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Ep. 22: Powered By People
81 Plays24 days ago
In this episode of Mission: Texas, we sit down with Aimee Prudhomme, the new Executive Director of Powered by People, Beto O’Rourke’s volunteer-led organizing group built to flip Texas through human-to-human voter engagement. We talk about why registration is only step one, how relational organizing boosts turnout, and what it looks like to build long-term power across the whole state — not just the big cities. Aimee also shares her personal story of leaving corporate America for this work, and why community and action are the antidote to despair.
In this episode:
- The target focus: 18–29 voters, vote-by-mail eligible seniors, and a new faith program with predominantly Black churches
- Their “Reach” network: ~46,000 voters today and a goal of 100,000 by the midterms
- Why “registered” isn’t the same as “engaged” — and how trust drives turnout
- A practical pep talk for volunteering + how to get started with Powered by People
🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts 📲 Follow us on socials: @MissionTexasPodcast 📧 Email: MissionTexasPodcast@gmail.com ❤️ Support the show on Patreon
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mission Texas'
00:00:00
Speaker
Howdy. This is Mission Texas. A political podcast about winning Texas by 2032 or else we may lose the White House for a generation. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Clark.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I am Kate Rumsey. Other podcasts may focus on the day-to-day the next election. But we are keeping the eyes of Texas on the bigger prize. What happens after the next census?
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome back to Mission Texas.
Meet Amy Brudhomme: Executive Director of 'Powered by People'
00:00:31
Speaker
Today, I'm so excited. We're with Powered by People. you may have heard of it. It's Beto O'Rourke's Texas-focused political organization that's built to reach, register, and mobilize Democratic-leaning voters through high-touch, human-to-human organizing, especially voter registration in a state that has...
00:00:48
Speaker
crazily, no online automatic voter registration. Today's guest is Amy Brudhomme, the new executive director. She is very talented. We're very excited to have her on.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to Mission Texas. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here talking to you all. Yeah. Welcome,
Mission and Target Groups of 'Powered by People'
00:01:07
Speaker
Amy. We talked about it right up front, but ah Powered by People is such an important organization doing the actual work of getting infrastructure and coalition built to actually take back the state, both statewide, but also um i love that there's been a focus from the jump about taking back power in the Texas House.
00:01:27
Speaker
Can you tell us just a little bit about the organization? And then I want to want to hear a little bit about yourself, too. We love to get into people's origin stories. For people who have no background, tell us about Power to People.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, Alex, you you kind of alluded to this in the beginning, but we are, we're trying to flip the state. But so goes the state, so goes the country is kind of our our perspectives. Texas is so big and we have so many electoral votes here. So,
00:01:52
Speaker
Our main mission is to flip the state of Texas. We believe we can achieve that by building personal relationships with underrepresented voters across the state.
00:02:03
Speaker
And we do that through a community of volunteers. We're a volunteer-led organization. We find, we reach, engage, and turn out voters. Particularly, we're focused on a few demographics. We're focused on the 18 to 29-year-olds' young demographic.
00:02:20
Speaker
We're focused on the the older folks. So above 65, we have a vote by mail program that we work on. And then we're also focused on a faith program as well. So predominantly Black churches throughout the state is something we're launching this year that we really think is going to make a big difference.
Human-Centric Organizing Approach
00:02:38
Speaker
But all all of what we do is very human centric. We are sort of anti the the world of mass texts and bots and ai we're really trying to bring together community and i think that's what's going to make the biggest difference in this work well i'm into that it's so refreshing i mean i i came into the world of better o'rourke uh when i was ah in law school um i was one of the betto ambassadors i was the president of the texas law democrats and
00:03:09
Speaker
Alex likes to throw around his Democrat bona fides on this podcast. I say that to say
Beto O'Rourke's Ongoing Involvement
00:03:15
Speaker
this. I have none. Yeah. i I say that to say this. Like, I want an army of better works around the country, putting in the work and showing up everywhere, regardless of who you are, where you're running. If you can have that kind of energy and commitment to being on the ground,
00:03:32
Speaker
I think that is just magical. I mean, we can capture that in a bottle and spread it everywhere. And I think it's going to be so important to doing the work that it's going to take to to build long-term power.
00:03:45
Speaker
and so i want to say something to that point, Alex, that, you know, a lot of people are drawn to Powered by People because it was founded by Beto and they they've had exposure to him over the years and his work in the Senate race and the gubernatorial race and and even the presidential race. that I will say now that, you know, I'm part of this organization working directly with him. He's still very much involved, like out in the field with us on college campuses, at churches.
00:04:14
Speaker
And it's just super impressive to me that he's doing the work in a non-candidate capacity. Absolutely. That indicates that It's someone that really cares about what we're trying to do to flip the state and save democracy at the end of the day.
00:04:31
Speaker
think a lot of people are attracted to that. And every volunteer we have has that same mentality when they show up and interact with voters and and stay in touch with them throughout the election cycle.
Amy's Political Journey and Role
00:04:44
Speaker
Well, Amy, can you give us, going back to Alex's original question, like your origin and story, like how did you get to be here as the executive director? What brought you to the organization? And what's your backstory with politics?
00:04:57
Speaker
Oh, man, that is a a loaded question, but i love to answer it. I probably like so many of your listeners and people who also feel the despair around what's going on in today's world.
00:05:11
Speaker
I got started in 2016. yeah i won't get a common answer I woke up and I was like, I never want to have that feeling again on election day.
00:05:24
Speaker
And it activated me. And so my me and my husband just decided on that day, like, we're not going to let that happen again. And we started plugging in immediately. So at the time, actually during the 2016 election, i was living in New Orleans.
00:05:38
Speaker
We had moved back to Texas in 2018. And as soon as we moved back, I mean, Houston's home for us. So as soon as we moved back, we said, let's go get plugged in. We immediately became VDRs, so volunteer deputy registrars, we could register voters,
00:05:56
Speaker
After that, we got plugged into the Harris County Democratic Party. We started to work elections. My husband became a precinct chair. We started volunteering and learning, oh, this is what canvassing means and block walking and phone banking and sort of the traditional organizing that everyone, you know, when you get into politics, that's what you're exposed to.
00:06:16
Speaker
working out i did work on Beto's Senate run 2018 as a volunteer, too. But I think what really changed the game for me was finding powered by people.
00:06:27
Speaker
So Beto was touring the state as he does, going to all 254 counties across the
Relational Organizing for Long-term Engagement
00:06:34
Speaker
state. He was in Houston and he was talking about this idea. He's like, we're not just going to register people.
00:06:40
Speaker
We're going to get their contact information with their permission, of course. And then we're going to stay in contact with them because it's not it's not about registering folks. we know We know the rates are not good enough and for turnout across the state.
00:06:53
Speaker
And so when I learned about that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I think that's brilliant. Use relational organizing to actually build relationships with total strangers at first that then become relationships over time. And as soon as I attended my first event, I'm like, this is it. This is the secret sauce.
00:07:09
Speaker
And it's also that human connection that I really was missing and and craving in some of the more traditional organizing and political work that I've been involved in Yeah, that's such a critical distinction between registered and like engaged, because we know that there are currently more people registered to vote and not voting than there are people voting for either party.
00:07:32
Speaker
They're already registered. yeah's not the That's not the problem. It's just they're not showing up. Yeah, we we talk a lot in Texas about, you know, and you mentioned that this at the top of the pod, like, yes,
00:07:44
Speaker
it's very difficult to get registered here in the state. That's by design, in my opinion. But to your point, Alex, like what about beyond they get registered and then how do they actually stay educated and involved to turn out, not just in the presidential, which our presidential rates of turnout still weren't great good enough, in my opinion, but every election that matters to them. and when we have that personal relationship with folks,
00:08:09
Speaker
We can encourage that.
Building Trust and Voter Proactiveness
00:08:10
Speaker
We build trust. and And I'm at the point now where I have voters who I haven't even proactively reached out to to to yet contacting me and saying, hey, don't we have an election coming up? Like, when are you going send me my reminders? Which I think is such an amazing transformation story about these voters and where they're coming from, like never voting in a special election or a local election to Coming to me and asking me, the expert, you know, hey, where are you at? Where are you going to give me my deets? So Kate and I are lawyers and maybe this is just me, but I have a dream. I wish everyone had all the election information like a Google calendar. You know what I mean? Because for me, if something's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist.
00:08:52
Speaker
I thought you were going to say, I wish everyone was a lawyer. no, no, no. Too much competition. don't want that. I'm with you though. Like the the visual, we're we're always thinking about stuff like that. Like how do we break through voters and based on the di different demographics, we got to change our approach
Innovative Election Information Strategies
00:09:12
Speaker
and like really be human with people. So folks need the visual guide. Like how can we best provide that?
00:09:18
Speaker
So i actually love your Google calendar idea. I almost wonder... If we should create one and then link to it, you know, exactly. It's automatically in your calendar. And maybe there's a link that tells you like where your polling location is, like it's all in one place. And it's, we'll send you like a reminder the day before or something, you know. Click to add to Outlook or Google Calendar. Yeah, exactly.
00:09:39
Speaker
I like that idea. But Amy, can I just reflect on how radical your organization is in a good way? Because just the the three groups that you were talking about, most of the time when I'm hearing from campaigns or candidates or groups, there are always there's a debate. It's like, do we turn out more blue voters that are registered or do we turn out persuadables? Yeah.
00:09:59
Speaker
what I'm hearing from you is that we're trying to reach out to even not even registered voters or maybe like low propensity and so I'm wondering like how is that from Beto's experience especially in the big statewide it's like what is this an answer to did he see something like what is that like and especially as you're now moving into the third category of black churches like what what are you seeing and what is it in an answer to I think it's an answer to the I think a lot of times if you ask people that didn't turn out, why didn't you turn out?
00:10:31
Speaker
Some of the studies were coming back showing that no one asked me to turn out. It was literally that simple. And we thought, hey, why would we do that? with There's already enough campaigns and candidates targeting the existing voter population, hitting those triple Ds, as they call them, over and over and over again. yeah We don't need to turn out those folks. I mean, there's people doing that work.
00:10:52
Speaker
We need to go access the folks that are not activated and then be that trusted person that's going to encourage them to exercise their
Diverse Volunteer Engagement
00:11:02
Speaker
right to vote.
00:11:03
Speaker
And the reason, you know, we're exploring it, you know Beto has ah gone through his campaigns, has accessed all these different demographics, of course. But one of the things that's special about our program is, you know, when we go to progressive black churches.
00:11:18
Speaker
We not only want to bring our volunteers who may be, you know, older white ladies, you know, to these congregations, we want to add volunteers from congregations to actually register their neighbors and their folks within congregation. So we want folks who look like each other, who have the same backgrounds and interests to be engaging with the voter population.
00:11:40
Speaker
Same thing we do on college campuses. While a lot of folks that are in this work are retired, you know, people that have the time to do this kind of voter mobilization work, we're building up student chapter practices and student organizers that want to do this work with us. So anytime we get people talking to each other, coming from the same background, that's going to build immediate trust. And then you just kind of go from there.
00:12:05
Speaker
The tough necessary work that wins elections and to be on places that are being ignored or there's not being invested in by traditional campaigns will only help to grow the party, especially college campuses. ah Every time there's a tour campus visit, you just see the the turnout. There's obviously a hunger for this.
00:12:25
Speaker
And as someone and from a small town, Sherman, about an hour north of Dallas, It means a lot to me to have someone show up first and then second to to like not count us out, to find new voters under every rock, turn it up to turn over everything, right? No neighborhood is too red or too blue.
00:12:47
Speaker
that's That's the old way of thinking. These are people and we got to get them registered and we got to get them engaged. and We got to bring them into the tent, right?
Comprehensive Regional Presence in Texas
00:12:55
Speaker
What are the ways y'all have found to bring those people in? Like you said, you you go to the church and then you don't want just the people who showed up there. You want to now bring them into the movement.
00:13:08
Speaker
What has been effective? Well, one thing i'll I'll point out, Alex, that you mentioned was you know, not not just focusing on the big cities, but making sure we are hitting, we're cutting across all counties in the state and that no voter or population's kind of left behind.
00:13:25
Speaker
So we do, we have a strategy of like regional distribution where we have regional organizers across the state Obviously, most of the volume is in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin areas, I would say.
00:13:39
Speaker
But we're building up presence everywhere. East Texas, north part of Texas, above Dallas. We have RGV, El Paso, Lubbock and Marillo is a big gap we haven't tapped into in a long time.
00:13:51
Speaker
So just showing up is is a big piece of the puzzle. And it takes My organizing director, Athena Mason, calls it base building.
00:14:02
Speaker
So we have to be patient because while we have these aggressive targets that we want to hit by the midterms of how many people we have in our in our reach and our network, We know it takes that that time to build these relationships, build trust within these establishments, whether it be college campuses where that's even harder for us to get on to right now with the the state of the Texas state government getting involved or Black congregations, to be frank, if, you know, we're coming at them and we don't have people within their congregation trying to engage them.
00:14:33
Speaker
you know, it's it's like that. that white savior kind of crap that that really, we don't want that to be the case. We're all trying to move towards the same thing. We have to base build and be patient. And that's what relationship building is all about. So we're trying to make sure while we have aggressive targets that we don't lose sight of the human nature of this work and how things take time to do it right.
Tracking Voter Engagement Metrics
00:14:57
Speaker
Can you give us a sense of scope with the organization, like how how many people you've been able to register to over the years or how many volunteers and then kind of what your goals are, maybe numerically? And i would love to be able to check in with you before maybe the general election and see how y'all are doing and what if we can you know help gather you more volunteers. Like, can you give us a sense of that?
00:15:19
Speaker
Yes, of course. So we, as of now, we have about 46,000 or so, i would say, voters in our our reach network. When I say reach, that's actually the relational organizing tool we use in the field to collect all these voters and their information and then stay in touch with them.
00:15:39
Speaker
So we have about 46,000 today. the midterms 100,000. our target by the midterms is a hundred thousand And we we think it's doable. And just to give you all heads up, um in 2024, which is when we started doing this work, we had about 27,000 or so folks in our reach.
00:16:01
Speaker
Of that population, the majority, strong majority were 18 to 29-year-olds. And we had about a 79% turnout for the presidential election for the 18 to 29-year-old demographic.
00:16:13
Speaker
for For reference, the state average for the same demographic was 37%. National average was 42%. So we were like, hey, this works. Let's continue doing this.
00:16:26
Speaker
We would have had, I honestly think this time last year, we would have had more than 46,000, but we got in a lawsuit. It came Paxson. um we ended up winning that. So we're in court of appeals in El Paso said that that was, you know, BS and we're continuing to operate.
00:16:43
Speaker
But we're we're moving as fast as we can, but also focused on the quality. So, but Kate, to your point, to get 100,000 voters in reach is one thing. Like we could go and we could probably do that. It's it's achievable.
00:16:56
Speaker
But making sure that our volunteers stay in touch with them is a whole nother thing. so we have metrics that measure not only the total scope, of voters in our network.
00:17:08
Speaker
But when's the last time our volunteers have engaged with these voters? Do we need to reassign people so that no voter is left behind? One thing we never want to do is take all those numbers, those contacts of voters and throw it into, you know, a texter or a dialer. Like that totally defeats the purpose of us being human to human personal relationships. So This is grassroots work.
00:17:30
Speaker
You'll know it better than probably most. This is the work it takes to ensure it's done well and done right. But those are some of our targets that we are marching towards. And if you ask Beto, he'll say he he wants it.
00:17:43
Speaker
He wants 100 net new. Like, let's get to 150,000 by the end of the year, 200,000. We'll have to see how we ramp up, but i'm I'm all for it. You know, let's see what we can do to get as many voters activated this year.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, that is the limit. And I love that you're doing in a way, like you said, that is kind of distributed throughout the state, um especially for the purposes of the legislature.
Statewide Voter Engagement Strategy
00:18:06
Speaker
I think that's critical, right? Like, I think there is a ah strategy where you could win the state wide offices, whether it's a Senate race or a governor's race or whatever, by just juicing turnout in the base, right? my Like turning over every single voter in Dallas, Austin, Houston, El Paso, San Antonio, whatever. um I think there probably is a way to do that, but it gets us no closer to flipping the legislature.
00:18:33
Speaker
Those are already the seats that we already got. Right. And it it's it sucks that we have to compete in such a gerrymandered state. But we have to do both. There's no choice. Like we have to.
00:18:45
Speaker
We have we got to do both. Yeah. it It's not either or is my point. And so I'm really grateful that there's an organization that's keeping their eyes on the bigger prize. there wasn't a question in there. i just I just, we are all, we are all in this fight together, you know, where we can collaborate and partner with other organizations. That's what we're trying to do Collaborate with candidates when appropriate. That's what we're going to make a difference, to flip the state, to save democracy.
00:19:14
Speaker
May I ask on that point, what are the groups or organizations? To what extent are you involved with the Texas Democratic Party, precinct chairs, county. I mean, do you see that as effective? Because somewhat you might say precinct chairs are those people to people conversations, but we also don't have a ton of those. And of the precinct chairs we have, they aren't always effective. So can you speak to that?
00:19:37
Speaker
Totally. So I'll start from the highest level. So the Texas Democratic Party, we do have a partnership with. And actually, the you know, when I talked about the target demographic of 65 or older, we partnered with the Texas Democratic Party to do what we call a vote by mail and chase program.
00:19:55
Speaker
So they send out the applications to vote by mail to that demographic. There's about 500,000 target likely Democratic voters that are 65 or up that are eligible to vote by mail.
00:20:08
Speaker
They send out the mail and then our volunteers actually chase the those voters through the dialer, through text. But the kicker is if the voter is willing to maintain a relationship with us, if the you know they're open to us taking their contact information and keeping it, we add them to our reach.
00:20:26
Speaker
So not only are we doing the traditional phone banking, texting, but if they're willing, we get them added to our network so that they're not only turning out in the primary, but they turn out in the midterm and every election that follows or in between.
00:20:41
Speaker
So that's definitely one organization and we've been partnered with specifically on the vote by mail effort. In terms of the the county parties, we definitely have relationships with those folks as well.
00:20:54
Speaker
And where we can, like, for example, you know, i'm I'm in Harris County. So a lot of my closest relationships are there. We have Harris County works with some of the college campuses that we're also on where they have, you know, little HCDP,
00:21:09
Speaker
student groups within these college campuses. We get to plug in there. So when we run into the shenanigans that happen you know across our campuses, we still are able engage in that way.
00:21:21
Speaker
You had mentioned, Kate, precinct chairs. We have a strategy. It's not quite underway yet, but we do know ah the lowest rung of you know elected official is the precinct chair, and they're in the neighborhood working with their fellow neighbors. So We are scoping out what we can do across the state to partner with precinct chairs, get them trained on how we use reach to engage voters,
Collaboration with Texas Democratic Party
00:21:45
Speaker
and working through the local county parties to train up those precinct chairs so they can interact with their neighbors and then use our platform, essentially, to stay in touch with their neighbors.
00:21:56
Speaker
So we're we're really thinking about it from all levels of all the way from the Texas Democratic Party to the county parties, precinct, precinct chairs and in between.
00:22:07
Speaker
So when I think of data, I just think of it in my own anecdotal experience. So I had ah i ran for office last cycle, Amy, and I used van. So I and I had minivan, which is what the Texas Democratic Party has set up here for us.
00:22:22
Speaker
But I keep hearing from other people that there are other better voter data files or there's other ways to maintain contact. And so are you doing this in partnership with Vandata or which for our listener is like basically a database where you can look up an address you're going through?
00:22:38
Speaker
you know As you mentioned, the triple Ds, like you you look up someone, Kate Rumsey, you wrote it in the last three primaries, and she lives at this address in Coppell, which I won't give on the live air. but you know And you can kind of go knock on her door and i maybe I will be there. Or you can say, i dropped off lit or I was able to talk to her and she's fully supportive.
00:22:57
Speaker
um And then that kind of saves the data for future reference. like Is that something that you use? How do you partnership with that? Yeah, so our our tool that we use, it's called Reach.
00:23:09
Speaker
That connects directly to the voter file. So we work with the Texas Democratic Party. They get the voter file from the Secretary of State, and it's updated on a regular cadence. So Reach, when we're actually using the app in the field, we look up, we can look up, Kate, your name, first, last name, and zip code, find you in the voter file. It has all the same information you would see in minivan,
00:23:32
Speaker
but in reach, it's a little bit more user-friendly, I would say. The UI is a little bit better. And then from there, I just add you to my network. I get your phone number. Sometimes, I mean, phone number is a big one. So a lot of times we have the phone number in minivan, but it's not actually the right one. or we have like five numbers listed for a voter. In person though, Kate, I can say,
00:23:53
Speaker
Is this your number? If not, Mark is wrong. Or i just add the one that's accurate. That way, when I maintain contact with you, i know it's you. I text you on the spot. So I know it's getting received. And then we can get that relationship. So that is definitely... um we We have to use the voter file and we do it through the mechanism of ban, which comes from TDP and then automatically integrates with with our tool reach that we use.
00:24:20
Speaker
And then then I would say is that for people, because we do have such a big subset of our 46,000 people, who are not yet registered, I would say probably 40% are first-time registrants or they're changing their address or changing their name, updating their registration.
00:24:38
Speaker
Those people may not be in the voter file at all. So we all need to add them and then we're we're enhancing the voter file our our access to the voter file in that way also.
Engaging Younger Voters with Issues
00:24:48
Speaker
Amy, it's really clear that you're a very serious person who's data-driven and really focused on what's going to matter, or what's going to move the needle.
00:24:56
Speaker
I say that so that you can now tell us, given everything you know and all the research and the data you have, what should Texas Democrats stop doing? It feels like it makes a difference, but it doesn't. Oh, man. If that's too hot of a take, then you have to do it.
00:25:15
Speaker
I might upset some people. You know, i think... that every everyone of your listeners, everyone out there should do what they can with what they have.
00:25:25
Speaker
And i mean, I know some, some, I talked to someone earlier this week, a volunteer of ours who, you know, she, she doesn't have the ability to go out to college campuses. She can't, she needs to do stuff from her home.
00:25:38
Speaker
And that sometimes means that she's writing postcards. It sometimes means that she is like stuffing mailers for us. Like she is doing what she can with the resources that she has to give. I myself, I have the ability, the privilege to be able to do more.
00:25:54
Speaker
I just don't want to discourage anyone from the things that they're doing. That being said, think the relational work is the most important work. It's also the hardest, the most labor intensive, but I think it's the it's the tactic that actually works and builds community and and makes you feel good too.
Importance of Human Connection in Politics
00:26:15
Speaker
Like you get that instant gratification working with a voter in person than, you know, sending the postcard or doing the text, the the phone bank and getting yelled at half the people that, you know, pick up the phone.
00:26:28
Speaker
So that would be my answer to that. Alex, it's like, do what you can with what you have. I'll rephrase just a little more pointedly. And then I'll leave leave it alone, I promise. Is there anything you see that's counterproductive the feel is actually moving us in the wrong direction?
00:26:45
Speaker
Oh, man, that's a good question. I know that sometimes whenever I'm online, I'll see people who fancy themselves to be political influencers. who i I just cringe. And I think, God, I hate that you're representing the the party right now.
00:27:01
Speaker
I feel like you're moving us backwards. Yeah. What I'm finding, especially working with young voters, the 18 to 29 demographic, is that the willingness to align with a party is really diminishing. They don't want to associate themselves with a political identity.
00:27:21
Speaker
So I do think we need to be more issue-based and show people what it is we want for the world, for our communities, and less so fitting into the same mold. the same We keep doing the same things. It's like the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting a different outcome.
00:27:41
Speaker
Why don't we do that? Like we're seeing positive traction in places like New York with Momdani. Why don't we learn from that instead of these tired old tactics of the same establishment candidates running the same program? So I'm i'm all about encouraging change, listening to people and and where people are feeling that passion and energy and chasing that. So anything that's more of a status quo and like, let's play nice. I am, I am sick of that. And I wish more of our candidates and politicians electeds would do less of that.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, in in that vein, I would just say I was out knocking doors last weekend and you were about connecting with people. And i think a lot of people are fearful to go knock on a door of their neighbor or go knock on a door of a stranger because you don't know who's going to answer. And I will say all the people we knocked on the door, and this isn't a primary, so most of the people are Democrats and they're in van and we kind of know their voting history, but they were all really positive interactions. And even when I was door knocking in a general election, I had great interactions with people in my community. And so, I mean, Amy, like how would you, you were to give someone a pep talk, like you can do it, you can go knock on that door. Like, what would you say? i would say, just remember we're all we're all human beings and we all have aspirations and we all have struggles. And I know nowadays we are so like plugged into the matrix and
00:29:11
Speaker
that we forget, I think, how to interact on a human level. But I promise you, when you get out in community, whether it's you know going to an event and just being with people, like-minded people, or it's just having a conversation with someone at a door or on the phone or on a college campus, if you're with us out in the field of Powered by People, it's going to make you feel different.
Volunteering with 'Powered by People'
00:29:34
Speaker
I mean, I've I had a conversation with Beto, you know, a couple months ago about like the loneliness epidemic and and the depression rates and things going on in our in our country, in the world.
00:29:46
Speaker
And this is the work that bring brings people into the light. And that that may sound kind of, I don't know, aspirational or naive. But I really do think that's what is going to save us and what will make you feel more fulfilled. So when you do it, when you do wake up after an election, you're like, that didn't go my way, that you don't enter into this spiral of despair. You have a community of people connected to you that are going to fight and continue the fight.
00:30:14
Speaker
And we're Texans. We're not afraid of a fight. Exactly. yeah So tell me, you got someone who's listening who maybe they've never been part of the mission, part of the fight, part of this larger movement. they think, what could I really do? How do I even get started? What was like, what's, what's the best way to like to get someone entered?
00:30:34
Speaker
What's that first step on the engagement ladder? Alex, are you asking about just in general or powered by people or both? Yeah, yeah, no. If someone so someone wants to get involved with powered by people, like practically, what's step one?
00:30:47
Speaker
Okay, step step one would be to go to our website. It's poweredxpeople.org. We have a tab on there that says become a volunteer. There's lots of different options to get involved. If you are in Texas with us and you want to be out at events, in churches, at community events, on college campuses, you can do our in-person training that we have.
00:31:10
Speaker
If you are someone that can't, that's not something that's accessible to you. We have remote options where you can still contact voters and maintain relationships with them. I'd even say if you have if you have listeners from out of state, we will take anybody that wants to adopt a voter and like maintain a personal relationship.
00:31:28
Speaker
That is what we're all about. um so And then, of course, we have other options for people that prefer you know text banking, phone banking. We use that for recruiting volunteers a lot.
00:31:38
Speaker
So we have plenty of things to you know immediately activate you and get you involved. If that's something a listener out there is really wanting to get involved, that is where I would point you. Just go to our website and sign up for training. That's the best way to get immediately plugged in. Yeah. Adopt a voter kind of made me think of a Vote Save America through the the Pod Save America, the crooked media and all that used to do, like adopt ah a region or adopt a battleground state kind of a thing. um I wonder, is is there something akin to that being done for particularly competitive Texas House seats or Senate seats or congressional districts?
00:32:16
Speaker
Or like, is there like an emphasis being put in certain areas of the state? Yeah, so we actually, we did do that with Senate District 9 in North Texas with the the race between Taylor Amet and his opponent, who I will not name.
00:32:30
Speaker
Big fans here. We're military. Taylor's military. He's also a union guy, which I love. Union guy. Again, when we talked about follow the momentum of the people in the party, like people over profit, people over billionaires, that's the energy.
00:32:45
Speaker
And folks I want to get behind. But yes, absolutely. We do have specific opportunities for districts where we when we think it'll make a big difference. And so when we see that, we're always on the lookout for things like that.
00:32:59
Speaker
We do engage and we try to get strategic in that way to plug people in. It might be too early out, but do you have a sense for what that's going to look like in November for this this cycle, the midterms, like particular house seats? Or is that going to be like a guarded secret that we're not going to tell anybody until after we win them?
00:33:16
Speaker
not Not a guarded secret. I mean, right now, to be honest, we're so heads down, been so heads down, focused on the primary that we're going to see what we get through once we get through this and then we'll reassess. And I'm sure there will be strategic opportunities, you know, moving moving forward as we get closer to November.
00:33:37
Speaker
Something I reflect on as a candidate is that so much money and time is spent around these elections. I remember I spent the majority of my money right before the primary.
00:33:47
Speaker
and then you see so much of that money go right before the general election. And it means that we're just not sustaining it in my sense, like, especially for organizing and field year to year. And so like, I remember seeing Beto, he stood up all these field offices, he had all these incredible volunteers, but then it's like,
00:34:07
Speaker
Who takes the baton, you know, like how to make sure that it's like sustaining every year whereas we're just sort of lighting money on fire and we have no idea how to like actually recapture it.
00:34:18
Speaker
um So can you speak to that? Because it seems like Powered by People is some is somewhat an answer to that. That is our hope, I would say. um But the reality is, you know, like I mentioned before, we have volunteers that they kind of have a life cycle, right? and everyone's got different obligations. They can't.
00:34:37
Speaker
It's hard for me to say, Kate, do you want to be a volunteer for
Volunteer Lifecycle and Commitment
00:34:41
Speaker
life? Do you want to own 300 voter relationships for the till the end of time? And so to be honest, I think we're still figuring out how we do this really well.
00:34:53
Speaker
um In some cases, you might come to me and say, look, I i have 300 voters that I was responsible for 2024. I can't maintain contact with them. Something else is going on. Please you know reassign to someone else. So Alex, we reassign 50 to you and 250 to someone else that has the bandwidth.
00:35:13
Speaker
So we're trying to figure this out. It's not easy. It's still very grassroots. But our whole mantra is this is this goes beyond elections. It's it's consistent.
00:35:24
Speaker
We're trying to create an educated electorate and... Maybe we introduce, once we get a little bit more sustainable, ah we introduce something like, okay, if you've been with us the last X amount of cycles, then we're going to let you kind of do your own thing, voter. We'll move you to a more you know traditional organizing and outreach approach versus the ones we're hitting like in that in the middle of that election cycle. So we're still...
00:35:49
Speaker
thinking through strategically how we do it. And right now it's like no voter left behind. Let's make sure all 46,000 hear from us ahead of the primaries, all 100,000 by the time we get to the midterms, that personal outreach is kind of what we're marching towards. And it's, again, it's, I like it because it's not tied to a campaign. It's not tied to a candidate.
00:36:09
Speaker
It's ongoing. um And I just am really excited to see where it goes. build that culture of voting and have these voters flex that voting muscle enough times that get enough reps in, they kind of know how to handle it going forward. But what you're saying about the life cycle is very relatable.
00:36:27
Speaker
Kate and I are both parents of toddlers and ah we just don't have the kind of time we used to have before toddlers, you know. um And i think it's actually something the Republicans, I hate to say it, I've figured out in a way that's better than us, getting parents of young children engaged. I've i've heard stories of Republican organizations that have like childcare offerings for some of these um organizing events like phone banks or what have you.
00:36:54
Speaker
I'm just pooling resources and making sure that they they can be available. We got to figure out how to tap in to this huge swath of people. i mean, people who I think what their hearts are in it, but they just don't have the free time that they used to.
Balancing Volunteer and Family Commitments
00:37:10
Speaker
Right.
00:37:11
Speaker
um If anything, I think these are probably our most passionate because they see, I don't know about you, Kate, but i after after mortgage and healthcare, childcare is my most expensive monthly expense. And so um we're seeing it the way that the the vouchers are playing out. We're seeing gun violence, how it affects our young people. yeah I think we have a lot at stake and we want to give, but there's only so so much time, so many hours a day.
00:37:38
Speaker
I know. Like, how do you pick and choose? You know, I guess that's the ultimate question, Amy. Like, how do you, where do I allocate my time? Where do we allocate our money? You know, um like, what do you, how do you offer that to volunteers? Like, how do you get them to dedicate that time you know away from, or maybe to fit into their schedule? Yeah.
00:37:57
Speaker
We just try to provide as many options so that, you know, whether it's the initial engagement as a volunteer, hey, I'm going to pick this lane versus this lane because it's what makes the most sense for me. Or, hey, this thing came up in my life that became this time sink and I have to prioritize this and not powered by people.
00:38:17
Speaker
We have mechanisms in place to basically shift, lift and shift voters so that no one, you know, we don't abandon anyone, and but we're also supporting our volunteers. And then if you want, hey, you're gone for this cycle, that's okay.
00:38:30
Speaker
<unk> You want to come back next time? You already have the training. We just have to refresh you and we'll plug you in. So it's really just, and I'll give you another example. We have some volunteers who really can't handle like the outreach with voters, but want to help with the voter registration, like a lot of your traditional VDR type of work.
00:38:50
Speaker
So they come out to our events, they partner up with someone that is willing to do the ongoing outreach, and they just do the signing of the paperwork, you know. So we find ways and we have other duties where it's like, can you just hand out the pizza we have, you know, there's things that people can do, um depending on how much you're willing or able to to give.
Beto's Perspective on Action and Community
00:39:11
Speaker
I think one one quote that Beto states a lot when he gives talks about power by people in our work is, action is the antidote to despair and the key to victory. And that really resonates with me and and kind of gets at what we talked about earlier is do something, anything,
00:39:29
Speaker
um because taking action will, it'll get you out of that spiral of fear and doubt. And especially with us being as plugged in as we are, walk to our phones, like get out of that noise and be with other human beings and see how you feel afterwards.
00:39:47
Speaker
and I promise you it'll it'll feel different in a positive way. ah go Open your phone settings and see how much screen time you have. And then and then come back to me and tell me, How much time you don't have, right? Yeah, right, right.
Amy's Personal Journey from Corporate America
00:40:00
Speaker
let's Let's shift gears. That was a sad moment to think about how much time I waste on my phone. Let's let's be happy.
00:40:06
Speaker
And there's a new segment we've started. It's called Good News. I think as Texas Democrats, we've got to get way better about sharing our values, things we care about, our issues, for lack of a better word, to be more evangelical, to share the good news. And so just to get in the habit, get into practice, do you have any good news from your personal life, your professional life, from the organization that you would like to share?
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I'll i'll share some some good personal news. And i yeah I apologize if I get a little emotional as I share it, but I think... I didn't mention this at the beginning of the call when you were asking me to intro how I got into this work, but I left corporate America to do this this job. I just started December 8th, but I had been a volunteer for many years with Powered by People.
00:40:56
Speaker
I joined Powered by People in 2024, early 2024, about like four months, five months after my mom passed away. She sadly took her life. It was, um it was, it rocked me on a scale I didn't no was possible.
00:41:14
Speaker
And when you're in that state of grief and you're also dealing with just the world crumbling around you, um being able to put that energy into something,
00:41:26
Speaker
was, it's, I think it saved me. And I think it really helped me um build community. And i mentioned this before, that like a lot of the volunteers empowered by people are retired, a lot of them are women.
00:41:41
Speaker
And i felt like, you know, I lost one mom, and I gained like, 50, to be honest, and there was just something very special about that. And so I think the good news is, you know, I'm i'm now over two years out from losing my mom.
00:41:57
Speaker
I feel really good about where I'm at in my grief journey. The ability to take my energy and time and put it into something like this that I think really matters is incredible to me.
00:42:11
Speaker
Especially when I was kind of grinding corporate America being like, what what am I doing with my life? And like, of course, and the time I wasn't working, i was doing volunteer work. But to be able to fully commit to this is a really special thing on multiple scales for me personally.
00:42:30
Speaker
Well, thank you for sharing that, Amy. I really appreciate that. Alex, what was your good news? Hard to follow that. I'm very grateful that shared that. It is so powerful because doing work that matters, finding meaning, I think is, you're right.
Veterans in Political and Community Roles
00:42:49
Speaker
it is it's empowering. it's It's healing sometimes.
00:42:53
Speaker
And i hope more people get the opportunity to do that. yeah um My good news is, I guess in a similar vein, um just to kind of time stamp when we're recording this depending on where we release this but we're recording this the day after the vote vets texas tour kicked off and right here in dallas texas um And we were there at Del Sur Tacos and just incredible. Yeah, in Oak Cliff, incredible turnout.
00:43:20
Speaker
um Amazing. People running for office, veterans running for Congress, for house districts, for county clerk, you name it. For JP, every branch of the U.S. military was represented.
00:43:33
Speaker
Maybe not the Space Force, but everybody forgets about them. um I'm willing to say that. Nice. i'm a space force That's amazing. how you But no, it was incredible. And ah it was just really hardening to see so many service members who clearly patriotic, but are not ready to give up on the country that they love.
00:43:53
Speaker
They're going to stand up and fight back. They're going to throw their name on the ballot. They're going to step up. They're going to run campaigns. They're going to volunteer. They're going to donate. And ah they're going to take back the mantle of like, look,
00:44:05
Speaker
This is not okay. And we' are we're going to stand up and fight back. Well, think there's such a common thread in this. And I think, Amy, with you and your grief journey and leaving corporate America and having that brave face of leaving and doing something reminds me of, ah I was going to totally not talk about anything related to politics, but it begs the
Impact of Service on Personal Legacy
00:44:26
Speaker
question. My grandfather, when he died, like before he died, I talked about this on my campaign trail, that He had all these photographs and mementos on his walls and his assisted living facility. And he wanted me to come over one day. he was i was like, okay, Papa, like what am I doing?
00:44:42
Speaker
And he really wanted me to take a tour of all the things that he was so proud of in his life. And there was like walls full of things. He was a teacher. he had notes when he was a teacher from kids that said what a difference he made in their lives. And, you know, he served in the military. He's a veteran in World War II. And he had those mementos and pictures of our family. And I thought, you know, there's not a picture of his graduation degree from the fancy college he went two There's not a picture of the corporation that he ever...
00:45:10
Speaker
worked at, but of the ways in which he served others and and the way in which he was enriched and other people enriched him. And it makes me think of every day, like, what am I doing that's going to be wall worthy in my life and running for office, giving back to my community, knocking on those doors. Like, and I also have found community with all so many friends that I've made in this political journey, including people we saw last night with Alex at VoteVets and I'm just so grateful for that. And I'm grateful that you were able to find that Amy. And so I feel like that's just such a good news. And I'm sure like your walls we filled with powered by people, you know, like to be able to show at the end of your life. um So I'm just so grateful for that.
00:45:51
Speaker
Well, that is our good news. And I'm tearing up. of I love that. That's really, that's really beautiful. I'm going use that, um that mentality of like what's on your wall. And I, it reminds me of another,
00:46:04
Speaker
Another saying I have learned in grief that like joy shared is multiplied, grief shared is divided.
Community Bonding in Grief and Joy
00:46:11
Speaker
So these are going to be rough times. This year is going to be rough.
00:46:15
Speaker
yeah um But we can divide that amongst each other and and fight. And we're going to need all that to fight. And so I just, I appreciate y'all both sharing those that good news. I love that that's part of the segment. Yeah. Or a segment in the pod. That's amazing. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I didn't try to insert this in somehow. um My favorite quote on grief is actually from a Marvel TV show. Yeah.
00:46:40
Speaker
It's from so from the show WandaVision. And i think it was really poignant. The line was, what is grief if not love persevering? Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:54
Speaker
Absolutely. it lives on. Well, um thank you, Amy. That is our good news. And ah we ask every one of our guests the last word, which is what do you think is going to take to Flip Texas, especially how people can help generally, but also how they, and you mentioned this earlier about the website, but ah how else people can support Powered by People and you.
Final Call to Action for Engagement
00:47:14
Speaker
So please let us know how we can do that. And your last word.
00:47:16
Speaker
Like we've talked about throughout the pod, do with do what you can with what you have. Taking action is going to fight those feelings of desperation. And there's never been, I know we say this all the time, but literally we're on the brink of authoritarianism and fascism. and you you want to make sure you wake up on November 4th, knowing that you put in the work this year. I promise you that. So do what you can with what you have.
00:47:41
Speaker
If you do want to support or be a volunteer with Powered by People, go to our website, poweredixpeople.org. You can also donate there if you're not capable of volunteering.
00:47:52
Speaker
We need all the support we can get to continue doing this relational work that I think really makes a difference. Excellent. I appreciate those marching orders. let's Let's do it, everybody.
00:48:03
Speaker
Let's make Amy proud. we're gonna Yeah, we're all going to join Powered by People. Thank you so much, Amy. We really appreciate you. And we will see our listeners next week. And I'll sign off by saying God bless Texas.
00:48:15
Speaker
You can follow us on all socials at MissionTexasPodcast. Email us at MissionTexasPodcast at gmail.com. This episode is edited by Juan Jose Flores.
00:48:27
Speaker
Our music bumper is by Adam Pickerel. And our cover art is by Tino Sohn.
00:48:33
Speaker
you