Our team

Born into a biracial family in Texas, Catina's unique perspective greatly informs her role at Ground Game Texas. Raised by a mother who experienced extreme poverty in Central Texas and a father from a working-class family in North East Texas, Catina directly experienced economic and racial inequality. The insight she gained from her upbringing spurred a career dedicated to challenging injustices, advocating for workers' rights, and promoting racial equity.

Prior to joining Ground Game Texas, Catina co-founded the first worker-owned political consultancy cooperative in the U.S., advocating for campaign workers and replacing a disposable culture with one that values every team member. Catina utilizes her versatile expertise in campaign management, compliance, fundraising, design, and communications to actively confront and deconstruct systems that suppress underrepresented communities. She first came on to the team at Ground Game in early 2022, and achieved an array of essential accomplishments, including building our institutional fundraising program, overhauling our communications materials, taking charge of our largest ballot measure campaigns, and generally building a focused, constructive, and collaborative culture.

Catina’s deep dedication, paired with her strategic approach, make her a vibrant force at Ground Game Texas and an inspiring leader in our shared goal of building a more equitable and just world.

Matt began his career in politics in the field working for candidates up and down the ballot. He has managed and worked on multiple campaigns, including as the Digital & Communications Director for Mike Siegel, Campaign Manager for Derrick Crowe for Congress and Lewis Conway Jr’s bid for Austin City Council. Matt has also been a data consultant for numerous campaigns, organizations, and companies, including the Austin Police Oversight Act (APOA). Matt is currently a community advisory board member for the Parsons Project, an open-source python project for the progressive community. His love of technology and computers led him to become a data expert.

Matt develops robust systems and analysis that help guide Ground Game Texas through tough problems. Born and raised in Texas, he now lives on the road in the Mountain West, skiing, rock climbing, fishing, and (more recently) playing pickleball.

Sophia Reyes (she/her) is an Austin native and UT Austin alum with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Business and Public Policy. She brings over four years of experience in fundraising, political strategy, and campaign management, supporting progressive candidates and organizations across Texas and beyond. Her work includes roles with José Garza for District Attorney, Vanessa Fuentes for Austin City Council, Rochelle Garza for Texas, Amanda Edwards for Congress, and others.

Before consulting, Sophia served as Special Projects Coordinator at Annie’s List, helping recruit, train, and support progressive women running for office in Texas.

Sophia is an avid runner and hiker who loves exploring the outdoors with her dog, Maverick. She is grounded in community, advocacy, and the belief that strategic organizing and resource-building create lasting change.

Natalie Marquez grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, where she first developed her organizing roots. She volunteered with Angry Tias and Abuelas, helping asylum-seeking families safely navigate the border and connect with resources. In 2020, Natalie co-founded RGV Mutual Aid, raising $45,000 to support 49 families impacted by Hurricane Hanna, with a particular focus on undocumented families who were ineligible for FEMA assistance.

Natalie went on to serve as District Director for State Representative Terry Meza, GOTV Director for Austin City Council Member Zo Qadri, and Political Director for Rochelle Garza’s campaign for Texas Attorney General. Across those roles, she built deep experience in constituent services, electoral organizing, field strategy, coalition building, and political operations.

At Ground Game Texas, Natalie helped lead the Dallas Freedom Act campaign, one of the organization’s largest field efforts at the time. The campaign collected 50,000 signatures to put marijuana decriminalization on the ballot, and Dallas voters later adopted Proposition R.

Natalie went on to lead Ground Game Texas’ largest campaign to date in Houston, helping oversee the Houston Freedom Act and a citywide operation spanning field strategy, volunteer mobilization, coalition building, voter outreach, and campaign execution. Her work brings together deep organizing roots, political strategy, and the ability to build large-scale, community-driven campaigns from the ground up.

Anaid is a Rio Grande Valley native, disability services advocate, labor organizer, and Campaign Manager whose work is rooted in community, connection, and building power with working-class people.

She spent three years helping people with disabilities access employment, social services, advocacy, and independent living resources. That experience showed her how systemic barriers can shape people’s lives and sparked her commitment to organizing for change beyond those systems.

Anaid went on to become a community organizer and later completed an apprenticeship with the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, helping grocery store workers across the Dallas-Fort Worth area organize their workplaces and build collective power.

She brought that experience home to the Valley as Campaign Manager for Ground Game Texas in Brownsville, leading the on-the-ground campaign that collected more than 8,000 signatures and put First Jobs & Contracts on the November ballot.

Anaid believes that when working-class people have the knowledge, resources, and power to organize around a shared vision, they can shape the future of their own communities.

Jessica is a Houston-based organizer whose work is rooted in building political power with communities too often ignored or shut out of the process.

With Ground Game Texas, Jessica helped lead the field operation for the Houston Freedom Act, a campaign to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession and ban no-knock raids. She helped drive the massive petition effort that collected nearly 40,000 signatures from Houstonians, coordinating canvassing, supporting field staff, and helping move one of the largest grassroots signature-gathering efforts in the city.

Before joining Ground Game Texas, Jessica organized with NextGen America, supporting large-scale voter registration efforts, training and coaching organizers, and working directly with students, workers, and community members to expand political participation.

She also worked with Deeds Not Words, supporting canvasses, phone banks, volunteer shifts, and GOTV efforts focused on turning community energy into political action.

Jessica’s organizing is grounded in making sure everyday people have a real voice in the decisions that shape their lives. For Jessica, organizing is about helping people see the power they already have, and building the collective power to use it.

Jack is a community and labor organizer whose work has always centered on showing up for people in tangible ways.

He began organizing in 2019 through mutual aid and political organizing, shaped by movements for racial, environmental, and economic justice and by organizers who understood that building power also means meeting people’s immediate needs.

That approach has followed him throughout his work. With Red Star Texas, Jack helped expand access to food, hygiene supplies, free Plan B, Narcan, and other harm-reduction resources across the Rio Grande Valley.

On our Houston campaign, Jack helped lead the field operation that collected nearly 40,000 signatures for the Houston Freedom Act. He trained field staff, helped organize day-to-day campaign operations, supported canvassers in the field, and continued connecting Houston community members with critical resources through the campaign.

His organizing has also taken him into the labor movement, where he helped teaching assistants challenge unfair labor practices and win back pay they were owed.

For Jack, the work is rooted in building power from the ground up: earning trust, meeting people where they are, and making sure organizing materially improves people’s lives.

Matteo is a lifelong Austinite who has been organizing alongside working people since he was 16 years old. As a teenager, he helped organize his workplace and participated in efforts supporting the Starbucks Workers United movement, giving him an early understanding of the challenges facing workers and the power of collective action.

Matteo later spent three years studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics in Paris. Living abroad gave him a firsthand look at how investments in people, from accessible healthcare and strong worker protections to reliable public transportation and other public services, can improve everyday life and expand opportunity.

Living in France showed Matteo that many things Texans are often told are impossible, affordable healthcare, strong worker protections, reliable public services, and meaningful investments in community well-being, are everyday realities in other parts of the world. The experience challenged him to think bigger about what is possible and inspired him to return home determined to help build a Texas where working people can thrive and where prosperity is shared by everyone, not just those at the top.

As a Ground Game Texas Fellow, Matteo will help organize Texans around emerging issues such as mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and the rapid expansion of data centers. He believes lasting change starts with listening to communities, building relationships, and giving people the tools to shape their own future and we couldn’t be more honored to have him on our team this summer.

Sarina is an Austin native and a current student at The University of Texas at Austin, pursuing a double major in Political Communications and Social Work. Growing up in a Persian American single-parent household, she experienced firsthand the systemic barriers faced by women and immigrants. Her unique background is what ignited her passion for advocacy, equality, and social justice.

She began competing in Social Media Marketing Strategy through the Future Business Leaders of America in 2022, placing first in Texas. In 2024, Sarina was selected as a fellow for the Youth Justice Alliance, where she was mentored by lawyers and community leaders on legal advocacy. At the University of Texas, she works as a member of the Sustaining Democracy Action Team, where she advocates for civic engagement, constitutional governance, and awareness of the current threats facing our democracy.

Sarina is a driven advocate for equality, committed to using her Ground Game fellowship to bring greater visibility to public issues and injustices through digital communication.

Triste is a mom, activist, and retired Marine Corps Staff Sergeant. Growing up as the daughter of migrant farmworkers in Oregon, Triste worked in the fields with them until her senior year of high school. In 2004, she joined the US Marines and did two combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. She also served as a Marine Corps Drill Instructor before retiring in September 2014.

Triste began doing organizing work on student veteran issues and veterans suicide awareness in 2015 as a student in Tarrant County Community College. In 2016, she was recognized with the Veteran Student of the Year award. The following year was awarded Congressional Veterans Commendation Award for Texas’s 33rd Congressional District.

In 2018, Triste made her foray into electoral politics knocking and making calls for progressive candidates in the DFW area. In 2020, she joined the Working Families Party to build a veterans project that organized veterans across the country. In 2021, Triste launched her political consulting firm, Fuerza Strategies LLC, leading an all-Latina staff. In 2024, Fuerza launched a student internship program that supported Dallas candidates in primary challenges and social media campaigns for nonprofits.

As Dallas Campaign Manager, Triste and her team successfully put marijuana decriminalization on the city’s ballot, Ground Game’s largest campaign yet.

Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley to a single-parent household, Karen came to politics out of love for her culture and community. Although RGV politics have been notoriously plagued by corruption, and the border is often discounted and demonized in mainstream political discussions, Karen knows from experience its potential for transformation.

Karen joined Ground Game in 2022 as a field organizer for the Living Wage campaigns in the cities of Alton and Edinburg. She has since assisted other campaigns, knocking doors in El Paso for the Climate Charter campaign and serving on the data verification team for campaigns in San Antonio and Lubbock. Through these campaigns, she discovered her passion for organizing and witnessed firsthand the power her community holds. Karen is currently the Campaign Manager for the McAllen Anti-Corruption act, a ground-breaking anti-corruption, pro-democracy ballot proposition.