The Ones Who Held Us Up When We Were Down!

Vikki Goodwin, James Talarico and Mothers stand by Texans

Here is a short timeline of the people who held us up when we were flat on the floor.

November 9, 2022.
Beto lost to Greg Abbott.

It felt like someone knocked the air out of the entire state. Not just a loss — a gut punch. The kind where you sit in silence afterward wondering how it happened.

Texas Democrats were not in formation. We weren’t aligned. We weren’t coordinated. We were tired. And if we’re being honest, we were a little shell-shocked.

A handful of grassroots leaders gathered in Austin soon after. No cameras. No press. Just people who cared enough to ask the hard questions.

What we saw was sobering:

• We had more non-voters than voters.

• The margin between Abbott and Beto was less than 900,000 votes in a state of nearly 30 million people.

• The whiter the population, the more Republican the turnout.

• We were watching men — across racial lines — drift away from the Democratic Party.

We left that meeting with tiers of focus areas mapped out by population, turnout, and non-voters. It was strategic. It was data-driven. It was hopeful.

We tried to organize a broader strategy group around it.

And then the pettiness started. Internal politics. Turf wars. It fell apart.

January 2023.
The legislative session began. It was brutal.

June 2023 to January 2024.
Instead of waiting for someone else to fix it, many of us hit the road.

With 134 PAC and Blue Horizon, we traveled Texas — small towns, big counties, rural courthouses, suburban libraries — trying to rebuild Democratic spirits. We asked people to run for office. We told them they mattered. We told them Texas wasn’t lost.

Vikki Goodwin joined me on the road in Nov 2023 to Corpus Christi. Where we both spoke to Democratic Club.

By December 2023, we had filled as many seats as we could find. Mothers paid the rent for some Texas County Democratic offices. But morale was still fragile.

2024.
We kept going.

We had Ted Cruz on the ballot. We needed to show up in force. Roland Gutierrez ran hard. He lost. We hoped Collin Allred would surge in the places we needed. It didn’t materialize the way we dreamed.

But something else was happening.

Clubs were outgrowing the rooms they used to meet in.

That matters.

Around the same time, two people were quietly, steadily, relentlessly showing up across the state: Vikki Goodwin and James Talarico.

They weren’t just doing their legislative jobs. They were traveling. Building. Listening. Showing up for county parties that felt forgotten.

I joined them on some of those trips. Sometimes we were in neighboring towns, speaking to different groups who all shared the same question: Are we alone?

Team Talarico and I carpooled to Corpus Christi to campaign for Colin Allred, where James served as a surrogate. I remember how fondly he spoke about Collin — not as a transaction, but as a teammate. That stuck with me. This pic is from that day in September when James gave the most kick butt speech for Colin Allred.

And if you asked women candidates across Texas who helped them when they were getting started, I could predict the answer before they opened their mouths:

“Vikki Goodwin.”

Over and over again.

They were there. Not for headlines. For people.

November 2024.
The election broke us.

We lost ground in the Valley. We lost more Black and Hispanic men. We lost more white men. It was sobering. It was painful. It forced reflection.

And still — they kept showing up.

From January through September, Talarico and Goodwin continued touring the state nearly every weekend. Meanwhile, they were holding down the fort during the Lege session.

When Vikki announced she was considering a run for Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick responded by burying her bills. None would see daylight. That’s how threatened power behaves.

James, meanwhile, delivered some of the sharpest responses in the chamber — often using Republicans’ own words against them. What stood out wasn’t just the wit. It was the moral clarity. When he pushed back against Christian nationalism, he did it from a deeply rooted, democratic populist position. He spoke for regular people — and he was formidable. Even some Republicans noticed.

Vikki is wicked smart. Calm. Unflappable. She walks to the mic with the demeanor of a diplomat and leaves with the precision of a trial lawyer. Many of the same Republicans who once underestimated her learned quickly: she forgets nothing.

I’m friends with both of them. James and I share ideas about strategy, about long arcs, about things most people don’t yet see. He is one of the rare people in politics who makes you want to be better simply by being around him. His phone screen saver is his niece. His love for his family is palpable. His calling is service. On this trip he spent time helping his staffer practice for his Grad School Entry exam. We discussed favorite speeches, how he likes driving fast and we took him to experience his first In and Out burger. We had fun!

Vikki calls to check in. She asked how I was doing long before she asked for anything. I was on one of her first calls when she decided to run for Lieutenant Governor. Being underestimated is her superpower. She is a critical thinker who doesn’t rattle easily — which, in Texas politics, is almost a superhuman trait.

They are not just team players for the Texas Democratic Party. They back counties. They back candidates. They back people. They were there and they always showed up and told people, “I’ll be there, you can count on me.”

When we were kicked down, they helped hold us up.

And that matters now. I am for one not forgetting.

Because we have a real opportunity in front of us — to fight for working-class Texans. Which, in case it needs saying, is most of us.

Vikki was a single mom who built a real estate business before entering public service. She knows what it means to survive, to budget, to rebuild. She loves her grown kids so much and her advice about motherhood was something I hold on to when times are hard with my teenagers. She builds women up.

James is a pastor at heart who lives simply and gives freely of himself. His politics are not about accumulation; they’re about contribution. He brings out people’s better angels. You see it in his staff. They are solid and supportive.

I don’t think they get enough credit for who they are and what they have done for Texas.

Some of you may not know them the way I do.

Which is why I am telling you now.

And I believe in them with my whole heart. Because there was a time in 2023 - 2025 when the people whom other Texans could count on the most were Vikki Goodwin, James Talarico, and Mothers Against Greg Abbott. Collaboratively, we held y’all up, and you didn’t even know we were carrying you. Because it was never about us. It was about Texas and building the Texas Democratic party back up.

And we are still building, even through the noise.

Yours in resistance,
Nancy