Greg Casar is already an Austin political star. Can he win over San Antonio?

Now Casar is using that star power to tackle his next challenge: winning Texas’ District 35, a strangely shaped congressional seat that encompasses four counties (Bexar, Comal, Travis, and Hays); two major U.S. cities; and a host of rural towns that skew from predominantly white to majority Hispanic and back again. Lloyd Doggett, who has served in Congress since 1995, currently represents District 35, but is now running for reelection in District 37, which is concentrated solely in Austin.

After six years as one of the most vocal and effective members on the Austin dais, Casar and company are betting his message — fair wages, protecting working families, Medicare for all, reproductive rights — will resonate with residents from the Northeast Side to New Braunfels to Lockhart. 

“I’ve already started knocking on doors myself,” Casar says of his campaign’s first few weeks. “And we’re having meetings and conversations with people in each of the four counties. What I care about is bringing working families to the decision-making table and giving working folks a voice in their government.”

Workers’ rights have been a cornerstone of the 32-year-old’s short career, which began as a labor organizer in Austin. In 2014, the Houston-born, University of Virginia-educated Gregorio Casar made headlines when he became Austin’s youngest-ever city council member. Despite winning his runoff election against Laura Pressley 65 percent to 35 percent, his opponent demanded a recount. When the recount revealed the same result, Pressley then claimed voting “discrepancies,” a sort of precursor to Donald Trump’s unfounded claims about the 2020 presidential election.

The battle also served as a precursor to Casar’s time on council, where he found himself trading punches with everyone from Sen.Ted Cruz to the Travis County GOP. But of all Texas’ Republicans leaders, Casar is perhaps most critical of Gov. Greg Abbott, especially in the wake of Winter Storm Uri and his perceived inaction on the part of the Texas Legislature to prevent a similar catastrophe.

“We shouldn’t have to have our governor defensively say that the lights are going to stay on,” Casar says of Abbott’s November 29 press release promising that Texas’ electric grid wouldn’t fail this winter. 

“I decided that I wanted to run for Congress right about when I was walking with my neighbors through the snow to deliver blankets to the high school. And I got the alert that Abbott at that time was on Fox News blaming windmills for the winter storm, blaming anybody but himself.”

Casar then points to the million-dollar donation given to Abbott by energy tycoon Kelcy Warren, whose Energy Transfer Partners raked in $2.4 billion during the Texas blackouts, according to reporting by the Texas Observer. 

“That’s sick, that’s wrong,” Casar says of the donation. “And if we’re not going to get the kind of action we need from the governor, then we need a progressive in Congress representing areas like San Antonio that were so hard to hit, who has a record of delivering real change so that I can help deliver that kind of change to Texas since the governor won’t.”

Over the next year, Casar will likely refine this message as he travels the I-35 corridor that cuts through the heart of his potential district. On his agenda is a continued presence in the Alamo City, where District 35 spreads across the Eastside and into downtown before stopping just north of 410. He’s already friendly with Mayor Ron Nirenberg and council members Teri Castillo, Ana Sandoval, and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America) and has made frequent appearances with gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, with whom he shares of love of running. (“I still try to run every day,” Casar says.)

But back in that group of cameras and photographers, one realizes that Casar may not need endorsements or PAC money (he’s already said he won’t accept it anyway). Six years after winning his first election, Casar just might be cultivating that infuriating, un-poll-able factor that so often separates the winners from the losers: things are kinda just going his way.

He is newly engaged and sporting a new haircut. He’s coming off an epic political win with the defeat of Austin’s Prop A in November, which would have increased police funding. Even the day he filed for Congress, December 1, was sunny and beautiful and perfect, a date picked for no reason other than it sounded good.

And the momentum seems to be felt by those around them. When asked if the blue-and-red dress she wore to the filing was a nod to the unity between political parties, Casar’s partner of nearly a decade and newly minted fiancee, Asha Dane’el, laughs and shakes her head. She didn’t even realize, she says. “I guess I have to start thinking about these things.”