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FreedomWorks Is Sounding the Alarm and Sinking Nearly $8M into … Texas

In the midst of Texas state Senator Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster of SB 5 on Tuesday evening, GOP strategists apparently decided it was time to leak their plans to counter Democrats’ efforts to turn Texas back to blue (my emphasis):

Battleground Texas logo photo BattlegroundTexaslogo_zps8a701385.jpgThe conservative outside group FreedomWorks has drawn up plans to spend nearly $8 million mobilizing and expanding the GOP base in Texas, in a move to counter state and national Democratic efforts to make the state more electorally competitive, POLITICO has learned.

In a twelve-page internal strategy document obtained by POLITICO, FreedomWorks says that the Republican Party should be alarmed in particular by the Democratic group Battleground Texas, which several Obama campaign officials founded this year with the mission of organizing liberal-leaning constituencies that currently vote at below-average rates.

Several weeks ago, Steve Munisteri, Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, announced that they will receive help from the national GOP, which is an indication of how seriously the Republicans are taking the threat that BGTX poses to their continued control of Texas. It’s the equivalent of national Democrats’ spending large amounts in California, or even New York.  

Munisteri has also vowed to raise 10 times as much as Battleground Texas:

“They talk about they’re going to be putting tens of million into Battleground Texas,” said Munisteri. “If there ever were a significant threat because somebody put $20 million in, our business community would probably spend that on Republicans by a factor of several-fold; $75 million was raised just from Texas for Romney. None of that money was spent in the state. Over a six-year period, the RNC raised $41 million in Texas and spent about $400,000. Those dollars can easily flow back the other way if we need them, so if they spend $10 million, we can spend $100 million.”

If so, for a national Democratic donor that would mean for every dollar spent in Texas, Republicans would spend $10, money they wouldn’t be spending elsewhere. That’s not a bad return on investment.

The Republican Party of Texas is going to need all the help they can get from the Koch brothers via FreedomWorks as well as from their national party, but it still isn’t going to be enough. There are approximately 200 volunteers in the inaugural group of Battleground Texas Summer Fellows, and we have been organizing and registering voters all over our state. Every single day.