Democrats nationwide are making it a top priority to turn one of the America's reddest states into a blue -- or at least purple -- state, and the Texas delegation left the state this week to strategize with party leaders.
Texas Democrats, neglecting their obligations to work on relief for flood victims in the Hill Country and other duties, flew to Sacramento, California, this week to meet with the Golden State's governor, Gavin Newsom, who then said Texas' attempts at redistricting must not succeed because "Everything is at stake if we're not successful next year and take back the House of Representatives."
Another contingent of Lone Star State Democrats flew to meet with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to strategize ways to make Texas more hospitable to leftist ideals, according to a party press release..
The Republican-led Texas legislature is now working to redraw congressional maps, as it has done as recently as 2021 (and as many states have done in the past), so Democrats have seized on the effort to turn it into a racial and "existential" issue.
Calling the Texas effort "a five-alarm fire for democracy in the United States," Newsom -- considered a possible presidential primary candidate in 2028 -- said Saturday he'll consider changing California's independent redistricting process, which was established by a statewide vote in 2008, discarding the 14-member independent commission that handles California's districting matters.
In a reactionary move against Texas' current redistricting effort, called for earlier this year by President Donald Trump and then mandated by Governor Greg Abbott, Gov. Newsom said he's considering several plans to return districting control over to lawmakers, as it was before the 2008 vote that created the independent commission.
Democrats have tried for decades to make inroads with Texas voters, including floating candidates who they believe to have wider appeal, such as El Paso's Robert F. "Beto" O'Roarke (who is 1 and 3 in attempts win office), Harris County Judge Lena Hidalgo (who a poll shows has the lowest net approval rating of any elected official in the county) and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins (who pushed hard for masks and mandates during the Covid pandemic).
Still, no Democrat has won a Texas statewide office in 30 years, which is a central reason the party wants to find a way to boost blue votes to at least make it a tossup state, a "purple" state in which Democrats have a chance of winning more elective offices.
One of the biggest problems is the party's constant worry that incremental moves by Texas Republicans are slowly eroding Democrats' ability to win elections on a nationwide basis, which is why they rail against Texas redistricting, and the US Senate election process, and the Electoral College system.
In what some political analysts are characterizing as desperation, Democrats are working to make sudden large political process moves in an electoral system that may respond best to smaller, more deliberate moves.