What I Learned as a Teacher Running for the Texas House in 2020 That Could Help Democrats Win in 2022 and 2024

Introduction

This reflection is not intended to criticize any individual or organization within the Democratic Party or liberal/progressive eco-system. It is also not an attempt to blame others for getting my ass kicked! It is meant purely as anecdotal commentary and feedback from a first-time candidate. I know more about politics than the average person because I have taught Government for the last decade in high school and community college settings. That being said, I found myself constantly surprised and confused by what I witnessed and experienced from “the inside” as a candidate. I hope that my reflection will spur constructive conversations and reforms, or, at the very least, increase understanding about what candidates are up against.

Before you hear my thoughts, I think it is important to have a general sense of my campaign and where I received support. I was only the second Democrat in two decades to run for the state house seat in my heavily Republican district in northwest Harris County. I was endorsed by Run for Something, AFL-CIO, AFT, Sierra Club, GLBT Caucus, and others. I had volunteer support from the Harris County Democratic Party, Powered by People, and local Democratic clubs like Cypress-Tomball Democrats. I am grateful to all these organizations for their support. I raised about $15,000 from my district and got 31% of the vote.

1. Where is the “How to Run for Office” Manual?

As I was gathering information to decide whether to run for office, I quickly discovered that information was difficult to find. There are many components to a campaign, and building one from scratch proved daunting. The “Run for Office” page provided by the Texas Democratic Party’s website looks decent now, but I honestly don’t remember it being there two years ago. Still, the basic paperwork of filing and appointing a treasurer is only the beginning. Where is the rest of the information on how to find a campaign manager, raise money, create a budget, recruit volunteers, and reach voters? I felt like I had to get this information from 20 different sources or figure it out on-the-fly. Maybe that is a common experience for first-time candidates, but at the time if felt more difficult than it needed to be. If I wanted to start a small business, there would be dozens of books and guides to choose from. I often felt like someone starting a small business without any access to accumulated wisdom. The Democratic Party, presumably, knows how to run campaigns, right? Can some veteran campaign managers get together and produce a 40–50 page primer for first-time candidates? In my opinion, this knowledge could and should be easily passed on to others. The more quickly the campaign infrastructure can be built and the campaign strategy formulated, the more effective that campaign will be in executing its goal: turning out Democratic voters and winning. So, that is my first request on behalf of future candidates. Let’s give them the information they need to start strong.

2. Is the Democratic Party a Thing?

I’m a teacher. My reference point for a hierarchical operation is a school. There is a principal, assistant principals, teachers, and staff. There is a school culture with norms and expectations. The school provides professional development, instructional resources, and moral support. The teachers support each other and receive support from their superiors. The principal and administration, ideally, have the teachers backs and routinely show their appreciation in substantive and symbolic ways.

In short, the Democratic Party is NOT a school.

Now, if you want to disregard my reaction to this as naive or overly sensitive that is your prerogative. All I’m going to do is honestly reflect on how much reality differed from my assumptions.

When I won my primary (unopposed) I assumed that I was joining a team. An organization that considered me a member. Hell, I’m a passionate progressive so I thought I was joining an army of like-minded warriors for equality and justice! I expected camaraderie and institutional support.

I don’t think the Texas Democratic Party ever knew who I was.

Is that because my race wasn’t winnable? Even so. Shouldn’t every candidate on the general election ballot receive a generic thank you letter from the state party or chairman acknowledging the fact that they’re running for office as a Democrat and thanking them? Shouldn’t the state party find me and connect me to all the resources as its disposal?

Because here’s the thing, if Democrats are going to win state-wide then we have to turnout as many voters as possible in every single district, even my uncompetitive “safe” Republican district. To put it differently, the party is in some real sense only as successful as its weakest candidates. You can turn up the dial as high as you want in the “safe” Democratic districts and swing districts, but the margins we lose by everywhere else will drag us down.

We must compete everywhere. And those campaigns need support.

They need financial support, institutional support, and moral support.

The only in-person training I received as a candidate on how to run a successful campaign or even be a candidate came from the AFL-CIO. They held a two-day crash course in Houston. The information I received was incredibly useful and beneficial, but it left me wondering why the AFL-CIO was providing it instead of the Democratic Party. I knew other candidates who weren’t endorsed by the AFL-CIO who never received that training. Why wasn’t there a similar program for all Democratic candidates statewide? Is the party just delegating that task to the AFL-CIO because they do a good job?

Again, a school provides the teachers with professional development. What is the Democratic Party doing to train, empower, and polish its candidates?

The Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee also had candidate development with current state representatives. I was fortunate to benefit from two or three of these workshops/meetings, but I was only invited after I aggressively inquired about financial support that couldn’t be provided. The candidates being offered these workshops were, as far as I could tell, the “Top 20 Target” races that were deemed “winnable.” It seemed like some exclusive party that I was crashing. I was brave enough to ask a question about tax revenue, was low-key dismissed by an elected official, and then not invited back to another meeting. Why weren’t the Texas House candidates I met at the AFL-CIO training invited to those HDCC trainings? Again, I applaud the HDCC for doing what they did, but why wasn’t it available to everyone? Or, why can’t even more be done for candidates earlier on in the process? Again, I want to stress that this is NOT criticism of HDCC. They have a limited staff with finite resources. I am simply thinking out loud about how we can do more to develop our talent.

A successful school doesn’t allow first-year teachers to make shit up as they go without support from other teachers and the school administration. The school must develop its talent with tangible resources and emotional support.

I don’t know if the Democratic Party agrees that candidates should be invested in similarly, but it seems self-evident to me. Maybe the professionals know that candidates can win without this type of support, that it all comes down to how much money is spent or something. If I were in charge, the candidates would be treated very differently. So, too, would campaign managers, field organizers, etc. Where is the warmth? If the Democratic Party is a workplace, then people should, in all levels of the organization, feel affirmed for their work, treated with dignity, and approached as a potential to be realized. It shouldn’t feel like a carnival show that appears every two years being run by underpaid and underappreciated temps.

Again, I don’t claim to know whether my school/party analogy is appropriate. It is simply the lens through which I interpreted my experience.

3. Money is Speech. No, Really…

I knew before I ran for office that money was important. It wasn’t until I started building my campaign and fundraising that I began to glimpse how overpowering and omnipresent money is to the process. I absolutely hated it. To this day, I resent the fact that in our political system a “great” candidate is one who can raise a lot of money. It has little to do with their knowledge of policy, their demeanor, their values, or whether they would do the job well. They either have money or they don’t. A shitty candidate with tons of cash will beat a great candidate with no money. That sucks. Now, nothing will change this reality so let’s move on…

It was very difficult for me to raise money for my Texas House race. I called voters using VAN lists. I called donors using lists generated by Grassroots Analytics (the lists were complete shit). I raised about $7,000 cold-calling strangers. I am fucking proud of that. I received another $3,000 from organizations like AFT and AFL-CIO. My parents gave my $5,000. That’s $15,000 to run a campaign. I did what I could and I am not ashamed or embarrassed. The Democratic candidate in the swing district next to me raised over $1,000,000.

I am not stupid. Resources, overwhelmingly, should flow to winnable races. But, as an organization with a collective goal, how can we justify that disparity in resources? Yes. The candidate in the swing district can win and I can’t. But, isn’t there a floor below which any candidate shouldn’t be operating? Maybe I am wrong, but why can’t every campaign receive a base fund of $20,000? I don’t know what the figure should be, but someone must know the bare minimum that is necessary to run a minimally competitive race. Or, what if the Democratic Party could match a campaign dollar-for-dollar up to a certain level. That could really help state house and state senate races and the less competitive congressional races, too.

If we can, shouldn’t we make sure that every campaign has the money it needs to do the bare minimum whether it’s in a wealthy suburban district in Houston or a blue-collar rural district in East Texas or the Panhandle? Would the losing margins have been better if every campaign had more resources? I don’t know. What I do know is that I spent hours calling people asking them for money. I felt like I spent more time trying to get money to get my message out to voters than I spent getting my message out to voters.

I had a great mentor from Run for Something who helped coach me for “call time” and the AFL-CIO also trained me to do “call time.” Where did other candidates get their help? Where did other candidates get their donor lists? Why does the Democratic Party expect candidates to just figure this out on their own? Why does nobody recognize or admit that it’s a catch-22 to say “a candidate worth investing in is a candidate that brings in a lot of cash.” I want to use resources wisely. I don’t want to “waste” money on races that can’t be won. But, I want to use resources efficiently and get the biggest bang for the buck. If you had an extra $10,000, where do you think it would have the biggest impact? The campaign that has $1,000,000 cash on-hand or the campaign with $10,000 cash on-hand? I think there may be good arguments for either one. I could be completely wrong.

To conclude, is there a better way to help candidates raise money themselves and get them the financial resources they need to reach voters?

4. Organic Food Yes, Organic Organizing Maybe

Campaigns need money AND people. Campaigns need people to get money. Campaigns need money to get people. Another catch-22. As a first-time candidate, I felt like a small business owner just trying to keep his restaurant afloat every week (and I didn’t have any paid staff!). I had a volunteer campaign manager. Friends and family “donated” their photography, videography, and graphic design labor to produce campaign materials. I had volunteer phone bankers and block walkers. In my opinion, I had a damn good operation and presence for having a very small budget. Would I have benefitted from a more experienced staff? YES. Could I afford one? NO.

Despite what you may think by now, I do not expect the Democratic Party to do “everything” for the candidate. But, it is the Democratic Party that wants to win and exercise power. So why do they leave it up to each candidate and campaign to get things right and achieve the desired outcome? Like my musing about a base $20,000 being available to candidates, why isn’t there a pool of campaign managers, field organizers, budget directors, and communications people? Sort of like the political campaign equivalent of public defenders! If a campaign needs access to human talent to run a campaign, why can’t they access that talent at a subsidized rate? I don’t have $5,000 to pay a field organizer because I need that $5,000 to pay for social media ads or direct mail or yard signs. Can’t the Democratic Party develop a fund that can pay someone to be my field organizer? Shouldn’t they be contacting me to offer this type of support? Again, don’t they want me to succeed? My success is their success.

It doesn’t make sense for a candidate to spend time raising money so they can then pay people to help them raise more money to run a better campaign. That human talent should just be there at the beginning of the process. They should be designing the most competitive campaign possible from the start. Not haphazardly trying to make the campaign more competitive in the last two months now that they have the money to do so. It seems like the money can come somewhat late in the game (although, we all know too much money comes too late), but the people need to be there a lot earlier. Is there a way to develop talent at the other levels of the organization that will make every campaign as competitive as possible? Is there money for that?

5. Diversify Instruction

Every good teacher knows the necessity of using different teaching styles for different types of learners, but it is often easier said than done. What should be more straight forward is knowing how to effectively campaign in different districts. I assume that campaign strategy, from the fundraising to the messaging is NOT a one-size-fits-all thing. What may work for a candidate in a heavily Democratic district isn’t going to work for a candidate trying to close the gap in a heavily Republican district, right?

I interacted with many candidates and elected officials during my run for the Texas House. I was always surprised by the advice I would receive. It often seemed like people just assumed that what worked for them in their district was universally applicable. I almost never thought that was the case. There are clearly disagreements between those who want to turn out the “base” and those who want to “reach out” to moderates and independents. If it’s a Democratic district, then turn out the “base.” If it’s a swing district, then (in my opinion) it could go either way, but what I heard often was the notion that “reaching out” to moderates and independents was downright stupid. More than once I was made to feel like an idiot because I conceded that I was trying to “convert” voters.

Perhaps I am an idiot, but it seemed self-evident to me that if my goal was to close the gap in a Republican district, then I had to “reach out” to get a larger share of the vote. A lot of people didn’t seem to agree and they were very dismissive of the idea. The way I see it, if we are going to get a larger share of the vote in conservative suburbs or rural areas, then we must appeal to those voters somehow. We either do the difficult, exhausting labor of “converting” some voters through our conviction or we moderate our stances on certain issues to alienate less people. I think too many Democrats fail to appreciate this fact. We are not going to magically find more Democrats in rural areas by running campaigns that appeal to the progressive wing of the party. Being bold and progressive may be a way to flip a seat or maximize turnout in Democratic districts, but we need to acknowledge that other strategies are valid and necessary to gain power state-wide. That doesn’t mean compromising our principles, but it does mean we need to think practically and realistically about how to compete everywhere.

I think the Democratic Party should acknowledge this and help provide candidates and campaigns with strategies to compete as effectively as possible in different types of districts.

Conclusion

Running for office was a rewarding experience and I intend to encourage others to do so. I would like to run for office again, but I don’t know when that will be. I don’t pretend to have the answers or even know if my ideas are feasible or valid. I have provided them to generate discussion in the hope that something may be useful.

I want to publically express my gratitude as a candidate to Representative Jon Rosenthal, Texas AFT, Cy-Fair AFT, Lone Star College AFT, Texas AFL-CIO, Run for Something, Virginia State Senate candidate Ronnie Ross, Mike Siegel, Mike Collier, Cypress Area Democratic Club, Cypress-Tomball Democrats, Harris County Democratic Party, and my campaign manager Hugo Guerrero for their support during the 2020 election.

In solidarity,

Bryan J Henry