How Democrats pressured U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett to step aside for the next generation

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WASHINGTON — When Republicans unveiled a new congressional map shrinking the number of Democratic districts in Texas, Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett was quick to announce he would run in the sole Austin-based district.

Doggett, a formidable incumbent with three decades in Congress, was planting a flag with the hope that his Austin counterpart Rep. Greg Casar would stay in his current district despite its new boundaries favoring Republicans. But Doggett’s move unexpectedly set off a powerful coalition that worked publicly and privately to support the younger congressman.

Three weeks after Doggett dug in on the promise to run again, he changed his mind, opting to retire at the end of his term and support Casar’s candidacy — a move that spared Democrats an expensive primary.

Doggett, 78, still believes he would have beaten Casar in a head to head, and he stands by his position that his colleague should have run in the newly-drawn Congressional District 35, a majority-Hispanic district in San Antonio and outlying counties that bears the same number as Casar’s current district but has little overlap with his constituents. But he realized in August that a race between the two of them would have been damaging.

“It would be a very demanding race for everybody involved,” Doggett said in an interview with The Texas Tribune about his decision, adding that even if he did win “it would still leave a community scarred and split. And that is a community I really care about. And so, I'm satisfied.”

Doggett’s decision to forgo the primary caused many Democrats across Texas to breathe a collective sigh of relief, while signaling Casar’s growing strength in Austin politics and in Congress.

Casar, a second-term congressman, publicly stayed above the fray as Doggett suggested he run in the new San Antonio seat. But behind the scenes, he was making moves to consolidate support.

Before Doggett announced his decision to step aside, Casar had lined up endorsements from a handful of members of Austin’s City Council, according to a source familiar with his campaign not authorized to speak publicly. In Washington, where Casar chairs and Doggett vice chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he was planning to announce support from Democratic members from an ideological cross-section of the party, the source said.

A series of Democratic groups, including BOLD PAC, End Citizens United and Way to Win, were planning to raise money on Casar’s behalf. Jane Fonda had committed to host a fundraiser for Casar. And his campaign had brought on national Democratic pollsters and recruited Morris Katz, New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s lead media strategist, to produce Casar’s launch video.

Tory Gavito, the president of the progressive donor network Way to Win, said she lamented having to choose but that her organization was ready to support Casar through independent expenditure efforts had a primary materialized.

“Folks were definitely lining up [for Casar], and it was really pulling on different types of the Democratic coalition, from those that are ready to back the next gen[eration], to those who are more working class-aligned, people of color constituency groups, Latinos,” Gavito said, adding that some Democrats thought Doggett’s suggestion that Casar run in the new San Antonio seat, which would have voted for President Donald Trump by a 10-point margin, was a misstep.

“In fact, there were a few of us who were a little offended by this idea that Austin isn’t a place for Latino kids too. We have to go to San Antonio,” she said.

The court of public opinion also took its toll. On the morning Doggett withdrew, a group of influential Austin Democrats — including former state Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and former Texas state Rep. Glen Maxey — published an op-ed in the Austin Chronicle that pointed out that Doggett would be 80 at the time of his next reelection and encouraged him to either run in a different district or retire.

The op-ed noted that Doggett had been the first elected Democrat to call on then-President Joe Biden to bow out of the presidential race in the aftermath of his disastrous debate performance.

Doggett said he disagreed with the op-ed — and that local efforts to scare him out of running were “weak at best” — but took to heart the way it was already pitting Democrats against each other.

“I thought the opinion piece made no sense at all,” Doggett said of its suggestion he should run in Casar’s current district which had been redrawn. “But it did stir a lot of debate online and otherwise and again, that made it apparent what kind of battle would lie ahead to win this.”

Doggett’s decision to step aside also prevented others from publicly siding against him. Liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg had been working on an opinion piece calling on Doggett to retire before he ultimately announced he would do so, according to two Democrats with knowledge of the column. Goldberg had previously called on then-President Joe Biden to forgo running for reelection as early as July 2022.

New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the paper does not comment on journalism that may or may not be underway.

Doggett, for his part, said he fears ageism factored into the feedback he got.

“Just as we need to encourage new generation leaders, we need leaders of all generations and should evaluate each on performance, not claims that one is too young or too old,” he said. “Ageism, not unlike sexism and racism, denies us the full range of talent available to overcome Trump’s march to tyranny and build a country with respect and greater opportunity for all.”

While the loggerheads between the two were ultimately resolved, some Texas Democrats were upset that Doggett had begun discussing a primary before the maps were passed.

In the days before the map was unveiled, the Texas Democratic delegation in Congress had publicly and privately called for unity. Doggett himself said at a July press conference that he would not be asking Texas legislators to protect his seat, “nor should any member of this delegation.”

But when he began giving interviews stating his intent to run in Congressional District 37, it rubbed some Democrats the wrong way.

The situation between Doggett and Casar played out in direct contrast to a similar map-drawing casualty in North Texas. Republicans redrew Dallas-area seats to leave just two Democratic seats where there used to be three. Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s downtown Dallas seat was shifted around the margins, while Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasey and Farmers Branch Rep. Julie Johnson saw their districts completely dismantled and amalgamated, with pieces of Crockett’s, into one deep blue seat in Dallas County.

But neither Johnson nor Veasey has publicly committed to running for one seat or another, and Johnson has made clear she will not primary Veasey.

Veasey said the nature of their conduct is intentional.

“I’ve been trying to get the entire delegation to be like that [while] this plays out,” he said. “You don’t want to feed into their game by responding to what they do. I understand also that no one wants to be the last person to plant a flag. I think it’s a delicate balance.”

In an interview, Johnson said she was glad to see Casar and Doggett avoid a primary, and that she and Veasey are committed to the same.

“I have every expectation that we're going to get it all sorted out,” Johnson said. “Marc and I have great respect for each other. We're good friends, and I think we're pretty much there.”

Stepping aside means Doggett will largely have avoided a serious primary over the course of his 30 year congressional career.

Throughout numerous redistricting efforts, Doggett had always managed to survive, despite the shape of his district changing to incorporate McAllen and San Antonio at various points, forcing him to hit the road and practice his formidable style of retail politics in places he had no connection to.

In 2011, after a round of redistricting, Doggett found himself in an unofficial showdown with then-state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, in a district redrawn to span from San Antonio neighborhoods to the southern part of Travis County. Like now, Doggett, who is white, faced the prospect of running against a younger Latino Democrat in a heavily Hispanic district where the turf was likely tilted toward Castro.

Doggett was committed to fighting for his seat and was flush with cash, with nearly $3 million in his campaign account in the summer of 2011. But both men were bailed out by the retirement of U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, in the neighboring 20th District, where Castro chose to run instead.

But this time around, with no other Central Texas Democrats close to retirement and a challenge coming from an Austinite rather than a San Antonian, it was Doggett, despite again having a financial advantage of $6.2 million to Casar’s approximately $450,000, who ended up bowing out to clear the way for a younger politician.

“I've always said that I didn't plan to stay here forever,” Doggett said, adding that he only planned to serve one or two more terms. “So it just didn't seem to me like a good use of my resources, and that I could spend my time, and those who would be on the other side could do the same, trying to elect a Democratic House and fight Trump.”

The dean of the Texas delegation, Doggett has spent decades as one of the Texas delegation’s most progressive members, with a focus on cracking down on tax evasion and defending Social Security and the Affordable Care Act.

Castro, for his part, appeared at Casar’s launch event to praise his colleague. But he lamented that Doggett had to make a decision at all.

“Lloyd Doggett has given 50 years of his life to incredible public service, to the people of Austin and many people in Texas,” Castro said in an interview. “And so I respected his decision to not run again. It cleared the way for Greg. But really, [he] never should have been put in that position.”

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