Joe Trippi is On the Ground in Texas.
In a year when Texas Democrats are seeing openings while Republicans see divisions with the polarizing presence of Ken Paxton at the top of the ticket, Carlos Sanchez emerges as a uniquely positioned voice from the heart of the Lone Star State.
The former public affairs director for Hidalgo County — Texas's seventh-most populous county with over 870,000 residents — Sanchez has seen firsthand the complexities facing Democrats in a region where Biden won by 17 points in 2020 after Clinton's commanding 40-point margin in 2016. It’s the kind of erosion that has made the traditionally blue Rio Grande Valley a genuine swing region.
Only 56% of registered voters participated in 2020, and only 45% of eligible residents even registered to vote. That means three in four potential voters in his county didn't even cast ballots. Sanchez, a Washington Post veteran, is an essential translator of Democratic hopes and the Hispanic political realities. He knows that every single last vote in Texas is going to matter.
