SAN JUAN, Texas — The day after historic voter turnout delivered unprecedented midterm victories across Texas, leaders of La Unión Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) and LUPE Votes gathered at their headquarters in San Juan to declare that South Texas grassroots organizing was the decisive engine behind flipping the state's political landscape.
Flanked by community members spanning generations, LUPE leadership hosted a press conference to reflect on a midterm campaign that saw over 190 organizers knock on 90,000 doors and contact more than 100,000 voters across Hidalgo and Cameron counties.
"Today we welcome a very different Texas, a Texas that we've known is possible because of the day-to-day organizing that we do every single day in every single county in the Rio Grande Valley," said LUPE Votes organizer Dani Marrero Hi."This victory belongs to us, to the people."
Tania Chavez Camacho, president and executive director of LUPE, emphasized that the electoral outcome was not the result of late-stage campaign spending by national parties, but rather decades of persistent community organizing in border communities that are frequently overlooked.
"This victory was not because just a politician came and said, 'We're going to flip the state.' It's because we have organized for decades," Chavez Camacho said. "For months, I was told Texas was a lost cause. For years, I've been told you're not going to win the border. But here we are today. Not only did we win the border, but we won the whole state."
Chavez Camacho noted that LUPE deployed election protection monitors across Rio Grande Valley polling locations from the start of early voting through Election Day to safeguard voting rights and monitor ballot count accuracy as preliminary results came in.
Looking ahead to the upcoming Texas legislative session, LUPE leadership stressed that winning elections is only the first step toward policy change. Organization leaders announced plans to engage directly with incoming officials, including Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, to advance legislative priorities established during LUPE’s member assembly in August.
Key policy goals outlined by the organization include ending 287(g) agreements with federal immigration authorities, halting school voucher proposals, and restoring full voting rights across Texas.
"They can outspend us, but they can't out-organize us," said Michael Mireles, director of civic engagement at LUPE. "We knocked door after door from Sullivan City to Progreso, from La Feria to Brownsville, reaching the voters that the parties neglect. Our people in the colonias deserve to have a seat at the table, and now we're going to organize to change the laws in the state of Texas."
The press conference closed with a tribute to civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers movement alongside César Chávez, who helped establish LUPE to empower farmworkers and colonia residents in South Texas.
Holding a portrait of the late civil rights leader, Marrero Hi dedicated the victory to Huerta's legacy of lifelong discipline and grassroots empowerment.
"Dolores Huerta taught us that every single one of us is an organizer, and that every moment is an opportunity to change the world," Marrero Hi said. "In her honor, we dedicate this victory to our people."
