Mat Pruneda is playing to win. The Denton Democrat told us he’s unnerved by blue candidates who assume that their party can’t win a general election in a red state like Texas. So Pruneda is swinging for the fences.

He’s looking to claim a seat in Congress that hasn’t been held by a Democrat since its very first occupant, Tom Vandergriff, in 1984. Pruneda is opposed by lawyer and former Denton councilman Neil Durrance and retired Hewlett-Packard contract negotiator Carol Iannuzzi, neither of whom responded to our questions about why they should be the one to take on nine-term incumbent Michael Burgess.

Pruneda is probably farther left than most of the 26th Congressional District. He chose Sen. Elizabeth Warren as the presidential candidate whose policies would be closest to his own. But he also knows that the district has seen more growth among blue voters than red in recent years.

On the issues, Pruneda’s platform starts with the environment. He wants to make the planet safer for people like his son who has asthma. Pruneda supports a carbon tax and the Green New Deal, but he also speaks of balancing environmental policies with the rights of workers and property owners. He mistrusts corporations and said he worries about nuclear energy because energy companies might cut corners leading to a disaster like the one at Three Mile Island in 1979. But he seems much less hawkish about inefficiencies or corruption in the public sector.

Pruneda imagines the leading Democratic proposals on health care not as so many options on a menu but as steps on a path toward a single payer system. Biden’s plan is the first step, which should be followed by Warren’s and finally Sanders’, he said.

We’ll give him this: Pruneda isn’t afraid to think outside the box. When asked how best to implement such a massive entitlement program, he suggested that the government would do well to purchase a successful insurance company, put its expertise to use, and elevate its CEO to a Cabinet position.

Pruneda is too much a socialist to make a serious run for the 26th Congressional District in November, but his enthusiasm, his creative problem solving, and his thoughtful engagement with the issues, earn him our recommendation in the primary.