Sen. Bernie Sanders brought his upstart campaign to Texas this weekend.  Rallies in Dallas and Houston had to be moved to larger sites to accommodate crowds not normally seen for Democratic candidates in Texas.  Sanders told the crowds that he is not conceding any state.  The Texas Tribune reports on Sanders’s speech.

One of the problems that exists in American politics today, in my view, is that the Democratic Party has conceded half of the states in the country at the national level, and that’s wrong,” Sanders, a Vermont Independent running as a Democrat, said during a rally at a downtown Dallas hotel.

Several hours later at a similar event in Houston, he sharpened his advice for Democrats, saying the “simple truth is that you cannot be a national political party which claims to represent working families and low-income people and turn your back on some of the poorest states in America.” 

“If we are serious about change in America, we can’t just do it in blue states,” he declared earlier in Dallas, emphasizing the need for a “50-state strategy” that leaves no voter in the dark. 

Yet Sanders’ Texas talk came with a hint of optimism as he raised the prospect of the end of Republican dominance in the state. It was a reliable applause line in Dallas and Houston, cities in the heart of counties critical to Democrats’ hopes for a bluer Texas. 

I am here to tell you that today this is a conservative Republican state, but that doesn’t mean it will be conservative Republican tomorrow,” Sanders said after taking the stage in Houston, remarking he did not want to become dizzied by the stadium-style crowd. “And with the energy I see in this room, it may be sooner than tomorrow.”

While HRC holds private fundraisers and seemingly does everything possible to piss of the press, Sanders is out there trying to connect with people.