Andrew Reginald Hairston: On Building

I lost my second election on March 3, 2026. It is both deeply intimate and intensely public to not succeed in a campaign. I was giving my final speech when the first results came in that evening; a number of people knew that my competitor had an insurmountable vote count before I did.

We vied for a position called Justice of the Peace. Had I won, I would’ve served as a magistrate who officiated weddings, adjudicated misdemeanors, heard evictions, and handled truancy referrals if kids missed school days in the northeast portion of Travis County, Texas. I stood proudly on my core message that no one is disposable and built significantly upon my first run for the position in 2022.

So much work goes into an election; I can quite reasonably say that I spent thirteen months on planning and campaigning the second time around. As an open Black socialist in 2026, I recognize that electoral contests are compelling, yet challenging sites of struggle – and they will remain as such for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the analysis that flows in the aftermath must be robust. The 2026 campaign did better this time in every metric: fundraising, number of raw votes, and percentage of the vote. Although my opponent nearly doubled the number of votes I received when the dust settled, I almost tripled the number of votes I earned in 2022. 3,394 voters cast ballots for me four years ago, and 9,614 people did so this time. Along with the Austin chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, we knocked on over fifteen thousand doors in 2026, as compared to a few thousand in 2022. That increase is indicative of something.

One may ask – why focus so hard on campaigns that resulted in losses? In the zero-sum-game of American politics, I certainly share the disappointment of many who worked assiduously and volunteered capaciously for me that I won’t take on the title of Judge Hairston in 2027. However, I am also consistently drawn to the long narrative arc of someone like Bernie Sanders; he commenced his electoral career in 1972 (we both began at the age of thirty), and he earned just over 1,500 votes in his first campaign for the U.S. Senate. He wasn’t elected until 1981, when he was forty, assuming the mayoralty of Burlington, Vermont with a victory of just ten votes.

On March 3, 2026, during my final remarks, I emphasized the need for all of us to trust the process. It requires such deep patience to build something. As I’ve knocked thousands of doors in Austin since 2021 for myself, other candidates, and issue-based campaigns, I understand better with each passing contest the spark that comes with an individual conversation. In this epoch of endless war, austerity, and deeply isolated sadness, the courage that it takes to speak with one’s neighbors and forge connections with those we don’t know must be uplifted. The power is that each of us possesses this characteristic.

As a Baptist minister, I am particularly fascinated by the work of Jesus on this front; he deliberately labored as a carpenter and an organizer. A core group of twelve eventually transforms into a crowd of five thousand being nourished physically and spiritually; a block of wood becomes a part of a table after the trial and error of a builder determining exactly where it fits. With the smiling faces and affirming nods that greeted me at doors on the campaign trail, I already see how that initial discourse sows the seeds for a nurturing garden to grow. It flows into seeing one another more regularly, breaking bread together, attending actions alongside one another, strategizing on politics, and seeing a twenty-first century mass movement for human dignity take root.

I am far away from my goals as I pen this piece. As a Black socialist who engages in electoral work, I strive to one day win a local contest, implement a model of co-governance with the community, and create more avenues for working people to determine how the institutions with influence over their lives operate. Beyond that, I hope one day to see the end of police, prisons, and war; in my older years, I intend for robust third public spaces to be available for all. I believe the artificial barriers of nation-states will become increasingly obsolete, and humanity will fortify itself in our many commonalities as we seek sustained peace in the world.

I am quite thankful for the ability to reflect and rest after a hard-fought campaign. I know these aims are lofty, but I can see them more clearly with each passing year. I take great comfort in the fact that, like Bernie in 1976, I’m just getting started. In the process, something beautiful is being built.

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Copyright 2026 Andrew Hairston

Andrew Reginald Hairston is a Black civil rights attorney, writer, socialist, prison abolitionist, proud bisexual man, and doting uncle who divides his time almost equally between Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. He loves, fights for, and writes about Black people. He publishes at andrewrhairston.substack.com