clueless voters, but because of conservative voters.

Yes, Democrats across Texas are feeling good right now. Yes, we love our protests and gatherings. But allow me to be your resident Debbie Downer: Texas Democrats haven’t yet won an outright victory. I would venture to guess that most of the reason we feel so high is because Democrats across the nation scored huge victories: New York, California, and Virginia, namely.

And even though Texas voters turned out in record numbers, outside of Senate District 9, we haven’t seen anything tangible in our state that should lead us to believe that we’ll be flipping it blue anytime soon. Democratic voter turnout increases, but so does Republican voter turnout.

Now, if more state-level races, like the one for Senate District 9, were on the ballot alongside those 17 propositions, would we have seen different results? Would exciting and energetic Democratic candidates who rile up the base have prompted more progressives to vote? Perhaps. But that’s all the more reason that we should dig in to our base now and focus on one thing that we’ve learned studying this data, at least in Dallas County: Focus on communities of color.

Democratic alignment

I’m tired of repeating it: Democrats need to focus on communities of color, especially disadvantaged neighborhoods. This holds especially true for urban counties like Dallas. But it also resonates for rural Hispanic counties, like those in the Rio Grande Valley, as Esme Zuniga, former Communications Director for the Hidalgo County Democratic Party, explained on my last podcast episode.

But since I live in Dallas, I’ll stick to Dallas. As we dive a little more into this election’s results, we find something rather unsettling for the Democratic Party: communities with huge Democratic potential that display low voter turnout.

I wondered, just based on this election, which communities align most with the Democratic mission and which do not. This is actually something that stemmed from a much larger data effort I completed soon after the November 2024 election. More on that in later posts.

But for this cycle, I put together a calculation that factored Democratic turnout from November 2024 and alignment with DCDP on this year’s propositions. That way, we can see which communities are the most ready for progressive organizing in 2026. (I realize that DCDP made some peculiar proposition recommendations this year, but apparently voters recognized that as well, since they didn’t take to heart the county party’s recommendations.)

Overall, Dallas County itself averaged 0.40 on this score. Northwest Dallas, a community with a diverse population of whites, blacks, and immigrants, also scored 0.40. The interesting thing about Northwest Dallas is that both it and the county posted eerily similar turnout results: Northwest Dallas turned out 16.35% of its registered voters and Dallas County turned out 16.31% of its registered voters. So if we want to know how Dallas County is doing, we should look no further than Northwest Dallas.

As far as communities ripe for more intentional progressive organizing, what do we find? Here is the list ranked in descending order of total alignment with the Democratic Party.

The Hills: 0.58
East Oak Cliff: 0.57
DeSoto: 0.55
South Dallas Area: 0.55
Lancaster & Glenn Heights: 0.53

Are you picking up on it? Many of the same familiar names keep appearing. The Hills, East Oak Cliff, and South Dallas are all largely black communities that vote solidly blue, but whose voter turnout lags behind the rest of the county. DeSoto and Lancaster are largely black communities that also vote blue but that regularly show up at the polls.

Where we can go from here

What does this tell us? Two things. First, black people in Dallas County (and in urban counties at large) make up the base of the Democratic Party.

Second, the Democratic Party needs to devise a more proper organizing strategy. To me, the organizing should really be broken down into two prongs: long-term grassroots outreach and short-term campaigning. Communities like The Hills, East Oak Cliff, and South Dallas, where economic disinvestment has reigned for far too long, can benefit from the former. DeSoto and Lancaster, on the other hand, probably need to be only reminded of who’s running for what races and what municipal bonds to vote on.

That is not to say that the two prongs are mutually exclusive. In the end, all of our organizing is done so that more progressive candidates take office and do the work for the people. But in communities where people feel detached from the broader political system, mostly because of lack of economic opportunities, we need to actually listen to their concerns and propose new and progressive solutions.

Yes, progressive, but the operative word here is new. I fear that’s something the Democratic Party might not budge on. People who constantly worry about how to pay rent or put food on the table don’t care about party insiders yelling at them to vote Democratic. They need to fulfill the bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — food, shelter, safety — before they can decide who to support in a primary. That is why reaching out to grassroots organizations and organizers, ones who don’t necessarily associate with the Democratic Party or even progressives, should make up a crucial part of the party’s outreach strategy.

In Dallas County, for example, as is the case with other urban counties, affordable housing is in short supply. A myriad of nonprofits and influencers in this space have been tackling the issue, but only a scant number of well-known Democratic politicians, at least in Texas, include it in their rallying cries.

Multimodal forms of transportation — walking, biking, trolleys, buses, and trains — should be the no-brainer default option for how we move around town. More cars, roads, and highways induce more sprawl and make it more difficult for economically disadvantaged people, many of whom are black and brown, to go to work and carry out simple errands. Grassroots organizations have been shouldering this cause, assembling their supporters to speak at city halls and canvass people at train stations, but hardly any Democratic politician at the local level has served as the face of saving public transportation.

Racist environmental impact from outdated factories built in more recently zoned black and brown neighborhoods affects black and brown people more than white people. There is no other way of saying that. Organizers have for decades known this and have fought against it, but without that one strong Democratic voice in office advancing environmental justice, fewer people pay attention.

The solution to these problems is not just to simply search for candidates to run for office who promise that they’ll work on these issues. The way to address them is to have strong local Democratic parties that become the thought leaders on these topics and act as the intermediary between the politicians, Republican and Democratic politicians alike, and the people. This is much like how the 817 Gather community has done it in Tarrant County.

Will we see change right away? No. This is not going to be an overnight success. But hardly anything truly successful and long-lasting happened quickly. This is going to take years of hard and intentional work, reaching out to communities and organizations that haven’t been regularly contacted, listening to their needs, and providing meaningful support.

As far as 2026 in Texas is concerned, let’s hope for the best.

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Episode 3

In this episode, I talk to Esme Zuniga, who works at the DFW environmental justice organization Downwinders at Risk. I met Esme when I started volunteering for Downwinders in their Toxic Twins campaign to shut down two asphalt shingle factories in Dallas.

We explore her journey from community organizing in the Rio Grande Valley to her impactful work with Downwinders at Risk. Esme shares her family’s deep-rooted history in Texas, her early influences in activism, and the challenges and triumphs she faced as the Communications Director for the Hidalgo County Democratic Party. We also discuss the importance of local political engagement, the evolving landscape of activism in Dallas, and the need for a united Democratic front.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this episode. I expected to interview Esme mostly about environmental justice, but we actually dove deep into Democratic Party infrastructure. Tune in to discover how she convinced one popular head of the DNC to attend an event in the Valley.

Thank you, Esme!

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Well, I definitely didn’t plan to write this today.

But after The Texas Tribune reported yesterday that the state party is preparing to move its headquarters from Austin to Dallas, I felt the need.

A brief history of Kendall Scudder’s political career

Kendall Scudder, a young and charismatic Democratic politician from Dallas – one who’s run multiple unsuccessful campaigns for various positions before finally winning a newly created and uncontested seat for the Dallas Central Appraisal District in May 2024 – has been Chair of the Texas Democratic Party for six months. He ascended to that honor after the previous Chair underperformed for 12 years. Scudder had put his name in the hat and easily won the votes of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) during the special election – mostly through his energy and strength in retail politics, but also because he used to talk a bunch of shit about Governor Greg Abbott on his podcast.

Mind you, I’ve never had any real conversation with Scudder. We briefly exchanged greetings when I was working at the Dallas County Democratic Party (DCDP) last year. And I don’t have some sort of personal vendetta against him. Had I been on the SDEC this year, I probably would have voted for him. Not because he brought any unique skillset, but because I believed he was the best option at the time. In my view, the person most equipped to serve as Chair of the Texas Democratic Party is Beto O’Rourke. He’s got the insane passion and deep knowledge of Democratic politics in the entire state of Texas to be the inspirational leader that our state party needs. I still wish he can take some sort of bigger role in our politics.

Scudder’s appearance on a podcast after the news broke

Scudder, on the other hand, is from Dallas and he’s been politicking in Dallas for years. He delivered no clear reason for the move other than to mention that Dallas is bigger than Austin. That’s what he essentially said in a podcast episode yesterday, immediately after the news broke, to Progress Texas, a rapid-response media organization that purports to promote progressive messages and actions. Let’s talk about that episode.

Kathleen Thompson, Executive Director of Progress Texas and former Communications Director of DCDP, and Chris Mosser, Podcasting Director, decided to create an emergency episode just for Scudder. And boy, was it something. In the span of 18 minutes, Thompson and Mosser decided to discard any bit of journalistic integrity that they might have possessed and twist themselves into pretzels for the sole purpose of defending the state party chair’s actions.

In one instance, Thompson attempted to justify the state party’s relocation by stating that Progress Texas and ACLU Texas also moved their offices from Austin to Dallas and Houston, respectively. This is not the same thing. The state party is a political institution, with expectations of being in constant contact with state-level politicians and conducting events at or around the Texas Capitol. Pointing out two organizations that happened to move from Austin to other cities doesn’t matter in the context of a state party’s responsibilities.

In another and more unfortunate instance, Thompson, Mosser, and Scudder seemed to demean the unnamed sources in the Tribune’s article, inviting them to the podcast to essentially reveal themselves. This is crazy. We’re pretending that sources speaking on the condition of anonymity have never existed in the history of journalism. Every week, it seems, we (including, most likely, Progress Texas) rely on anonymous sources to give us peeks inside Austin’s and Washington’s corruption and bad leadership, but we retaliate at the thought that it would ever happen to our beloved Democratic Party in Texas. Thompson and Mosser know better than that.

Moreover, the three made only passing mentions of the Executive Director, Chief of Staff, and the two communications staffers departing the state party after Scudder required them to move to Dallas by November or be laid off. For a party that claims to be for the people and for labor rights, Scudder sure is acting like the stereotypical Republican CEO of a large corporation.

The possible real reason for this shakeup

You might assume that he made this move because he didn’t feel like traveling in and out of his home city of Dallas. And you wouldn’t be wrong. Scudder does claim that he’s keeping the Austin office (although not as the headquarters) and opening up more state party administrative and organizing offices around Texas. On the face of it, especially to casual political observers, this might seem to soften the initial headlines. But let’s examine that deeper.

I wrote about this next part when I discussed the role of the Party. First, the state party already has satellite offices: they’re the county party offices, and they’re staffed by the worker bees of the Democratic Party. Each county party, like DCDP, has, at the very least, a Chair and precinct chairs. They, and especially the precinct chairs, carry out the unsung work of helping get Democrats elected up and down the ballot. This system has been in operation for decades, not just in Texas but all around the nation. Your local party is your go-to source for Democratic activism.

So why then all of this movement? This next bit is going to be a little inside baseball. Let’s set aside that Scudder has deep ties to the Dallas political class, including to those at DCDP, where I met him. I, personally, am curious about how Texas Majority PAC will tie in with all of this.

I briefly brought up Texas Majority PAC, or TMP, in a previous post. It is a George Soros-funded political action committee based in Houston, whose leaders served on Beto O’Rourke’s failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign. TMP partnered with multiple county parties, including Dallas, last year to help set up and finance their organizing strategies. The problem was, as I noted in my post, they’re not the best organizers in the world.

But what I also didn’t mention is the insane blowback that DCDP and TMP received after the November 2024 election. This occurred at the County Executive Committee meeting – a quarterly meeting of the county party’s Chair, staff, and precinct chairs – in December, over the lack of transparency from DCDP, TMP, and its various consultants who received handsome paychecks while delivering less-than-stellar voter turnout results. I did not attend that meeting as I had departed DCDP, and I do not know anything about the financials of the situation. The reputations of DCDP and TMP, however, came into question.

TMP made sure to pay special attention to DCDP, though, as we were by far their biggest client. Additionally, this year, TMP launched Blue Texas, a statewide organizing strategy in partnership with the state party. So instead of teaming up with individual county parties, as it did last year, TMP, under the state party’s new leadership, has gone straight to the top. It seems that TMP has kept their clients from last year and added a few more, but still none are as big as Dallas. Blue Texas is actually currently hiring staff, so the organization is definitely gearing up for 2026.

Now let’s move on to pure speculation on my part. Those additional state party satellite offices that Scudder so proudly touted? Those might be Blue Texas offices. And let’s say that Dallas is the state party’s new headquarters precisely because of TMP and its biggest county party client, DCDP. That move makes matters easier for the state party, the state party’s organizing arm in TMP, and TMP’s biggest county party client in DCDP. Many of the main players would be located in Dallas and can more freely communicate with each other. And let’s not forget, whenever a PR crisis arises, they can drive to Progress Texas’ office.

Is it lazy? Absolutely. Is it questionable? Yes, in that Dallas would be receiving preferential treatment and would be in the room where it happens much more often. It’s that mentality that I’ve called the Dallas Blob. I borrowed the term “Blob” from Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor during the Obama administration, who used it to refer to an amorphous group of people who had known each other for years and engaged in groupthink to shape policy. When it comes to Texas Democratic politics, the Dallas Blob seems to be taking over more of the state. Texas is more than just Dallas, and good politics is more than just the friends you’ve known.

On his podcast appearance yesterday, Kendall Scudder stated that he is “not here to be the Chairman of a party that continues to lose.” With his misguided administrative and organizing decisions, letting go of high-quality staff and surrendering the organizing reins to an entity that has not yet made a meaningful dent in organizing Texas, he’s well on his way to becoming just that.

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Second podcast episode out today!

In this episode, I interviewed Dave Henley, an environmental activist living in Southwest Dallas. I met Dave last year, right after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and handed the reins to Kamala Harris. He came into my office and asked how he can help and whether I knew anything about environmental activism in the area. I wrote about that interaction in a previous post:

Chronicles of a Dallas County Democrat

What is the Role of Your Local Democratic Party? (Part 1)

This is the first of a three-part series about the role of your local Democratic party. I examined the role of the Democratic Party as a whole in a previous post, and now I am delving into local parties more specifically…

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8 months ago · AZ Zayan

We discussed his journey into environmental activism, becoming a meteorologist in the Navy, and the impact of the documentary An Inconvenient Truth on his advocacy. The conversation explores the importance of community engagement, the challenges of convincing politicians about climate change, and the future of environmentalism in Dallas. Dave emphasizes the need for local activism and the preservation of green spaces, encouraging the audience to take action in their communities.

Thank you, Dave!

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“Hi, my name is Dave.”

“Hi, Dave,” I greeted him as he walked into my office – the satellite office for the Dallas County Democratic Party in Southern Dallas in 2024 – for an impromptu meeting. “I’m AZ. How can I help you?”

“I’m a member of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby,” he responded. “Have you heard of it? I’m on the Steering Committee for our DFW chapter.”

I felt a twinge of embarrassment. I’m supposed to represent the Democratic Party and I don’t know about these groups, I thought. What’s worse, climate change is the issue I care about most.

“No,” I admitted. “I’ve never heard of you guys. What do you do?”

“We’re a large nonpartisan organization that lobbies governments to pass climate legislation. We go to D.C. every year and we also go to Austin every two years. Now we’re starting to focus our efforts locally.”

“That’s really great,” I answered, excited about the direction of the conversation. “Especially since climate change is my top concern.”

He looked surprised. “Really?” he asked. “What do the people in these communities tell you about climate change?”

“They don’t,” I replied. “I’ve personally knocked on a countless number of doors so far this year and I can count on one hand the number of people who have expressed that climate change is their top priority. It’s hard to think about it when you’re trying to pay the bills or hear random shootings outside your window in some neighborhoods.”

Dave agreed and understood. We chatted for a bit more before wrapping up, promising him that I’d reach back out with how we could work more closely on bringing climate change awareness to Southern Dallas.

And that set off a cascade of opinions and ideas on my end.

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The relationship between local parties and their allied organizations

Most local Democratic parties readily align themselves with one of their community Democratic clubs. In the case of Dallas County, the Richardson Area Democrats and the Preston Hollow Democrats are two such examples. Notice how both of these clubs have the word “Democrats” in their names. These kinds of organizations act more or less as a collective arm of the local party, hosting events for politicians and educating their communities about general Democratic ideals.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this setup. Democratic clubs provide valuable resources to help Democrats get elected. The problem, however, is twofold: 1) local parties tend to rely too heavily on their Democratic clubs and don’t give enough seats at the table to other left-leaning organizations; and 2) in general, more Democratic clubs exist in more affluent parts of a county, while underserved communities don’t have the same number of organizations that focus on their needs and communicate with the local party.

Not enough seats at the table

In the case of the first problem, local parties may have regularly scheduled meetings with their allied organizations. In those meetings, the party discusses the agenda, upcoming events, and how to turn out the vote for Democrats. Again, this is not an actual issue. It becomes an issue when almost all of the guests of these meetings are specifically Democratic clubs located almost entirely in privileged areas whose populaces already turn out to vote in larger numbers than communities not represented in those meetings.

Let’s take, for example, the communities represented by the two organizations above: Richardson and Preston Hollow. Then let’s examine three pieces of data for each: 1) how many of these communities’ precincts have precinct chairs, 2) these communities’ voting data from the presidential election in November 2024, and 3) and their local election data from May 2025.

Richardson

In November 2024, Richardson, a suburb north of Dallas that boasts one of the most diverse populations in Dallas County and is a growing hub for businesses, had 86% of their precincts filled with Democratic precinct chairs. For that election, 67% of its registered voters visited the polls.

In May 2025, Richardson lost one of its precinct chairs, making it 81%. The turnout for that election was at 18%.

In contrast, the county total for filled Democratic precincts was 49% for November 2024 and 52% for May 2025. For voting, the county experienced a 58% turnout in November 2024 and an 8% turnout in May 2025.

So Richardson definitely outpaced the county in both Democratic precincts filled and voter turnout.

Preston Hollow

The other community is Preston Hollow, one of the most affluent in all of Dallas County. Notably, former President George W. Bush resides there.

In November 2024, Preston Hollow’s precincts were filled at 50%. In May 2025, its precincts were filled at 43%. This may seem like a bit of an underwhelming performance for the Democratic Party, but keep in mind that predominantly white and ultra wealthy individuals tend not to be Democrats. That rings true with Preston Hollow’s voting data: a 70% turnout in November 2024 and a 13% turnout in May 2025, both exceeding the county total. High voter turnout and an average number of filled Democratic precincts likely means that most of these votes went to conservative politicians.

South Dallas

Next, let’s contrast those numbers with less privileged communities around Dallas County. South Dallas, for instance, one with a large black population, had 47% of their precincts filled in November 2024, with a 39% voter turnout that election. In May 2025, they had the same percentage of filled precincts, with a 4% voter turnout. The percentage of filled precincts was around the same as the county, but the turnout in both elections underperformed compared to the county at large.

Pleasant Grove

Pleasant Grove, situated in Southeast Dallas, contains a large Hispanic population. In November 2024, 30% of their precincts held Democratic precinct chairs, with a 41% voter turnout. In May 2025, their precinct chairs hadn’t changed, with a 4% voter turnout. So Pleasant Grove had lower numbers than the county in both its rate of precincts filled with Democratic precinct chairs and voter turnout. Its voter turnout actually closely mirrored that of South Dallas for both elections.

So what does all of this mean? If we look at Richardson and Preston Hollow and compare them with far less wealthy locales like South Dallas or Pleasant Grove, the takeaway is clear: Communities with more money will have more time to think about voting. This holds true regardless of how many of a less privileged community’s precincts are filled with Democratic precinct chairs, as is the case with South Dallas. The idea of more money and more time to think about voting is what I alluded to with Dave a year ago.

Bridging the gap

So the problem is apparent. The solution, however, is where lots of people and organizations hold differing opinions. Hardcore and longtime Democratic insiders might propose to have more precinct chairs and/or more Democratic clubs in areas like South Dallas and Pleasant Grove. While that may help and is necessary for pure Democratic Party representation, I truly don’t believe that approach alone would suffice. Politicos typically view problems as opportunities to drive more political solutions. In reality, though, we need to view these occasions more holistically by listening to the needs of each community and instilling a bottom-up approach. Only then will we have built the trust and confidence with residents who may not be all that politically active.

One case in point, to tie it back to the climate conversation at the beginning of this post, is the work that Downwinders at Risk has done in underprivileged communities. (I’ve talked about this in a previous post, so check that out if you haven’t.) In the last 30 years, this environmental justice organization has made an incredible amount of progress shutting down toxic plants and raising awareness of the lack of clean air in certain parts of the metroplex. People from all over Dallas County – a group of volunteers I’ve never met or heard of through my years as a Democratic precinct chair and organizer, and a group whose supporters range in age and background – make sure to do their part in joining the fight to improve air quality in underserved areas. It would seem to be an easy win for a local party to partner up with organizations like this - organizations that are already doing the heavy lifting and may benefit from a Democratic Party shout-out.

Unfortunately, that often does not happen, and the reasons for this vary. Some nonprofits may feel uneasy about recognition from a political party lest they lose their 501(c)(3) status, although many over time have found ways to partner with them. Some grassroots leaders may feel like they sully their reputations if they coordinate with politicians and political insiders. But a lot of the root of the problem lies in the divergent goals and priorities of the political party and grassroots groups.

Grassroots leaders tend to focus on single issues, as is the case with CCL and Downwinders. Other examples include reproductive rights and prison reform. These groups tend to have a more progressive agenda than the Democratic Party might allow. The Party, on the other hand, focuses more on winning elections. That is the fundamental gap we need to bridge between these two institutions. The Party needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, building long-term infrastructure with local organizations and aiming resources at political candidates.

But this actually happened with the Dallas County Democratic Party last year, when they partnered with Ground Game Texas to successfully decriminalize marijuana in the City of Dallas in the November election. So why can’t we be more consistent? Regrettably, favoritism and thin skin play a huge role. The thing that nobody talks about is how much political parties hate negative feedback from grassroots leaders.

Stop being so sensitive

Political leaders – national, state, and local – too often fear teaming up with individuals or groups that don’t already proudly brand themselves as belonging to their political party. But the risk of being associated with someone who has in the past criticized you is not just too much a thought to bear.

Local political leaders, free from the scrutiny of a well-funded local media and the careful oversight of independent boards and panels, have been known to quietly seek retribution against individuals who dare declare anything short of complete loyalty to the party. That retribution usually presents itself in the form of ostracism and smear campaigns. This rings especially true with leaders of underrepresented or minority groups, who may have a long list of grievances with the Democratic Party, mostly stemming from the lack of outreach in their areas.

These might seem like activities that the Trump administration would happily and publicly engage in, but it dangerously spreads itself across both parties, from national politics all the way down. For the Democratic Party, a party that sells itself as the party for the people, the need to develop meaningful relations and work with local grassroots leaders is of paramount importance to the survival and long-term growth of the Party, regardless of criticisms from anyone.

How local party leaders can partner with grassroots organizations

Assuming ideal circumstances where local Democratic party leaders excel, how would they engage their grassroots infrastructure that does not expressly identify as Democratic? There are three important items that your local Democratic party can offer these groups: help in fundraising, data, and volunteers.

Ideally, your local Democratic party would serve as the central hub of progressivism in your municipality. It would possess a wealth of knowledge regarding a well-architected fundraising strategy, data collection pertaining to who organizations need to target and where they need to direct their resources, and a giant running list of volunteers that would plug in to various opportunities for those organizations.

To achieve this, the local party can offer training to grassroots leaders on how to raise money. Who better to give these training sessions than a political machine that knows how to ask for donations?

In the case of data in Texas, the Texas Democratic Party owns a huge voter database that local parties use on a daily basis. Local parties train precinct chairs how to use this database, and it should also train grassroots leaders. (I actually did this on my own accord with a reproductive justice organization in Southern Dallas last year. But, again, it’s about an overall strategy and consistency.)

To garner more volunteers for their allied organizations, local parties can directly make the request in their newsletters to their supporters, perhaps highlighting a different organization each month. They can also invite them to speak at County Executive Committee meetings, the quarterly county party meeting that precinct chairs attend.

These ideas and a lot more make up what local parties need to start doing more urgently in order to build a more comprehensive organizing strategy that would benefit the Party and grassroots organizations. Grassroots leaders would benefit from having a trusted and established advisor by their side. In turn, your local party would build credibility with communities by taking the first step in asking what each grassroots organization needed to succeed, thereby encouraging more disenfranchised people to vote.

One more thing

So what happened with Dave and my relationship with him? After the November election and my departure from the Dallas County Democratic Party, I reached out to the DFW chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, eventually joining their Steering Committee. I also joined Downwinders at Risk and am serving on their Policy Committee. We’ve been enjoying a partnership where Downwinders plays a crucial role in CCL’s lobbying efforts in DFW, with some CCL volunteers joining Downwinders’ committees to assist them in helping persuade Dallas city council members in shutting down two asphalt shingle plants. If it was that simple for two organizations to team up, your local Democratic party should find it a breeze.

Something new today!

Instead of writing posts every two weeks, as I’ve done since I started this publication, I decided to mix it up a bit.

Starting today, I will be alternating my written posts with my brand new podcast. This podcast is available in video and audio formats. Here’s how you can get it.

YouTube: Click here to access the video playlist

Spotify: Click here for just the Spotify podcast

Apple: Click here for just the Apple podcast

RSS: If you have a podcatcher other than Spotify or Apple, as I do, here’s the RSS URL to paste: https://api.riverside.fm/hosting/VeHifYeS.rss

I’m going to be reducing the amount of content slightly. Instead of creating content every two weeks, I’ll be publishing twice a month. Once a month will be a written post, and the other time will be a podcast episode. I’ll be posting the YouTube video of the episode into this Substack publication, and of course, you will be getting it by email.

But if you want to be proactive and help me inflate my subscriber count so I can look like an actual content creator, subscribe to the audio and/or video forms. I’m new to this whole content creation thing so it’s pretty exciting.

Anyway, this podcast will be interviews with progressive activists in and around Dallas. We delve into the life stories of these activists and how they got to where they are today.

First episode

This first episode is with none other than Subrina Brenham. I met Subrina about a year and a half ago as we were preparing for a blockwalk in the community of Bonton, when I was working for the Dallas County Democratic Party. I’m glad to have met her.

She is a community activist and former Dallas city council candidate. We discuss her journey into activism, her experiences running for office, and the challenges faced in local politics.

The conversation highlights the importance of community engagement, voter education, and the impact of elected officials on civic participation. Subrina shares her insights on issues affecting District 8 in Dallas, including public safety, environmental concerns, and the need for better resources.

We conclude with reflections on the future of Dallas and the role of leadership in fostering a more engaged electorate.

Connect with her on Facebook.

Other notes

This is my first podcast episode and first video I’ve uploaded to YouTube, and boy, am I learning a lot.

Two things: My internet connection sucks and I probably need to wear a proper shirt.

My modem is really old and I’ve been putting off buying a new one. What a way to make me finally get one. Hopefully my end of the video won’t be laggy and choppy as it is with this episode.

As far as the shirt, I guess I can do better.

But I have to say, the audio is really high-quality. If you’re thinking of doing this sort of stuff, Riverside is the way to go. Their AI tools are insanely good and their publication process can’t be much simpler.

I also have some ideas kicking around in my head if I open up paid subscriptions. A couple of people have already pledged. If you want to be a Chronicles OG, pledge today. This would be content that only subscribers can access, but the written posts and podcast episodes will still all be free.

Thank you, Subrina!

For being my first guest! I look forward to interviewing many more.

Oh, and bonus!

If you know what tune I remixed to make my theme song for this podcast, let me know. Real ones will recognize it. I got someone on Discord to make it into a beat over two years ago, and I’d been waiting for the right moment this whole time.

Subscribe now

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Two weeks ago, I managed to acquire the first person outside of Dallas County to request my political consultation. My Calendly notification dinged: a gentleman whose name I didn’t recognize and who lived somewhere on the East Coast. I looked him up but found nothing concrete. I half-assumed it was a troll. Well, at least this will be a good story to tell, I thought. It did turn out to be a good story, but not for the reasons I anticipated.

A few days later for the meeting, I sat at my desk staring at the empty video conference and wondering if this mystery candidate from the East Coast would appear. To my surprise, he did. For the purposes of anonymity, let’s call him Jonathan.

Jonathan is a 29-year-old former Infantry Marine squad leader who lives in Virginia. He grew up impoverished in rural Georgia, experiencing racism as someone with black and white parents, while also undergoing the trauma of an abusive household. Opting to skip college due to the lack of affordability, he joined the Marines. There, he learned the value of service firsthand, realizing the importance of caring for his fellow citizens. He also honed his leadership skills as a squad leader, and years later, he turned that crucial part of his background into his present career as a leader in the hospitality industry. Now, he wants to help people in his community by serving in local politics.

Admirable stuff, for sure. But then I queried his voting history. He readily admitted that he has an inconsistent voting record, choosing Joe Biden in 2020 but sitting out in 2024. When I asked him why he stayed home this past November, the reason boiled down to a dearth of bold leadership from the Democratic Party, citing a deficiency of a clear vision. And therein lies the problem with the Party with respect to young people. Overall, the relationship between the Party and the youth can be described as supportive but with serious reservations.

Jonathan’s story should inspire anybody who wants to do good by others and lift them up. Our goal, then, is to create opportunities so that more young people like him hold those same ideals. But it doesn’t help that neither Democrats or Republicans have demonstrated how to actually accomplish that. That absence of focus has contributed to the unfortunate lack of youth voter engagement. In the 2024 presidential election, around 75% of voters aged 65 and older voted, constituting 28% of the electorate. On the other hand, approximately 47% of voters aged 18 to 29 cast a ballot for that election, making up 15% of the overall vote.

We Democrats, particularly us politicos and diehards, often commit the error of either dismissing young people because of their spotty voting records, or we become angry at them for their lack of loyalty to the party. Meanwhile, we ourselves regularly complain to each other about how the Democratic Party can’t seem to devise any coherent strategy, and we find satisfaction in calling out its unimaginative leaders. We cannot criticize others for sensing the same things that we know to be true about the Party. Democrats should draw their branding from Jonathan’s, and so many other young people’s, narratives. Regarding young people, the Party should primarily be driven by the recognition that they, as well as everyone else, desire belonging but are stymied by sad societal realities.

Questioning the traditional four-year degree is the national issue

On the national level, the preeminent matter for young people is the economy. However, I do believe that there lies a key distinction between what they interpret as the economy and what older people call the economy. That distinction is the first domino to fall in a long line of issues that includes crushing student debt, a declining number of jobs that offer a living wage, and affordable housing: the actual value of a four-year college degree.

For decades, Democratic and Republican politicians, and society at large, have hammered into the populace the importance of obtaining a bachelor’s degree. That piece of paper, earned by one’s hard work, perseverance, and money, proved to be the master key in unlocking doors once thought inaccessible to previous generations. Now, however, the tide has shifted.

AI is why

Perhaps the biggest reason for that shift has been the recent wave of generative AI. I should note that what we now casually dub as AI is the result of a slow and steady evolution of job displacement caused by the tech sector. Before AI, it was automation, the process of algorithms efficiently handling the seemingly less complex tasks that humans had long undertaken. Automation wreaked havoc on countless jobs over the decades, but also created new ones and the new opportunities that we enjoy today.

AI follows that same spirit but with much more devastating outcomes. It has already produced 10,000 job cuts this year alone, with a predicted workforce loss of 300 million jobs. The main difference between yesteryear’s automation and today’s AI, however, is that automation handles “unskilled tasks,” whereas AI aims directly for work done by those who have chased higher education and have achieved careers perceived as more skilled. Few of those higher-skilled workers, most notably entry-level applicants, can claim safety, with software engineers, human resources specialists, content writers, analysts, and graphic designers bearing much of the brunt. What used to be the American dream, generated in part by an arduous journey of securing a four-year degree, now seems to be slipping away from more and more young people’s hands.

Response to the rise of AI

How has the Democratic Party responded to this? In short, they really haven’t. They should, however, begin having the difficult discussion of whether it is even necessary to pursue a four-year college degree. This will anger many institutions along the way, including, obviously, the state-run universities charging overpriced tuition rates and handing out degrees proving less valuable by the year. But if the Party asserts that it is genuinely “for the people,” it must face this problem head-on. It must clearly outline the history of the tech sector vis-a-vis the rest of the workforce since World War II, acting carefully not to exaggerate claims that tech is inherently evil, while seeking and pushing for alternatives to a pricey four-year degree for those who wish for alternatives.

Setting off that national conversation of the ever-decreasing virtues of a four-year education represents a golden opportunity for Democrats to unquestionably separate themselves from the Republican Party as the one that courageously stands with younger people and their futures. Will they? As with so many other daring positions that progressives plead Democrats to adopt, it’s doubtful, at least for now. We shouldn’t expect anyone on the national level to outright call a four-year college education a scam – as well they shouldn’t because many meaningful and well-paying careers require it – but the Party needs to think and act quickly to address the growing crisis caused by AI.

Urbanism is the local issue

Society cannot reasonably achieve any big goal without first airing it out nationally. At the local level, though, meaningful action occurs. If the national Democratic party is busy trying to remove barriers, the local parties are busy trying to build community. Young people, especially in the age of social media and dating apps, have drifted further away from each other emotionally. One way we can help remedy that is through organizing for local urbanist policies.

Strict zoning laws in cities across the nation have contributed to urban sprawl, in turn promoting that feeling of disconnect among young people. Instead of living in reasonably priced and dense communities in the city, and walking or biking to take advantage of that rich ecosystem’s many amenities and public spaces, young people are finding themselves scrambling to find affordable housing in suburbs that essentially force them to drive their single-occupancy vehicles almost everywhere. The chances of making new friends and having random fun encounters slowly disappear, and the risk of loneliness swells.

Urbanism is not just good policy, but it’s also good politics

Not only should Democrats take on zoning at the local level as a matter of policy, they should do so as a matter of politics. Grassroots urbanist groups routinely attract young people to their meetings and volunteer opportunities. Here in Dallas, organizations like Dallas Urbanists, Dallas Neighbors for Housing, Dallas Bicycle Coalition, and the Dallas Area Transit Alliance have formed an alliance, continually engaging young people and older people alike by plainly describing problems and actively working on solutions, many of which include lobbying local governments. As a result, these groups have injected hope into Dallasites who care about urbanism and improving their communities.

Absent from these sorts of gatherings and lobbying efforts, however, are leaders from the local Democratic Party. That may not be the case for every local party across the country, but I suspect that most don’t bother engaging with urbanist activists. Lack of knowledge about issues regarding urbanism plays a role in their absence, but honestly, most local parties couldn’t be bothered to care. Too many of these leaders wait for instructions from the state and national parties, both of whom don’t directly deal with items like housing and transit, and act almost exclusively on those state and national matters.

But imagine if, say, the Chair or Executive Director of your local party joined your community leaders in making a statement at City Hall to dismantle minimum parking requirements? What would happen if in one of your local party’s many newsletters, they spotlight a local activist or organization campaigning for comprehensive public transportation? What would it mean for people in the community if they heard your local Democratic leader speak at one of their events, or even see them volunteer by knocking on people’s doors to advocate for better bike lanes? These leaders must step up and become more involved in their communities, obviously in general, but also for a greater urbanist cause. Not doing so reveals the actual priorities of the Party when it comes to our communities.

A more hopeful sense of togetherness

These two issues – college education and urbanism – might seem unrelated, but they are two sides of the same coin. We continue to witness the demise of social togetherness, and while blaming obvious culprits like social media and watching too much Netflix may offer easy and glib explanations, it doesn’t solve the problem. Social isolation for young people stems from a lack of financial opportunity and a lack of community. Financial opportunities vanish with the scarcity of money and meaningful jobs, and community vanishes when physical barriers impede young people from gathering. And if the Democratic Party were to systematically address just these two issues, they’d be much more ahead with young people. And let’s just say, Jonathan would more happily vote for them.

Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the Policy Committee for Downwinders at Risk, an environmental justice organization in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex aimed at “taking effective action on behalf of those being harmed by air pollution.” They were founded in 1994, with their first major issue being a cement plant in Midlothian that held the largest hazardous waste incineration permit in the United States. They later prevented illegal gas drilling in Dallas, stopped four batch plants from emerging in the predominantly black and Hispanic Southern Dallas, and demolished the notorious Shingle Mountain. Through these undertakings, Downwinders formed the Neighborhood Self-Defense Project, which seeks to roll back racist zoning laws that allow polluters to create dumping grounds in these communities.

To understand how we arrive at situations like these, we have to ask ourselves what truly drives most of our elected officials. Although the desire for public service might initially serve as enough of an impetus, complacency often quickly replaces that zeal. At that point, it becomes less about fulfilling the needs of the people and more about keeping their jobs or securing positions after their terms end.

To calculate how much effort they need to assume to win elections, elected officials gauge outside pressure. Pressure usually takes two forms: money and organizing. Traditionally, money has come from people of means and large corporations while organizing efforts have been spearheaded by average people and grassroots organizations. These two forces often compete with one another for the attention of politicians and voters.

Holding on to Seats in Dallas

To examine how politicians’ desire to maintain their positions and temporarily mollify community members beginning to demand change might translate into adverse effects in local communities, let’s go back to Downwinders and Dallas. The organization’s current campaign is called Toxic Twins: Fund the Fund. The “Toxic Twins” part of the campaign name derives from two asphalt shingle plants in Dallas producing dangerous levels of air pollution in their respective communities: TAMKO in the historic Freedman town of Joppa, and GAF in the predominantly black and Hispanic West Dallas. These two plants set up shop decades ago when those areas’ zoning laws allowed them to move there. Now, however, those neighborhoods have been rezoned, but TAMKO and GAF have been grandfathered in and permitted to stay and operate. This legal gray area, legacy permits predating updated zoning laws, is known as nonconforming use. And that’s where the “Fund the Fund” part of the campaign comes in.

In 2023, a Republican state senator from Dallas, most likely with the assistance of one or both of these corporations based on the subtext, authored a bill that eventually passed that implemented stricter criteria for municipalities to shut down these sorts of polluters. In response, the City of Dallas passed a bill earlier this year that set up a nonconforming use fund. This fund is a pot of money tied to a certain dollar amount determined by the Dallas County Appraisal District that the City can offer TAMKO and GAF to close their operations. The objective of the campaign, then, is to make sure that the City allocates the needed amount of money to buy out TAMKO and GAF. Either way, whether these two corporations stay or leave, they set themselves up to win.

There are more policy details involved but that is the gist of it. Things become even more disconcerting, though, when considering that certain City of Dallas council members, the ones representing these communities and the ones who proudly call themselves Democrats, upon meeting with community members to figure out how best to relay their grievances to the leadership of these plants, feigned ignorance of long-standing community concerns, presumably figuring that not enough pressure from their constituents existed to warrant meaningful action. But currently, Downwinders has been on an organizing and media blitz, staging protests outside of Dallas City Hall and conducting weekly meetings with its committees. Their work has, to say the least, not gone unnoticed.

Voter Turnout and Political Will

If all that sounds a bit too corrupt and too much like a bribe, that’s because it is. And this instance is not even an outlier taking into account the endless number of deals taking place at the local level across the country. To be sure, multinational corporations moving into underprivileged black and brown communities, aided by government officials crafting arcane laws with the backing of those corporations’ lobbyists, is no coincidence. Systemic racism seeps deep into our nation’s identity. It also plays a significant role in discouraging people to use their most effective tool to voice their opinions: voting.

If we analyze voting data for the most recent Dallas local elections, we discover that deep apathy. Let’s take the communities of South Dallas (I’m including Fair Park, Bonton, and Joppa for this analysis, which all share historical and cultural similarities as well as the same council member), where TAMKO resides. Let’s also take the community of West Dallas, where GAF resides. Finally, let’s take my community of Far North Dallas, a predominantly white and affluent suburb-like part of Dallas. The next thing we’ll do is try to eliminate any short-lived factors – such as the number of precincts examined, lack of reasons to vote, or whether the incumbent had a challenger – that might sway our numbers and paint an inaccurate picture.

For the number of precincts, South Dallas contains 22, West Dallas contains 19, and Far North Dallas contains 27. For the purposes of this analysis, I’ve considered these numbers sufficiently comparable.

For reasons to vote, South Dallas and West Dallas obviously house polluters in their communities that make people sick. In Far North Dallas, we don’t have polluters. We do, however, have Pepper Square, a mixed-use zoning battle that eventually prevailed but angered my NIMBY neighbors. Despite this difference, for this analysis, the issues present compelling reasons to vote in all three areas.

As far as incumbents and challengers, South Dallas’ officeholder faced challengers, while West Dallas and Far North Dallas had open seats. That might seem like it would throw things off, but I promise it won’t.

So what did voter turnout look like in the May 2025 local elections? South Dallas experienced a 4.60% voter turnout and West Dallas voters turned out at 5.89%, both lower than the county total of 8.35%. (If you live outside of Texas and you find these numbers appallingly low, I know how you feel.) In Far North Dallas, however, 12.04% of our voters visited the ballot box, easily beating the overall county total, not to mention the two other communities.

As far as who won in these communities, in South Dallas, the incumbent won. In West Dallas, the incumbent’s right-hand person in City Hall won. In Far North Dallas, however, the candidate who vehemently opposed the Pepper Square development project defeated the candidate who supported it and viewed by many as having the blessings of this community’s incumbent who also stood in favor of it.

Why such a clear disparity between communities such as Far North Dallas and communities like South Dallas and West Dallas? The topics of voter suppression and racial inequities can surely fill many pages outside of this post. But let's be clear: Most politicians have their fingers on the pulse of their districts, even if they pretend not to be aware of certain issues. They know what's affecting constituents because their staff brief them.

But in the end, it comes down to willpower and the sheer number of people aligning for or against the officeholder. If council members from South Dallas and West Dallas recognize that under 6% of their districts vote, and they don’t want to ruin relationships with leaders of multinational corporations because of possible business opportunities for life after politics, they’ll easily and happily maintain the status quo, perceiving less of a risk of losing their seats due to public disconnect if fewer people vote. That is, until their constituents properly organize.

Organizing: The Counterbalance to Money

If money is the rich man’s game, organizing is the common man’s game. So if you vote, especially in local elections, thank you. To organize, you can do at least one of two things. You can tell all your friends, family members, and neighbors to not just visit the polls or who to support, but why they should do so and what issues they should care about, making the discussion as local to them as possible. Don’t just say, “This person is an amazing candidate.” Say, “This person supports or opposes this thing in your community and it affects these people. Are you telling me you’re okay with how these people are being treated by their own government?”

The second thing you can do is to volunteer for an organization or a cause that resonates with you. Deep at the grassroots level, you might not feel like you’re accomplishing a whole lot, but those organizations always seek as much help as they can and will likely remember you down the road. Not to mention, you’ll look like a badass to your peers. And if no organization, club, or group exists that seeks to fix some problem? Then start one! And actually put in the work that your community depends on. I’ll be sharing more on how to organize in future posts.

Too few people have ever met a politician, let alone attended meetings with one. Soon, however, you will understand that most politicians, regardless of party affiliation, operate by staying cognizant of the next election cycle and calculating how much effort they need to direct to given sources of pressure. It sounds like activities outside of their job descriptions that we didn’t elect them to do, but this is politics. This whole game, the sustained struggles between money and organizing, dispels the image that politicians construct for themselves as the ones in control. You find out that the people with the actual power are the people who can produce the right kind and the most amount of pressure.

And the politicians who do stand up for average people without much prompting? Well, those are the ones you keep in power.

“You want me to do what?”

“I want you to take the eastern quadrant of this map,” I explained to her, pointing to the printout of a map of Dallas County precincts that I had handed her. “Then I want you to enter all the precincts into this Google spreadsheet that I’ve shared with you, look up each one’s precinct chair, and look up all the elected officials who represent each precinct. Then I want you to group these precincts into communities you think make sense. For example, East Dallas, Pleasant Grove, and so on. And don’t forget the suburbs. Thanks so much!”

It was late October 2024, about a week before one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history. I was preparing to end my job as Organizing Manager for the Dallas County Democratic Party, one that saw me in my first full-time political position, managing the organizing activities of Southern Dallas County. As the election slowly neared, however, doubt began overwhelming me. Did I do it right? I would wonder. Part of that uncertainty, though, involved the fact that for almost the entirety of that year, the county party and its funding partner, Texas Majority PAC, had embarked on, in my opinion, an unorganized organizing strategy. From the start, I and the other Organizing Managers were left to essentially figure things out around the county. Perhaps the objective that higher-ups seemed to care most about was whether we hit our weekly metrics: namely, how many doors we knocked on in the sweltering Texas heat and how many hours we spent on the phone cajoling volunteers to knock on doors in the sweltering Texas heat. Initially, I thought that this was just Organizing 101 until, by their own admission, those same higher-ups revealed that voters don’t remember their interaction with you at the door after two weeks. By the end, I had grown worried and confused.

But during the final week of the election cycle, I unexpectedly found myself in a strange lull. By this point, we had shifted most of the remaining blockwalks onto the volunteers who stepped up to lead their own blockwalks and train other volunteers. We had also mailed the tens of thousands of handwritten postcards and letters by our hundreds of volunteers. This free time allowed me to return to one of my favorite hobbies: diving into data. After all, I’m still a tech bro at heart. In my first post, I mentioned that the Democratic Party has fallen behind on messaging and data, and I tackled the messaging issue in my second post. Today, we’ll be discussing data.

As I’ve progressed in this political field, I’ve noticed that not many people know enough about data. That in and of itself does not present a serious problem, as individuals play different roles and should not be expected to do everything. More unfortunate, however, are those who claim the unofficial title of “data geek” but do little more than boast about the quantity of items they deliver, i.e., the number of doors knocked each week or the number of postcards written. Another group thinks of data only when it pertains to volunteer management, accumulating each person’s contact details and when that person can assist in some task. Volunteer management unquestionably plays a crucial role but does not fulfill all the needs of proper organizing. And then there persists those who obsess over a “win number” – the number of votes required for a candidate or issue to win an election – to the point that they abandon a comprehensive organizing game. But frankly, the people who fit into one of these three groups sometimes fit into all of them. So let’s begin by becoming more familiar with the concept of data vis-à-vis politics. Political data essentially should achieve two criteria: 1) it should be any information or statistic that helps an organizing effort, and 2) it should be collected before any organizing effort takes place.

Many tend to believe that data is just numbers, as in how many Democrats live in a particular precinct or by what margin the last Democratic candidate won in some district. Data, however, represents more than that. It also comprises the organizations, clubs, organizers, volunteers, elected officials, candidates, past politicians, neighbors, and generally any person or entity with some sort of stake in your organizing. It’s the number of yard signs in a particular community and the candidates or issues those yard signs tout. It’s the stories of residents fighting a multinational corporation unwilling to close the shingle factory polluting their community. It’s the arcane local laws that help those corporations stay put. It’s the social media posts from activists. And, even though I hate admitting it, data is also the tea spilled about all these people and activities that might inform your method of approaching certain individuals or instances. Real political data is not something that can easily be googled or attained by AI. You cannot expect to helicopter into a locality and proceed with the same cookie-cutter script you used for other localities. That might, from a techie’s perspective, be perceived as efficient, in that you’re painlessly executing a replicable module of work wherever you go, but it falls short on effectiveness. And if you do visit a different area to organize, as I did when I took my duties from Northern Dallas County to Southern Dallas County, make sure you attempt to know those communities.

Now that we have some of the non-numbers stuff out of the way, the fact remains that you still need numbers, and lots of them. That takes us back to the beginning of this post. One day in early October during a blockwalk, I met a volunteer. In the interest of anonymity, let’s call her Elaine. She was a kind, albeit no-nonsense, woman in her 60s whose fire for making the world a better place quietly burns on the inside. I thanked her for knocking on doors and asked if she could lend a hand again. She did and, before I knew it, she became my right-hand woman in the office those last two or so weeks, greeting guests, vacuuming the carpet, and helping haul the tens of thousands of those postcards and letters to the post office for bulk mail. I approached her on this day in late October with an idea. I wanted to map out every community in Dallas County in order to later develop a thorough strategy for how to better organize countywide. “I’ll help you do it,” Elaine agreed, while adding, in her humorous deadpan manner, “but you owe me.”

The first thing I did as part of this endeavor was to print out a map of Dallas County precincts, found on the ArcGIS website. Depending on your county, you may or may not have this resource. ArcGIS doesn’t necessarily have to be the tool you use, but if no precinct map exists for your municipality, you can be the lucky one who creates it.

Next, we grouped the 800+ precincts into a few dozen communities. We then listed each precinct’s precinct chair (found on your local party’s website), city council district and city council member, county commissioner district and county commissioner, state house district and state representative, state senate district and state senator, and congressional district and congressional member. Note that the precinct is our most granular territory. When those in power draw the maps after each census (or whenever they feel like it because they don’t want Democrats to start taking over, as is the case for neighboring Tarrant County and now maybe even the state of Texas), they draw those districts largely based on precincts. This sort of data scaffolding should have served as the base for our organizing efforts in Dallas County.

Finally, after the November election, I gathered numbers from the Dallas County Elections Department website – how many registered voters and ballots cast for each candidate, all grouped by precinct – and inserted each piece of data into the corresponding precinct. From there, I ran wild. Far too much insight that I gleaned from analyzing that data – statistics that would help entities better organize – exists to delve into here, so I’ll probably be saving some of it for future posts. But crunching numbers like this, especially if you’re forming a foundation to continue to build upon, is ideally a team effort that also takes time. Elaine and I spent about three or four weeks building this dataset, which I now use in my consulting services and update after each election. Without her, it would’ve taken much longer.

Ultimately, if I take a step back and attempt to better explain my thesis on organizing at the local level, we should realize that organizing has more to do with leadership than anything else. The simple acts of contacting people in your locality, devising a message based on their input, and constructing an organizing game based on data you’ve collected demonstrates more leadership than that displayed by some people and organizations tasked to win campaigns. If you favor the glory of people seeing you in that light, consider that the good news. The bad news is that those you lead, as well as those observing from the sidelines, will expect much of you, and your reputation might suffer permanent damage with enough wrong missteps. This is the core reason why organizing, whether at the grassroots or the institutional level, proves so challenging: Too few individuals or organizations possess the empathy to see and hear people in their communities, a deep knowledge of numbers, and top-tier communication skills. But if you’re willing to humble yourself, learn, implement, and adapt, there’s no telling what you can do.