Elizabeth Warren is the latest Democratic presidential candidate to endorse Eliz Markowitz in the nationally targeted race for Texas House District 28.
“I'm joining Democrats across Texas and the country who are jumping all in for Eliz, because I know she's the fighter we need to put real change on the agenda for all Texans,” the Massachusetts U.S. senator said in a statement. “As an educator and advocate, Eliz has shown up for her community time and again. The people of Fort Bend County and the 28th District deserve a woman like Eliz in the House.”
Markowitz, a Katy educator, faces Republican businessman Gary Gates in the Jan. 28 special election runoff to fill the seat of former Rep.John Zerwas, R-Richmond. Early voting began Tuesday and goes through Friday.
Democrats are pushing to flip the traditionally red seat as they head toward November with hopes of capturing the House, where they are effectively nine seats away from the majority.
Meanwhile, Beto O’Rourke (D. TX) continues to help boost GOTV efforts. Here’s an e-mail I received from him yesterday:
Beto O’Rourke (D. TX)
We’ve spent the last two weekends knocking on doors in Fort Bend county trying to helpElizMarkowitzwin a special election for the state house. If she wins, she’ll be the first Democrat to represent the district in the legislature.
But more than that, a victory on January 28th will show Texas and the country that with only 8 more seats to pick up, we are going to win the State House for the first time since 2001. And it will also mean that we are poised to deliver our state’s 38 electoral college votes to the Democratic nominee who will defeat Donald Trump.
That’s how important this election is. And that’s why Powered By People has mobilized more than 950 people to block walk in House District 28 over the last two weekends. They came from Katy and Houston, Austin and Dallas, El Paso and Longview, Lubbock and San Antonio. Some even jumped on a plane to come down from outside of Texas. And so far they’ve knocked on over 24,000 doors, initiating thousands of conversations with the voters who will decide this important election.
And you know what? I think it’s working.
After one day of early voting, we are already breaking records for turnout in a special election.By 7pm Tuesday, 3,579 people had votedat one of the five early voting locations in Fort Bend. By way of comparison, during the first day of early voting last November only 694 people had voted and there were23early voting locations!
That means that in an election where most pundits expected turnout to drop off from November, turnout is actuallyFIVE TIMESwhat it was in November.
That’s the power of people.
Stronger than special interests or entrenched politicians, everyday Texans are taking matters into their own hands. Direct voter engagement — person to person conversations — eyeball to eyeball — more powerful than TV, or Facebook ads, or any of that phony rock 'n roll.
It’s real people doing the really important work that wins elections.
But we’re not done yet. We still have another weekend of action, where we hope to bring even more volunteers together to knock on doors forEliz. And we’ll have to really step up. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is chartering buses to bring people from across Texas — with promises of free food and hotels — to try to counter our efforts.
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