Adrian OceguedaVerified account

After this week’s defeat in HD 28 it should be clear that we as Democrats need a new approach to politics in this state. Nationally, our political machinery has shifted dramatically over the course of several election cycles.

Gone are the days where we fight for the undecided middle, we now embrace nuclear-arms-race tactics that force us to raise money and employ get-out-the-vote efforts in empty polarizing rhetoric.

The shifts in our media consumption mean that while national outlets get to drive left-right echo chambers, state and local media are left covering fundraising or non-impact color stories like Susan Sarandon endorsements or trivial political blunders.

Our state Democratic Party uses its megaphone to drive shallow arguments that are meant to polarize rather than inform, and the state Republican Party is no different.

On our side this is usually meant to both energize our get-out-the-vote efforts and rally small dollar donations by our party’s faithful. But we now have evidence on how this fundraise-to-polarize and polarize-to-fundraise strategy plays out here in Texas.

Even with the most charismatic candidate (Beto) we spend millions of dollars, have great mobilization and still fall short. In HD 28 we mobilized money, presidential candidates, and the support of that same charismatic candidate;

and, our polarizing efforts worked to mobilize their polarizing efforts, so we saw a retreat of our electoral margins. Because of all of this, I truly believe that any of the “lead" candidates on the Democratic side of this race will lose in the general election,

regardless of who it is and the money they have. The reason being is that these candidates are running politics by the same playbook that has failed in our state over several election cycles.