Dear Fellow Republican,

Republican Pete Flores had a stunning victory for Texas Senate last night in the Senate District 19 Special Election Runoff election. He defeated Democrat Pete Gallego by a commanding 6 points!! The upset is sending shock waves into Democrat circles and garnering national attention.

RPT gives a heartfelt congratulations to Pete Flores and his team on his impressive victory in SD 19 - a thrilling win for him, the citizens of SD 19 and Republicans across Texas.

The historic impact of Pete Flores' victory is significant.  Pete Flores is the first Hispanic Republican elected to the Texas Senate!

And, Pete Flores’ victory moved a stronghold Democrat Senate District to the Republican column. Keep in mind, this was a district that had been in Democrat hands for nearly 140 years and a district Hillary Clinton won by 12 points just 2 years ago. Together, we flipped it to a Republican seat!

Last night’s historic win was no accident, however. It was the culmination of weeks and months of collaboration and hard work. Pete Flores ran a great campaign and traversed the district meeting with voters. His campaign was organizing volunteers for months. RPT was proud to work with our statewide leaders, namely Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, to be a part of the massive united team that supported the Flores campaign in the largest Republican field effort that this district has seen. RPT and Texas Victory organized folks in the district and around the state to turn out the vote.

RPT and Texas Victory were all in to help Pete Flores get elected!

• RPT singularly took the lead in exposing the residency hypocrisy of Pete Gallego who said he lived in the district but his home loan documents and other financial records told the real story that he was not a resident of SD 19. The media paid attention and this effort helped set the narrative and the contrast for the campaign. This push on Gallego’s residency yielded thousands of dollars of earned media on the issue that helped proliferate the message throughout the district.

• We dedicated a staff member to this campaign who had a presence on the ground and worked hand-in-hand on a daily basis with the Flores campaign organizing volunteers, training volunteers for block walks and phone calls and assisting with day-to-day tasks for the campaign.  

• RPT’s Data Director was a pivotal point of contact for up-to-the-minute data management, data collection and data distribution all the way through Election Day.

• Our get-out-the-vote effort utilized proven methods of phone banking and block walking which included recruiting volunteers in the district and throughout Texas to call in to SD 19 to help turn out voters, block walking thousands of homes and making thousands of phone calls.  The field effort was nimble and able to respond to the immediate needs of the campaign throughout the race and particularly on Election Day.

This combined effort of statewide leadership, RPT and hundreds of volunteers packed a powerful punch that the Flores campaign was able to run with to the finish line.

The message is clear: When Republicans come together, Republicans win.

Something else became clear last night: we cannot turn out the vote we need to win without boots on the ground. If we want to duplicate our win last night across the state in November, we need folks like you helping. No amount of advertising or yard signs can replace engaging a voter one-on-one. Do you want to beat Beto O’Rourke and return Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate? Do you want to stop Nancy Pelosi from becoming Speaker again and instead elect strong Republicans to Congress to keep our majority? Do you want to make sure our President can continue to succeed in making this economy thrive? Do you want to continue the success our state has enjoyed? Then you cannot sit on the sidelines.

This historic victory proved that campaigns still matter, knocking on doors works and grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts are the only way to win. And that means that we need an army of volunteers to ensure that we win again in November. Can we count on you?

Senator-elect Flores’ win is proof that the “blue wave” the Democrats have been touting can be stopped dead in its tracks when Republicans turn out to vote!

This win by Senator-elect Pete Flores is one more marker of proof that Republicans will defy history this year. I will say it again because it matters - when Republicans come together, Republicans win. Let’s keep winning together!

Sincerely,

James Dickey
Chairman
Republican Party of Texas

P.S. We need more big Republican victories like this in November, please help us by signing up to volunteer for 2018. And, please consider a contribution today to ensure RPT has the resources we need to keep providing valuable services for critical campaigns.

Paid for by the Republican Party of Texas and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. www.texasgop.org