Someone from outside the South Texas border country might assume that people there would be intensely engaged in the upcoming elections.
After all, that is where some of the most critical and divisive national issues have their most acute expression and relevance:
Reproductive freedom
Abortion is outlawed in Texas with only a couple of exceptions, whose vague definitions scare many physicians away from providing care.Environmental protection and justice
Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket factory and launch center in Boca Chica has brought jobs, but is accused by the EPA of violating the Clean Water Act and by state regulators of discharging pollutants into an ecologically sensitive area.The Wall
Here is where politicians come to stand before cameras and sound off about immigration and immigrants.
Yet, despite these issues, Clarissa Ramirez says, ‘‘We have the lowest voter turnout, if not in America, then in Texas.” For example, in one county with around 500,000 registered voters, only 10,000-20,000 people typically show up to cast a vote.
This is Clarissa’s story which is one example of how democracy works in the US. Please feel free to share your story in the comments below.
Clarissa is one of 10 full-time regional organizers for Beto O’Rourke’s Powered by People (PbP) organization. Their goal is to “reach, register, and mobilize” Democratic voters throughout Texas. Her region is the Rio Grande Valley. The disconnect there between the impact of politics and voter turnout defines the challenge and potential of her work.
Evolution of an Organizer
“The majority of people don’t know any better,” Clarissa says. “A lot of people down here weren’t taught about voting. Many feel it doesn’t make a difference. They think politics is just about money in someone’s pocket.” When she talks to people one-on-one, she hears much disaffection: “They say, ‘Yeah, well, where were [the politicians] when we needed them? And they need us now?’”
Clarissa herself wasn’t raised to vote. She sat out several election cycles before casting her first ballot in 2020. In the meantime, she spent several years away from Texas, in New Jersey, working in tech. “I left because I felt like everything came here last. Progress happened on the coasts, spread inward to the middle, and finally drained down to us.” When she returned to Texas, she had a daughter, and some issues had started to feel personal and urgent.
One was gun control. The Sandy Hook elementary school massacre took place just an hour from where Clarissa’s daughter was in kindergarten—close enough to produce a terrifying sense of vulnerability. At the time, Clarissa was working at Earthcam Network, a company that operates live-streaming cameras on city streets and other locations. She learned what was happening within minutes, when word came to start pushing the feeds from the site of the shooting to news organizations.
“I don’t want our protections to be taken away,” Clarissa says. “There’s a lot of open range and ranchland here, and guns can be an important tool. I have a gun myself, for skeet shooting. But there should be real background checks and red flag laws. And I believe there is no reason why anyone should have an assault weapon.”
By the time Clarissa returned, Trump was President, raising the stakes for political engagement in South Texas. Topmost for Clarissa was the Republicans’ effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would end insurance protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. If they succeeded, it would lower access to care for people close to her, but also, she points out, “The majority of people in the country have one condition or another.” The loss of insurance would have a dramatic effect in her area, where most people are middle class or poor.
Trump and his allies were claiming that the border area was overwhelmed by immigrants, murder, and mayhem. It was and is false, Clarissa says. “I’m not saying that people don’t cross over and things don’t happen. Of course they do. But [it’s] not even a crumb of what they’re putting out.” Nearby McAllen, she points out, is toward the top of a list of America’s safest cities. The Rio Grande Valley was undergoing despoliation to build a wall that most people in the area didn’t like or think could be effective. In 2018, all that could be heard were the screams and weeping of children and parents that the administration was ripping from each other’s arms as an object lesson to deter further immigration.
That year, Clarissa attended her first ever political event, when Beto O’Rourke brought his campaign for U.S. Senate to McAllen. She came away impressed by his ideas and convinced that he shared her values and truly cared about people. She began to follow his campaign and participated when she could. When O’Rourke launched PbP in 2019, Clarissa became an early volunteer. In 2020, besides voting for the first time, she drove people to the polls. For the 2024 election, PbP hired her to be its third full-time organizer.
Safe Spaces Strategy
Clarissa’s core activity is organizing events to inform and register voters. She ranges over half a dozen Texas-sized counties and beyond, finding and securing sites for the events, reaching out to collaborators, recruiting and training volunteers, and gathering informational resources for voters.
Typically, she says, “We go to a site and set up with a banner. People are curious and come over to ask us what we’re doing. We offer them donuts and conversation. They ask who we’re for. We’re very transparent. We’re not bipartisan. We’re for democracy and Democrats. But we make it a safe space. We don’t push anything down anyone’s throat. Whether you’re for Trump or whatever, it’s just a safe space to engage with the community and get resources about the issues and voting. We make it lively and interactive, but also with facts. If you don’t want to engage right now, here’s the QR code.”
She believes that giving people a safe space to express their ideas and concerns is essential for reaching them and moving them toward action. “I’m not doing anything that’s terribly different from other organizers, but what I think is different is the approach. The approach is [to provide] a safe space, and smile.”
Clarissa says, “The first time I did an event, I didn’t know what to expect. I was afraid people were going to come up and yell ‘Trump! Trump!’ I honestly thought I was going to get shot. The MAGA people want us to be scared and fearful. And I bought into that. Until I was there and saw, no, that wasn’t it at all.”
The present goal is to register voters, but engagement doesn’t stop once a person fills out an application. “PbP stays connected with you to make sure you get your registration card. If you don’t get it within the time you’re supposed to, we reach out to the Elections Department. The department’s job then is to let the Secretary of State know so that they can send whatever you need to your home address. Now, are we going to bank on that? No. We’ll send you a new voter application or let you know where we’ll be so that you can come to us and register. So we stay connected throughout the process and answer any questions along the way.”
“We want to make sure everyone is registered, but also remind them that elections are important and their voice does count.” For example, the team has materials that explain how elements of Project 2025 would impact the area. And they cite a recent County election where only 87 votes separated the winner and loser.
Each event produces data that is conveyed to the organization to guide future goals and activities. Every Friday is Volunteer Feedback Day, where volunteers relate their experiences, and share their thoughts about what’s going well and what can be improved.
Voter registration will close in Texas on October 7 (except for absentee voting). At that time, Clarissa’s focus will shift to getting voters to the polls.
Keeping the Momentum Going
Trump is, for the moment, strongly favored to win Texas in November. Some down-ballot Democrats appear to be more competitive. Whatever those outcomes may be, Clarissa is committed and optimistic for the longer run. She notes that the Republican margin of victory in presidential elections in the state has been declining, from over 20% in 2000 to less than 6% in 2020. “The goal is to keep the momentum going. Events are getting bigger and bigger. Last week 500 people came to one at a technical-vocational school. People are excited and getting involved. The level of engagement surpasses what I even thought was possible. Something that I didn’t anticipate is that a lot of professional people are volunteering. I expected that most volunteers would be students and retired people, but that’s not what’s happened. We have practicing attorneys, teachers, anything and everything.
“This is all grassroots. The more traction we show in the data we provide to PbP, the more donors put their money in. That’s how the organization has been able to add more organizers.”
Clarissa says, “When I went from here to New Jersey in 2011, I felt like I passed through a time portal. I came back in 2017, and from then until now it’s only gotten worse. The main reason is that people don’t have resources. There’s selective resourcing. It’s almost like gerrymandering of resources.”
“I‘m a born-and-raised border Texan. There’s something special about the people who live here. The people in power are banking on us being dumb and ignorant. I’m here to say: We’re not going anywhere. We’re coming together.”
She adds, “There’s more here than just the border. It’s beautiful. We’re really the gem of the United States.”
Post contributed by David Anderson, a volunteer with The Union.
Note: The views and opinions expressed by volunteer contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Union, a single-issue organization that welcomes all and is dedicated to protecting democracy.
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