“More than our wombs”: Women in conservative Texas cities mobilizing to end GOP dominance

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LUBBOCK — Morgan Kirkpatrick was exhausted.

The longtime Lubbock resident and State Board of Education candidate spent most of her morning with other local Democratic candidates campaigning door-to-door ahead of early voting next week. From there, she went to Mahon Library in downtown Lubbock, where more than a dozen volunteers were already writing postcards to voters for her campaign.

Out of chairs, the former teacher opted to sit on the floor and get to work. Yes, she was physically drained, but she is even more tired of seeing Republicans run unopposed in local elections in Texas’ South Plains region her entire adult life.

“It’s hard because the Democratic Party doesn’t have the infrastructure here like the Republican Party does,” said Kirkpatrick, 39. “Democrats here have always felt like we had to be quiet. But if we were a little louder, people would understand this is a battleground that’s up for grabs.”

Democrats have long imagined a blue wave would roll in to break through the conservative landscape in the heart of the South Plains. It hasn’t happened.

In 2016, 66% of voters in Lubbock County elected former president Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Beto O’Rourke inched a little closer in 2018 — O’Rourke received 35% of the vote in the county while U.S. Senator Ted Cruz had 64%. Trump won the county again in 2020 over President Joe Biden. Gov. Greg Abbott handily won the county over O’Rourke in 2022.

In fact, it is conservative population centers like Lubbock and Amarillo, about 125 miles north, and the state’s suburbs that have kept Democrats from winning any statewide race in two decades.

Still, Democrats in Lubbock — women in particular — are hopeful this year. Fueled by a mix of enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination and ire over abortion restrictions and other far-right policies, left-leaning women are hoping it’s enough to break through conservative strongholds.

“I feel like Harris has given us reason to envision a win,” Kirkpatrick said.

Since President Joe Biden stepped aside in late July, leading to Harris taking his place as the nominee, Democratic women everywhere have been reinvigorated. According to a survey by KFF, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on health policy, 64% of women are satisfied with the nominees for the election — up from 40% from June.

In Texas, Harris has gained favorability. In an August University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs survey, Harris shaved off nearly half of Trump’s one-time advantage over Biden and was trailing Trump by 5 percentage points.

“Women have been second-class citizens for so long, particularly here,” said Brigid Krizek, president of the Texas Democratic Women of the South Plains.

Harris is not explicitly campaigning on her identity — be it her race or gender — but her appeal is reaching women in new ways. Social media accounts linked to her campaign regularly post memes or TikTok trends, influential artists like Taylor Swift, Texas native Megan Thee Stallion and Charlie XCX endorsed her, driving fans to engage in politics. Earlier this month, Harris went on the Call Her Daddy podcast, one of the most popular podcasts for women on Spotify’s platform with millions of listeners.

While there is a big push among Democratic women to see Harris break the glass ceiling across the country, not all women are eager for her candidacy. Female nominees, like Republican Nikki Haley and Clinton, have faced challenges getting support from women voters in the past. Shortly after Swift endorsed Harris, pop star Chappell Roan said she would vote for Harris but not endorse either candidate. Roan criticized the left’s “transphobic and genocidal views” and how the party has “failed” marginalized communities including Palestine.

Terisa Clark, a member of the Lubbock Area Republican Women, said she and other Republican women are voting for a leader who aligns with their values — and that’s not Harris. Clark said the U.S.-Mexico border is an important issue for West Texas women, and she doesn’t think Harris has done enough to fix it.

“It’s an absolute no-go on her border policies,” Clark said.

If the Lubbock Democratic women do have criticism of Harris, they aren’t sharing it publicly.

“Kamala has shown she’s the most experienced candidate we’ve ever had, and she also happens to be a woman,” said Kim Gonzalez, a member of the Texas Democratic executive committee who lives in Lubbock. “It’s empowering for all of us women working to make sure we have progressive advances in this rural part of Texas.”

There appears to be more excitement for this election in Lubbock, a city of about 264,000 people. In March, there were about 189,218 registered voters in the county. That has now jumped to more than 197,000, according to the Lubbock County Elections Office. The state does not track registration by political party.

Clark doesn’t think the momentum will shift anything in Lubbock. Clark said historical election results show Lubbock leans toward conservative values.

“You’re looking at a West Texas region that, as a whole, just doesn’t align with her,” Clark said. “I don’t see it changing.”

While the state doesn’t track voter registration by political party, Lubbock’s most engaged Democratic women are certain the spike is linked to women who are fed up in the face of far-right local policies.

In Lubbock, these include anti-abortion ordinances, which banned abortion in the city in 2021, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A more recent ordinance approved by the county commissioners here last year effectively barred pregnant women from traveling through the unincorporated areas of the county for an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal. Legal experts and abortion rights activists suggest the ban is unenforceable. No one has tried to use it yet.

As polls show more Texans believe the state’s abortion laws are too strict, Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the issue. This includes U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who declined to make his position clear at a debate against U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat, this week. Instead, Cruz, a Houston Republican, said it should be handled at the state level.

Gonzalez, the Democratic Party organizer, said it’s inspiring to see women like Harris and Kirkpatrick run for office. The rhetoric surrounding women this year — from Trump’s running mate JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” to Harris being criticized for not having biological children — have made voters angry, Gonzalez said. She felt empowered when listening to the Call Her Daddy podcast, where Harris said “not all women aspire to be humble.”

“We’re more than our wombs,” Gonzalez said. “Hearing someone in a position of power say it’s OK for us to be bold and brave, and not humble, is a message women need to hear right now.”

Clark, the Republican voter, said Harris has made abortion the leading issue of her campaign, but it’s based on “mistruths” about states blocking doctors from performing medically necessary abortions. Clark said she did not know the specifics of Kate Cox’s story, a Texas woman who got a court order to terminate her pregnancy after she received a lethal fetal diagnosis that could have harmed her health and future fertility. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took her case to the state Supreme Court and ultimately blocked the order, forcing Cox to go out of state for an abortion. When asked about other women who have had similar experiences, Clark said it’s a conversation between women and their doctors about whether it’s medically necessary for their life.

“That is rhetoric of a situation and it’s being used as a political story to say ‘Well look, this is what doctors are being limited from doing,’” Clark said.

Abortion is not on the federal ballot this year, but it is in 10 states, according to KFF. It’s also on the ballot in Amarillo, a city that has consistently voted for Republicans each election cycle. Voters will decide if the city should put in place a “travel ban” like Lubbock’s that restricts the use of the city’s roads for a woman seeking on abortion in another state.

If it passes, people can be sued by Amarillo residents for a minimum of $10,000 if they “aid and abet” a pregnant woman seeking an abortion. This can be by providing transportation, donating to abortion fund networks, or offering any information that would lead to an abortion, regardless of where the person giving the instructions is located.

According to the KFF survey, abortion has become the most important issue for women under 30. The so-called sanctuary city ordinance has far-reaching consequences for people and businesses that violate it, as any organization that uses the mail for items that could produce an abortion would be declared criminal organizations, among other reasons. The ordinance has been criticized as turning neighbor against neighbor by city leaders.

“There is so much more that unites us than divides us,” said Lindsay London, co-founder of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance, or ARFA. “And we’re seeing that voters are ready to embrace that at both the local and national level.”

ARFA, a nonpartisan organization, has been at the forefront of the fight against the ordinance. London said she sees a similarity in how Harris’s campaign has brought together “reasonable” people from across the political spectrum through shared values.

Back in Lubbock, Kirkpatrick is gearing up for Election Day. She knows abortion is a big issue for voters, though she also thinks education is going to be something that drives the vote in Texas. She is facing incumbent Aaron Kinsey, a Republican from Midland who ran unopposed in 2022.

Last year, lawmakers failed to use the state’s $33 billion budget surplus for school funding, as the money got tied into a fight over Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for private school vouchers. The program would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools. Critics of the proposal, including Kirkpatrick, say it puts public schools at risk.

“I just hope those who believe public education is important vote in the South Plains and around the state,” Kirkpatrick said. “Some of the candidates running for House and Senate could really help hold the ground against Abbott’s crusade for vouchers.”

The proof of the growing progressive movement is there, Gonzalez said. This month, the Planned Parenthood Community Center raised $52,000 for the Lubbock Health Center at their Y’all Means All event, where former state Sen. Wendy Davis was the special guest. O’Rourke continues to visit the city and encourage people to vote, and Allred spoke to voters last week too.

“We’re all feeling it, and we’re ready to fight back,” Gonzalez said.