Mission: Texas

This week Mission: Texas sits down with Emily Roth, a Houston mom suing the state and Spring Branch ISD after Ten Commandments posters went up in her kindergartner’s classroom. Emily walks through her exhaustion of the school district’s grievance process, the decision to ground her lawsuit in Texas law — the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the newly passed parental rights constitutiona...

This week Mission: Texas sits down with Chanda Parbhoo, a longtime South Asian community organizer in Dallas who built SAAVETX (the state's largest South Asian voter outreach organization) from five moms into a grassroots force with nearly 600 volunteers and over half a million voter touches heading into this election. Chanda traces the decade-long effort to build civic infrastructure for a commun...

To mark Mission: Texas's one-year anniversary, we bring back our very first guest, reelected Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder, to check in on everything that's changed since our debut episode. Kendall reflects on a grueling year and a half in the chair, reports back on the three goals he laid out in that first conversation — message discipline, infrastructure, and statewide presence —...

To mark our one-year anniversary, Mission: Texas sits down with Beto O'Rourke — founder of Powered by People and the Democrat who's come closest to flipping a statewide race in a generation.  Beto lays out exactly what has to happen between now and 2030 for Texas Democrats to hold the state Senate, the Speaker's gavel, and the governor's mansion: winning big in 2026, not waiting on national m...

This week Mission: Texas sits down with two leaders of Dallas County Young Democrats: Cora Black, community advocate, HR professional, and the club's first Black female president, and Tsion Amare, DCYD's current co-president, former Texas House staffer and 2024 candidate, and political affairs leader at Environmental Defense Fund. We trace DCYD's rebuild out of the pandemic, the club's early and c...

This week Mission: Texas sits down with Chelsey Hockett, the Democratic nominee challenging Congressman Lance Gooden in a district that Decision Desk HQ still rates as a 12-to-14-point Republican lean — even in a good year for Democrats. Chelsey makes the case for why TX-5 isn't as out of reach as it looks: explosive population growth in Kauffman County the 2020-census maps didn't account for, a s...

This week Mission: Texas heads to West Texas for the first time, sitting down with Kyle Rable — Army Reserve civil affairs officer, PhD candidate at Texas Tech, union member, and Democratic candidate for Congress in one of the reddest districts in the country (Trump +52 in 2024).  Kyle traces his path from accidentally getting pulled into local politics over Section 8 housing without AC, to b...

This week on Mission: Texas, we're joined by Katie Serrano, DFW political correspondent for Courier Texas, a digital-first, values-driven newsroom covering progressive politics across battleground states. Katie walks us through her path from a University of Arkansas journalism program to covering the 2024 Dallas debate watch parties to breaking major accountability stories on Ken Paxton's finances...

This week on Mission: Texas, we sit down with Caitlin Rourk — a mom, Army National Guard officer, business leader, and Democratic candidate for Texas's 10th Congressional District. Caitlin shares her unconventional path to service (including a medical disqualification that took her nearly a decade to overcome), her work supporting Hurricane Harvey response with the Texas Military Department, and w...

Texas Lieutenant Governor nominee Vikki Goodwin returns to Mission: Texas ahead of the general election to talk about her statewide campaign against Dan Patrick. Vikki breaks down why the data center boom has become the surprise unifying issue of the cycle — driving up water and electric bills, spiking rents in cities like Abilene, and pulling even rural Republicans into the fight for regulation....

Most families argue about politics at the dinner table. The Early family put two names on the ballot instead. Justin Early — Army veteran, cybersecurity architect, and Democrat running in Texas's 31st Congressional District — is challenging 13-term Republican incumbent John Carter. His 21-year-old son, Matthias-Jonah Early, is running for Texas House District 20 against Republican incumbent Terry...

Today on Mission: Texas, we're putting Dallas County under the microscope. Our guests are Kardal Coleman, Chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party, and Yasmin Simon, the party's Vice Chair. Kardal is a Dallas native, Army veteran, licensed minister, former labor organizer, and experienced Democratic strategist. Yasmin is a trial lawyer, voting rights and immigration pro bono advocate, and a for...

This week, Mission: Texas sits down with two working parents who decided the "someone else will run" strategy wasn't working anymore. Katie O'Brien Duzan is taking on HD-94 in Tarrant County, and Zach Herbert — a Marine Corps veteran and trial attorney — is running for HD-112 in the Dallas area.  Both are in highly competitive state house districts that have a likelihood of flipping.  Bo...

This week we're joined by two newly elected members of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) the governing board of the state party: Liza Hameline, a longtime North Texas election judge and Irving-based organizer; and Chris Servin, a Tarrant County field organizer who is the co-chair of the statewide Hispanic Caucus. Both bring a data-driven, door-knocking ethos to the party's infrastruc...

We're kicking off a series of episodes with leaders within the Texas Democratic Party infrastructure, hearing what's going on within the party from the inside.  Recorded coming off the Texas Democratic Convention in Corpus Christi and heading straight into the Fourth of July weekend, this first installment is about reclaiming patriotism as Democratic territory.  Kate and Alex sit down wi...

This week, Kate and Alex sit down with Zack Dunn, Democratic nominee for Texas House District 121 in San Antonio, the second of two House seats in the area that are closest to flipping. His seat is targeted by the DLCC and HDCC, two groups helping flip seats in the Texas legislature. Zack was recording while in Corpus Christi, where the convention was happening.  Plus: Kate gets back into a c...

Kate's primary rival turned good friend joins the podcast. State Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez (HD-115) beat Kate in the March 2024 Democratic primary, and this episode is the full story of that race, how they built a real friendship out of it, and what it means heading into the general election season. With Texas Democrats gathering in Corpus Christi this week for the state convention, this con...

Alex has told this story before — how a campaign organizer showed up in Sherman, Texas of all places, and changed the trajectory of his life. This week, that organizer is finally on the mic. Scott Mackey recruited Alex as a high school senior during the 2008 Texas Democratic primary, back when the campaign had no budget, no VAN data, and was cutting turf on hand-drawn Google Maps. It's a homecomin...

Alex has told this story before — how a campaign organizer showed up in Sherman, Texas of all places, and changed the trajectory of his life. This week, that organizer is finally on the mic. Scott Mackey recruited Alex as a high school senior during the 2008 Texas Democratic primary, back when the campaign had no budget, no VAN data, and was cutting turf on hand-drawn Google Maps. It's a homecomin...

The primaries are over. The runoffs are done. What Texas Republicans just sent to the general election ballot may be the most corrupt and radical slate this state has ever seen. This week, Kate and Alex rank all eight GOP statewide nominees — scored on corruption and radicalism — and break down what Democrats need to know before November. Plus: Alex is back from a week off with a new look and good...

The primaries are over. The runoffs are done. What Texas Republicans just sent to the general election ballot may be the most corrupt and radical slate this state has ever seen. This week, Kate and Alex rank all eight GOP statewide nominees — scored on corruption and radicalism — and break down what Democrats need to know before November. Plus: Alex is back from a week off with a new look and good...

Texas State Senator Sarah Eckhardt joins Kate to break down the race for Texas Comptroller — one of the most powerful offices in state government that almost nobody's talking about. Eckhardt, the Democratic nominee, faces Don Huffines, the multimillionaire who purchased the Epstein Ranch and is promising to gut public education and "DOGE" state government. Kate and Senator Eckhardt make the case f...

Texas State Senator Sarah Eckhardt joins Kate to break down the race for Texas Comptroller — one of the most powerful offices in state government that almost nobody's talking about. Eckhardt, the Democratic nominee, faces Don Huffines, the multimillionaire who purchased the Epstein Ranch and is promising to gut public education and "DOGE" state government. Kate and Senator Eckhardt make the case f...

You may have seen Angel on the news talking Texas politics. But what you may not know is that Angel Carroll spent her career fighting for criminal justice reform, ran for the Texas House, and was arrested at the Texas Capitol during the redistricting protest. Now she's suing Governor Greg Abbott for banning her from the building without due process. Kate and Alex sit down with Angel to hear the fu...

You may have seen Angel on the news talking Texas politics. But what you may not know is that Angel Carroll spent her career fighting for criminal justice reform, ran for the Texas House, and was arrested at the Texas Capitol during the redistricting protest. Now she's suing Governor Greg Abbott for banning her from the building without due process. Kate and Alex sit down with Angel to hear the fu...