Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribunes trib Cast for Tuesday, December ninth. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff law and politics reporter, joined as always by Editor in chief Matthew Watkins.
How's it going, Matthew?
Doing well? Texas A and M in the college football playoffs.
Some say, some thought it would never happen, and here.
Again it's never happened. Period, It's never happened the first first time ever ever. That's I mean, we've only had a playoff for you know, a few years.
But still that's exciting.
Congratulations, thank you, Thank you for our ut listeners are condolence.
We'll do a different tip top for them.
And also congratulations to our friends at Texas Tech.
Yes, yeah, a very exciting.
You know, postseason for Texas football teams.
Indeed, our special guest on this week's episode is Renzo Downey, lead writer for The Blast, the Tribune's premier political newsletter. You can sign up for The Blast at support dot Texas Tribune dot org slash Blast.
Renzo, Welcome to the podcast.
Do you have a college football team?
I mean I grew up in the Bay Area, so not. How would have been my football team. Okay, okay, I.
Don't want to like fuel any fire about people's potential perceptions of the Tribune, but two of what six members of the Tribune politics team are from the Bay Area, which I think does not make for much of a college football team.
And then two are from Long.
Island, also not a college football.
Not a college football hotbed. I am solo representing from the South. So yesterday was the candidate filing deadline for TI twenty twenty six, which means we finally, after much speculation, have a slate of candidates who will be running for next year's election. Twenty twenty six promises to be a very big year for Texas politics. All the state wide offices are up for reelection or up for election in some cases. We also have a lot of really closely
watched congressional races with potentially nationwide implications. The filing deadline is always sort of an exciting day. You never know, like what's going to happen, and they have until five PM on the deadline to start to make any last minute decisions. This year was extraordinary even for that usual excitement, because we didn't know until last Thursday, four days ago what congressional map would be using for next year, which
is added to a degree of uncertainty and excitement. I would say, you know, certainly Republicans were proceeding as if they'd be allowed to use the newly redrawn GOP friendlier map. Democrats were proceeding as if the court order striking that map would be allowed to stay in effect. And in the end Republicans made that call correctly, leading to a lot more last minute seat swapping on the left, but certainly some surprises on the right.
We're going to go sort of through.
The races that await us for Marches primary and Novembers general. But yeah, any big picture thoughts after the you know, excitement of filing day.
Any We'll get into the specifics.
But I mean, you know, I think the big news of the day in Texas and really beyond was the Jasmin Crockett yes, right, and the way that you know, I think there are a lot of people asking, maybe from outside the state, whether this is sort of like a tea party moment for the Democratic Party, you know, where like for so long the sort of like activist wing of the Republican Party was ascendant and really took control of the party. Democrats have been able to sort
of the establishment has been able to hold on. Does Jasmine Crockett jumping in this race against someone who I would say the Democratic establishment is quite excited about already, does this represented change and what does that mean?
Maybe we'll talk about that a little.
Bit later, but I think you know, whether or not that we'll have any influence on who actually becomes the US Senator for Texas, I think it's the big most interesting thing that happened yesterday.
Yeah, I'd agree with Matthew that the Democratic side is one hundred percent a flight over what doesn't mean to be a Texas Democrat and how you go about being a Texas Democrat. But you know, beyond that, we've got some big fights for some of the biggest seats in Texas. But also you know, looking at some of the other state wides. I mean Ken Paxton, longtime Attorney General, he's running for a different seat, Sid Miller, Agriculture commiss He's
got a bit of a fight on his hands. And we're starting to see a little bit of a shakeup of that leadership at the state level that's been in place for over a decade.
Yeah, I've worked at the Tribune for over ten years, and we've had the same kind of top four people, you know, Governor, the chain of governor, Senate us in it in both seats, and I mean, I guess it's possible that we will emerge from twenty twenty six with that still set up, but there's like a lot of sort of shuffling.
Yeah, I mean, it's guaranteed that it will look at least a little different with Pexton not going to be Attorney general anymore. But yeah, it's an interesting So you were at the Republican Party of Texas headquarters yesterday, which is worked outside of it side of the Republican Party Texas sort of what was the energy, what was the
vibe from candidates? I mean, are they feeling pretty victorious about getting to use the map that they were hoping to use being the redistricting fight, if you will.
Yeah, I mean this map created a lot of opportunities for Republicans that you know, speaking of this you know statewide slate that's been in place for a while. I mean there's been a lot of there have been roadblocks at the top for people trying to move up, and so you know, if you create potentially five new GOP seats, then that's a lot of opportunities for members to jump in.
And so I think we'll talk about some of these races, but you're going to have like a bunch of political newcomers jumping into like one of them is going to be like probably the next congressman.
Right given district, right, which is exciting, terrifying all of the above for us as political reporters. So let's start at the very top of the ticket. Governor's race looking sort of as we were expecting it would look before the filing deadline approached, Renzo Abbot, Governor Greg Abbott, as we said, longtime governor, more than a decade running for reelection with more money than God. How is it looking on the Democratic side.
Well, on the Democratic side, it seems like the main candidates are going to be State Representative Genie in Ajosa, and you've also got a White, you know, son of former government and White and.
Bobby Cole.
Yeah, Bobby Cole. Uh think we.
I mean I think it really what this shows is the strength of Abbott, right, Like, the Democrats like have a pretty decent bench right now of like interesting popular
candidates who can raise money, get people energized. I mean, James Talerico, Jasmine Crockett, Colin Allred, you know, wanted to run statewide is now not you know, even people like Betto the Castro brothers, Like there are folks that like people can get excited about from a statewide and national level, and none of them even like looked at glanced at the governor's seat. And and and that's because he is so popular in the polls and because he has just
an inhuman amount of money to spend. And I don't think anyone wants to go anywhere near that, even in a year where I think people think, you know, Democrats nationally are going to kind of outperform, you know, their their their sort of regular baseline in this you know, midterm election.
And there was a rumor for a while that Colin Allred was going to drop out of the Senate race and run for governor. But he didn't even do that. He decided he was going to try to go back to Congress.
Right, I do think it's like sort of like someone has to run for it, and like credit to the Democrats who are trying, but sacrificial the sacrifice, I mean just the sheer amount of money. It's like it does matter how people feel about Greg Abbott. It matters more that like he's got the money and obviously the party support.
And a pretty sophisticated kind of political apparatus that he's been able to wheeld effectively, you know, to support himself, but also so you know, shape the legislature and other races in the way he wants.
And even further down, like he's probably he's vowing to like turn Harris County red. Right, He's like got so much money, he's like gonna start going, you know, doing offshoots.
No, that's kind of exactly what I was going to say, is that, you know, because he doesn't have a major fundraising challenger on the Democratic side, I mean, he's going to be free to spend his money however he wants to boost turnout in South Texas and the rear Grand Valley or in Harris County or wherever else he decides to support Republicans.
Yeah.
Also, I mean a little further down, is it we're not going to have a much of a primary here, so we won't don't need to like go over this to great detail. Dan Patrick, Lieutenant governor, longtime lieutenant governor up against Vicky Goodwin on the Democratic side. We didn't really see any surprises around the filing deadline with that race, so that's been said, right.
The biggest surprise there would have been before the filing deadline with Mike Collier, the previous multi time Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, deciding to take a shot as an independent in that and we'll see how the independent route goes.
Yeah.
And then attorney General, our first non Paxton attorney general race in over a decade. I mean, that one I think is shaping up. Maybe it's just because I'm covering it for the Tribune.
But like its shaped up to be a very very interesting fight.
We've got four Republicans, three Democrats, and certainly on the Republican side, like really a battle over like what does the next generation of the Attorney General's office look like. Those candidates are US current US Rep. Chip Roy, former DOJ lawyer Aaron Wright's state senators Mays Middleton and Joan Huffman, all presenting sort of different ideas of that office, but you know, all within the vein of continue this conservative litigation strategy.
I think it's amazing that you can have or four candidates in one primary and they all present a very different vision and a presentation of what it could mean to be an attorney general.
Can you break down a little bit like what that what that vision looks like by this candidates.
Yeah.
So chip Roy has been one of the strongest conservatives in Congress, you know, not afraid to buck with leadership when it when he needs to, and he's kind of bringing that to the Attorney general's race. But you know, at the same time, going after you know, talking about Epic City and Sharia law. That's kind of been some of his newer talking points. Seems to be newer on the trail. And Aaron Wrights has taking a very I
think he wouldn't mind me saying militaristic. I think that approach to the role of the Attorney general, talking about the the arsenal that the legislature is creating for the attorney general.
I mean he really, I mean using the language of war and like you know that the battle is happening.
In the courtroom.
Yes.
And John Huffman's you know, talking about her background in criminal law, you know, as a judge and prosecutor, and she wants to bring the criminal side, which historically hasn't really been the role of the Texas Attorney General, but trying to play.
In that relationship with the DA's and yeah, yeah, yeah, and.
Then Mays Milton has had I'd say it's more similar to Aaron Wright's, but with a calmer demeanor.
Yeah.
So I'm going to test out a take here and let me see. How how do you feel that it is that this is sort of like the sort of
like first post Trump primary. I mean, I know Trump is still in office and he's still there, but I feel like I look at this race and I see this sort of like different ideological corners that are there that have usually been brought together under the Trump presidency in the Trump candidacy, and now we know that, you know, in whatever future where Trump is not around, there's going to be kind of a jockeying for like who is going to emerge and represent those different corners, you know
in the national Party. This feels sort of similar to that right now, where it's like each of them sort of take their own cues from Trump and do the things that he does, but they they largely represent like a different idea of like where folks might want the conservative movement to go once Trump is gone.
I think, like in terms of like personality and style and like, you know, to that quick question like who who can sort of be the next Trump? Which so much of Trump is his personality and his like charisma and all that. I think we're seeing that play out, like do people want a fighter, do they want like a renegade? Do they want, you know, a law and
order conservative? I do think like broadly speaking, certainly three of these four people, and I think you could make the case for Joan Huffman as well, are pitching a very similar like some of this is splitting hairs, right, And I mean when we think about the fact that the Texas Attorney General's office is like the most important red state attorney general's office in the country, I think no one is like going to come in there republic No Republicans come in there and pitch like really blowing
up what Paxton's doing and doing something really different. It's just how do you want that styled?
Right?
Which I would say there's there are similarities of post Trump what post Paxton Paxston is in many ways a Trump like figure in Texas.
Uh and they all sort of want to claim the mantle, like they want to sort of make the case that they're representing what Trump represents, even though he might represent a different thing to different people.
Exactly right. No one is saying I'm going to do it that differently.
Yeah, let's move on from this guy.
Yeah right, Yeah, it's gonna be I mean, I just think a fascinating race, and we're already seeing a lot of campaigning. I mean, I think it is telling how important this office is for the number of candidates who
are choosing to run for Attorney General. Similarly, on the Democratic side, we have State Senator Nathan Johnson, Joe Jaworski, who has run at least once before, former Galliston mayor, and then a sort of political newcomer, Dallas lawyer Tony Box who has worked in US Attorney's office as well as like other legal background, So that will be interesting to see as well.
Yeah.
I mean, again, like a situation of like there's a lot of good, big, interesting names in the Democratic Party and they all seem to focus on that one US Senate seat as opposed to some of the other opportunities that might be there in terms of you know what was the year two thousand and two where it had like the Democratic Dream Team ticket. They did not get organized enough to do something like that this time around, and.
There was reportedly talk of trying to do that right multiple times.
Yeah, and you know, maybe when we get to the Senate we can talk about the reasons why. But but I feel like when I'm looking at the list, I really feel it in this AG's race, you know, it's
an open office. You know, most statewide voters in a general election frankly do not know who these people are, with the possible exception of Chip Roy, but even then, I think he has a relatively low name ID, and they really could have been a possibility to put a Democrat who maybe had higher name ID in that seat, and they did not do that.
It's the Democrats had no shortage of lawyers that they could have stuck in there if they wanted to.
Well, let's move I mean, we've been sort of talking around. Let's let's talk about.
I mean yesterday where we saw the most chaos was in the Senate race. We already sort of had this very contentious fighting primary going on on the right, which is you know, incumbent long time incumbent Center John Cornyn being challenged by Attorney General Ken Paxton, which has been just sort of already a real knockdown, drag out fight.
Then we had the addition of US Rep. Wesley Hunt.
The Democrats as of yesterday seemed to be trying to match that chaotic energy that they're seeing on the right. Renzo talked to us a little bit about you know, where did we start the you know, lead up to the filing deadline and where are we now?
Well, I guess going into the final weekend, it seemed like it was going to be I mean, we knew for sure Colin all Red, James tall Rico and jas mccrockett was very publicly a maybe, but seeming like she was leaning towards yes. And on the morning of Colin Allredd decides he's he's dropping out, he's running for Congress, deciding that, you know, a primary and very likely a
runoff is a bad thing for the Democrats. I mean, that's time that Democrats are would be spending fighting each other rather than unifying behind the candidate, while on the GOP side they're gonna be they're gonna be going to run off, so they're gonna be you know, they're gonna have that infighting.
Wasting a lot of time and money, or maybe not wasting, but using a lot of time and money to battle that out.
Did you watch the Crockett I did not, Okay, give us your take. Well, do I watch the Crockett announcement or the launch video, which.
We should discuss.
Yeah, I mean, I guess like one of the big questions I have here is you talk about the desire not to fight. We saw the James Tallerico statement that came out and he was sort.
Of like, welcome to the race. We wanted to be united.
Crockett, I think has built a very strong statewide and national following for being a fighter, right like the things that she said to Marjorie Taylor Green to you know, people like her because she's a fighter. And I'm very curious to see whether or how long that's sort of like let's all say nice things about each other in order to not damage each other, you know, idea lasts in this.
Primary, and I haven't seen.
I mean, she is I think James Tallerico is saying, you know, welcome to the We're glad to have you.
Let's all be friends.
I don't know that Jasmin Crockett is making any such promises. It seems like it's I mean, I guess I'm curious, and Menzo, maybe you have a better sense of this. Do we think that she is actively going to run against James Tallerico or is she going to Can she just run on the idea of like, vote for me and I'll beat Paxton, Vote for me and I'll beat Cornyan.
From what it seems like so far, it's all about Cornan and Abbot and going after the Republicans and energizing the Democratic base. I mean, she was on TV in the last twenty four hours saying, you know, she doesn't really need to win over Trump voters, that you know, she's going to bring in new voters.
Turnout, turnout, turnout exactly. She'll be interesting to.
I mean, I do think to some extent, maybe not contentious energy wise, but a competitive primary does draw people out in a way that a boring primary doesn't.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I completely buy the argument that like a heated, you know, hoighly contested primary is bad for a party. Everybody sort of talks about that, but it just sort of means that your candidate is in the news more, you know, like that there's a little bit more mind share there. People may be a little bit more familiar. I mean, I think if I were a Democrat, I would maybe be frustrated about again
the clumping of high profile candidates in this race. But I don't know if they should necessarily be afraid of a primary.
Yeah, I mean certainly you don't want to leave voters with the idea of like, ah, this is the only person we could find, like put them up right, it's like you want to feel I mean I certainly, particularly coming off of the twenty twenty four election, where there was some thoughts of you know, how did we end up with these candidates? How do these people get chosen? You know, run a competitive primary. I do think it is helped by the fact that alright is not running.
There's not three people we're not going to go to. They're not going to go to a runoff, like we're not going to see the like this might be a cleaner, messy primary.
And I guess, yeah, I guess we'll see.
Right, because if you look on the Republican side, I think you can envision you know, John Cornyan using his considerable resources to try to make it clear to every single voter in the state that you know, Ken Paxton has been under indictment and impeached by a Republican House and you know, was accused of repeatedly, you know, cheating on his wife. And that's probably not the kind of competitive primary.
You want, right But.
I mean, we'll see what happens with this Democratic race. Maybe they'll dig up some dirt on each other and that really damages them. But if if it's more about like substance, more about you know, the politics or the approach, and less about you know, the skeletons in anyone's closet, I I don't know if that necessarily is a disaster for Democrats.
Yeah, certainly. Here's a weird thing about me.
I the night before Colin Allred dropped out, there was some chat chatter in the politics channel about, you know, is he going to drop out?
Is he going to switch races? What's happening here? I went to bed that night and had a dream.
That I was at I was covering Colin Alred's wedding, but I was very very late, and so I had to steal a bike and bike there and it was very stressful.
You would have loved different, so you love biking.
And then Azi's I'm sorry was there and he was officiating the wedding. Gabby, our DC reporter, has declined to interpret what it means.
But if either of you have thoughts, I got nothing.
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna recuse myself from that.
Enough. If anyone listening has thoughts on what my dreams mean, would love that because therapy is expensive.
So okay.
So Allred was running in the Senate race. He dropped out, but moved inself over to the thirty third Congressional district, which is, after redistricting, one of two seats in the Dallas Fort Worth area that remains sort of viable for Democrats.
It has about a.
Third of his former constituents. He is now running against his successor in the House, Julie Johnson. As our colleague Kate McGee would say, it's a little Lionel MESSI uh, what do you make of all of this, Renzo, How is this going to shake out?
Yeah, well it's already gotten a little bit heated.
Yeah, yeah, particularly on Julie Johnson's part, saying I mean she received endorsement from Emily's List and said, you know, hey, women don't need to stand by, you know, be the placeholder for a for a man running for office.
I'm paraphrasing.
Yeah, And I.
Think it came with a little edge of like a man who has lost his previous races, you know.
Like it had a little it was a dig yeah.
Yeah, And I mean in all red statement, he was kind of saying that, you know, he's stepping down from the Senate race to clear the.
You know, save a contentious, more contentious primary.
Yeah, yeah, trying to clear a path for Democrats there. And I mean he got support from Jamie Harrison, who you know, was saying that this was selfless of all ready to step down inside to run for Congress again.
So I think you're going to have some I guess.
Another interesting part of this is that Julie Johnson had endorsed Tallarico very early, and you know that's all read successor going hey, I'd rather go with the other guy, right there.
Might not there may without knowing anything, maybe there wasn't already like love lost between them.
I don't know what their relationship.
Yeah, so it should be an interesting primary up there.
Yeah, it's seems like the kind I mean, like you said, like it's like the two step, right, the first step, people are like, that's a selfless move, step down for the good of the Democratic Party. Julie Johnson saying like, well, the second step where you went is like sort of maybe not.
As selfless or sort of stepping on me and my plans.
And I think she certainly seems like unlike she's not doing the tall Rico approach of like, well, welcome to the to the to the show. We basically just have because of the redrawing too many Democrats in one area.
Of the state.
The previous tenant of the thirty third congressional district before it was redrawn was Mark v Z. They redrew his district sort of beyond recognition. He lives in Fort Worth. The district was redrawn into Dallas.
There was talk that.
He would run for Crockett seat that she vacated, but at the very last minute he announced that he instead would be running for Terran County judge to try to unseat Conservative Tim O'Hare. Did that surprise you, either of you, I mean, from KNG risk to Terrent County Judge.
Well, that had been.
Pretty openly discussed for a while that you know, he might run for county judge, but that was almost kind of contingent on Crockett running for reelection as opposed to running for the Senate. So when it became pretty obvious that Crockett was going to run for the Senate, and it was like, oh, well, Mark Vic's gonna run for reelection in her district. And what ended up happening that morning, I believe was Pastor Freddy Hayes jumped into that race.
And you know, he's a well respected member of the community up there, and that would have been another expensive, contested primary. Yeah, and so maybe VC decided the best thing to do was to go for county judge, which I think Democrats think they have a serious shot at flipping Terran County.
Yeah, and that's I think that, you know, I mean, we're sort of looking ahead to the general now, but I think will be one of the most interesting races in the general election. The way that O'Hare has governed Terran County, you know, very aligned with you know, some of the most conservative members of the Republican Party. I
think Democrats would really like to unseat that race. Terrant County, of course, has been sort of a swing urban county, something that has you know, real meaning for kind of you know politics in the state as a whole. Obviously, they have redistricted that so Republicans, I believe, would most likely be able to maintain a majority on that court
even if the Democrat wins the county judge seat. But just I think a pretty fascinating and I think what will be a pretty hotly contested general election there.
Yeah, and the other Democratic Canada in that county judge race was that the Democrat that got drawn out of court.
District to ye.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, Tarrett County
is just endlessly fascinating. But I do think like when I did some reporting out there around redistricting, and you know, the sense from Democrats I talked to was that the part of the reason that they so aggressively pushed this redistricting plan was to ensure that if Tim O'Hare gets unseated, they could still hold the majority, because you know, it's harder to elect a you know, a county wide seat versus sort of these you know districts or precincts.
I think they're called so I just think like that race, like you said.
Holds so much sort of tea leave freading for the future of politics in Texas? Do people want this really you know, arch conservative approach when it has direct bearing on their lives versus you know, I think sometimes at the state level, it's easy to say, like, well, whatever the legislature does, like, how will that trickle down to me? I think at the county level, it's so you know, there's like they're outsourcing health and human services, they're cutting
these different programs, Like there's real impact to that. Let's run through some of the other congressional districts that are about to get much more exciting. Some of these are really significantly redrawn as a result of the twenty twenty five redistricting Texas ninth, which was Al Green, a Democrat who is at least recently best known for repeatedly trying to impeach Donald Trump. Well, now it seems likely be succeeded by a fight for who can be the most conservative.
We've got State Rep. Briscocaine, Alex Mueller, former US Rep. Steve Stockman, Renzo what are we looking at in Texas nine?
Yeah, Well, those are some pretty big names who are running for that seat. I mean Steve Stockman was the most recent entry into that, you know yesterday filing and perennial candidate exactly. I mean, he's held seats in Congress and two separate stints already, and and I believe he was was he pardoned or computed sentence from President Trump and.
Also a prior Cornyan primary challenger.
That's right, Yeah, yeah, So, I mean you've got it was already a big race that was kind of dividing folks down there, with Briscoe Caine, well respected.
Member of the.
Legislature and strong conservative kind of in and out of leadership, you know, then kind of being more of the conservative outsider again. And then Alex Mieler, the former Harris County judge nominee for the Republicans down there.
I mean, both would have been fairly big names.
Speaking of people who've had their sentences commuted or in this case pardoned by President Trump. Texas twenty eight we've got Henry Quayar, still a Democrat versus the Webb County judge, as well as Jay Furman. What are we looking at there? I mean, one of these districts that is sort of a question mark.
Yeah, I mean, Quaard is probably going to win his Democratic primary, and he seems to have support from national figures still. I mean, and Jefferies is kind of supporting him as well. That's been the case, you know, he's had the support of Democratic leadership in his recent elections. But on the Republican side, you've got I think the big name there is Tano tier Ina.
Who's the Webb County judge.
He flipped parties, was almost now a Republican almost a year ago to the day it was happy earlier.
So we have a Democrat who was pardoned by Republican President Trump and a Republican who you to be a Democrat possibly going up against each other in.
Correct, Yeah, and both yeah, both would have been while they were both Democrats. They both would have been conservative Democrats. So I mean, this is kind of a small lane that they are right.
It's I mean, it's such a statement on like the political leanings of the Rio Grand Valley. I mean, just each side sort of wanting to claim like total ownership over it. And the answer might just be like they want someone in the middle.
On certain Issuesah, can we just talk about the quair and I mean, you know, I mean, I think the most popular, so much has happened that it's sort of kind of washed over and then moved on that just you know, what the hell happened there? It's so fascinating, right, So he the pardon just sort of gets announced on truth Social. Everyone's like, what's the other shoe that's going
to drop? Is he going to switch parties? Quaar essentially, then you know, a few hours later, files to run in the Democratic primary, says that he like didn't even know that this was going to happen until it happened. And then you know, a few days later, Trump kind of blasts him on truth Social, saying like, you know, he's ungrateful or whatever, which.
Was just yes, saying he was he wasn't loyal to Texas voters and to his.
Daughters, right, which was an interesting I mean, the implication for President Trump, right being that when he pardoned him, he thought he would switch and run as a Republican, right, which is uh, you know, not great.
But he also said that he didn't speak to Quaar r.
Yeah, so he maybe had the you know, just be so grateful.
Yeah, yeah, but but then also just like how how how do you feel as a Republican candidate in that race, being like, we're going to go after him for you know facing, you know, federal you know, corruption charges, and then all of a sudden the president in your own party pardons him, and I think in some ways sort of takes that issue off the table because now all Koair has to say is like, look, even your presidential you know, the leader of your party is saying that this was a bs ridiculous thing.
I mean, it just particularly if you are gonna run again, as you likely are, as Henry Quaar has repeatedly like run to the middle right, and you're basically gonna say like, if you're a Republican, you can vote. You could like President Trump and vote for me. I could be Trump's guy in some ways, right, Like that's yeah, it has really muddled that path, I think for the Republicans hoping to unseat him.
Okay, another.
The Texas twenty three Tony Gonzalez versus Brandon Herrera and last minute entt entrant.
I hope I'm pronouncing its correctly, Kiko, that's right.
Keiko Consecco, former congressman who I saw on Twitter, responded to our Hurst colleague Bayliss Wagner, asking whether or not he had entered the race in French, which I found interesting.
Yeah, fluent in French.
Well, he yeah, fluent in several languages.
Fluent in several languages. If that's what you're voting on, you should know that. Yeah, how's that race looking?
Well?
I will say that when I called him yesterday, he said that he's kind of the mature Canada in this race.
In English, in English.
And then after we hung up, he called me back about five minutes later and said, I just want to be clear. When I said mature, I'm not talking about my wrinkles. I'm talking about.
Age and how that plays these days.
Yeah.
I mean, you've got a ton of Gonzales. This is going to be his third term if he wins re election, third or fourth. But you know, he's been there. But Brandon Herrera, the YouTuber, the gun tuber, the ak guy, second amendment activist. Uh, he took him to a runoff last year and nearly won. And that was before these allegations that are kind of looming over Tony Gonzalez that the Tribune has not confirmed that you know, he allegedly had an affair with the staffer that has since passed away.
I mean he has denied that very strong yes, but that is still looming over that race there.
I can certainly imagine that the Republican candidates are going to make that an issue, whether or not it's ever borne out to be true.
Right, I mean, Brandon Herrera recently went after Gonzales for that for the first time in a fundraising pitch.
Yeah.
I mean, just that promises to be a very messy race. I think.
Another one that's sort of just the most complicated thing we've ever talked about, and every time we talked about it, I get a headache, which is Texas eighteen, where we.
Currently have a runoff for a special election.
That is a Houston district sometimes called the Barbara Jordan District that has been without representation for close to a year now.
They have a runoff for that seat in.
Early next year, which is between the county attorney, Christian Menafie and Amanda Edwards, former Harris.
County Houston Houston.
City Council thank you, and then they will again soon after that. They are one of them is elected, they will have to run again in the primary. They've both entered to run the primary for the sort of the permanent seat, and then confusing matters further, Al Green has stepped into that district.
Lionel Messy.
I think we can say, I mean poor in that district.
Yeah, it seems like Harris County gets that a lot, where they have to vote back to back to back to back to back. I mean, this is going to be you know, there was this special election when Sheila Jackson Lee died. They were concerned, they being Harris Kunty Democrats, they were concerned at the time that you know, that was going to go to a runoff and then they just wouldn't have a member of Congress because the runoff would have been after the next term. So Sheila Jackson
Lee's daughter, whose name I'm sorry, Erica Lee Lee. Oh my god, well I think she might go by Erica Jackson Lee. That's right. Yes, she kind of cleared clear the waters there. And then Sylvester Turner ran in the you know, the general got swapped in on the ticket, and then he passed away shortly after that, and so it's really been over a year that that's been vacant because I mean Sylvester Turner was there, but very briefly, right, right.
I mean certainly it's been swapping hands in a way. That's like people in that district have not had consistent representation really since Shila Jackson.
Lee passed away.
A couple other districts, just briefly, I mean, Texas fifteen we've got Monica de la Cruz versus Ada Quaar and Bobby Polito, which will certainly get some eyes on that. And Texas thirty four the San die Gonzalez versus Erica Flores and Myra Flores.
No relation, Yeah, yeah, Flora's and Flores. I mean, it's kind of funny.
We've got multiple former members of Congress who are running again.
Right, We've got a lot of a lot of people coming in already.
And then there'sco there's Dockman, and then there's Mayra Flores.
It's also interesting, as I'm just like sort of looking at this list, it does feel possible that we really lose a lot of kind of colorful elected officials in Texas. Right, Like, there is a scenario where Ken Paxson is no longer an elected officials in Texas. Al Green is no longer an elected official in Texas. Briscoe Caine is no longer elected official in Texas. Jasmine Crockett is no longer an elected official of Texas. Like some of the people that like get the Internet the most.
Excited, even James Tallerico, even James Talerico.
Yeah, you know, we might not have anymore.
But then I look at this list and I look at who's challenging that. But I think I think we're going to be okay. I'm not too worried about losing the drama. Brandon Herrera comes to mind. You know, I think, certainly, I don't think. I think the one thing we can guarantee right now is that Texas will end this election cycle with as much drama as it started this election cycle.
Fair enough, that is basically what we are teed up for for the next three months of the primary or four months of the primary, and then several more months until the general election. It's going to be a very exciting twenty twenty six. If you want to follow along on all of the insider information, you can sign up for the Blast, where Renzo is the lead writer at support dot Texastribune dot org slash Blast. Rerenzo, thank you for joining us, well, thank you, Matthew, thank you as always.
That's it for today.
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