How Mitt Romney’s Disciples Took Over The Texas Democratic Party

The Party of the Working Class Lost Its Way. Here’s How to Fix It.

For years, Texas Democrats have claimed to be the party of the working class—the party that stands up for the little guy, not the wealthy and the elite. But if that were still true, we wouldn’t lose ground with the people we claim to fight for.

Let’s be real: Texas Democrats have lost their connection to the working class.

I say this as a self-identified, highly educated progressive. I have a postgraduate degree, and my family’s income is higher than the average Texan’s. That aside, I also recognize that I am not representative of the average Texas voter. However, the voices of people like me are now disproportionately represented among Texas Democratic staffers, the donor class, elected officials, candidates, precinct chairs, and more.

If Democrats want to win, the party has to stop campaigning like the median voter is a social-issues-driven, college-educated liberal. We need to start listening to the working-class Texans who actually make up the base of this state—Black, Latino, and Anglo (non-Evangelical) working-class people who are struggling to pay rent, afford groceries, and cover childcare costs, and voted ancestrally for Democrats because they assumed we wanted to put money in their pocket.

How the Democratic Party Lost Its Way

The Democratic Party in Texas has become too reliant on ancestral Republicans. Affluent, college-educated, non-Evangelical, socially liberal voters who prioritize abortion rights, LGBTQ+ issues, and gun control but don’t want to talk about economic redistribution or class issues or even name billionaires as villains.

As a resident of Harris County, you can see this in candidate selection, where a plurality of Democratic candidates are college-educated affluent lawyers, largely divorced from worrying about class issues in a city where over 60% of Houston Independent School District students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Many new Democratic primary voters—Romney-Clinton moderates who voted Republican ancestrally and joined the Democratic party because of their disgust with Trump—give generously to campaigns, vote reliably in primary elections carefully for others who share their class identity, serve as precinct chairs, and now hold outsized influence in the Texas Democratic party, and focus on their own ideological priors despite consistent polling data showing that economic issues like inflation and rising prices are much deeper concerns.

This isn’t to say that social issues aren’t important. They are, and we need to continue to stand up for civil liberties and abortion rights. The GOP is utterly wrong in terms of their desire to deport nonviolent abuelas, criminalize abortion, and much more.

But when Democratic leaders and influencers stopped focusing the vast majority of campaign attention on working-class economic struggles, they started losing the very voters who used to be the party’s foundation: working-class Black and Latino families. Democrats gained affluent Romney-Clinton voters but lost Obama 2012 voters, losing the Latino vote in 2024 for the first time in generations. If Democrats keep losing vote share with working-class Black and Latino voters who have made up the party’s base, THERE IS NO PATH TO POWER IN A MAJORITY-MINORITY STATE.

When Inflation Hit, the Texas Democratic Party Was Clueless

For a long time, Democrats assumed that since Beto came close in 2018, the path forward was winning more suburban Romney-type moderates while keeping the working-class minority base intact. They took Black and Latino working-class voters for granted. Then inflation hit.

Food, housing, and childcare costs exploded. Power prices soared. And while Social Security is inflation-adjusted, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) is not. Democrats didn’t talk as much about this—because many of the people running the party are wealthier, childless, retired, or insulated from the cost-of-living crisis.

MSNBC pundits argued that wages were going up and unemployment was low. But here’s the problem: voters don’t credit the government for a good job market. They credit themselves for being competent. Meanwhile, they blame the government for inflation.

In Harris County, nearly 45% of residents are renters, and they watched rent costs skyrocket (Between 2018 and 2023, home prices went up 43%, but household incomes went up just 1.2%) for their family members, neighbors, and friends. The party didn’t adjust its messaging to address their concerns. Instead, Democrats acted like the economy was fine—and voters punished them at the ballot box.

What the Data Says: A Warning for Democrats

According to Echelon Insights, a Republican-leaning polling firm that accurately predicted the 2024 results within 1%, the Democratic party has three factions: Labor, Green, and Acela.

The largest is “labor” voters who care about Middle-Class issues and are socially moderate/economically left. There are Acela voters, the Romney-Clinton voters talked about previously, who are socially liberal and economically moderate, and “Green” Voters, who are better thought of as socially and economically left. Both the Green and Labor voters shifted 2 points each towards the GOP. The only group that didn’t shift towards the GOP? Acela. Affluent, socially liberal, college-educated voters (the “Acela” Democrats). That’s great from a loyalty perspective, but a smaller tent is not how you win elections!

That should be a red flag for Texas Democrats.

The Path Forward: 70-80% of Daily Democratic Elected and Influencer Messaging Needs to Be About the Economy

The lesson from 2024 is simple: it’s the economy, stupid. If Democrats want to win, we need to refocus on the working class—of all ethnicities—and actually put money in their pockets. We must show them we are fighting for their prosperity, not just the ideological interests of wealthy social liberals in Austin, Houston, and Dallas.

We need to run on lowering the costs of a family’s budget, increasing access to high-quality public goods, and ensuring working people end up with more money in their pockets. That means talking about the out-of-control costs of:

✅ Housing
✅ Pre-K & Childcare
✅ Healthcare
✅ Food
✅ Higher Education & Apprenticeships
✅ Power & Utilities
✅ Insurance (Car, Homeowners, Flood)

But if you look at the messaging of elected Democrats, or even the legislation they introduce, we’re not remotely close to even 40% of that at this point.

The Path Forward: Stop Taking the Bait & Fight Where We Are Strong

If you’ve ever watched Star Wars: Episode III, there’s a moment where Anakin Skywalker, drunk on his own power, ignores Obi-Wan Kenobi’s warning that he has the high ground and tries to leap over him, only to get his arms and legs sliced off by Kenobi’s lightsaber. If this is a spoiler, it’s been like 20 years, sorry, not sorry.

This is a perfect political metaphor for what Democrats keep doing. We keep taking the GOP’s bait and engaging them on their high ground instead of forcing them to fight on ours.

The Texas public agrees with Democrats on economic issues, such as lower housing costs, better healthcare access, and strong Social Security and Medicare funding. However, they disagree with Democrats as much on social issues.

Yet, when Republicans throw out a ridiculous culture war distraction, Elected Democrats jump right into the fight, amplifying their message and helping them control the debate. Every time we argue with Nancy Mace or Marjorie Taylor Greene on social issues, we give them free attention and let them dictate the conversation.

Instead, we should be starting fights where Republicans are weak—on the economy.

✅ Attack Chip Roy, a soulless fiscal conservative, and the GOP for trying to defund Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
✅ Call out Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP for continuing to bill Texans for $6B on the border even though Trump is now President and refusing to cut sales taxes

✅ Hammer Republicans for the incoming reconciliation bill cutting taxes for billionaires and big corporations while everyday Texans can’t afford rent or groceries.

We have the high ground on economic issues. So why are we constantly trying to leap into a losing fight? I also want to emphasize that too many Democratic elected officials think releasing a press release or going onto legacy media is sufficient, but that is not necessarily driving a media message.

Voters want to see you fight for them. So fight. Get into a debate with a GOP influencer on economic messaging. Have Democratic precinct chairs pursue GOP electeds everywhere and hound them about their plans to lower healthcare and child care. Troll them consistently on the economy. Interview voters about their struggles.

This, by the way, according to polls, is what base Democratic voters believe makes sense!

It’s Time for Texas Democrats to Be the Party of the Working Class Again

The bottom line is this: Texas Democrats will not win unless we fight for working people. We can’t just rely on well-off social liberals who donate to campaigns. We need working-class Black, Latino, and non-Evangelical Anglo voters who want to know that they will have more money in their pockets if they vote for a Democrat.

If we don’t change course, we’re going to keep losing winnable elections—and working-class Texans will keep feeling like neither party has their back. This is not the history of Texas Democrats, who have historically had little difficulty fighting for the little guy. Texas populist icon Senator Yarborough said, “Let’s put the jam on the lower shelf so the little people can reach it.”

We can fix this. But only if we wake up and stop ignoring the people we were supposed to fight for all along. Stay tuned for more soon.

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Karthik Soora is the co-host of the Left In Texas Podcast and on the Houston Progressive Caucus leadership team.

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