Progressive Rep. Greg Casar has a playbook he wants Democrats to use in 2026

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WASHINGTON — As he traveled across deep-red Texas last weekend, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar centered his rallies on a simple theme he believes Democrats can use to win back working-class voters: money.

Casar — a prominent voice shaping the future of the Democratic Party as chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — has joined U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders at several Texas stops on the Vermont independent’s anti-billionaire “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. On the stump, Casar has shunned social issues and focused on progressive economic goals like raising the minimum wage and hiking taxes on the wealthiest Americans — all part of the populist playbook the Austin Democrat wants his party to use to pull disaffected voters back into the Democratic fold.

“That’s a message that resonates with all different kinds of voters, from Democrats to independents and even former Trump voters who are looking for a political home right now,” Casar said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

Casar, along with Sanders and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, has rallied crowds of thousands in pockets of Texas that saw marked rightward swings in the 2024 election. That included a Friday stop along the border in McAllen, the biggest city in heavily Latino Hidalgo County, where Trump surpassed his 2020 election performance by 20 points last year.

Casar argued that his economic-centric message is landing among swing voters in areas like McAllen, and in Republican strongholds like Amarillo, where Casar, O’Rourke and Sanders visited over the weekend.

The upcoming election is, in Casar’s view, an opportunity to realign Democrats with working-class voters they lost in droves in 2024. That is also the only way for the party to take back power in either chamber of Congress in next year’s midterms, Casar contends.

In 2024, Republicans peeled away key voter segments that make up the traditional Democratic coalition — including Hispanic and younger voters — on the coattails of President Donald Trump’s populist rhetoric. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in South Texas. Trump’s gains among Hispanic voters near the southern border were all but unmatched elsewhere in the country and dealt crushing blows to Democratic candidates statewide.

Relying on a similarly populist framework, Casar thinks Democrats can transcend partisanship and pull recently converted GOP voters back into what he envisions as a big-tent, liberal party driven by economic policies.

Key to this strategy is promising an expansion of health care, a raised minimum wage, a higher tax on the highest-earning Americans and a vow to protect Social Security. Social issues, on the other hand, breed disagreement and can repel voters who would otherwise agree with Democrats on kitchen-table issues, Casar said.

In defining this strategy, he is drawing on his time as a labor organizer working to mobilize employees around the promise of wage hikes.

“We had hundreds of guys with a variety of disagreements and all sorts of backgrounds, but we were able to unite everyone around the common economic needs of workers on a job site,” Casar said.

Apart from these policies, he said Democrats must also run “authentic candidates” who fuel their campaigns with small-dollar donations rather than wealthy corporate backers.

Theo Von, a popular podcaster among young men who was supportive of Trump during his 2024 run, endorsed Sanders just four years earlier in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, has a starkly different policy platform than Trump. But to Casar, Von is emblematic of many younger voters who prefer candidates perceived as “unbought and unbossed,” regardless of ideology.

“Voters want elected officials that aren't picked by lobbyists, but instead are picked by voters and elected officials that don’t take tons of corporate PAC money,” Casar said. Both Sanders, whose forceful condemnation of money in politics was a central plank in his 2020 presidential platform, and Trump, who consistently condemned the Washington establishment in all three of his presidential runs, fit this mold.

To bill candidates as authentic and win back young men, there will have to be room for disagreements. But to Casar, these scuffles are normal. “I think we're looking for leaders that are willing to tell us the truth and are willing to stand up for what they believe in” rather than simply “chasing after whatever campaign contribution a politician can get.”

Reflecting on the 2024 presidential campaign, Casar did not mince his criticism of party leaders. He said the Democratic Party had failed to show it was unbeholden to corporate interests and, in doing so, “allowed the Republicans to brand us as out of touch.” Most voters, he added, “don't see a strong enough contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans in Texas on the economy.”

Texas Republicans aren’t worried about Casar’s efforts making a dent. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Houston Republican who is weighing a run for Senate, told the Tribune that with Trump winning Texas by over a dozen points in 2024, Casar is “in the wrong state.”

GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Irving said she wasn’t interested in “what the Democrat messaging is.” She argued that if Democrats wanted to support economic prosperity, they should vote for the GOP’s landmark tax and spending bill.

No Democrats voted for the measure when it passed the House in May, with many voicing opposition to potential cuts to Medicaid and the extension of tax cuts for high-income households.

Chuck Rocha, a Democratic political strategist who worked on Sanders’ presidential campaigns, agrees with Casar’s messaging strategy and sees the Texas congressman as an emerging leader of the Democratic Party. Even with Casar’s left-wing ideology and alliance with democratic socialists, Rocha thinks his message carries broad appeal that can resonate with voters across the political spectrum.

“This has nothing to do with him being right or left,” he said. “It has to do with him being right on the issues.”

In a brief interview at the Capitol, Sanders also offered praise for Casar and his economic messaging, calling him “clearly one of the important progressive leaders in the Congress.”

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