As I continue to digest the lessons from the 2024 election, both our efforts and outcome, I keep coming back to the question of whether the work we do and the money we spend makes any difference. My county, Tom Green, has a population of 120,000, so some would not consider it rural. But its population is less than 500 persons per square mile and is the regional center for a large rural area in West Texas, so for my purposes I am going to use it as an example.
In 2024 Donald Trump won 73.47% of the vote in Tom Green. Harris received 25.48%
By contrast, in 2020 Trump received 71.47% of the vote and Biden received 27.07%. In 2024 Ted Cruz took 70.15% of the vote and Allred received 27.3%. In 2018 Ted Cruz received 71.18% and Beto O'Rourke received 27.98%. That is not much change. While the number of voters have increased for both parties, the difference between Republican and Democratic performance has not changed that much since 2008. As you can see in the graph below, this year Republicans have added a bit more distance between us. But nothing has substantially changed during that time.
We had two local candidates on the ballot for County Commissioner in 2024. One did not campaign at all against a popular Republican incumbent in a very red part of the county. The Republican incumbent received 77.27% of the vote while the Democratic challenger received 22.73%. She polled slightly behind Allred and Harris in that precinct.
The other candidate campaigned hard against a long time Republican incumbent in a precinct that historically has been more favorable for Democrats. The Republican incumbent received 64.03% of the vote while the Democrat received 35.97% He polled a little under Allred but 10 points higher than Harris in that Precinct.
One lesson that can be taken from all this that is that a local candidate, just by putting their name on the ballot, and doing nothing, is going to pull approximately the same 22-24% of the vote as the Democrat Presidential nominee. . I bet many of your counties experienced similar results. This can be very frustrating for rural Democrats and cause us to lose heart, and even think of quitting political work altogether. I get it.
But the reason we get so down is because we measure whether we are having success or making an impact by how we do against the Republican behemoth on its home turf in a given election. We need to change our way of thinking. Our standard of success is not winning an election. Our standard of success is improving our performance year by year, election by election, even if that is just a few votes. We are not competing against the Republicans. In rural Texas, we are competing against ourselves. We can't worry about whether we have candidates or whether those candidates will win. Most likely they won't, at least not in counties like Tom Green. What we must do is work to increase our vote totals and narrow the gap in a Presidential election compared to the last one. This won't happen all the time. There will be bad years like 2024. I remember a particularly brutal one in 1994. Sometimes success is holding the line, and not losing ground.
I know this is not what you had in mind when you decided to volunteer with your local party. But holding onto and eating away at the Republican margins is very important. Gaining votes election by election is the only thing that matters. If we want attention from candidates, the state party, and elected officials we must remember that they only respond to one thing, votes. We have to grow the votes out here, and that takes a long time and hard work. I remember when my beloved Baylor Bears were cycling through one of their many football coaches after Grant Teaff retired. One of them came to town and promised that if we fans would just show up and fill the stands the Bears would win. I remember thinking, "That is not the way it works coach. Win, or at least give us something good to watch, then the fans will show up." That reminds me of rural Democrats. We want people to show up when there is no reason to. We aren't giving them anything to come see.
That is what our work is about, giving them something good to see. That means focusing on your number of votes, and only your number of votes, and doing whatever you can to get them to go up, even if it is just by one vote. Turning around a football program does not happen overnight. Turning around the political direction of rural Texas is not going to happen overnight either. But there are good things that can happen during lean years too.
My father-in-law was an old school Texas Aggie. Being a Baylor Bear I had no great love for the Texas Aggies. But I told him that the one Aggie tradition I had always admired was kissing your date when the Aggies scored a touchdown. I told him whoever came up with that was a genius. He said yes, that is a great tradition. Then he winked at me and said, "of course during the lean years we had to kiss on the first downs." Talk about moving the goal posts. While that is a humorous story, it also contains a great deal of truth.
For the time being, don't worry about the score, or the touchdowns. Focus on getting a first down. Then work on the next one. We can do a lot of good focusing on those first downs. After all, if you can get enough first downs, eventually you are going to win.
Jon Mark Hogg is a San Angelo Lawyer, County Chair of the Tom Green County Democratic Party and a founder of The 134 PAC.
Jon Mark, as always, your pieces are encouraging. I may not be in a rural county, but your words ring true to this precinct chair in a heavily Democratic, urban precinct. Dem votes in our precinct were down compared to 2020, and it's hard not to get discouraged. Thanks for inspiring me!