After Texas Democrats’ woeful performance last year, the 2022 race to chair the party is already heating up – San Antonio Express-News

The race to chair the Texas Democratic Party is heating up early as the states Democrats contemplate their future after a disappointing 2020 election and ahead of a challenging 2022 election.

The current state party leader is Gilberto Hinojosa, who has held the job since 2012 and has indicated he is not going anywhere. But that has not stopped early interest in the race, which will be determined by delegates to the state partys biennial convention next summer.

Kim Olson, the former candidate for agriculture commissioner and Congress, has announced she is running to lead the party, saying the promise of a Blue Texas has so far fallen short of expectations. Meanwhile, Carroll G. Robinson, chair of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, is considering a campaign for the job and plans to make an announcement in January. And other names have been discussed as potential candidates with still several months to go before the election.

The stakes are considerable.

Texas Democrats have been regrouping after a 2020 election during which they thought they were poised for their biggest breakthrough in recent memory, but they came up woefully short. As they have been licking their wounds, they have had to stare down a daunting 2022 election, with a national environment that is not in their favor and state Republicans using the redistricting process to cement GOP majorities in Austin and Washington, D.C.

We need a course correction because what we are doing has not yielded a statewide win. Period, Olson said in an interview.

She launched her campaign with some 250 endorsements. The endorsers feature 35 county party chairs, including from some of the most populous counties in the state Tarrant, Denton, Fort Bend and Galveston. The list also includes several members of the State Democratic Executive Committee and a host of Democratic candidates from 2018 and 2020.

Hinojosa was on the hot seat after the 2020 election.

A group of State Democratic Executive Committee members wrote him to demand change at the party, and he assembled a committee to do a deep dive on what wrong that November. The party released an autopsy in February that concluded Republicans beat them in turnout and partly blamed Democrats underwhelming results on their decision to suspend in-person campaigning because of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the same time, the state party has been rebuilding its organization chart after the departure of its top two staffers in January.

Publicly, Hinojosa has not given any indication that he is ready to step aside.

While I sincerely respect anyone who seeks office inside or as a nominee of our Party, I believe I still have much to contribute towards our shared goal of turning Texas blue and I intend to accelerate my commitment to that goal in my role as the Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Hinojosa said in a statement. Ultimately the delegates will decide, but because we all share the same goal and stand united in this fight to win back the soul of our state, I believe I will continue to have their support.

Olson has been the most visible potential candidate for state party chair so far, announcing an exploratory effort in early October and traveling the state since then.

A retired Air Force colonel who broke barriers as a female pilot, Olson made a name for herself politically with her fiery 2018 challenge to Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, which she lost by 5 percentage points. She ran last year to flip the 24th Congressional District, which was being targeted by national Democrats, but lost in a primary runoff.

Olson is leaning on that experience to pitch improved infrastructure for candidates across the state, as well as more support for local party leaders like county chairs. Similarly, she said the state party should be more mindful of how messaging can vary in different parts of Texas. For example, she noted oil-and-gas jobs are often some of the best-paying jobs in the Rio Grande Valley, and Democrats need to be able to explain to voters there how their job fits into the transition to a more environmentally responsible future.

One of Olsons priorities is expanding the partys reach into rural Texas and helping narrow the gap with Republicans who have long run up the score in those areas. Olson, who is from rural Palo Pinto County, said Democrats need to release the GOP death grip on our rural areas.

Rural Texas has not been given the attention thats needed in order to win statewide or federal races, said Nancy Nichols, an SDEC member from East Texas who supports Olson. Col. Olson recognizes the power thats wielded in the rural counties, and shes going to the rural counties.

Robinson, meanwhile, has been credited with helping rebuild the state Coalition of Black Democrats in recent years. He has long been involved in Democratic politics and the legal community in the Houston area, where he has served as an at-large City Council member and Houston Community College trustee. He teaches law at Texas Southern University and once was general counsel to the state party.

Robinson said the state party needs to do a better job providing an overarching message for candidates to run under, particularly in places like East Texas and West Texas.

Democrats need to put together a multiracial, multigenerational, multiregional coalition across Texas to win statewide races and take back the Texas Legislature, and literally, weve got to do it in 2022, 2024, and weve also got to get ready for the 2030 census and redistricting cycle that follows, Robinson said.

In addition to Olson and Robinson, the speculation about the state party chair race has included the partys vice chair, Carla Brailey. However, Brailey has said she is not looking at running for state party chair at this time and instead is considering a run for lieutenant governor. The filing deadline for that race, which already includes at least three Democrats, is Monday.

Patsy Woods Martin, the former executive director of Annies List, which works to elect Democratic women in Texas who support abortion rights, said she thought about running for state party chair earlier this year but is dedicating herself to fundraising for gubernatorial candidate Beto ORourke.

Manuel Medina, state chair of the Tejano Democrats, acknowledged in an interview that there has been speculation about whether he would run for state party chair, but said he has not considered it and will support Hinojosa for another term.

Despite the discussion about replacing Hinojosa, he still has plenty of allies who appreciate how far the party has come under him.

I feel like the party is much better off than it was when he took over, that its grown in terms of resources and impact, said Rick Levy, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. While theres challenges, to be sure, hes had a clear vision, and for working people, hes really incorporated our voices into the vision.

Medina, a former chair of the Bexar County party, said Hinojosa has proven he can raise money and build infrastructure to help Democrats make more inroads in Texas.

At this point, I think its all in our best interest to stay on the path the chairman set, Medina said.

Medina suggested Democrats major shortcoming in 2020 eschewing in-person campaigning was because of a national strategy and not the fault of Hinojosa. While that strategy might have been enough to get Joe Biden elected president, Medina said, in states like ours, block walking wouldve made all the difference in the world and led to a Democratic majority in the state House.

Whoever runs, the race is bound to be shaped by questions about who is best positioned to lead a party that continues to see its future in young people and people of color. In the near term, that is especially relevant as Republicans make a serious push next year across predominantly Hispanic South Texas.We need to have a long and hard look at a leader who is going to recognize the issues of the present, the capabilities of the future, while still being respectful of the people whove been doing the work for a long time, said Jen Ramos, an SDEC member from Central Texas who helped organize the letter to Hinojosa after the 2020 election. For me, I think, with this chair race, its one, what is the definition of winning for our chair candidates, and two, how are we going to accept our weaknesses as much as our strengths as we move into the next election and post-redistricting.

Disclosure: Annies List and Houston Community College have been financial supporters of the Texas Tribune. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribunes journalism.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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After Texas Democrats' woeful performance last year, the 2022 race to chair the party is already heating up - San Antonio Express-News