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I’m writing this as I fly home to El Paso from a long, hot week in North Texas registering and organizing students, something I’ve been working on for a while now.

In 2018 when we were running for senate all the smart people told me this kind of work was a waste of time. Young people might talk a big game, but they never showed up to vote.

But then maybe I wouldn’t have shown up either if no one had bothered to show up for me.

So we went to every campus in Texas. I could list them all, but you’d get bored. We drew big crowds, held town halls at most all of them where we could listen to each other, where students could ask questions and hold me accountable, where they could join the team and lead the fight on their campus.

Young voter turnout was up over 200% that year from the previous midterm. Those new and previously written off voters powered victories across the board. It’s the year that James Talarico and Colin Allred defeated entrenched incumbent Republicans, when we picked up state senate seats and commissioners courts across the state, and won 19 judgeships in Harris County alone.

Registering students at Cedar Valley College in Dallas.

In the wake of those victories Republicans changed the laws around registering and voting, shut down polling sites on or near campuses and made it harder for students to mail a ballot back to their home county.

As you might expect, we didn’t see 200%+ gains in the following elections.

I started Powered by People to see if we could change that. Initially we focused on voter registration, thinking that if we just helped enough young people get on the rolls they’d do the rest. The problem with that is that Texas doesn’t just make it hard to register, they make it hard to vote.

Millions of registered Texans didn’t cast a ballot in the 2022 midterms when the Texas abortion ban, the Uvalde shootings and the collapse of our power grid were all on the ballot.

It wasn’t like people didn’t care about this stuff. But when polling place closures force you to stand in a line 8 hours long to cast your ballot, when you can use your license to carry a gun to vote but can’t use your student I.D. to do the same, when they’ve drawn you out of a district where your vote could make a difference into one where it can’t, I understand why you don’t vote.

Checking Maegan’s registration on the Tarleton State campus in Erath County.

So in 2024 we tried something different. This time, in addition to registering you to vote, we asked if we could stay in touch with you over the course of the election. Our volunteers personally texted with the voters they’d registered to check to make sure they’d received their registration card in the mail, to remind them of the form of I.D. they’d need to bring to vote, to answer questions they might have and to nudge them every day of Early Voting until we could confirm that their ballot had been cast.

The nearly 30,000 voters in our program turned out at twice the rate of other young Texans, 79% to 39%.

So this year we expanded the program, with volunteers and organizers on campuses in East Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso, Amarillo, Houston, San Marcos, San Antonio, Austin and North Texas, where I just spent the week with our volunteers.

Monday was the University of Arlington, where it topped out at 108-degrees. Our volunteers stayed with it till the end of the day, meeting incoming freshmen, getting them registered and exchanging phone numbers so we could stay in touch over the next few months.

University of North Texas the next day. Tarleton State on Wednesday and Thursday we were at Cedar Valley and Paul Quinn.

I asked every student I met where they were from, what they were studying, what was important to them, what they’d like to change. Majors that stood out, in no order, construction management, animal science, mechanical engineering, agriculture, biology and pre med, criminal justice, information systems, theater and music, English, business, history and political science. Doctors, entrepreneurs, builders, teachers, lawyers, performers and public servants.

Registering students at the University of Texas Arlington.

Nervous first years, trying to fit in and figure it out. Bold idealists believing they can take on the world. Upperclassmen getting ready for the next step.

Tarleton State, which serves a primarily rural student population from Erath and neighboring counties, stood out to me. I met students like Haleigh from Saginaw who’s pursuing animal science with a focus on embryology. She had to go to community college first for basics because her grades weren’t great in high school “I was too focused on my sheep and FFA!” She’s worried about how they’re doing in this heat.

Then there was Maegan from Hico, who is pursuing musical theater degree and hoping to teach music in public schools after she graduates. While I was checking her voter registration she showed me pictures of the adorable 3 year old she’s raising.

Erica came up to me and said “it’s refreshing that you’re here - people are afraid to stand out and we feel better with you all on campus.” She explained that there are more Democrats and independent-minded students on campus than you might expect, but it isn’t always easy to stand out.

Dallas College.

Alanna told me “when we see someone coming to our campus it brings us out of the woodwork.” If you want young people to stand up and be counted, you have to show up and put in the work.

Next, I’ll be organizing with our volunteers at the University of Texas El Paso and then back on the road next week in Austin, San Marcos, San Antonio and other parts of Central Texas. We’ll keep this up through November 3rd.

I’m confident that if this kind of person-to-person organizing, focusing on connecting with young voters, making sure they’re registered and then personally staying in touch with them existed in the years leading up to 2018 we would have won the senate race that year.

It gives me hope that the volunteers who’ve been doing this work in the years since will contribute to a win this time around.

At UNT with a student volunteer.

This is the work that works. Can you help me stay on the road by pitching in any amount today?

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Together we can get this done.

— Beto