Last week, Texas Democrats gathered in Corpus Christi for their state convention. Speaker after speaker tried to convince Texans they had moved to the middle. They talked about working families. They talked about cost of living. They tried to soften the image of a party that has drifted further left than ever before.
But then they revealed who they really are.
For their closing keynote, Texas Democrats didn’t choose a moderate. They didn’t choose a successful Texas business leader. They didn’t choose a unifying voice focused on bringing Texans together. They handed the microphone to Bernie Sanders, the face of America’s socialist movement. And Bernie didn’t disappoint.
He called for socialized healthcare, open borders, and progressive policies that would dramatically increase our national debt, raise taxes, and expand Washington’s control over everyday life. He renewed his call for sweeping climate policies that would devastate Texas’ oil and gas industry, jeopardizing the billions of dollars in tax revenue that fund our public schools, law enforcement, roads, and critical infrastructure.
If Bernie Sanders is the standard-bearer for today’s Texas Democratic Party, Texans should pay attention.
Even more telling was the convention platform itself. Behind the rhetoric is a familiar agenda: more regulations, more mandates, and more government control over agriculture, energy, and private property.
Texans know exactly who pays the price. It isn’t the lobbyists in Washington. It’s the family farmer trying to stay profitable after generations on the same land. It’s the rancher already battling drought, rising input costs, and federal regulations. It’s the small producer who cannot afford another mandate from politicians who have never worked the land.
Agriculture doesn’t need more activists telling producers how to run their operations. It needs leaders who trust farmers and ranchers.
As we move closer to the general election, my Democrat opponent is now trying to distance himself from the very movement he helped build.
His record tells a different story. He served as the Texas Director of Bernie Sanders’ Our Revolution organization, helping organize support for Sanders’ socialist agenda. He served as President of the Texas Progressive Caucus and chaired the Lampasas County Democratic Party, spending years advancing the progressive movement inside Texas Democrats.
He has personally traveled the state advocating for the Green New Deal and promoted policies that would burden Texas farmers and ranchers while expanding government control over our economy. He has even advocated policies encouraging productive farmland and ranchland to be converted into wind and solar developments in the name of fighting climate change.
Now, with an election approaching, we’re supposed to believe none of that matters. Texans shouldn’t be fooled. Campaign rhetoric changes every election cycle… records don’t.
As a businessman who built Nature Nate’s from one beehive into America’s number one branded honey company, I’ve spent my career working with farmers, beekeepers, ranchers, retailers, and consumers, not political activists. I know firsthand that agriculture succeeds when government gets out of the way, encourages innovation, protects private property, and allows producers to thrive.
As Texas Agriculture Commissioner, my focus will be simple: cleaner food, stronger farms, healthier soil and water, protecting our agricultural economy, and standing unapologetically with Texas farmers and ranchers.
Texas agriculture feeds America because Texans believe in hard work, free enterprise, and common sense, not socialism.
The Texas Democrats may try to rebrand themselves every election year, but when Bernie Sanders is your keynote speaker, your platform embraces far-left policies, and your leaders have spent years promoting progressive causes, the truth is impossible to hide.
That’s simply too extreme for Texas.
