The Castro brothers told reporters at the Texas Democratic Convention that Texas would be 'competitive' in November.

Castros: Texas Will Be ‘Competitive’ in 2016 Election

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The Castro brothers told reporters at the Texas Democratic Convention that Texas would be 'competitive' in November.
The Castro brothers told reporters at the Texas Democratic Convention that Texas would be ‘competitive’ in November.  Alexa Garcia-Ditta

At the Texas Democratic Convention Friday afternoon, HUD Secretary Julián Castro and U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro — rising stars in the national Democratic Party — emphasized that Texas is becoming “more competitive” this election cycle, reiterating Hillary Clinton’s comments last month that the state is “in play.”

“Texans don’t seem to like Donald Trump very much,” San Antonio’s congressman told reporters ahead of the brothers’ keynote speeches tonight. “Donald Trump is the Texas Republican Party. Texas Republicans laid the groundwork for Trump.”

Julián Castro, rumored to be a potential vice presidential pick, said he is currently not being vetted by the Hillary Clinton campaign. However, his name is on a preliminary shortlist leaked this week. He also refused to speculate on who would make a good pick for VP.

“That is Secretary Clinton’s choice,” he said. “More important than that, she’s shown a history of good judgment.”

Julian Castro also emphasized that GOP state leaders are trying to distract voters “from the fact that they have bungled so much and now economically Texas is losing ground.”

His brother hammered at what he called “the arrogance and corruption” of state GOP leaders, including granting billions of dollars in no-bid contracts. GOP leaders have focused on suing the Obama administration, and pushing anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT policies.

“We can’t let them get away with that,” Castro said.

Secretary Castro also addressed concerns about how the Clinton campaign would bring Sanders supporters into the fold. He said he was confident that the Democratic Party would present a unified front in the November election.

“I believe that the vast majority of the folks who support Senator Sanders also will support Secretary Clinton because they understand the difference in values that she is espousing and the investments she would make.”

is a staff writer covering the environment, energy and climate change at Grist. She previously covered environmental issues at the Texas Observer, InsideClimate News and ProPublica. At ProPublica, she was part of a team that reported on the water woes of the West, a project that was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting. She has a degree in chemical engineering and a master’s in environmental and science reporting from New York University and was a 2017 Ida B. Wells fellow at Type Investigations. You can contact her at [email protected] and follow her work on Twitter.

Alexa Garcia-Ditta is an Observer reporter (and former intern) covering women's health, reproductive health and health care access across the Lone Star State. Before joining the Observer, she was a staff news writer at the San Antonio Current. She holds an MA in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and BA in journalism and Spanish from UT-Arlington, where she worked for three years on her college newspaper. After graduate school, she dipped her toe in public policy communications at the Center for Public Policy Priorities. When she's not at work, she's probably training for her next marathon. You can contact her at [email protected].

David R. Brockman, Ph.D., a religious studies scholar and Christian theologian, is a nonresident scholar in the Religion and Public Policy Program at Rice University's Baker Institute. He also teaches at Brite Divinity School, Southern Methodist University and Texas Christian University. He is the author of Dialectical Democracy through Christian Thought: Individualism, Relationalism, and American Politics.

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