On Sunday, Marfa resident Gretel Enck officially launched her campaign for Congress with a meet-and-greet at the Paisano Hotel. Around three dozen Tri-County residents turned out, armed with questions for the Democratic hopeful and pens to sign their names for her ballot petition.
Enck has a long career of public service. For more than two decades, she worked for the National Park Service (NPS). Locally, she served as an administrator for Fort Davis National Historic Site and led the charge to establish the Blackwell School as an NPS unit. She took early retirement this year as a result of cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), giving her plenty of time to reflect on her time working for the federal government. “I’ve always felt that people can work from the inside or work from the outside of the system, and both are valid ways to make a difference in our world,” she said. “It just happens that working on the inside always felt like a good fit for me.”
At Sunday’s event, Enck gave a rousing speech, commanding the Paisano patio in jeans and cowboy boots, true to her West Texas bona fides. She addressed the odds stacked against her—apart from hailing from the left side of the aisle, more than 60% of voters in Texas’s massive 23rd Congressional District live in urban areas. Democrats from rural parts of the district face an uphill battle, though it’s been done before, most recently by Pete Gallego of Alpine in 2012. “Everyone who lives in this district is my neighbor, and I feel a true obligation to love you and work with you and for you,” she said.
Enck said that her platform could be divided up into three general categories: addressing what she felt was an out-of-control and negative political climate, identifying how to bring folks together from across the ideological spectrum, and addressing the economic crunch threatening the well-being of millions of Americans. “These are not normal times,” she said.
Many of Enck’s positions took on a populist ethos, advocating for the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable TX-23 residents—many of whom are looking down the barrel of vanishing SNAP benefits and rising healthcare costs. If the federal government doesn’t pass a continuing resolution by the end of next week, three and a half million Texans could go hungry. “It’s just one more really harmful and cruel thing that this administration is doing,” Enck said.
True to her roots, the border and immigration were a topic that Enck returned to time and again. She said that she comes from Danish stock, and that sense of pride in both an American and immigrant identity informed her politics. She described the rash of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in liberal cities over the past few weeks as “utterly inhumane”—to cheers from the crowd—and said that she supported a bill recently introduced by neighboring Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of El Paso mirroring a 2023 bipartisan bill that died in the Senate. “It’s a good compromise that creates improved pathways to legal immigration while bolstering border security,” Enck explained.
Sunday’s crowd was animated and prepared with tough questions for the candidate. Enck was happy to play ball, joking that she has “an opinion on everything.” True to her word, she addressed concerns about expiring healthcare subsidies, AI data centers and private prisons.
Big Bend Sentinel asked Enck how she planned to balance advocating for rural voters while working to earn the support of the majority of district residents who live in urban areas. Enck hearkened back to her call to promote unity and bring voters together—in a moment of feverish political discourse and uncertainty, voters in Alpine and voters in San Antonio have more in common than they think. “I’m a rural person, but nobody gets left behind in my Texas,” she said.
Across the board, Enck said that her potential supporters seemed most concerned about the economy, and she said she took those concerns seriously. “What I’m hearing is that you need me to be strong, you need me to be fierce,” she told the crowd. “You need me to work harder than I ever worked, and I know hard work.”
For more information on the campaign, visit https://www.gretelforcongress.com/.
