Today is the last day of early voting, and so here’s one more opportunity to condemn our worst candidate on the runoff ballot.
The Bexar County Democratic Party on Wednesday joined other political organizations in denouncing the rhetoric of Democratic South Texas Congressional candidate Maureen Galindo, which observers on both sides of the aisle have denounced as antisemitic.
“Antisemitism and hateful rhetoric have no place in the Democratic Party or in our communities,” the statement said. “Maureen Galindo’s comments do not reflect our values as Democrats or as Texans.”
The statement was signed by Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder, Bexar County Democratic Party Chair Michelle Lowe Solis, Guadalupe County Democratic Chair Glenda Henry, Wilson County Democratic Party Chair Sarah Guevara and Karnes County Democratic Party Chair Francisco Nieto.
Every chair who signed represents a county included in Texas’ 35th Congressional District, which Galindo is running to represent.
The strong rebuke of Galindo from her own party is unusual.
However, the rare move makes sense given the growing chorus of high-profile Democrats blasting Galindo’s comments, which include accusing “zionist billionaires” orchestrating human trafficking in South Texas and claiming modern-day Jews are members of the “synagogue of Satan.”
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz, D-New York, called Galindo’s comments “bigoted garbage,” while DNC Chairman Ken Martin described her remarks as “vile, antisemitic rhetoric.”
See here for the background. On the one hand, the party chairs could have spoken up more quickly. On the other hand, we generally and for good reason prefer our party chairs and county parties to stay out of contested primaries. I’m sure they had some initial hope that maybe she’d do the right thing and backtrack, but it was immediately clear that wasn’t going to happen. So here we are, and I truly hope that the voters have heard about this and acted accordingly. This is indeed straight up bigoted garbage, and we absolutely do not need or want it. Deceleration and Lone Star Left have more.
And as noted, today is the last day of early voting for the primary runoffs. If you or someone you know lives in CD35, vote or tell them to vote for Johnny Garcia. The rest of you, tomorrow and then Tuesday are your last chances. The Day 4 EV totals for Harris County are 48,837 for the Dems and 71,229 for the GOP, which has that Senate race driving its turnout. Total turnout for the 2022 Dem runoff was 72,809, and for 2018 was 57,590. We’ll easily pass that in early voting today, and could at least come close to the 2022 total as well. That’s a better comparison to consider. Now go vote.
We’ll see. Hopefully Facebook comments are not an indication of general sentiment.