Local political parties strategize post-election

WACO, Texas — Both the McLennan County Republican and Democratic parties are looking ahead to the next election cycle as this one has come to a close, analyzing and strategizing how to enhance their parties and serve the county in the best way possible.

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party reigned victorious Tuesday night with the 47th president elect vowing to help heal our country.

A sentiment that speaks volumes to the McLennan County Republican Party.

"We're just excited and welcome everybody to come join the Republican party and just show that we are a conservative area, not only Waco, McLennan County, and we are open to everybody," said Christopher DeCluitt, Chairman for the McLennan County Republican Party.

With a larger voter turnout in the country compard to 2020.

"We had the largest early voting turnout ever, we had well over 50% turnout for a presidential race, which is really unheard of, and we had great enthusiasm amongst our party," DeCluitt said.

So where does the party go from here?

"We're going to continue on with what we do, we already hold most of the local seats. We're going to maintain, move forward and just try to make life better for the people of McLennan County, working with our munisiplaities, work with our county officials, work with our state officials, and it just goes all the way up to the top of the ticket. We're going to work with everybody and try to work with everyone. It's not just republicans, but every citizen in McLennan County," DeCluitt concluded.

It was a disappointing night for the Democratic Party as Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign came up short in her fight to win over the American people

"We need to do a better job of reaching the voters who don't have an opinion or who aren't actively involved," said Mark Hays, Chairman for the McLennan County Democratic Party.

McLennan County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Hays tells me that here in Central Texas, the party will move on from this setback by working harder on voter turnout.

"I believe it had been significantly lower than the 2020 numbers. And there lies our disappointing performance, coming out of the lower turnout," said Hays.

So how do county Democrats keep moving forward despite the discouraging turnout?

"We now switch to more of a issues orientation, Texas legislature is about to have a session, and we will be tracking the legislation there and try to lobby legislatures to make good decisions, and we will have people that visit Austin to lobby our respresentives and others and have postcard writing efforts stating that these are the people," said Hays.

Even though Harris didn't win,

"We are devoted to democracy and to our country and we're not going anywhere," concluded Hays.