But where Jimmy was his best was in small, unscripted moments. No other time on the campaign showed this more than the afternoon we spent at Angela Kinsey’s house. It was amazing to watch him there, looking like he belonged among all of these women. He sat on that floral couch in that mothball house and talked to them like it was something he did every day. His body was relaxed as he accepted tea from Angela. He didn’t shift as the couch sagged underneath him. I wondered if these women knew that Jimmy had grown up in a mansion, that he’d gone to boarding school, that his whole life was unrecognizable compared to theirs. Maybe they did know and it didn’t matter. Maybe all they cared about was that he was there now.
He sat forward as one of Angela’s neighbors told him about her son’s asthma. “You must feel like you’re living in a nightmare,” he said to her. “You don’t deserve this, none of you do. These health problems aren’t a coincidence and everyone knows it. We need to do something—and I really do believe that something can be done. People might be turning a blind eye to you, pretending that this isn’t happening, that you don’t exist, because it’s easier for them. But this is happening. I’m here and I’m a witness to it. I want to be the one to help you, to make sure you’re heard.”
Jimmy’s voice was soft as he spoke. There was nothing forced about his response to them. And even though his words could have come off as dramatic, they didn’t. He sounded empathetic and determined, and each woman nodded at him whenever he said something.
I didn’t doubt that Jimmy was just as invested in this issue as Matt was—you couldn’t sit in these homes and listen to people describe the different ways they were being poisoned and not care about it.
Matt was the one who’d found Angela Kinsey and arranged the meeting with her, and he’d spent the car ride there talking about the safety measures that should’ve been taken to protect the neighborhood. But once we got into the house, you would’ve never guessed how much Matt wanted to be an advocate for these people. He looked awkward as he held a cup of coffee on the orange chair. He wasn’t the one running for office, sure, and you could say that he was trying to stay out of the way and let Jimmy shine. Maybe that was part of it. But every once in a while, Matt chimed in, and the women would listen politely, but you could almost see their eyes glaze over, just waiting for Jimmy to start talking again.
—
Winning the primary had given Jimmy more confidence—not that he’d really been lacking it before. But you could see now that he had a little more swagger as he walked into a room, a little more pride in his voice as he introduced himself as the Democratic nominee.
There was a fair amount of media attention on Jimmy, mostly because everyone was paying extra attention to all the Democrats running in Texas that year, hoping that an organization called Battleground Texas really could turn Texas blue. And while Jimmy’s race wasn’t nearly as high profile as some of the others and he wasn’t as well known, journalists liked the fact that he’d worked for Obama and was young and handsome. He made for a good story.
Houston Style Magazine did the biggest profile of him, complete with a spread of pictures showing him speaking to a group of farmers, shaking a supporter’s hand, and also at home in the backyard, throwing a laughing Viv up in the air with Ash smiling beside him.
When the issue came out, the magazine sent over a bunch of copies and we each took one, flipping through the pages and reading silently. For whatever reason, I looked up to see Jimmy staring at the pictures, and saw as he nodded just a little bit, smiled, and then said quietly to himself, “Well, look at this.”
At the beginning of the summer, Rachel Maddow highlighted the Railroad Commission race, profiling Candace Elroy and her oil and gas connections, and then discussing a situation in Weatherford, Texas, where there was so much methane in the well water that people could light it on fire. The current Railroad Commission had closed the case, declaring that it didn’t have anything to do with the oil and gas production.
The end of the segment showed a picture of Jimmy—the one of him standing outside—and we all screamed when it came on the screen. Rachel Maddow went on to say that no one in Texas thought Jimmy had a chance to win—he was a Democrat after all—but that maybe, since things had gotten so bad, maybe because water was actually catching on fire, Texans needed to pay attention and rethink things.
The segment was less than four minutes, but still one of the most exciting parts of the campaign. Jimmy seemed to ignore the fact that Rachel Maddow had announced that he was almost definitely going to lose, and was ecstatic about the coverage. Maybe he was already at peace with the outcome of the election, maybe he knew all along what was going to happen. Or maybe he was just so happy to be on national television that he didn’t really care.