For The Record

The Texas Tribune ran a story yesterday about an open letter calling on TDP Chair Kendall Scudder to step aside. Y'all know me, I don't play this shit. I'm supposed to be relaxing today and instead I'm out here shouting at clouds. Bottom line up front: 36 people signed a letter, 12 of them would not put their own names on it, and the whole thing landed a week before the filing deadline. Let's talk about that.

ARTICLE: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/17/texas-democratic-party-kendall-scudder-open-letter/

THE LETTER: https://www.texastribune.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Open-letter-Scudder.pdf

36 people. In a party of millions. In a party that just turned out a primary that beat Republican numbers statewide. And of those 36, 11 former staffers signed by their old job title instead of their name, plus one more who signed as a "political professional." If your claim is strong enough to end a man's chairmanship, it is strong enough to carry your name. I put my face and my name on everything I say. That is the standard, and if you cannot meet it, sit down.

Let's run through the claims.

Claim: The Dallas and Williamson County primary chaos was TDP's fault.

The Republican parties in those counties forced the switch to precinct based voting, and they forced it on Democratic voters too. That is Republican sabotage. TDP knew about it and worked with county chairs to prepare. Dallas County Democrats lobbied the Commissioners Court and won $1 million for voter education. Dallas County Chair Kardal Coleman said the county and state parties worked together before election day and again on election day to help voters find their sites, and that he had never seen a chair put in as many hours. The letter blames Scudder for a fire Republicans set.

Claim: VAN is out of date and TDP has not done anything about it.

The Texas Secretary of State's TEAM 2.0 rollout has been a disaster for every county election administrator in the state. The SOS has not delivered an accurate statewide voter file to anybody. Here is the part that gets me. The party's own former data director, Ethan Lipka, told the Tribune there is a lot to criticize the TDP over, but that this is a really clear case where the SOS failed. The people who signed this letter knew that. They signed it anyway.

Claim: Scudder ran off good staff and replaced them with consultants.

TDP staff have union contracts. The restructuring went through the full SDEC. That is the party's own governance process, not a rogue chairman acting alone. You can hate the outcome all you want. You cannot call a vote of the governing board a purge.

Claim: There is a hostile work environment and racism at TDP.

This is the most serious thing in the letter and it got the least care. If those claims are real, they deserve a real investigation through real channels, with names, dates, and consequences for whoever did it. Instead they got folded into a political document timed to a filing deadline, where they do maximum damage and carry zero accountability. That is not how you protect people who were mistreated. That is how you use them. Anybody who actually lived through that deserved better than being a line item in somebody's campaign against a chairman.

Claim: TDP makes bold promises but cannot answer basic strategy questions.

In under a year, Scudder wiped out $500,000 in debt he inherited, built organizing infrastructure in communities that had not seen a Democrat in years, put a Democratic challenger in every state and federal race, and presided over a primary where Democratic turnout beat Republican turnout statewide. Nobody in that letter refutes any of it, because they cannot. Strategy? We have record turnout and real momentum. Republicans are fuckin scared of Texas turning blue. Not purple. Not less red. Blue. So spare me.

Then there is the timing. Filing closes April 24. The letter dropped April 17. That is not a coincidence. This was built to rattle a chair who had not filed yet, to talk him out of running, and to set a narrative before the window shuts. If you have a case, make it in a party meeting, in front of the man, with your name attached. Make it in June at the convention, where the vote actually happens. Going public seven days before the deadline is not accountability. It is a maneuver.

Kendall Scudder has been exactly what this party needed. He shows up, he does the work, and he does it in the hardest political environment in the country. You think being a Democrat with a public profile in Texas is fun? We get threats and insults for breakfast. And here is a handful of Democrats ready to knife their own leader instead of walking into a meeting and saying it to his face.

I'm Nick Pappas, Democratic candidate for Denton County Judge, and I'm proud to support Kendall Scudder for reelection as chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

Sign the positive response letter with your name, so the folks who would not sign theirs can see what standing on business looks like: https://forms.gle/r8TLkCA8DPy9MyAv7