Texas Democrats hope quiet Dallas convention sets table for November upset of Abbott

As Texas Democrats arrive in Dallas this week, don’t look for them to generate national headlines as the Republicans did in Houston last month. Republicans may have declared that President Joe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected, that schools should teach the “Humanity of the Preborn Child” and that U.S. senators should be chosen by legislatures, not voters. But Texas Democrats would rather project level headedness — even if they have to lock their most outlandish relatives in the attic. Setting a tone that the party is ready to govern, and offers a credible alternative to a rightward-lurching state GOP, is important, influential Democrats said when asked about the goal of their Dallas convention. “It helps when you don’t have people advocating secession, repeal of all minimum wages and making gays and lesbians criminals again,” wisecracked party stalwart Rick Levy, the president of the Texas AFL-CIO. Respectability is the goal as Democrats, tamping down their internal divisions, hold their first in-person convention in four years starting Thursday.

Republicans don’t worry about the provocative views of many of their state convention delegates because voters ignore their party’s platform and keep sending their nominees back to Austin and Washington, said Democratic consultant Harold Cook. “One reason why the Democrats in Texas are not as embarrassing as the Republicans are is because the Democrats are trying to win,” he said. “They haven’t succeeded yet but they’re chipping away at it.” Cook, who served as Texas Democratic Party executive director in the early 2000s, noted that Democrats who run statewide no longer succumb by the huge margins they once lost by. “The Democrats kind of smell victory, even when it’s not there,” he said. “And so they’re going to try harder to be a political party that can then attract more people.” In search of pretty packaging, Democratic convention planners chose not to bring in big names from the national scene.