‘We’re here to save the damn country’: Gene Wu launches the New Southern Strategy
Wu organized the “New Southern Strategy” — Democratic legislators from across the South coordinating on voting rights and redistricting — and notched an early win when Georgia dropped its mid-decade map.
Rep. Gene Wu organized the “New Southern Strategy” — a coalition of Democratic legislative leaders from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and beyond — to stop fighting Republican power state-by-state and start coordinating across the region on voting rights, redistricting, and the rules of democracy. The group held its first meeting in Atlanta.
Wu cast the effort as the mirror image of the GOP’s 1960s “Southern Strategy,” which divided communities to consolidate conservative power. This one, he said, is meant to unite Black, Latino, Asian, working-class, and faith communities: “This ‘New Southern Strategy’ is our effort to unite the South … to say we’re not going back to Jim Crow.”
The coalition claimed an early win in Georgia, where Republicans adjourned a special session without advancing a mid-decade redistricting plan. “We’re all so weak because we’re operating in silos,” Wu told WFAA’s Inside Texas Politics. “If we are all in the same position, let’s fight together.”
We’re not here to help Democrats win. We’re here to save the damn country.