After pulling off an upset special election win for the solid-red Tarrant County Senate District 9 in late January, Democrat Taylor Rehmet told his cheering supporters at the Nickel City bar in Fort Worth: “This win goes to everyday working people.” The local Machinists’ union president beat his right-wing Republican opponent Leigh Wambsganss by 15 percentage points in a district Trump had won by 17 just two years ago. Wambsganss had raised 10 times the amount Rehmet raised for his campaign. 

Democrats have been looking for a path forward since facing devastating losses two years ago—including by redoubling their efforts to shore up support among working-class voters. Rehmet’s stunning victory has not just energized the Democratic Party heading into the 2026 midterms; it’s seen as proof of concept for an upstart slate of candidates who have come from the ranks of organized labor to run for office and, ideally, shake up the status quo of Democratic politics in Texas. 

“People are tired of the same old politics,” Leonard Aguilar, the new president of the Texas AFL-CIO, told the Texas Observer in an interview in early February. The state labor federation announced its 2026 primary election endorsements in January. “The working people of Texas are looking for somebody that is actually going through what they are, who can understand what their kitchen table issues are and make sure they have somebody that fights on their behalf. That’s what Taylor and the other labor candidates are about.” 

Take, for instance, Marcos Vélez, a Gulf Coast region labor leader-turned-upstart candidate for lieutenant governor, who made some waves when the Texas AFL-CIO endorsed him last month over four-term Austin state Representative Vikki Goodwin. These days, Vélez’s day job as the assistant director of the United Steel Workers District 13—which covers the union’s workers in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico—starts before dawn and goes until the afternoon when he begins campaigning for lieutenant governor for the rest of the evening and weekends. 

“You have working people all over the state of Texas that work 16- to 18-hour-days, and they can barely keep food on the table. So I’m not going to complain, because I’m very blessed for the job that I have, and it’s going to take long hours to get this done for the people of Texas,” Vélez told the Observer at his Steelworkers union hall in Webster.

Vélez, whose parents are Puerto Rican and Black, grew up in nearby Pasadena. He graduated high school early and ended up cutting his college career short to work in an oil refinery. And he’s got countless harrowing stories to tell from those days: of coworkers who had their fingers sliced off or whose bodies were scorched by machine fires. These experiences motivated him to start advocating for other workers, become a union organizer, and, now, run for lieutenant governor. “Those are the kind of things that really move you, where you say ‘You know what—people deserve better,’” Vélez said. 

Marcos Vélez (Courtesy/campaign)

Vélez has seen firsthand the fallout of today’s turbulent economic conditions: Many Steelworkers members have been out of a job for half a year, and even his own son is delivering pizzas after graduating with a college degree. Vélez is a political novice who, in his first bid as a candidate, is boldly vying for one of the most powerful offices in Texas. But he said he didn’t see any other choice than to run for lite guv—as it’s known by Capitol politicos—which presides over the Texas Senate and controls the upper chamber’s legislative agenda. “I’m tired of watching pro-people, pro-labor, pro-middle class legislation just die on the vine,” Vélez said. 

But Vélez has a steep hill to climb. Per the latest campaign finance reports from January, he has just $51,000 cash on hand, compared to the $161,000 Democratic opponent state Representative Vikki Goodwin has raised. Incumbent Republican Dan Patrick has $38 million in cash reserves. Most of Vélez’s financial support so far is from Houstonians for Working Families, a PAC which has received a bulk of its funds from the Texas Majority PAC (TMP), the Texas Democratic Party’s top campaign partner. The implicit backing of Vélez by TMP—which has pledged neutrality in the primaries—has, per the Texas Tribune, drawn some consternation among party operatives and other candidates, including Goodwin.

TMP’s executive director Katherine Fischer said TMP isn’t playing favorites: “We’re not endorsing anyone in that race,” Fischer told the Tribune. “I think he’s a very exciting candidate, but we are primary-neutral.”

Vélez’s inexperience with legislative politics has become a key point among his critics. In its endorsement of Goodwin, the Houston Chronicle editorial board noted that the union leader struggled to name his hometown state legislators (something he’d surely need to brush up on to be lite guv but that he just as surely shares with the majority of Texans). 

Goodwin, who’s been a vocal opponent of school vouchers and an advocate for public schools in the Texas House, told the Observer that her political experience is a key asset compared to Vélez. “It’s naive to think that somebody who’s never held office would be effective as the lieutenant governor,” she said. “The experience that I have will make me effective in passing the priorities that Democrats have held for a long time.” Goodwin raised her three children as a single mom, became a realtor, then won the Republican-held House District 47 in West Austin in 2018. She shares similar goals as Vélez, and both aim to break the right-wing iron grip Patrick holds over the Senate. But they said their priorities differ. Goodwin said, “Public education is foundational,” while Vélez would prioritize what he calls “people’s hierarchy of needs,” such as raising the minimum wage and affordable housing. 

If anything, the message that labor candidates such as Rehmet and Vélez are emphasizing is something that other Democrats are taking note of. The races this year are “pocketbook elections,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, professor of political science at the University of Houston. “People are going to be very concerned about the candidates and how they plan to address people’s economic issues.” Texas Republicans, on the other hand, “have been slow to get the message that affordability is a huge issue,” Rottinghaus added. 

Rehmet succeeded, Rottinghaus said, because he “kept it local,” he largely “ignored Donald Trump,” and talked about issues local residents cared about. 

In West Texas, Kyle Rable, an Army Reserve officer and PhD candidate at Texas Tech is running as a Democrat for the deep-red 19th Congressional District, currently held by the retiring Republican incumbent Jodey Arrington. Rable, who is also a member of the Texas State Employees Union, said he’s using the same strategies Rehmet did to try to win this open rural red seat. It’s been more than 40 years since a Democrat represented District 19, but Rable said he’s undeterred because he sees low turnout, and not partisan politics, as the main problem. He said he’s knocked on roughly 3,000 doors since May, listening and talking to residents concerned about saving their healthcare, homes, and farms. 

Rable rattled off ideas to break up Big Ag corporations that monopolize farming products, from cotton seeds to farming equipment and tractor repairs, and to end Trump’s tariffs “because nobody is buying American cotton right now.” Meanwhile, he said his seven GOP opponents are all trying to out-MAGA each other. “Their messaging is totally out of sync with people when the main question is: ‘Are you financially better off now than you were before?’ And the answer for almost every single West Texas that’s not an oil billionaire is that, ‘No, we’re not better off.’”

These labor candidates are bringing new life to the Democratic Party at a time when more union members are leaning toward Trump and the Republican Party. Several trade unions in Texas, including two Teamsters locals, announced their support for Governor Greg Abbott last week. 

Aguilar, the Texas AFL-CIO president, said it’s even more important that these labor candidates avoid hyper-partisan politics. “It’s just not just the right versus the left. It’s about workers, and the workers’ over billionaires’ interests. That’s the focus,” Aguilar told the Observer.

Last year, the state labor federation made a concerted effort to get more union members into office by starting a candidate training school. It graduated its first class of 16 cohorts in October. 

Jose Loya, another United Steelworkers organizer from the Texas Panhandle, is running for Texas Land Commissioner—the statewide office that manages state-owned lands, the Permanent School Fund, aid after natural disasters, property loans for veterans, and the Alamo. Loya’s own history reflects layered stories of working-class struggles. He immigrated to the Panhandle from Mexico at age 8 and spent his school years laboring in the fields and then in a meatpacking plant. After graduating, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served two tours in Iraq. When he returned to Texas, he worked in oil refineries before joining the United Steelworkers.

“I’m not just an immigrant. I’m not just a veteran. And I’m not just a labor leader. I’m all those things put together,” Loya told the Observer. “I’ve had people reach out to me that work at the GLO [General Land Office] right now that told me, ‘Look, I’m a very conservative Republican. I have never voted Democrat. But I’m going to vote for you because your story is real.’”

Loya won the Texas AFL-CIO endorsement over Democratic candidate Benjamin Flores, a city council member in Bay City. 

Land Commissioner candidate Jose Loya and Lieutenant Governor candidate Marcos Vélez with supporters at the Texas AFL-CIO political convention in January (Courtesy/Vélez campaign)

Organizing workers for a union drive is not unlike mobilizing voters to get out and vote, said Montserrat Garibay, a former secretary-treasurer for the Texas AFL-CIO, Education Austin leader, and labor liaison for President Joe Biden’s Department of Education. Garibay is running in a crowded field of candidates in the Democratic primary to serve Texas House District 49, which is currently represented by state Representative Gina Hinojosa, who’s running for governor against Abbott. 

“I am approaching this campaign with an organizing lens that every person I talk to is important and that every vote is what will make a difference on election day,” she said. Garibay has a wide range of endorsements from the Austin American-Statesman, Annie’s List, and federal, state, and local officials, as well as local unions. Another union official running for the Lege in the Austin area is Jeremy Hendricks, an assistant business manager for the LiUNA laborers union seeking to replace Senate candidate James Talarico in the state House.

In total, the Texas AFL-CIO is endorsing 16 candidates who are union members (the group stayed out of the top-billed contest between Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett). 

“We’re over being told that you just have to wait and it’ll be okay when it hasn’t been,” Rable, the U.S. House candidate, said. “Nobody’s coming to save the working class and the regular American, so we might as well step up and save ourselves.” 

The post Can Labor Candidates Help Texas Dems Win Back Power?  appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By MATT BROWN

When the Rev. Jesse Jackson announced his second presidential bid in 1988 in Pittsburgh, he saw the campaign as a chance for the country to realize its highest ideals.

“If I can become president,” said Jackson, who grew up poor and Black in segregated South Carolina, “every woman can. Every man can. I’m giving America a chance to make a choice to fulfill the highest and best of an authentic and honest democracy.”

While unsuccessful, the campaign captured the imaginations of countless Americans who were inspired by Jackson, who died Tuesday at 84.

Decades later, generations of young people who watched his historic campaigns or learned about his career have become veteran activists, clergy members, civic leaders and lawmakers. Many say that his unapologetic message of equality and justice informs their work today.

“Here I was, a kid growing up in public housing, and I got to witness this Black man running for president. He gave me a glimpse of what is possible, and he taught me how to say, ‘I am somebody’,” said Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, referring to one of Jackson’s slogans adopted from a poem.

Warnock also serves as the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the congregation once led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Georgia Democrat said Jackson’s example was “needed now more than ever” in response to the Trump administration’s actions on elections, global affairs and immigration.

“His voice is now silent, but his example is eternal, and that work is left to us,” Warnock said.

A life of advocacy

Jackson’s life included work as a globe-trotting humanitarian, a champion for a progressive economic agenda and leadership of the Civil Rights Movement that was once led by King, Jackson’s mentor. Jackson was present when King was assassinated at a Memphis hotel.

Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid pushed many Americans to contemplate whether, two decades after King’s killing, one of his protégés could be elected to the White House. His message of equality in the Democratic primary resonated with a broad set of voters and blindsided party leaders, who reformed the primary system in response to the surge of engagement.

Strategists credit those reforms with enabling the election of another Black candidate from Illinois to the presidency two decades later.

Barack Obama agreed in a statement praising Jackson’s life.

Former first lady Michelle Obama “got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager,” Obama wrote. “And in his two historic runs for president, he laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office in the land.”

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The connection did not stop Jackson from criticizing Obama or mentoring activists who challenged the first Black president’s administration.

“He continued to reach out to young Black activists throughout the protests that started in 2014,” said DeRay McKesson, a racial justice activist who organized in Ferguson, Missouri, as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. “As an activist and organizer, I appreciate that Jesse, just like the generation of people he came up with, had a deep understanding of structural change.”

Jackson remained a political force after his presidential bids. From the Chicago headquarters of his organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, he mentored leaders for decades. After his death, scores of activists, political operatives and members of Congress credited their careers to Jackson.

Democratic Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana was a young staffer to New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy when he first met Jackson.

“Over the years, since our first meeting, he encouraged me in every step of my political career. His legacy will endure in every life he inspired,” Carter said.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris eulogized Jackson in a statement that remembered how his 1988 presidential run built a sense of community among supporters. When she was a law student in San Francisco, she recalled, people “from every walk of life would give me a thumbs-up or honk of support” upon seeing her car’s “Jesse Jackson for President” bumper sticker.

“They were small interactions, but they exemplified Reverend Jackson’s life work — lifting up the dignity of working people, building community and coalitions, and strengthening our democracy and nation,” wrote Harris, who went on to become the first Black woman to be nominated by a major political party for president.

Even people with opposing views acknowledged Jackson’s impact as a civil rights giant and a stalwart force for progressive, humanitarian values.

“I don’t have to agree with someone politically to deeply respect the role Jesse Jackson, a South Carolina native, played in uplifting Black voices and inspiring young folks to believe their voices mattered,” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, wrote on social media. “Those that empower people to stand taller always leave a lasting mark.”

A mentor to a new generation

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson was 8 years old when he first learned about Jackson from a picture book on Black history that his mother gave him. Jackson’s face was on the cover.

Pearson, 31, thanked Jackson for “creating space for people like me to be where I am.” He met Jackson after Republicans expelled him and another Black Democratic lawmaker after they joined a protest for gun control at the Tennessee Statehouse.

Pearson, who represents Memphis in the statehouse, later joined Jackson on a trip to lay a wreath at the site where King was killed. Pearson has appeared alongside Jackson at other civil rights events throughout the South. Even at memorials filled with towering figures, he said, Jackson stood out.

“You have a lot of civil rights elders who you read about, but it means something different when you have somebody who you can talk to, who can be present, who is there physically,” said Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, the other lawmaker who met Jackson after being expelled. Both men were later reelected to their seats.

Jackson “was committed to raising the rising generation of civil rights voices and leaders and legislators, and somebody who has a whole movement that is standing on his shoulders,” said Jones, 30.

Stacey Abrams was 10 years old in Gulfport, Mississippi, during Jackson’s first presidential bid. The daughter of ministers, Abrams remembers being “transfixed” by a “larger than life figure who did not look like everyone else.”

Now a former minority leader of the Georgia House, Abrams mounted two unsuccessful bids for governor. Each time, she sought to rally a wide range of voters, including voters of color and lower-income voters, in a strategy that emulated Jackson’s political philosophy. Jackson advised her throughout both bids.

“I’ve been one of, I would say, thousands of people who received counsel and support from Jackson, but also got a phone call that said, ‘I’m thinking about you,’ or an offer to come and be a part of something he was doing,” Abrams said.

“I think that’s the legacy that’s most important, that he didn’t stand as a single figure who wanted to be alone. He built community.”

By DÁNICA COTO

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — An organization in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is urging fishermen to take certain precautions after decrying a recent U.S. strike in the eastern Caribbean that killed three people aboard a suspected drug boat.

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Winsbert Harry, president of the National Fisherfolk Organization, told St. Vincent’s state television station SVG-TV late Tuesday that he was concerned about the safety of fishermen in the Caribbean.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government announced that it had carried out strikes on three boats including one in the Caribbean Sea, killing three people. Officials did not provide evidence that the boats were ferrying drugs.

St. Lucian Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre said Monday that his government “is actively engaging through established diplomatic and security channels to verify the facts” after confirming that “people lost their lives.” He declined further comment, including whether at least one of the victims was a fisherman from St. Lucia.

“We will communicate confirmed information to the public promptly and responsibly,” he wrote in a social media post.

Meanwhile, former St. Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves criticized the strike during his radio show Monday and called on the archipelago’s current leader to make a public statement.

“Even if these persons were involved in drug trafficking, you can’t just kill them,” he said on Star FM. “Everybody is innocent until proven guilty. You cannot be judge, jury and executioner without giving people an opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law.”

Harry, of the fisherfolk organization, noted that the strike comes as the eastern Caribbean prepares for the peak of tuna season, with many fishermen depending on catches for their livelihoods.

He said fishermen should clearly identify their boats and constantly monitor surrounding vessels, especially when they’re at high sea. Harry also warned that visibility is lowest during pre-dawn hours, when fishermen typically set out.

“You never know what could happen,” he said, adding that he and others are fearful about going out.

The U.S. strikes that began in September have killed at least 145 people and rankled some officials in the Caribbean, where many of the strikes have occurred.

One of those strikes killed two fishermen from Trinidad and Tobago in mid-October.

Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts announced that relatives of the two fishermen killed were suing the U.S. government “for wrongful death and extrajudicial killing.” It is believed to be the first such wrongful death case since the strikes began last year.

The ACLU said that 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo were among the six people killed that day as they returned from Venezuela to their home in Trinidad and Tobago.

“If the U.S. government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable,” said Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo’s sister, in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Latin America and has justified the ongoing attacks, saying they’re needed to stop the flow of drugs.

Meanwhile critics have questioned the legality of the strikes.

“It is absurd and dangerous for any state to just unilaterally proclaim that a ‘war’ exists in order to deploy lethal military force,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a recent statement. “These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless.”

Swayed by public outcry, the St. Paul City Council recently voted to decline to extend the terms of a state grant awarded to a three-year-old microelectronics subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor.

In May 2023, the city accepted an $800,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to support the arrival of a new technology company, ForwardEdge ASIC. The start-up manufacturer creates reprogrammable semiconductor microchips for missiles and F-35 military bombers, as well as temperature sensors, plug-in modules and other micro-electronics used by the aerospace industry.

In exchange for financial backing from the Minnesota Investment Fund program, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin promised to create 113 jobs at 2340 Energy Park Drive by the end of 2025, with positions paying between $40 and $127 per hour, in addition to benefits.

In recent months, ForwardEdge requested an extension of its compliance date from March 2026 to March 2027 to give them more time to meet their job creation requirement. To date, they’ve installed about 83 jobs, leaving them about 30 jobs short of goal. Otherwise, the state would reduce their grant on a prorated basis, which city staff estimated could add up to as much as a $200,000 reduction in their grant award.

DEED indicated to the city that it would approve a one-year extension if formally requested by the city council. A Feb. 4 public hearing on the proposed grant extension drew at least 30 speakers to council chambers against that proposal, as well as at least 32 emails in opposition to the request.

Defense contractor ties

Many cited the defense contractor’s ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military’s bombing of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

“You are making us accomplices in murder,” said one of the speakers.

“Living in Saint Anthony Park, I am not comfortable knowing I share the neighborhood with a business that creates the computer chips for warplanes used in the brutalization and destruction of the Palestinian people,” reads a letter.

“I will not have my tax dollars funding anything related to ICE, Israel or any other political organization/body that supports the oppression of others,” reads another letter.

Speakers noted the Minneapolis City Council voted in December to cut funding for the city’s $500,000 contract with Zen City, an Israeli tech company that specializes in surveillance technology.

Under pressure from protesters who attended multiple meetings of the Board of Water Commissioners last summer, St. Paul Regional Water Services plans to issue a request for proposals this spring for a cyber-security vendor, allowing it to study potential alternatives to its current contract with Waterfall Security Solutions of Israel, which provides a combination of hardware and online services.

Council vote

Meanwhile, St. Paul Council Member Molly Coleman, who represents Ward 4, asked for the grant extension request for ForwardEdge to be laid over for a week, allowing her more time to inquire from the city attorney’s office whether a one-year extension was guaranteed as part of the original contract. Her request drew boos and yelling from the audience.

Coleman withdrew her motion after fellow council members also objected and said they were ready to reject the company’s request. Council Member Nelsie Yang tearfully described the fear gripping the Hmong community under Operation Metro Surge, decades after today’s Hmong elders lost everything after assisting the CIA with the failed “Secret War” in Laos.

“We have to be firm on what we are against,” said Council Member Anika Bowie, noting her husband, Jamael Lundy, was recently arrested by heavily-armed federal agents in their home for his role in a non-violent protest at a St. Paul church. “We have witnessed, experienced, helicopters, military-grade officers on the streets. We as a state decided that it was OK to invest into a manufacturing company that is producing terror and has a hand in this violence. … It is very easy for me to vote no.”

Bowie thanked the citizen advocates in the room for calling attention to a matter she and others on the council might have glossed over as a routine extension request, and Yang said she felt embarrassed to have voted to approve the DEED grant in 2023.

After some discussion, Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim motioned to deny the contract extension. Her motion was approved by the council, 6-0. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson is away on an extended maternity leave.

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