Both Lauren Ashley Simmons, who trounced four-term incumbent Shawn Thierry to win the House District 146 race by 29 percentage points, and Molly Cook, who narrowly beat House Representative Jarvis Johnson in the Senate District 15 race by 74 votes, drew upon the community they helped organize to turn out votes leading up to yesterday’s runoff election. It paid off.
Both Simmons and Cook see their wins as blueprints for not only how progressive upstarts can beat established Democrats, but how Democrats can energize a broader and lethargic base to flip seats across the state.
“This is actually a movement across different coalitions. This is how we win statewide races by people like me and turn out the vote for Democrats up and down the ballot every election,” Simmons told the Texas Observer before last night’s race.
