Suzanne Bellsnyder, 53, was born and raised in Spearman, Texas (population 2,810), located in the state’s rural panhandle along the Oklahoma border, about an hour and a half’s drive from Amarillo, the closest city with a medical trauma center. For 30 years, Bellsnyder worked in the Texas Capitol in Austin and for Republican campaigns, helping paint the state red in 1998. When she was Greg Abbott’s field director during his first run for governor in 2014, he won by more than 20 percentage points.
Last week, Abbott lost to Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat in the Texas State House who ran on saving public schools, a moratorium on data centers, and ending what she called Abbott’s corruption. This time, Bellsnyder worked on her campaign—her first time supporting a Democrat—and reminded friends and neighbors in Spearman that they should vote their conscience about the issues that concerned them, rather than toeing the Republican Party line.
“No amount of propaganda or talking about socialism or transgenders could change what people were actually dealing with and feeling,” Bellsnyder told me.
Texans like Bellsnyder have always had an independent streak, and the pent-up frustration that had been building for years toward establishment Republicans and the status quo finally reached a breaking point last week.
Abbott was swept out after three terms, James Talarico became the first Texas Democrat to be elected to the Senate since 1988, and Democrats won control of the state House for the first time since 2003. It was the first time any Democrat has been elected to statewide office in Texas in over 30 years.
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