Julie was born in poverty and relied on Medicaid for prenatal care as a teenager in Texas. The community of support around Julie – the family and friends that generously gave their time and resources to help her raise her baby and finish high school, then go on to college and law school – instilled the sense that nobody bootstraps it alone. And like millions of American families, this country’s failed and disastrous war on drugs has affected Julie in personal ways, with one brother succumbing to addiction in 2018, and another brother in a cycle of pre-trial detention for possession that has overturned his life.

The contours of her life experience are what inspired her to co-found Ground Game Texas in 2021. As an organizer, Julie is proud to have fought with communities across Texas, building sustainable organizing infrastructure, coalitions that outlast the boom and bust of the candidate cycle, and achieving real, impactful local wins in multiple elections across the state. And Julie knows how to build for scale, having taken on the entrenched political status quo, massively increasing turnout in neglected precincts over years of work all over Texas.