Tag: Texas

Eliz Markowitz is running in the first big race of 2020

All political analysts’ eyes are on Iowa and New Hampshire right now, but they should really be looking at what’s happening down in Texas: On January 28, the state will hold a special election runoff in the 28th district of the State House of Representatives. Why is it so crucial? Democrats are now down just nine seats in the chamber, as we’ve noted before, and this one is a great flip target.

The fact that Dems have the good fortune of running such an impressive candidate in the district makes it an even more exciting race. And given Eliz Markowitz’s backstory, it’s very easy to want to chip in and support her.

In 2018, Markowitz ran what she calls a “one-woman show” during her first-ever campaign, an uphill battle for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education. She served as her own campaign manager and “ran around Southeast Texas,” she says, pushing herself in a longshot race in a very red gerrymandered district and pulling to less than a 10 point margin.

She bounced back and ran a strong race in a special election for the State House this fall, qualifying for the District 28 runoff against Republican Gary Gates, a perennial loser best known as a “slumlord.” Now, her campaign has a bit more help — Beto O’Rourke has been working on her behalf, and Michael Bloomberg visited on Sunday. Build it and they will come.

Yet in conversation, Markowitz prefers to focus on the issues, including education, healthcare access, and gun violence. She’s not running for the notoriety or power, a fact confirmed by the roundabout way she got into politics in the first place.

Markowitz began her career in computer science, working for the Princeton Review. She thought she was going to go down the corporate path, she says, and got her master’s degree in business. Then tragedy struck. “My mom unexpectedly passed away and I moved back to Houston to be with my dad, who is my best friend,” Markowitz explains. “My mom had suffered from addiction for her entire life, and so I wanted to do something that was actually helping people from falling through the cracks of our healthcare system.”

eliz beto

CLICK HERE to donate to Eliz Markowitz’s campaign at Progressive Everywhere’s ActBlue Page!

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Flipping Texas blue means lifting the cloud of dark right wing money

The most malignant and reviled Republicans in Texas is retiring in 2020, which is good news in and of itself. The even better news is that we have a chance to flip his seat blue.

I mentioned him briefly a few newsletters ago, but I really want to give district 92’s Rep. Jonathan Stickland’s record of neanderthal, hateful politics its proper humiliation and exposure, because it’s part of a much larger problem that still threatens millions of people and democracy in general.

Stickland himself is best known for killing countless bills in the legislature, voting against public education and public health, and boorish persona (the guy even voted against declaring June Veteran Suicide and PTSD Awareness Month). His Facebook page is a swirling cesspool of smug, far-right “jokes” and conspiracies, the sort of stuff that should get someone a place on a government watchlist, not a government salary. Here are a few “highlights” on different issues.

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Previewing special elections in January and early February: A rising Democratic star, wingnut Republicans

Thought election season was over? Sorry, to paraphrase Jimmy Buffet and people who enjoy life more than me, it’s always election season somewhere.

January 8th

Virginia: Special election for State Senate, District 33

Democrat Jennifer Wexton won her race for Congress this fall, necessitating a special election to fill her northern Virginia State Senate. Wexton was first elected to the seat in a 2014 special election and won a full term in 2015. She won that race by 13% and the seat has been in Democratic hands since the 2005 election, making it a pretty safe blue seat.

Still, given the tight margins of the Virginia State Senate —- Republicans hold a two-seat majority — it’s important to not take anything for granted.

The Democratic nominee for this special election is Jennifer Boysko, who represents the 86th district in the House of Delegates. She has a long history in Democratic and progressive activism, having gotten involved with the Dean campaign early on in the 2004 election cycle. She wound up chairing Howard Dean’s campaign in Virginia, then ran for office herself for the first time in 2012. After losing by 32 votes, Boysko ran again and won her rematch for the House of Delegates in 2014.

During this very shortened campaign, Boysko has focused mostly on economic opportunity, pushing for independent redistricting to break the GOP’s gross gerrymander in Virginia, and reducing gun violence.

CLICK HERE to donate to Boysko’s campaign via Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page!

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Why Beto didn’t really lose: Texas Democrats made huge gains, ousting the worst Republicans

Democrats will likely end with 38 House pickups and new senators from Arizona and Nevada. On the state level, we flipped seven governorships (with Georgia and Florida still up in the air) and six state legislative chambers (including the State Senate here in New York!), with nearly 400 legislative seats flipped over the course of this election cycle. Democrats in Arizona narrowed Republican majorities, while Team Blue broke super-majorities in crucial states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina. A majority of voters actually voted Democrat in NC; an absurd GOP gerrymander was the only thing that kept that party in power.

There was also an immense amount of progress made in Texas. Really.

On paper, rockstar Rep. Beto O’Rourke came just short of unseating Sen. Ted Cruz, who beat him by less than three percentage points. It comes as little consolation to many of O’Rourke’s national supporters that it was the closest race in Texas in years — we all desperately wanted to unseat Cruz, a cynical snake wearing a suit of second-hand human skin with a face only an exterminator could love. But even though Beto came up short, his all-inclusive grassroots campaign helped lift other Democrats across Texas, assisting in major gains in a number of areas.

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Races for progressives to watch on Election Day

Here we are, two days out from the most important election of our lifetimes, which is a statement that is eminently dramatic but somehow undersells the gravity of what we are facing. I truly don’t know what American democracy will look like if Democrats don’t sweep up at the ballot box on Tuesday. And it’s not just because of the threat posed by Trump and his sycophantic posse. All across the country, there are pitched battles being fought over issues that directly touch the lives of tens of millions of people — and will, more broadly, impact us all.

Here is a guide to the biggest issues and races to watch on what will be a very nerve-wracking, exciting Tuesday evening.

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