Women hustle their way to victory in historic Texas Primary
As results poured in following Tuesday’s Primary in Texas, Hustle saw remarkable results among women, and more specifically women of color running for office in the historically conservative Lone Star State.
As the leading peer-to-peer messaging platform that allows organizations to create genuine human relationships at scale, Hustle has partnered with the Texas Democratic Party to work with over 90 campaigns across the state. Hustle was used by candidates, partner organizations, and the party to reach 558,466 unique Texas voters with over nearly 1 Million text messages for the Texas Primary.
In a statement on Monday, the Texas Democratic Party said “Local Democrats are challenging nearly 90% of state legislative seats, we have filled the statewide ticket, and have over 100 candidates across every single congressional district in the state. This level of competitive primary has resulted in a massive uptick in folks showing up to the polls.”
Having been inspired by the “Trump effect,” many of these candidates are women and people of color who have seized their opportunity to make a difference by running for office and helping Texas turn a deeper shade of purple.
Texas’ congressional districts 7, 23, and 32 previously went blue for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election, inspiring many women like Gina Ortiz Jones to run for office in TX-23. Ortiz Jones, a Hustle client, won a majority of voters in her district’s support on Tuesday and will proceed to the May 22nd runoff primary. In TX-29, which serves the eastern portion of the Greater Houston area, Hustle’s client Sylvia Garcia won the primary as well. “Hustle was huge for our campaign. The team loved “hustling” and it helped in so many ways,” said Daniel Vasquez, Field Director for Sylvia Garcia for Congress. “We scheduled volunteers for shifts, recommitted donors for the final push, and send polling location info to over 7,000 voters on the final day before Election Day!”If elected, both of these women would be two of the first Latinas sent to Congress by the State of Texas; Ortiz Jones would be the first openly gay Congresswoman of color from Texas.
“After the success of the Doug Jones campaign in Alabama, it’s incredible to see the outpour of support for Democrats going into the 2018 Midterms,” said Roddy Lindsay, Hustle’s CEO and Co-founder. “It’s especially heartwarming to see so many women candidates and candidates of color winning their primaries and to know they’re using Hustle to reach their supporters.” The Texas Democratic Party further strengthened the notion that women have a key role to play in this year’s midterms by stating that women voters made up “58.55% of the early vote Democratic electorate in the Top 15 counties…an uptick of nearly 2 points.”
Texas’ Early Vote from February 20th until March 2nd led the way for the rise in voter turnout, with 51% of early voters having not participated in the last three midterm elections. During Early Vote, Hustle was used to reach 329,044 voters to educate them about candidates, early vote information, and polling locations. Organizations like the the Harris County Democrats, which includes the city of Houston, reached out to as many as 39,529 voters during this 11 day time period alone.
Of the 90+ campaigns that utilized Hustle to engage voters, 57 of them were candidates running for state or federal office, crucial seats to help turn Texas blue. Hustle is proud that of those 57 candidates, 29 of them were women, 28 of which will continue on to the runoff primary or the general election this year. The Texas runoff primary will take place on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018.
