The Blast - Fri, Jan. 23, 2026

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Steelworker union leader Marcos Vélez has emerged as a dark horse candidate in the Democratic race for lieutenant governor, receiving the bulk of his financial support from a donor trail that leads back to the Texas Democratic Party’s top campaign partner, Texas Majority PAC.

Since mid-2025, shortly after Kendall Scudder was elected TDP chair, the party has worked with the Texas Majority PAC as a coordinated campaign dubbed Blue Texas. TMP, a Houston-based organization backed by liberal megadonor George Soros, came onto the scene in the 2024 cycle and has focused on making gains for Democrats outside big cities, with the broader goal of flipping the state.

As a general rule, the group remains neutral in the primaries, but recent campaign finance reports show TMP indirectly supporting Vélez, the assistant director of the United Steelworkers union’s District 13. The Pasadena native is a relatively unknown candidate who is up against Austin state Rep. Vikki Goodwin for the Democratic nomination. However, with labor support and TMP’s indirect financial backing, he’s found an opening in the primary.

On Dec. 23, TMP gave $60,000 to a PAC called Houstonians for Working Families. A week later, the PAC donated $30,000 to Vélez’s campaign and spotted him another $25,000 for his campaign launch video the following day.

TMP’s $60,000 to HFWF accounted for two-thirds of the group’s receipts in the second half of 2025. And the $55,000 HFWF gave to Vélez — plus $3,900 earlier in December — accounted for nearly three-quarters of his total fundraising haul since he launched his campaign on Nov. 17.

Texas Democratic operatives The Blast spoke to were shocked by the appearance that Texas Majority PAC is supporting any candidate in a contested primary, particularly against a Democrat who already holds an elected office.

TMP executive director Katherine Fischer denied that the PAC was officially or unofficially supporting Vélez.

“We’re not endorsing anyone in that race,” Fischer said. “I think he’s a very exciting candidate, but we are primary neutral.”

Notably, Vélez’s campaign manager, Plácido Gómez, recently worked for TMP as a grants manager and training director.

Asked whether TMP was formally supporting his campaign, Vélez told The Blast to ask TMP.

“I can tell you that they’ve been extremely warm in the reception of my idea to run,” Vélez said. “I feel like they’re the ones best positioned to speak on where they stand on my campaign. But as a candidate, I’ve found that they’ve been very receptive to the idea of labor candidates.”

Goodwin, a fourth-term member who’s been gearing up for her lieutenant governor run since 2023, has not received financial support from TMP. A spokesperson for her campaign declined to comment.

While remaining neutral in the primaries, TMP has played a key role in candidate recruitment, working with the state party to help recruit 104 legislative candidates for the midterms. The effort helped Democrats put up a candidate in every state and federal race on the 2026 ballot — a first for either party in modern Texas history.

Scudder, who was elected TDP chair in March, told The Blast that TMP operates independently from the state party, with its own leadership and a different structure. The group is not serving as the TDP’s “campaign arm,” Scudder added, though he said the organizations will work more closely after the primaries.

TDP partners with “lots of different organizations,” Scudder said. “Some of them play in primaries. Some of them don’t. After the primary, we all come together and run to turn Texas blue. In that vein, we team up with TMP or any other group that’s dedicated to electing Democrats.”

Vélez isn’t the only candidate getting a hand from TMP in a contested Democratic primary. But unlike Vélez, most of the other recipients were recruited by TMP and received the group’s backing before other Democrats entered the race. 

Take, for example, Jose Loya, a Mexican-born refinery worker, union leader and Marine Corps veteran running for land commissioner. TMP has given him more than $15,000 in in-kind donations since his campaign launch, covering staff, consulting and web design costs.

Loya is up against Benjamin Flores, a City Council member in Bay City. However, TMP backed Loya before Flores pivoted from the gubernatorial primary in October. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will take on incumbent Republican Commissioner Dawn Buckingham.

Flores staked $100,000 of his own funds on the race, while Loya had raised just $30,000 by year’s end.

Sources familiar with TMP’s operation said that when one of the PAC’s candidates picked up a primary challenger, the group honored its existing pledges to cover filing fees but withheld its other services. Fischer made an exception in Loya’s case because he was the PAC’s recruit for a statewide office.

Beyond the $60,000 contribution to HFWF, TMP has given at least $81,000 to roughly 70 campaigns. Those candidates range from long-shot congressional hopefuls to an array of candidates running for the Legislature and local office.

“We will support any Democrat who comes out of their primary,” Fischer said. “We will spend a lot of money and do a lot of work on their behalf.”

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The biggest development in the lieutenant governor race could come this weekend, when the Texas AFL-CIO will hold its Committee on Political Education Convention in Georgetown.

COPE is the Texas AFL-CIO’s political arm, and after hosting the U.S. Senate’s first debate this weekend (between Dallas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Austin state Rep. James Talarico), COPE will hand out endorsements in the Texas races up and down the ballot.

Vélez is angling for the group’s lieutenant governor endorsement.

“I fully anticipate receiving the AFL’s endorsement,” he told The Blast.

Vélez has been a voting delegate at the convention and weighed endorsements since 2010 but has recused himself this time around.

“Realistically, too, you also have to take viability into account,” Vélez said, speaking from his experience, “and so that endorsement means that they view my campaign as something that’s viable and that they’re willing to throw resources behind it. I think that’s a testament to the message as well.”

Labor is a significant branch of the Democratic apparatus in Texas, and the Texas AFL-CIO is perhaps the biggest state-level endorsement a Democrat can get in the Lone Star State.

Notably, Houstonians for Working Families is a pro-labor group.

Goodwin is also a member of a labor union: the Texas State Employees Union.

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AFC Victory Fund, the campaign arm of the pro-school voucher American Federation for Children, has already started weighing in on some open GOP Lege primaries, but memos uploaded to AFC’s website show the organization’s battleplan when it comes to the Texas primaries.

In the state polling section of the group’s “school choice polling” page, AFC includes dossiers targeting candidates in 10 Lege races, describing them as “anti-school choice,” anti-Trump, anti-Abbott or other potentially disqualifying labels in the Republican primaries. Five of the candidates are challenging incumbents, while the remaining five are running in open races.

The memos, put together by Narwhal Research, are oppo dumps targeting the following races and candidates:

Challengers

Open races

AFC Victory Fund has already endorsed the five incumbents facing primary challengers. On Wednesday, the group endorsed Borrego in HD-118, marking its first foray into a contested open race. Today, it endorsed Jeffreys in HD-86 and Blaylock in HD-93, although Sprowls dropped out of the HD-93 race last week.

Following that pattern, an endorsement for Spencer could be next.

Gov. Greg Abbott yesterday endorsed Borrego, a Realtor, over Martinez, an attorney and former Democrat who outraised Borrego to end 2025. Martinez personally staked a quarter million in that race, which could make it one of the top Lege races in March.

Texas leaders are attracting big companies and turning the state into a major hub for business and finance through new business-friendly laws and the Texas Stock Exchange.

We’re hosting back-to-back conversations to explore these new initiatives and the opportunities they could create for Texas businesses, workers and the state’s economy. The first conversation examines the legislative and political coalition that advanced efforts to boost the Texas economy, and the second focuses on the new law’s legal and business implications.

Doors open for registration and lunch at the Dallas Regional Chamber at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 24, and the first of two 45-minute conversations begins at noon. The event concludes at 1:30 p.m.

Speakers will be announced shortly.

Note: The event will not be livestreamed. If you register to “watch it online,” the recording will be emailed to you later that week.

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(Jan. 23) State Rep. Stan Gerdes, R-Smithville
(Jan. 24) State Rep. Eddie Morales Jr., D-Eagle Pass
(Jan. 24) Former state Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford
(Jan. 24) U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie
(Jan. 25) The Texas flag

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