Four of Texas’s biggest Democratic organizations on Feb. 17 announced a $30 million joint campaign operation—combining volunteers, data, and overhead costs in a way the state party has never attempted before.
The Texas Democratic Party, Texas Majority PAC, the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee, and Beto O'Rourke’s Powered by People are combining to build the centralized operation, called “Texas Together,” to help drive the campaigns of the roughly 1,000 Democrats running for Texas offices.
The four groups have been working together since last year, successfully recruiting Democratic candidates for every congressional, state house, state senate, statewide, and state board of education race on the 2026 ballot—the first time that has happened in Texas history.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder said in a press call on Feb. 17 that volunteer operations begin on March 4, the day after the primary, because the party has “no time to waste.”
“As soon as the primary is over, we are hitting the ground running,” Scudder said on the call. “We are going to work with all candidates on our ticket from the U.S. Senate all the way down to constable and making sure that we’re putting one gigantic voter mobilization program together in this state. This is the earliest that [a] coordinated campaign has been launched in our state, and [it is] the most well-funded coordinated campaign that we have seen in Texas Democratic history.”
The effort commits $25 million to a statewide organizing and voter contact program covering all 254 counties and $5 million to a newly created research hub called 254 Labs that will conduct polling, message-testing, and data analysis for candidates across the state.
“We don’t want to waste a single second,” Katherine Fischer, executive director of Texas Majority PAC, said in a press call on Feb. 17. “Historically, campaigns in Texas have been responsible for funding and running 100 percent of all the activity that occurs in their district. And this has meant that we end up with a thousand tiny operations working independent from one another, rather than one big operation where everyone is working together.”
Fischer also said one major change is that the group is starting off with $30 million before any candidates have contributed any money.
“Now, we do expect that candidates will put more money in, but we’ve never before had a coordinated campaign that was funded at this level before candidate investment,” she said.
The national stakes for the party are concrete. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has listed Texas’ 15th Congressional District—held by Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas)—on its 2026 “Districts in Play” target list, which currently names 44 Republican-held seats.
The DCCC needs to flip just three seats to reclaim the majority in the U.S. House.
The DCCC also lists the 35th District—currently held by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas)—as a seat Democrats must defend.
Fischer said Rehmet “would not have won that election absent Republicans switching over to vote for him,” signaling that the campaign intends to pursue both base turnout and Republican crossover voters simultaneously.
By March 4, Fischer said, the campaign will have 75 people on staff across the four organizations and 30,000 active volunteers—more staff, calls, and doors than the full 2024 coordinated campaign before the primary has even concluded.
The effort provides free voter file access to all Democratic candidates in Texas, which Fischer described as a first in state history and among the first in the country.
Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee Chair Christina Morales said the DCCC’s state-level counterpart, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, has not yet committed a specific dollar amount to Texas legislative races but is in active discussions and is being pushed to prioritize the state.
“We really won’t know anything until after the midterms,” Morales said, “but there is definitely a push to put Texas at the top of the list.”
Scudder said the infrastructure is designed to extend beyond 2026.
“When we get into a presidential election in 2028, national funders are going to be seeing a program that they’re accustomed to investing in—programs similar to that of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” he said.
