AUSTIN, Texas — Greg Casar, a former Austin City Council member, has won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House District 35 race.
His nomination was confirmed at more than 60% reporting. The primary for the Republican nomination went to a runoff. Dan McQueen and Michael Rodriguez will face off again in a May 24 runoff election after securing 21% and 15% of the vote, respectively.
Casar ran against State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) and two other Democrats in the March 1 primary election. Casar and Rodriguez were the top two candidates, looking at polling and fundraising totals.
“Our campaign has built a movement of working people, from San Antonio to Austin, who are ready to fight because our futures depend on it. I’m incredibly honored to be the next Democratic nominee for Texas-35,” said Casar after claiming victory. “Together, we’re taking our fight to the halls of Congress – to fight and deliver on passing Medicare for All, protecting reproductive rights, creating good jobs, and fixing our power grid. Progressive policies are popular. And we’re going to pass them for Texas working families.”
District 35 covers East Austin and stretches down into Hays, Comal and Bexar counties.
In an interview with KVUE’s Ashley Goudeau, Casar described himself as a “progressive fighter” who wanted to bring Medicare for all, a $15 an hour minimum wage, reproductive rights and a functional electric grid.
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“You know, what we've seen in these last couple of years is this assault on reproductive rights from the Legislature, when we should have been working on keeping people in their jobs and saving lives in the pandemic,” he said in the interview. “We've seen voter suppression tactics when people were freezing in their homes and needed help, fixing the power grid.”
During that interview, he also touted some things he had done as a member of Austin City Council. He served on the council for three terms before Jose “Chito” Vela was recently elected to replace him.
“… We closed tax loopholes on Lake Austin, some of the most luxury properties in Texas who had been paying zero in city taxes,” Casar said. “We stood up to the status quo and closed those loopholes so that we could reduce the costs for everybody else, for working families. We were able to raise the minimum wage for thousands of people up to $15 an hour, and some things got rolled back. For example, we passed a paid sick time law that went into effect for everyone, was supposed to be for everyone, but it got blocked by the Republican Supreme Court in the middle of the pandemic.”
He said he hopes to accomplish the things that got rolled back as a member of Congress.
Casar and the three other Democrats were vying to replace Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who is running for a newly created district, District 37. Texas gained two new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives thanks to the state’s explosive growth. One of those new districts, District 37, is in the heart of Austin.
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