Welcome to the Trip Cast.
I'm Eleanor Klibanoff, thrilled to be joined this week by, as always, editor in chief Matthew Watkins.
How are you doing, Matthew doing?
All right?
Yeah?
We are very excited for both the theme of today's episode, where we'll be talking about the big upcoming Senate race in Texas, and especially excited about our guest, our former friend turned mortal enemy, Patrick's v Tech Patrick.
How are you come back on? I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Patrick is currently a reporter on the Washington Post politics breaking news team. Most of you probably know him from his nine year stint covering politics for us here at the Texas Tribune. Patrick remains, I believe you can correct me if I'm wrong on this. The most prolific Texas Tribune reporter in history.
That's probably true. Yeah, yeah, I don't have numbers to back that up, but I'm going to say yes.
Last year, you know, he left us for the Washington Post, but we're thrilled to have him back here on the Trip Cast. Patrick, Before we jump into the race, what do you miss most about Texas? What could what can we send to you in DC? If we could transplant one, one thing from Texas to d C.
What would you have?
Oh? Man, h just HB in general? Probably you know, there's specific products I could call out, but yeah, there's the grocery stores in d C did not compare to HIV in general, I would say, So that's one thing, And then there's plenty of restaurants and taco places that I could list off for you, especially coming from San Antonio to DC.
Saw that coming a mile away.
Yeah, Patrick, you'd be sad to know about all the coffee shops closing around our office start time. I'ms out out here in Congress.
Yeah, I will say I lived in d C for I went to college in DC and lived there for a while after. And uh, maybe it's changed since, but when I lived there, at least the tex mex was like egregious, like egregiously bad, very few options.
There's serviceable Mexican food to text mex at least in the.
DC proper area.
In parts of Maryland there's really good Mexican food, I would say, outside of DC, but in the in the district itself, Yeah, you got to you gotta put in some work to find the good places.
Yeah, well, I'm sure you are missing HIV and tex mex maybe more than the Texas legislature, which we are knee deep.
In right now.
But we are going to look ahead to a forthcoming political showdown, potentially one of the biggest political battles in recent Texas memory, as long time incumbent Senator John Cornyn faces down the insurgent arm of the Republican Party in the physical form of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. This is shaping up to be a vicious, expensive primary in which Texas is Republican in fighting will be laid out
on the national stage for all to witness. Feels a bit like, you know, when someone comes over to your family's house and sees your family fighting.
It's all embarrassing.
But we're you know, gonna be a gonna be a big people know what to expect when they come visit our family.
Yeah, that's true.
I don't think Texas is fighting it. They're the family like having the fight.
At the in the front line.
Yeah, exactly, Patrick, You've covered both of these figures for a long time. Let's start with Cornyn and tell us a little bit about you know, John Cornyn as a as a character and sort of what his profile looks like coming into this race.
Sure, well, I guess, you know, from the perspective in Washington, and he's coming into this reelection campaign after coming up short in something that he has long wanted to do, which is lead Senate Republicans. He narrowly lost the Senate Majority leader race to John Thune from South Toda right
after the November election in twenty twenty four. For I think years before that, he had made clear that that was something that he had wanted to run for if it ever, you know, if Mitch McConnell ever stepped aside from that leadership position, and you know, he made a good run for it, and you know, I forgot what the final count was, but he you know, it wasn't like a blowout, and so it was kind of a
disappointing loss for him. But he made pretty clear right after that that he planned to run for reelection, telling reporters that in DC, and then you know, officially launched his reelection campaign in March. And for now, it seems like he has a lot of fight left in him, or at least he's trying to project the image that he has a lot of fight left in him. I mean, he is coming out of this coming out of the gates swinging at Paxton, which sured you know, I guess
the generous interpretations. It shows he has a lot of fight left in and but it also shows you know, the very vulnerable position that he's in in this primary, that he feels the need to go negative on Paxton so quickly. And so that's kind of I think John Corny summed up over the at least the recent several months.
Yeah, and then Matthew, I'll give you the tougher question, which is, how would you summarize Ken Paxton?
How would I summarize Kein Paxton?
So, Ken Paxton, of course has been Attorney General since twenty fifteen.
He is a you know, a.
Controversial and a figure who brings up a lot of passion on both sides and has for that time. You know, I think people view him as very closely aligned with Donald Trump, famously filed a lawsuit in twenty twenty and
seeking to overturn the election results. He's been very aggressive in you know, pursuing causes favored by the kind of hard line right of Texas that can range from you know, anti abortion initiatives, targeting what he perceives to be is voter fraud, and you know a lot of sort of like social issues, things related to trans kids, all that kind of stuff that if you if you see it being talked about on Fox News, Ken Paxson has probably
filed a lawsuit related to it in the court. He of course, also has carried with him a lot of you know, ethical baggage. Famously, you know, was under indictment for a long part of his early part of his tenure because he was accused of securities fraud. That case has since kind of gone away, and then you know, more recently many of his top lieutenants resigned and accused him of bribery. That case was investigated by the FBI, but we learned recently that just before Trump took over
the FBI, the Department of Justice dropped that case. And so, you know, he he remains he has those close ties with the base, He has those close ties as with the with the Trump administration. There are definitely people in the Republican Party who try to keep him at arm's length though, because of some of those other kind of areas of baggage in the world.
That was a very phenomenal recounting, you left out one major chapter other than that, which is he was impeached, right, of course he was not, unlike you know, our president right now, was impeached by the House, the Texas House Representatives, and then after having a lengthy trial in the Senate, the Texas Senate voted to acquit him and restore him to his role.
So other than that, that's.
Really maybe the most important thing.
But you know, you know, we got all the rest of the details.
I mean, Patrick, how I mean, there's long been the joke about attorney's general, like, not just in Texas but nationally right that it stands for like aspiring governor. It is often a jumping point to more to higher office. How surprised are you to see Paxson getting to this race, Like, how do we get here with paxton challenge in Cornan?
You know, not surprised at all. I mean, Paxton had telegraphed for months that maybe even over a year, that he would maybe one day be interested in challenging Cornan. Cornan has been one of the few statewide elected Texas Republicans who has at least been blunt in observing Paxton's
legal challenges. It's not like Cornan has necessarily been a vocal critic of Paxson's legal challenges, but you know, among other state wide elected Republicans, they've been largely happy to just kind of look the other way and try to remain neutral. As Paxton has encountered all these other you know, all these legal and ethical issues. So Cornan has stood out I think for at least acknowledging or expressing some concern about the legal and ethical issues that Paxon has had,
and he's gotten sharper over the years. There was obviously that you know, tweet from Cornin to Paxton I think last year where he said it's hard to run from prison Ken, So clearly he ran, you know, one from expressing concern to throw in some actual political jabs. But Cornan has stood out, I think in that regard. And I think there's some real personal animosity between these two men, and I think that's what's keeping Cornyn going here a little bit.
You know.
You know, I mentioned earlier that Cornin seems to be, you know, showing some real fight from the outset of this race. I think that that's inspired by a little bit of personal animus, you know, toward Paxton. And you know, even though in this day and age, in the Trump era, I think corn And probably feels like he can't say this out loud because of Trump's own scandals and the
general tolerance for scandals inside the GOP. But I think Cornan believes that the Texas GOP should be embarrassed about Paxton. And so I think that's kind of what personally maybe keeping Corny and chugging along in this case, even though it looks like he's in the final you know, he's in the latter years of his political career, I.
Should just pause and ignowledge that for those of us who cover texts politics, who are involved in you know, the media world, this is just delightful, right whether or not we you know, yeah, we may not have a dog in the race, but we love interesting and exciting races. And I would say this one is probably the highest profile Republican primary in the state since maybe twenty ten when k Bailey Hutchison, then a sitting senator I believe,
challenged the incumbent governor Rick Perry. And what everyone was super excited about, you know, this being this huge kind of heavy whiteweight fight in that race, it didn't really turn out to be that much of a fight. It turned out to be something of a pummeling, you know, Rick Perry winning by more than twenty percentage points in that race. But I think we see this as two people who loom very heavily over Texas politics going right
after each other. Whether Cornyan would agree with this framing or not, I think a lot of people are viewing it as sort of the more traditional Republican, the one who has been you know, in leadership in the Senate for a very long time, you know, was kind of around before we saw this dramatic shift to the right in the state Republican Party, in the Republican Party in general, versus the sort of new type of Republican, the one who really ties the line close to Trump, who is
you know, always kind of scrapping for a fight, and you know, Frankly is like less concerned about the traditional norms and rules that govern politics. And I think we're going to watch this and I think a lot of people are going to frame this is a sort of fight over you know, the future of the Republican Party in Texas, and in.
Many ways, like Ken Paxton has been the standard bearer for that movement, right, not just in that he is the most and I wouldn't even as I say, and so he is like sort of the most extreme in that in that side of the party, but he's certainly the most local, the most I mean, we saw this in like judicial races in the last election, where you know, Attorney General Paxson was very unhappy with the ruling and said basically, I'm going to go get you know, the
judges I want. It was pretty open about that, Like, I don't think he would dispute that that framing, and with the Court of Criminal Appeals unseated three people put on judges you know, in at least two cases who who are very closely allied with him, So he seems pretty you know, in many ways. I think he's been preparing for this fight for for a long time, and you know it's going to be a big national.
Route.
I mean, I am curious, though, Patrick, what is your sense of how outside of Texas maybe and even within you know, tech the Texas GOP, how much appetite is there for this big, bloody, vicious, potentially expensive primary in Texas, a state that you know otherwise you know, I think people think corner maybe could could you know, walk into another term if you wanted to, if you didn't face a major challenge.
Sure, I mean, I think from Republican you know operatives in DC who are aligned with corn In or sympathy to Corny, and you know, they view this as a waste of time and money during a midterm cycle where you know, historically the trends are against them, but they do have a three seat majority in the Senate and some opportunities to grow that majority. And so I think
even Cornan himself has voiced this concern. It's obviously a self serving concern, but you know, the concern that we're going to spend tens of millions, over one hundred million dollars on a statewide primary in Texas when at least some of that money could be going to trying to flip open Senate seats in places like Michigan, New Hampshire, Minnesota. So I think that's the pro you know, corn In view in DC. But obviously, you know, the Senate Republican
conference has become just more and more trumpy. It's still not as trumpy as House Republicans are. Obviously House Republicans are very pro Trump rowdy bunch. But you have seen the remaking of the Senate, you know, Republican conference into definitely a more pro Trump body, and for people who want to see it continue in this direction, this is a very pivotal fight in that.
Trend and how much of this comes down to the big man himself the endorsement from President Trump.
Yeah, I mean, I was going to say earlier.
I mean, we could spend hours talking about all the different dynamics of this race and the pros and cons of each candidate, But really, I think this is going to turn on what Trump ultimately chooses to do in this race. You know, he had I think he weighed in on this race for the first time publicly last weekend. He told reporters that he, you know, knows and respects both men, or knows and likes both men, but would
make an endorsement at quote the appropriate time. Paxton himself has said, I think in one of his post announcement interviews, that he doesn't expect Trump to endorse until closer to the primary in March twenty twenty six. So right now, the vibes are clearly that Trump is not itching to jump into this race, And I think for Paxton one of his immediate challenges in this race is to try to keep out a credible third candidate, whether that's someone
like Wesley congressman from Houston. I know, Beth Van Dyne, congresswoman from the Dallas area. Her name also gets tossed around. So Paxton, you know, I think he's got some short term He's got some you know, short term tasks he needs to fulfill, and then some you know in terms of keeping out a third credible candidate, and then maybe some medium term tasks in terms of trying to lock down trump endorsement or continue to keep Trump out of the race, which I'm sure he would view as a
win in a way as well. So that's I think, you know what Paxton's to do list is right now.
Yeah, you kind of contrast this race to the lieutenant governor's race, right where Dan Patrick announced reelection and Trump immediately endorsed him, right, you know, we at least don't have that situation in Texas. You know, it seems like Cornin has made some efforts in the past year or so to sort of mend some fences with some of the people in the grassroots who have fought against him.
There's kind of this famous moment in the twenty twenty two State Republican Convention when Cornan spoke on stage and was essentially booed off stage. You know, he has We had an article from Matthew Choy a few months ago talking about how he's kind of tried to repair that relationship. You know, he has voted with Trump, He backed most,
if not all, of Trump's nominees. This you know, this year early in Trump's terms, So you know, can he kind of keep that relationship friendly enough to keep Trump out of the race. I think is definitely an interesting question, right.
I mean, and we've talked about this on the state level, Like you know, the thin fine like distinctions we draw between different candidates. Right, Cornyn, as Matthew has reported on for US, like voted with Trump's agenda ninety two percent of the time during his first President Trump's first term and supported all of his nominees. Like, certainly Cornyn has been very aligned with President Trump. He is I think
a little haunted by he was. I believe it was in twenty twenty three when he said ahead of the twenty twenty four election, you know that Trump's time had passed him by. He has done a lot since then to sort of try to work his way back in. He posted a photo on x like a couple of weeks ago before Paxston got in the race of him like reading the art of the deal, which I felt was a.
Little on the nose personally, but you know, people.
Like it, so yeah, I think certainly a lot of like you said, a lot of this speculation really comes down to one man.
Yeah.
The other thing people really hit Corning on was his involvement in a really the only gun safety bill to pass the Senate in recent years. This was in twenty twenty two, after the Uvaldi shooting. It was a bill that increased funding for mental health and incentivized states to pass laws that keep guns out of the hands of people who are found by the courts to be thrust to themselves or others. Are you know, known as red
flag laws. You know, I think a lot of people looked pointed at that and said, you know, this is a very very very modest gun safety law. But anytime you pass anything that can be called a gun safety law, you're gonna engender kind of push back from the Republican right, and that indeed did happen.
I'm sure we'll see.
That be brought up during the legislative I mean during the primary this year.
Absolutely, there's another person in this you know, little family feud we've got going on, which is Senator Ted Cruz, I mean, Patrick, what do you anticipate.
Are we going to see.
An endorsement from him? Does that endorsement carry much weight and sort of what do you think his role will be in all of this?
Yeah, I think Cruz will probably stay out unless Trump gets in and a real front runner emerges by the filing deadline. But I think Cruz otherwise probably has, you know, no political incentive to get deeply involved in this primary with a formal endorsement or campaigning for anyone again, unless it's clear that Trump is going to back someone, and then that candidate kind of pulls away with it, whether it's corn And or Packston or even you know, another candidate.
So Cruse is staying out of it, and it's you know, a course, it's very politically awkward for him because he's had this very fragile, you know, alliance or I don't know if i'd call it an alliance, a relationship with corn In over the years. I mean, he previously declined to endorse Cornan in his uh, I'm trying to remember, in his last in one of his last competitive primaries. But then Cornyn did campaign for Cruz and his one of
his hard fought re election campaigns. And so, you know, Cruse has a lot of I think, you know, it's important to know Cruise has a lot of overlapping relationships here when it comes to elected officials, donors, grassroots activists, and so I don't think it's necessarily him Him declining to endorse Cornan is necessarily, you know, should be read as an explicit endorse, you know, de facto endorsement of Paxton.
But you know, Cruse is now, like you know, Cruise has now served quite a long time in Texas, has built up a lot of relationships in Washington, in Austin and Houston, and so CRUs is deeply I think, you know, many political conflicts of interest in this race.
Yeah, it's an interesting he's he's sort of an interesting role. I mean, certainly when he came into the Senate was such a scene as sort of I think, in many ways the standard bearer of this more insurgent movement, and now there, you know, I wouldn't say the movement has like moved beyond him necessarily, but like if, certainly, if we had a Senator Paxton, I think Senator Paxton would maybe take up the role of like a flame thrower in Texas's flamethrower in chief.
Yeah, and you know, for what it's worth, Paxston is doing all he can to kind of butter up Cruise for a potential endorsement maybe down the line. And every media interview that I've seen from Paxston since he launched his campaign, he you know, constantly says, we have a conservative fighter and Ted Cruz we need another conservative fighter in that other Senate seat. And so you know that's a contrast that really helps, you know, Paxton make the case.
But it could also, you know, try to lay the groundwork for a Cruise endorsement down the line if Cruz does decide to get off the sidelines.
So, knowing we were going to talk about this today, I sat down and sort of tried to prepare in my mind the case for and against Cornan Can I do this and get y'all to react to it?
All?
Right? So I'm going to do the Paxton case first, Right, it's Paxton. The polls pretty consistently show is the more popular politician in Texas. The most recent UT Texas Politics poll showed a thirty percent approval rating for Cornan thirty seven percent disapproved, so minus seven percentage points there. Paxton's approval rating was thirty seven percent thirty four disapproved, so a plus three percent.
Right. Both have some.
Kind of no opinion you know or unknown type people there, But among GOP voters the difference is even bigger. Paxton a plus thirty five percent net favorability according to a u of H poll in February, Cornan a plus eighteen net favorability. That's for people who have voted or should be expected to vote in the GOP primary next year. And then, as we are sort of already talked about, Paxton just represents more of what the Republican Party is
right now than John Cornyn does this. He seems to be the type of politician that people in that party want right now compared to the more traditional John Cornyn. What else am I missing there? What am I missing in the Paxton case?
I think that anything else on the past, I mean.
I think that was the case for Paxton.
That's case Pax, right.
Yeah, I will say, like, and then I do want to hear the case for Cornyn. But like we sort of saw a preview of this right when it turned Paxton was challenged by George P. Bush, right, like a little bit more of that slightly more old school versus and that was when Paxton was in like the heat of the you know, his legal challenges, and he won by quite a healthy margin. So certainly there's a case to be made for voters love them right, Yeah, all right, so let me.
Then, well, I think the big caveat there is and I think for those of us who follow politics closely, that twenty two primary and primary runoff was especially frustrating and kind of inconclusive because he was running against the Bush and in Republican circles, primary electric circles, the Bush name is just the beginning and end of conversation for
some voters. And so you're really looking at that twenty two primary because of the opponent, you really wonder if that is actually an accurate gauge of what a real race against Paxton looks like, just because again, for some Republican primary voters they just hear the name Bush and they just plug their ears.
More or less.
So it's always interesting to think about how instructive that race really was.
Yeah, and additionally, Paxton was the incumbent, right and in this race, Paxston will not be in the incumbent exactly. But also just the history of Republican primaries, I mean Cornyin actually now I'm moving into the case for Cornin here,
but has a better history. Right that twenty twenty two primary, kN Paxton, in the first round of voting won forty two point seven percent, which means that more than half of the primary voters voted against Ken Paxton in that race, those same voters who are presumably going to be voting in this election. Right now, let's talk about Cornan's last three primaries. He faced challengers in each of those. In two thousand and eight, he had eighty one percent of
the vote against Larry Kilgore. In twenty fourteen, he got fifty nine percent of the vote against Steve Stockman, a former congressman, who pulled in nineteen percent of the vote. So Cornyin won that race by forty percent. In twenty twenty, he got seventy six percent of the vote. Admittedly, none of those were as strong of opponents as George P. Bush, but I mean those are resounding victories, something that Ken Paxton decidedly did not get in the first round of
voting the last time. In addition to that, you know, the argument against Paxton in that primary was all his ethical concerns. There seemed to be some success in that, but also just Cornin's going to have a lot more money and that's going to be the top race in this race. He is going to be able to really message those concerns in this race. Since that race, also, Paxton was impeached. Sixty of the eighty five Republican members
voted to impeach him in the House. Admittedly, he then was acquitted in the Senate, but that's notable and people will say like, okay, but yeah, then the next Republican primary for the House members was a bloodbath, right, But when you kind of break down the numbers, it's a little bit more complicated than that, because, of course Ken Paxon was going against the Republican members who voted to impeach him, but Greg Abbott was also going against the
Republican members who voted against him on the voucher bill, and if you look at the numbers, Greg Abbott actually seemed to have a lot more success there.
Right.
So there were sixteen Republican members running for reelection who voted against school vouchers in the twenty twenty four primaries. Nine of them lost their seats to more than half. There were forty Republicans who voted for who were running for reelection and voted four school vouchers, but also voted to impeach. So that basically means that Paxton was going against them, but Greg Abbott was not. Only five of
those for forty lost their primaries, that's thirteen percent. Okay, So what people on Cornan's case, who are on Cornan's side would say is that Paxton actually did not demonstrate an ability to be that effective in affecting the Republican primaries. It was Greg Abbott who proved to be incredibly effective. And so there is all this record of Paxxon actually not doing that well in these primaries over the last couple of years. Tell me evaluate that case.
Patrick thoughts, Yeah, no, I agree with that.
I mean, I've told anybody who will listen, you know, in the past year that I don't think nearly as many State House Republicans would have lost their primaries if the State House would have just gone ahead and passed school vouchers last session and gotten that over with. I mean, in fact, Feelin would probably still be Speaker in my view if that had happened, because I really believe that
the majority of those races were incumbents lost. The primary factor was definitely the opposition, the money, the campaigning that was brought against them because of their position on school vouchers.
You know, Paxton did not in these races that he targeted, He did not bring nearly as much in some cases any you know, outside money to the table in the way that Abbott was able to bring his own campaign funds and then outside campaign funds to the table and races that were being targeted for school over the school vouchers vote. So yeah, I agree that Paxton was not a driving factor or impeachment I don't think was a
driving factor. And the eventual outcome of a lot of those primaries where House.
Incumbents lost, yeah, I think it's sort of I think forever the question right now in Texas Republican politics, at least right which is like we have this extremely loud, extremely sort of a media dominant group of insurgent Republicans, grassroots Republicans, whatever you want to call them.
But how effective are they?
Right?
I mean, they didn't win the speakers vote.
They didn't wait like there's been a number of several of them, you know, who voted to impeach maintain their seats. To your point, so in some ways, like to go back to where we started, this is a question of like, this Ken Paxton led insurgent movement is very loud, they're very dominant, they're very you know what.
We talk about a lot.
This will be a test of like, well, how much of the elector do they have on their side?
I think to be clear, I think impeachment was very helpful to Paxton's personal narrative, especially going into this primary challenge to Cornyn. But if the question is like how determinative was that in the last election cycle with those incumbent losses, I don't think it was factor number one.
Can we talk about the impact of this race on the general election. We don't actually know, of course, who, if any prominent Democrat is going to choose to run for this office. I'm sure they'll find someone. Whether all the equality candidate I think remains to be seen, right, But I mean, I remember in twenty twenty four, all my sort of non politically focused friends would be like, is Colin Alred like actually gonna win the US Senate race? And I was like, no, he's not going to win
the US Senate race. And if you were hoping for a Democrat to win a statewide race, I would tell them, here's the path for that to happen. It's Donald Trump winning in twenty twenty four, creating a then mid term election that inevitably goes backlash against the Republican who won the previous year, and then Ken Paxton successfully primarying John Cornyn in that race. I thought at that time that that was actually maybe a credible path for a Democratic victory.
I was not expecting Trump to trounce to win Biden at the amount you know, exactly in Texas that he did, so I kind of maybe regret telling that to people. But I'm curious what you think, Patrick, about how vulnerable might can Paxton be in a general election in the political climate that we might see in twenty twenty six.
Yeah, I mean, I think the polling bears out that, or at least my gut feeling is that he's more vulnerable to political competition in the general election than Cornyn is. I don't know if that's you know, the hottest take, but I still think he is. He enters the general election as the favorite, given that the given the political moment that Texas is in with the state, you know, getting appearing to get redder in statewide elections. So, you know, I think Democrats are in Texas are always kind of
self negotiating over what the best opportunity is. It's like, oh, if we just get you know, this nominee after a bruising battle versus this nominee, you know, maybe we can win it. And and sure, like I just acknowledge, I think he would be a more you know, you would create a better opportunity for them, But I still think he would be the favorite in that general election.
Yeah, I think that's probably the reality is.
You know, it's there's not a really as much as that path I think probably did make sense, like before the election, you know, the I don't know that the backlash that I'm sure some Republicans are preparing for in the midterms is going to make it to Texas.
Yeah.
The other fun thing about this is now we get a primary for attorney general as well. My favorite thing to talk exactly exactly, and you know there are already people in that race. John Bash, a prominent conservative attorney who has done some work for Elon Musk. You've got May's Middleton, prominent senator. I saw that. Joan Huffman, another member of the Senate, told Brad Johnson from The Texan Today that she's seriously considering her run. I think Brian Hughes,
another senator, has come up a lot. Mitch Little, who represented Ken, extended that race. We could have a really crowded and interesting primary for that race too.
You talk about like things political reporters love, It's like, sure, we love We'd love a corn In and Paxton battle. We love a crowded attorney general's race where everyone gets to sort of litigate what they think the attorney general should do, what they think see that role as I mean, Texas's attorney general plays such an outsized role in national conservative politics, which.
Has not always been the case.
I you know, Will I won't belabor this, but you know, twenty five years ago when John Cornant the first Republican attorney general since reconstruction in modern Texas history. You know, before that the attorney general's you know, was basically a bureaucratic workhorse, and now we have, you know, this conservative, very ideological office. And I think we can safely assume that the Republican candidate, at least in that election will be cut from the from the same cloth.
Yeah, And there's just a lot of pent up and in the Republican Party right now, because there's a lot of people who have been holding their office for a very long time, and other people who see themselves as a governor someday or a statewide official some days. Seeing that, of course, controllers race, there will also be something there because of Glenn Hager going to A and M. So it's going to be a very after you know, honestly, like a pretty boring twenty twenty four election.
Like this is going to be a fun one in twenty twenty six. I yes, certainly on the AG race too.
I'm not ready to you I mentioned Democrats in the Senate race earlier. I'm not ready to say that Democrats may have a better shot in the AG race. But I do think the dynamics going into that general election could be a lot different than the dynamics going into
the general election for Senate this AG. This Republican primary for AG could produce a nominee who no one really knows statewide in a general electric right, And so you know, especially compared to a Paxton or a corn And entering a general election, they have pretty broad statewide name ID.
But like, you know, this is just an example, but say, like Joan Hoffman is the Republican nominee for AG, not a very well known name statewide, And so it'll be interesting to see if that Republican primary produces someone who is able to make it through the fire of the party's primary but then is like pretty unknown statewide to a general electorate.
And I'm sure you know, Democrats will try their hardest to make this about like abortion enforcement and everything like that, you know, and an issue that they've not really been able to wield to their wield effectively up until now.
Right, And like I'm no political consultant, but I do think like Democrats do sort of have an opportunity to say, like the Attorney General's office is supposed to be doing all this bureaucratic stuff, like it is not supposed to be this ideological you know, weapon and like restoring you know a little bit of like we'll just enforce child support and we'll do medicaid fraud and we'll do you know, crime victims compensation and like leave the partisan litigation to you know, private litigants.
Yeah, well we'll see how that.
I don't know, but love here's I know. Promoters love for they love bureaucracy.
They love Yeah, particularly in Texas, they love We're not going to do Trump s bidding that works every time. Well, we will be watching all of that and all of this as well on what promises to be a very very exciting run up to March twenty twenty six, which is actually kind of a long time away. Patrick, thank you so much for joining us. We really really appreciate having you here, Missy.
Patrick, thanks for having me.
Yes, that's it for today. You can find all episodes of the trib Cast on YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. Be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast on all of your platforms. If you'd like to get in touch with the team, you can reach us at Tribcast at Texastribune dot org. Our producers are Rob Avila and Chris Bobada. Our theme music is composed by Rob and we will see you next week.