Warning Bells for Republicans In Texas

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Welcome to the Texas Take. I'm your host, Jeremy Wallace. And when did the start of the Texas rodeo season start with the Fort Worth Shock Show in Rodeo? Uh you see what I did there, right? I'm talking of course about politics at Fort Worth and not the barrel racing at the rodeo there that wraps up this week. Voters there just sent shockwaves. Through that county, the state, and it landed right smack dab in the middle of Mar-a-Lago, with let's just say a very weird response from Donald Trump.

Now, we are not going to go overreacting to one election, y'all. That's not my style. Remember two key words I say a lot here: sample size. One week on the baseball diamond doesn't make a career, right? The same true for politics. But still this is super important. The national media is gonna do all kinds of overreacting for us. But y'all know better than that. We'll dig into the numbers calmly and rationally and show you what really happened in Fort Worth.

and what it means for Democrats and Republicans as they saddle up for the election cycle that's now starting to feel a little bit more like twenty eighteen than twenty twenty four. You're going to hear from Texas's newest member of Congress on this episode. Yep. Christian Menefee won a seat in Houston on Saturday and was sworn in by Monday night in DC.

Giving Democrats in Congress a critical extra vote that means House Speaker Mike Johnson now lives in a world in which losing just one Republican on any issue means almost certain defeat. I'll take you into the streets of Houston where I spent time with Menaphy as he campaigned and explained just what happened in that race. But I'm also going to tell you how his tenure in Congress could be incredibly short. And look y'all, we hit the issues around Minneapolis pretty hard last week.

But I do want to get to what US Senator Amy Klobuchar said in a speech to Houston about what they're dealing with up there. Plus you're going to hear how Joaquin Castro played a critical role in getting a little five year old boy named Liam Ramos out of that detention facility in South Texas and back to Minnesota. No, l you know, like we say that about politics all the time, but no, he literally picked up this boy and his father at the detention facility.

drove them to the airport, and personally flew with them back to Minneapolis. You know, that is a whole different level of being deeply involved in an issue, right? We'll get into all that. Finally, I'm gonna have Jasmine Crockett back on the show to tell you how Liam may be home. But there are many more kiddos just like him still stranded in that Texas detention facility, paying a price for getting caught up in the mass deportation efforts that are going on in Minnesota.

But first, y'all, we gotta get to this Fort Worth shocker. Democrats scoring yet another victory this special election season, turning a reliably red state Senate seat in Texas blue. The Democrat, Taylor Remett, a labor union leader and veteran, would you look at this? Won by more than 14 points in the Fort Worth area. That was Blake Burnham on News Nation.

What makes this so shocking is that this was a seat that was safely Republican since 1981. Come on, yo, that is a long time ago. And Trump carried the district by 17 percentage points. But Taylor Remnant just dominated. And check out who was on that same news nation dropping some serious knowledge, y'all. What appears to be Remed's strategy here? How did a Democrat When in a district, that Trump carried by more than seventeen percentage points.

In the presidential election. Yeah, it's crazy what he was able to pull off. What we see from the results is that more than you know, the Republicans actually turned out. You know, half the voters had Republican histories in primaries that voted in this in this election. And so they should have done well, right? But what the results show is that, you know, Taylor was able to get votes from Republicans in this race.

he was able to peel off a large percentage of those, you know, Republicans who had been voting in past Republican primaries. So his effort to reach into the middle, he dominated with independence and he really picked up some votes from the Republicans that I don't think a lot of Republicans saw coming. That was me of course with Nicole Burley of News Nation there. But hey, let's flip over to Fox and Friend. Woo, boy did they have a hard reaction to what they just witnessed.

It felt like an intervention there. Here, take a listen. The Hispanics that once supported Republicans is not looking too good. Republicans have not shown strength since Donald Trump won the election and they got the House and they got the Senate. So if you want to look at this and spin it, you do you're fooling yourself. Republicans, you're getting a warning sign. So this is a wake-up call. The latest Fox News poll showed that nearly sixty percent of Americans do believe that.

Ice operations have gone too far. So because Donald Trump won this exact area by seventeen points. Even though there are all these factors about, you know, two Republicans that led to a runoff and maybe some weather that came into play, it shouldn't have even been close. And because the Democrat won by fourteen points. It could it should be a wake up call. Let's get someone on this program who knows this area of Texas far better than I do.

Uh before John Moritz was at the Austin American Statesman, he w worked for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and knows that area far better than I do. He can help break us all down. But first You know, I I want to play for y'all what state senator, now state senator, Taylor Remnett, had to say after his victory. How I won was doing the work.

That means going and showing up, knocking doors, making phone calls, and really listening. I think that's that and w what it means is it means that We need to focus on the bread and butter issues and and how to increase the bottom line and and make things better for working class folks. All right, John. You saw everything that happened in Tarrant County. When you first started seeing those results come in, what did you think? What what happened up in Fort Worth here that made this happen?

first blush it I thought there was like an outlier precinct that was reporting and nobody else had. But then once we seen those numbers build and build and build, we knew something was happening in Fort Worth. and its suburbs. I mean, that's an area as as everybody has known by now that has been Republican since the dawn of the Reagan Revolution. And uh this guy comes in and cleans everybody's clock.

catches everybody off guard. Even Democrats I talked to just like two days before the voting says, you know, as long as we can get close, we can send a message. Well they sent a message Yeah, and and that area of Tarrant County is really interesting. It's like you said, there's a really big, strong Republican base there, but it's it feels like they were a little split coming out of that special you know, the first round of the special election. This was the runoff.

uh race and it feels like there was some divisions in there that didn't get taken care of. But like you said, the Republicans still like way outspent Democrats. It's not like the Democrats thought they were about to win the seat, so they put a little money in there. But to me it wasn't like, oh, we're gonna win this thing. Uh if we throw a little muscle in.

Yeah, w one one of the things uh that might come out of this is because that area is so Republican, the Republican primary is where you go to elect your sheriff, where do you go to elect your county judge, your uh state rep. Commissioner's core precinct. So there might be a lot of people who, you know, could swing either way, might vote. uh Democrat for president here and there. And uh y you really can't let that primary history totally fool you or you cannot totally depend on that.

to be always predictive, especially when the electorate is volatile like we're we're seeing in this particular midterm cycle. Yeah, among those people who sounded pretty surprised at the results. Donald Trump down at Mar-a-Lago. You know, he was asked on Sunday the the next morning by reporters about that race. And let's just say he he was like, What? Here here's what he had to say.

Ms. President on Texas, um a Democrat won in a special election in a area that you had won by seventeen points. What is your reaction to that? No, no, I didn't hear about it. Somebody ran where? In Texas, special election for legislative the ninth state Senate seat.

involvement that that's a local Texas race. You mean I won by seventeen and uh this person lost? Things like that happen. Does it worry you about the well you don't know whether or not it's transferable. You know I'm not on the ballot so you don't know You know, look, that's just a big oops there, right? He seems to have totally forgot that on Truth Social on Friday he was just going

Hey, I am I love this Republican. Please go vote for her. But regardless, you know, I I think he there was something that at the end of his comments that really kinda hit home for me. It's like he's you know ends up telling the reporters that like, look, Just because he did well somewhere, it doesn't necessarily mean it's transferable.

I'm like, oh, thank goodness, Mr. President, for saying what I've been saying since uh twenty twenty four. Just because Trump did well in the valley, it doesn't mean any Republican, you know, waving a a Trump flag is going to do it as well, right, John? Yeah, he said the quiet part out loud. Interestingly enough, they use that Trump twenty twenty four uh model to do this whole redistricting thing, assuming that those republi uh th those Trump voters were Republicans from

here going forward. That proved not to be the case. And especially up at Fort Worth, where it's not it's not necessarily uh the sort of place where where you expect bad government Republicans to get elected.

Kelly Hancock was at a bad government, Republican enemy of the government. His predecessor Chris Harris, Jane Nelson, now Secretary of State before him. You know, so that's a that's a that's a part of of Texas that wants government to do d do well in the areas that they think government ought to be involved. Well it's interesting too. So one of the ways I was thinking about this, uh and this isn't gonna shock anybody who listens to the Texas Techs regularly, but this, you know, strikes me as

You know, a key component like you know, twenty twenty four certainly went Trump's way in Texas. He won some counties that, you know, we didn't expect him to win, particularly in South Texas. He did really well in a lot of places. But it doesn't change the fundamentals that I've been talking about for a long time now, which is, you know, Texas remains a red state, but we have a blue spine running through the middle of us that keeps growing.

And that hasn't changed even as Trump won in twenty twenty four. That blue spine remains blue. It is still going that way. And and what I mean is, you know, you know, that blue spine stretches from, you know, basically the Rio Grande up to the Red River along I-35, picks up about twenty-two counties.

And those counties, you know, have become more diverse and more urbanized. And what we've seen, you know, back in twenty twelve and twenty fourteen, you saw Ted Cruz and John Cornyn won those areas by over three hundred thousand votes, y'all. This was a Republican

you know, part of the the key part of the Republican playbook. Went up big numbers in you know, in uh Harris County, which they were dominating back then, and win the blue spine, w well that back then it was a red spine, you know, win that and you cruise to victory. But look what happens in twenty eighteen.

In twenty eighteen, Betork wins that blue spine by four hundred thousand votes. Y'all, that's a seven hundred thousand vote swing from one side to the other, which is pretty shocking. You're like, well, is that a one-off? Well, Biden comes around and nearly pushes it to five hundred thousand. It's like, oh, wait a minute, this is starting to become something a little bit more ingrained in Texas politics playbooks going forward and not something that could be just brushed off.

Even in Trump's 2024 race, you'll see like he won Texas, but he lost that blue spine by 250,000 to Kamala Harris. And he lost Harris County, of course. Now, it doesn't take long to think, you know, boy, if a Democrat can look at what just happened in Tarrett County. and look at the fundamentals of what, you know, the the blue spine has become. You can see if they can find somebody who can, you know, fire up voters in those areas like Beto Rourke did and improve upon it. And here's a key point.

Since 2018, we have added 2.7 million voters in Texas. One million of those have been on that blue spine. You can see the danger that kind of sits there for Republicans if they don't acknowledge it. Look, we have some Republicans who are gonna beat their chest and say, Oh, we're always red, we never have to change. But the smart ones, they're looking at what happened in Fort Worth because they know this wasn't just about weather, y'all.

Well John, first of all the success of a rain dance has a lot to do with timing. And what happened is there was a huge snowstorm, ice storm really, that hit North Texas and Central Texas. That was Pete Sessions, y'all. Like, you know, you can see he's like a lot of Republicans, like, oh it was bad weather, everything will be fine. But look, man, i thi it was icy and cold for both parties, right, John? Yeah, yeah. a blue tsunami, uh maybe that's overstating it based on the uh

the results of one election. But you are correct. You've got to be paying attention to to the way that area is changing. And y you mentioned the blue spine, a a wonderful metaphor, and the population, um growth it's kind of like blue vertebrates coming out of e each part of those spines because the suburban areas around Austin and now what we've seen in around Fort Worth, we've seen it around Dallas, we've seen it around Houston. They are emerging

as less reliable Republican than they've ever been. And some of'em are even just now, you know, in the blue column, uh, you know, going into an election cycle. Yeah, and and and look you know and let's look a little bit closer at that. When I'm talking about like the you know, that growing population and what's happening in the blue spine, again the smart Republicans are watching this.

You know, Tarrant County, Collin County, Hayes County, Williams County, these are places Ted Cruz and John Cornyn won, and they're now losing these places regularly. It's a different playbook now for Republicans. And the smart guys get it. You know, I talked to State Senator Paul Betancourt after the uh race on Saturday.

Uh and he put it to me this way. He said, look, in a particularly in a down draft year that is developing, like what this is starting to feel like, it's like Republicans can't take any of these votes for granted. You know, even if somebody pa voted in past Republican primaries and showing up, you can't assume that they're going to be you know on your side. They're still free agents. You gotta make the pitch.

You gotta sell them still in this kind of environment. It takes a lot more on the ground work on this thing. So look, look, you know, like for my GOP friends, you know, out there, let me put that more succinctly: batting down the hatches. 2026 is real. And if you look at those results coming out of Tarrant County, one of the things I noticed that half of the people who showed up to that election had a Republican primary history.

So that tells you what Taylor Remnant did wasn't just win the Democrats and win the independents. He had to pull a sizable group of people who voted for Republicans in the last Republican primary. So that tells you y'all there is something more important kind of going on in this conversation. Maybe it's Minneapolis, maybe it's the immigration raids, maybe it's like a a lot of things. But regardless of what the reason is.

I'm just telling y'all, if you're a Republican and you're going into 2026, batten down the hatches and get ready because this is a different cycle than it was last time around. All right, John, thanks again for joining us on the Texas Stake, and we will definitely have you on again soon. Always happy to join in.

All right, y'all. Let's roll this show back into Houston. I was down there walking the neighborhoods of the eighteenth congressional district with Christian Menefee this past weekend as he was trying to win that special election to give downtown Houston a member of Congress for the first time since March fifth.

of twenty twenty five. Yeah, that's a long time, y'all. Remember, that's when you know Sylvester Turner passed away. The seat has been vacant ever since. Governor Abbott obviously delayed having the special election to fill the seat. Well anyhow, Menefee dominated the runoff election on Saturday over Amanda Edwards. Uh, the man, you know, didn't waste any time after that race getting to D C. He w was immediately on a plane and less than forty-eight hours after his victory speech.

He was on Capitol Hill with Mike Johnson putting his hand on the Bible to be sworn in. Here's how that went. You know, I just got elected on Saturday and just jumped off the plane to get here. Uh so my first job is to figure out where the bathroom is. Uh but no, look, I I think the people of the eighteenth congressional district sent me here to to vote the conviction of my values and I plan to do that. Uh

Uh but I'm just very grateful to the speaker for getting me sworn in. Our seat have been left open for far too long and I think that uh it just represents the worst of politics when stuff like that to happen. So I'm very grateful to the speaker for this moving quickly and I look forward to getting to work. Now, even if you aren't in Houston, y'all gotta know this changes everything about D C politics for the you know, near future.

The Republican edge in Congress now falls back to 218 to 214. That means Mike Johnson can't afford to lose even a single vote if another Republican calls in sick or misses a flight to DC or for whatever the reason. Look, over the next two months, vacant seats in New Jersey and Georgia will bring that number back to two hundred nineteen to two hundred fifteen, we expect. But that vacant seat in California, which should be Republican, is not going to get filled until September.

So yeah, Mike Johnson's gonna be down a seat for quite some time. I believe Gavin Newsom out in California might be pulling a Greg Abbott. And what I mean is that Gavin Newsome is doing what Abbott did and holding the Sylvester Turner seat open for as long as he possibly could. And California Newsom went to the very limits of how long he could leave that seat open until there's an election to fill the seat. Whoever wins that race will probably not get sworn into Congress until September.

Yeah, that's when all the legislating will be all wrapped up, y'all. We'll be it fully in campaign mode and you're just not gonna see many bills at all passing Congress. So it's basically an open seat from here on and, you know, giving Mike Johnson just a razor's edge. you know, in trying to get anything through Congress, you know, let alone anything Trump is pushing. But y'all, let's talk about the weird spot that Menaphy might be in for the next year.

Look, Menafee, you know, could turn around and simply lose that seat to represent it beyond twenty twenty-seven in just a couple of weeks. No, I'm I'm serious, like so he won that race, he gets to represent the eighteenth congressional district to the end of twenty twenty six. But if he wants to be there beyond twenty twenty six.

He has to win a primary on March third against Al Green. Yeah, Al Green, the congressman who's been there for twenty years. Why? Well, because Greg Abbott, of course, had the legislature redraw all the congressional districts. So Menaphy won the old seat, but now he has to win the new seat.

Which now includes Al Green because they mashed Al Green's old ninth congressional district with the eighteenth congressional district, setting up this battle that I'm sure a lot of people are a little uncomfortable with. But anyhow, so all Menaphy has to do if he wants to be in Congress beyond twenty twenty seven.

is beat a 20 year incumbent in just a couple weeks. Remember, the absentee ballots are already out, so those are already being cast. Plus, you know, the in-person early voting starts on the 17th. That's like no time. Menapee somehow, while traveling back and forth from DC with Al Green on the same plane, has to somehow beat the man. I just don't like the odds on that one.

It's always hard to beat an incumbent. Al Green, even though he was in the ninth congressional district, remember he's been in the region for so long in Houston politics. Not like he hasn't set foot. in those, you know, northern parts of the eighteenth congressional district, north of downtown. The guy knows the entire you know area. So the smart money is probably on green defeating Menaphy, and Menaphy only getting that seat for a year.

Oh, by the way, did y'all see, you know, back in Houston, when I was with Menafe going from polling places to polling places, look who I ended up seeing. That's representative Jasmine Crockett. Crockett was down there helping kind of push Mennefee over the line. Look, she's got her own Senate race that she's trying to campaign for too.

But like she took a few minutes to talk to me about Menapee and why, you know, she was down there, you know, taking away valuable time in the camp and trail for her to work with Menophy. Environmental injustice. As the county attorney. This is the guy that was not afraid to go up against Greg Abbott, go up against Ken Paxton on behalf of the people to make sure that they weren't evading the law. And he's won. I think that that matters. And right now, as

we're trying to figure out what does a win look like in DC. We need people that understand Working around the law. And I just think that he'll be able to really dig in and nerd out a little bit and make sure that ultimately, whatever it takes to get some kind of relief and justice for the people of this community, this is one of those communities where a lot of people have been forgotten.

When we're talking about who it is that's gonna end up without health care, it's gonna hit them the hardest. Who it is that may be losing jobs first, it's gonna hit them hardest. You need somebody who's already been doing this work and understands the challenges, but isn't afraid.

This is a guy that is willing to go toe-to-toe and have my back on the big fights, and that's what I need. I need a real partner in crime, somebody that could care less about a title because he gave up a title because it was about getting the work done. This is about the future for his kids as well as the kids.

Now, my Saturday in Houston got a little bit of a curveball. after covering all that, I was supposed to head on over to interview US Senator Amy Kloboshar, who was going to speak at the Harris County Democrats, you know, at their annual gala. But as you can imagine, Klobuchar at the last minute ended up having to cancel her plans to fly into Houston You know, because of course like there's so much turmoil going on in Minneapolis.

Klobochard did dial in from Minnesota and spoke to the Democrats about what her state is suffering through, but you know, of course I did not get an interview with her one on one. Well anyhow, here's a little bit of what Clobusar had to tell the crowd. From post to coast. And right there with all of you, and which I wish I could have been there in person and I will one day, in Harris County, Americans are watching. They see our resilience. They see that grip.

They see that we are much bigger than one man in the White House, no matter how tough he thinks he is, no matter how much shock and awe he loves to put out there every day just to distract the news. Klobashar, as you probably know, is now running for governor of Minnesota. Remember Tim Walls, a one time University of Houston Cougar.

Uh he ended up, you know, pulling out of that race and how Klobuchar is the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic primary and probably the general election. Obviously just got a long history in Minnesota and is gonna be in a really good spot. But wasn't one of the interesting things about her speech that I caught was that she gave a big shout out during her speech to re US Representative Joaquin Castro. Yeah, the San Antonio Democrat who wasn't even in the room.

And the reason she was calling on, you know, Castro was about all of the work he's been doing to try to get that five year old little boy, Liam Ramos, and his father released from that South de South Texas detention facility. Remember, you know, Liam and his father were picked up in Minnesota, uh, in Minneapolis, and sent to this detention center in Dilly, Texas.

Uh you know, y you've seen the image of the of the little boy. I don't have to tell you about that. You know what he looks like. But Castro typically isn't one of those rah rah members of Congress like who's always headed for a camera somewhere or trying to get attention. You know, he's really kind of a quiet reserve guy. But there he was in the middle of this from the start.

Like he immediately led a delegation to the detention facility, met with Liam early on and his father, then he was doing these press conferences in San Antonio, including the one I went to last week that I told you about. And then even after all that, Castro, you know, uh uh after the judge ordered Liam and his father released, Castro personally drove to Dilly, Texas to pick them up and get them to the airport and then accompany them all the way back to Minnesota.

Man, that is like you you hear members of Congress all the time going, oh yeah, I was involved in that. No, no. Castro was intimately involved in getting Liam and his and his father out of the detention facility. He actually personally did it.

US Representative Greg Cassar, one of the big orators in Congress, who I know, you know, stirs up audiences and really can get a k get a crowd going. I talked to him and he said, you know, you you don't hear Castro as much as some other members of Congress. But the guy has some real influence when he does get involved in things and he says that's what's happening here. Here's what Kazar had to say to me about Castro.

Castro is a senior member of our Texas delegation, but he's a leader in the house. I mean people on both sides of the aisle look to what Joaquin is talking about when it comes to issues of immigration, especially uh Conditions and detention centers. He's been a leader on that since the first Trump administration. And then his foreign policy chops are uh well respected by people all throughout the capital. Um you know here in San Antonio, he is the San Antonio guy that everybody knows to

takes care of his hometown, but in Washington D C people in San Antonio would be surprised that he's seen as somebody that is really seen as a leader on world issues, human rights issues, and in this case the human rights uh abuses that we see in our own country. He's not the fiery guy

that you always see on the big talk shows but he still you know still has a voice up there that clearly people listen to, right? Uh y you know, s he's the kind of person where he isn't um you know, elbowing his way to be the first person to talk, but when he does speak Speak everybody shuts up and listens to what he has to say.

Now, here's a little bit what Castro said about the whole thing uh after getting Liam and his father back to Minnesota. You know, we got on a non stop flight from I think there's only one nonstop from San Antonio to Minneapolis during the day. uh at least in the morning. And so we got on that flight from San Antonio and Minneapolis. And uh I actually wasn't able to sit with them because uh we booked the flight so late that they were like several rows back.

And um, you know, but fortunately they were good and they were fine. And he was just excited to get home. Just really excited about everything. Um, and in he looked to be in much better shape. Remember in that photo that I took when I went to the detention center, uh he was just not did not look like he was in good shape. And his dad said he hadn't been eating and and was sleeping a lot. Uh he was a lot more energetic and animated this time.

Uh and so I'm glad that because of like your voice, because you spoke up, uh, you know, because you didn't stop. I believe that was a big part in him being released. Now, while Liam and his father may be back in Minnesota, It's hardly time to celebrate.

I actually when I talked to Jasmine Crocken in Houston on Saturday She reminded me that there are a lot of other Liam's, you know, sitting in that detention facility in Dilly, Texas, who are just as confused about why their lives have been turned upside down. Here's a little of that conversation I had with Jasmine Crockett on Saturday.

I don't know that I believe that Liam and his father will be getting out right now but for that picture of Liam going viral. I want people to know that when I was in there I didn't just visit with Liam and his father. We visited with hundreds of people who had stories just like that.

And frankly there are a lot of kids that have been in custody and are languishing there as well and they've been there a lot longer. So what I would encourage people to do is to understand that this fight is not over, that we need to speak up because there's so many other children Whose names you don't know that are

suffering right now and we're talking about children as little as one month old. It is time for us to come together and denounce what this administration is doing as they are violating people's due process rights and inflicting cruel

Well, there you have it, y'all. Another wild beak in Texas politics. where I spent a lot of time on the road. As a funniest side, when I ran into Jasmine Crockett in Houston, she had just seen me a few days earlier in San Antonio, and before that she saw me in Georgetown. And she was like, You really get around. You're everywhere.

Exactly. That's exactly what y'all on the Texas take, you know, listener world already know, right? I will go anywhere to talk to these politicians to make sure you're hearing directly. From them. So it's not just some pass through, you know, from some TV hit. I'll have some of those too, but mostly you know I'm on the ground with these folks.

Y'all, i it's kinda funny'cause my m the guys at the tire store, they kinda are starting to know me by name. I think I'm putting their kids through college. I'm there so much having to replace tires on my car. You know, I I'm almost a little envious of those reporters who cover, say, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Rhode Island. I am so sure that they don't have anywhere close to the same problem I do when I hear, Oh wait, did you hear who's gonna be in San Antonio?

Yep. Get in the car, get your butt down there. Well anyhow, thanks again for listening to the Texas Take. And of course, please check out the daily Texas Take newsletter where I break down the day's politics every day in your inbox. You don't have to go anywhere. None of us have to drive anywhere. You just have to open that m email and boom, there you have it. You get everything to get a little bit smarter about Texas policy. Now I do have a little tree coming next week.

I'm hosting a debate slash QA slash forum, whatever you want to call it. I'm gonna have both Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and his GOP challenger, Nathan Sheets, on to do a QA with me. You can watch that on Zoom. It will be on at noon on february twelfth. You can sign up at Houston Chronicle.com. That'll take you right to the sign-up page. And I'll also have that in the Texas Tech newsletter so you can go there as well to check it out. And you can kind of watch.

uh me ask them questions. Obviously this you know, look, the agriculture commissioner race doesn't seem like the hottest race at times, but look, with the fight over THC products in Texas plus this threat to the Texas cattle industry. Man, this, you know, uh this, you know, screw worm virus that is coming up through Central America America into Mexico and now threatening Texas cattle.

That's a big deal, y'all. You we want to hear what these guys have to say. It's turning into one heck of a race. Remember, Nathan Sheets, he's a bee farmer who used to be a big donor to Miller, but here he is trying to knock out the guy he once supported. Anyhow, definitely tune into that. I I think it'll be worth your time. Thanks again for listening to the Texas Take, and until next time, adios.