All right, good morning everyone.
I am Matt you while I serve the Texas Tribune as senior director of Events and Live Journalism. Welcome to those joining us in person here at the Tribune studio in Austin and those joining us around the state for our live presentation of trip cast breaking down the results of the twenty twenty sixth Texas Primary with some of
the state's best politics reporters. And we have a lot to talk about today in conversation with tripcast co host Eleen or klibanoff panel will discuss results from the Senate race battles for the Texas Legislature, what races are going to runoffs, and more. Our program will run approximately an hour, and we'll have time for a brief Q and A
so to get to as many questions as possible. You can submect questions through our Q and A portal at Texastribune dot Texas Tribune dot org slash ask that's Texis Tribune dot org slash ask and for those here in our studio, there's even some QR codes in the back which you can use to.
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You can visit Texastribune dot org slash amplify for more information. That's Texastribune dot org slash amplify. And we're going to have Eleanor introduced today's Tribecast guests. So let's go ahead and begin today's program.
Eleanor, thank you, hello, and welcome to this very special episode of the Tribecast Live the Morning After. Addition, I'm Eleanor Klebanov, law and politics reporter at the Texas Tribune. Not joined by Matthew Watkins this week, as he is, I assume just sleeping off an exciting night of primary results. We are very excited to just dive into what last night meant, you know, what we're looking at for the runoff where things go from here. So I'll go ahead
and introduce our panelists. We are joined by Renzo Downey, lead author of the Texas Tribune subscriber politics newsletter The Blast. Rerenzo, thanks for being here, Good to see you. James Barragon, anchor at Spectrums Texas Capital Tonight and once and former co host of the Texas Trip Cast. Welcome back.
Hi, Ellan, It's good to be back, Thanks.
For having thanks for being here. Patrick's v Tech Texas Tribune alum, current free agent who stepped in to help us with election night. Thank god, Patrick, Thanks for coming in from DC.
Yeah, I'm very happy to be here.
And bringing US bagels this morning, which was much appreciated.
I did not get a bagel.
Yeah, Like I said, I know, Texas isn't known for bagels, So that's the one cultural export I can make.
It absolutely and last but not lease. Brad Johnson, co founder and reporter at Texas Bullpen, thanks for coming two floors up.
Glad to be here. No idea what we're about to talk about.
Yeah, nothing to talk about. Very exciting night. Last night in some ways sort of played out the way we expected, some big surprises. Let's start with the big name race that we do have a clear resolution for, which is the Democratic primary for Senate. After weeks of i mean competing polls by the day, sometimes by the hour, that promised a very contentious down to the wire race. What we ended up seeing was James Tallerico came through with
a fairly decisive victory. As of now about he's got about fifty three percent of the vote to Jasmine Crockett's forty six percent. I mean, Renzo, start us off. What happened here? What are we seeing?
Yeah?
Well, I think what we saw last night is that having a robust campaign, having the money support behind you still matters. In Texas, and you know, the Republicans were potentially trying to boost Jasmine Crockett for that seat because she would have been a easier general election candidate to beat. So I think we're going to see a lot of national interest, a lot of national money come into this race.
And you know there's going to be some time for tell Rica to try to shore up, try to shore up the Democratic vote because you know, he wrapped that up a little bit, you know, two months before Cornin or packs that have wrapped theirs up.
So that's gonna be interesting.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, James, when you look at sort of the map and where tall A Rico performed, I mean, what are you taking away from that? I mean we, frankly, we just saw a huge Democratic turnout in general. How did that sort of help him?
Yeah? I think the Democratic turnout is a testament to both of these really exciting young candidates, these rising stars, and Jasmine Crockett and James Taller Rico, they both said they wanted to expand the electorate, go after young voters who have not voted, and every Democrat has to say that this is their playbook. We've heard every Democratic candidate to talk about this, but they happened to deliver. And tall Rico yesterday in his speech afterwards, said basically, we
got those young voters. We also got independents and Republicans who had not voted for Democrats before. And so his strategy worked. His campaign worked because that's what he said he wanted to do from the beginning beginning right expand that electorate, reach out to independence and voters that he thought were persuadable, and he seemed to deliver. And also just to the regions that we're talking about, we're looking
at the early voting. Last night, we were seeing Jasmine Crockett perform well in places like Harris County and Dallas County. And we can talk more about Dallas County if we want, because I know that was a whole debacle. But she was hitting high fifties, not really in the sixties, maybe low sixties in the places that she needed to be really really overperforming. Tall Rico up and down Central Texas in the early votes sometimes was at seventy five to
twenty five. I mean, he was a wrecking ball. And that's what you need. You need people who are gonna sort of understand the assignment and then execute it. And he did execute it. And you know, I think it's a real testament to Talla Rico because, as you said, Jasmine Crockett had the higher name ID. She's all over cable news, She's been on CNN, MSNBC, whatever you want. She had the higher name recognition in the early polls. I think throughout most of this I thought that Crockett
probably had the edge. And I have to give kudos to Rebecca Allen, politics editor over there waving at me. She's gonna sort of lurd this over me for months, but Rebecca thought that taller Rico was going to win. I was on the Crockett bus for until maybe like five days ago, until Friday or Thursday, until like last week, because I didn't see her executing the plan in the way that Tallarico was executing. I mean, he had a
ground game. He has a solid ground game. It seemed like he had a better way of dealing with the Dallas County situation. I mean, I talked to the Crockett campaign yesterday about what they were doing about voters being turned away, and they're like, we're jumping on radio and social media, which is fine, But I was talking to other campaigns in Dallas who were saying, like, we've got people there to direct them to the correct precinct, so we can beat this course to death as much as
we want. But social media is not real life. You still got to have the ground game, and tall Rico had the ground game.
I mean, Patrick, I'm curious you're read on this because I think there isn't. I think when Jasmine Crockett entered the race, there was sort of this, maybe some frustrations like what we're gonna spend I mean, Colin Allred was already in the race, but we're gonna spend a lot of time and money on a primary when we should be focusing on November. The counter argument is, you know, primaries test candidates, they show the strength of a campaign.
They'd let you see where those weaknesses are. It seems like in some ways this is a you know, example of that that you can start to see where the cracks are in a campaign before November. What's sort of your read on the Crockett campaign.
Yeah, a few things on that. I mean, that's certainly the.
Optimistic take from Democrats who watched this contentious primary play out.
I mean, they.
Cringed a little bit, but they also said, you know, this is you know, a great moment for us, almost unprecedented in recent history to have a statewide primary with two well known, well funded candidates duking it out, you know, having a good faith debate of ideas and political strategies. And I do think that there's some legitimacy to that and the idea that you know, they were each of
them were made better candidates through this process. I think that this process did reveal that, you know, as we've all I think agreed so far, that Crockett did not have as organized of a campaign as some of her supporters would have hoped for, which would have had potentially devastating impacts in the general election if she were the nominee, and I'm sure Democrats would like to know about those shortcomings now in her political operation versus if she becomes
a nominee and has to go up against the Publicans are going to just always be better organized and better funded in Texas in most cases. Number two, You know, I would say that particularly the outreach that James Tallerco did to Hispanic voters benefited him. I think in both a way that helped in the primary, but also a
general election. I mean, I think Hispanic voters were crucial for him in winning the primary getting the actual nomination, but it also doubled as a good test run for a general election where that voting block is going to be up for grabs. I mean, we have seen Hispanic voters, you know, particularly in South Texas geographically speaking, you know, become an increasingly competitive voting block between the two parties.
And so you know, tall Rico was smart to focus on that in the primary because it also will help him and make him a better candidate in the general potentially.
Yeah.
I mean, Brad, we saw this morning Jasmine Crockett conceded struck a pretty unify or unity tone. I mean, what do you see. I think let's talk about you know, we're going to come back to Tallarico's odds in the general once we sort of talk about who who is going to be on the Republican side, But in terms of where the party stands unifying behind this candidate as sort of their marquee, big name, what do you see in there?
I think Democrats decided not to give Republicans exactly what they wanted, which was a Jasmine Crockett top of the ticket candidacy. Obviously it's a counterfactual. We'll never know how a Jasmin Crockett would have performed in November, but there is a reason the NRSC spent so much money trying to get her in the race. And I think she was always going to at least she was always close to getting in the race without that, but they felt a need and a desire to do that, and there's
a reason for that action. Speak louder than rhetoric on this, I think. Another big takeaway for me, and I said this last night on the health site known as Twitter big money.
Known as xRy.
Please thanks for the correction. I appreciate that big money plays very bigly in this state, especially in a state in state wide races. You know, similar to James, I thought Crockett was going to get the nod. Maybe it would have been very tight, you know. Uh, Tellerico certainly had momentum, but with all the polling being a wreck, which is another thing we should discuss, pulling was a mess. I leaned on, Well, the celebrity is probably gonna win.
The other race I pointed to in making that argument was age. It didn't turn out that way, either it went the other way, and it turns out the person with that spent more money in both of those races came out on top, and came out on top by a decent margin. You know, nobody thought Mace Middleton was going to exceed Chip Roy and even get close. It was gonna be, you know, tough to do. So money's not everything, and it's not the whole picture of running
a good campaign. But if you just look at the the ad impact spread on television ad spending, tall Rico outspent Crockett a lot to have a little can I can I.
Just jump in here because I think it's I think it's interesting, and I do think to Patrick's point that this primary was good for both Crockett and tall Rico. I think there's a lot of lessons learned. But I think Talla Rico. The reason why I was on the Crockett train so much is that in this day and age, sort of when there's a President Trump and the White House,
politics are so combative, there no holds barred. Crockett presented somebody who said, I can rival that on the Democratic side, which seemed like something that Democratic candidates wanted, and I think they still do. I mean, it's what's the what's the score of fifty three, forty seven or whatever. I mean, it's still a tight race. I mean it's not it's it's not it's not. I mean, it's it's pretty I mean,
it's it's closer than we've seen other primaries. I guess, so there are a significant amount of Democrats who did want what Jasmine Crockett was selling. I guess to your point of it makes them better candidates, it makes tall Rico a better candidate. He still got to level up a bunch, doesn't he. I mean, he's still got to get that adopt that fiery side. Because to Brad's point, tall Rico spent thirty million dollars, executed it super well,
did what he needed to do. But he's going to go up against either corn or Packs and Cornan just spent seventy million dollars attacking to people, tall Rico's gonna get attacked, and how's he gonna respond.
Yeah, that's a great question, and you know, all things, you know, considered, I don't think the attacks that tall Rico faced his primary in terms of actual paid media advertising, were that intense. I mean, you know, the Crockett campaign and the pro Crocket super pac ran ads talking about you know, the campaign cash he's gotten from a bipartisan pack connected to you know, top Trump donor Miraam Needles. And that was kind of the biggest paid media attack I saw on him.
No, a Democrat wants to expand gamble exactly.
You know, So that's pretty But it was social media they were I mean they were sure, sure, I do.
I do think that the social media discourse was a good points for him, but the paid the paid media what most Texans were actually seeing, you know. As far as negative information about taller Ricle, I thought it was pretty mild. And so that's that's just to say I agree with you that it wasn't like taller Ico was tested that strongly on how to deal with paid media taxing this in the primary, and he's gonna happen.
Like particularly full throat at a tax like I think between one am last night when it became clear that they were going to call it for him to now I've seen that that clip going around of you know where he said, you know, Republicans are saying you know, he was saying, God is non binary. I've seen it on my Twitter like a billion times. They're going to Republicans are like on a dime.
Just remember, just remember what happened to Colin already. You know they've got to be prepared for this. And that's my big question. How does tall rical respond to those kinds of things?
Yeah, I mean, let's talk about the other side of the ticket, because before we can Republicans can even really get to reigning hell fire on James Tallerico, they.
Have to rein here.
Rain go hire on each other, engage a little friendly fire, the least friendly fire we've seen in a long time in a Republican primary, Renzo. I mean last night John Cornyn, did he overperform? Did he perform how we should have expected? What did we see on the Republican side?
Is Cornan still up by one and that he's up by like one and a half points.
Right aw, twenty five thousand votes.
I don't think many people expected Cornan to be in the top position of that runoff, and that's at testament to his experience, his the number of campaigns he's run in Texas, UH and Paxton. The Paxston campaign didn't feel like it lit up until very late in the cycle, you know, trying to focus their attention when more people are going to be paying attention. But there weren't as many Cornan attacks as you were. I mean, everything was Paxton Wesley Hunt attacks right as far as you know I was seen.
But yeah, I mean the Wesley Hunt spoiler of this, right, I mean, what is your read on who those who gets those votes now in a runoff?
As far as who gets those votes, I'm not sure I could see that going either way. But I think that Wesley Hunt did his job in that he prevented Cornyan from winning outright last night?
Was that his job?
Well, it was a job. Who gave him that job, who gave him that job? Who they they gave that's what they wanted him to do.
Yeah, yeah, I mean part of his reason of why he jumped in was that Paxton wasn't out there enough. That was his initial pitch of why he was jumping in. And so so his vote sharees seemed to make the difference. So here we are, you know, I.
Mean, yeah, I mean Hunt was clearly gaining some momentum I think earlier this year, and that's why you saw this rush of spending against him kind of around maybe it was like late January, early February, kind of in
the weeks right before early voting. So I think Hunt was a real threat to make potentially make the runoff, and that alarmed both Cornyn and Paxton's camps, and in they're outside groups because corn and Paxton want to face each other, both want to face each other if there was going to be a runoff, They're both more familiar
with each other. The battle lines are more clear, and so you know, I think Hunt, you know, had some real potential earlier this year, but he ultimately can not overcome you know, I think there was like eight to ten million dollars worth of ads against him, you know, as it became clear that he was maybe competitive for runoffs, and.
Paxton's huge popularity among the Republican base, right, I mean, he he was leading the whole time, which I think, going back to Renzo's point, I think it can't be overstated how good of a night it was for corn I mean, obviously he didn't win it out right, but his plan all along has been to get into a runoff. That's what he's been saying all along. He wants Paxton in the runoff, they're gonna spend a whole ton more money.
And they again they executed their plan. We did see hunt rising and then you had to like sort of punch down and make sure he stayed down. And it wasn't a huge threat, but Cornyn's team had executed. And again, social media is not real life. You saw people dunking on him because he had these like small campaign events and it made me think sort of Joe Biden in twenty twenty with a small campaign, and what did Joe Biden do. He eventually became the President of the United States.
I mean, these people are running good campaigns and I think it was He's Cornyn is still leading that races. But that's an overperformance.
It's an overperformance in the context of this race, right.
But for people you were saying he was dead in the water, of course.
Right, But for a long time incumbent, like a well respected state senator to be you know, barely eking out sort of this victory over I would say a candidate with a lot of baggage I was I saw this morning. You know, team Cornyn has sort of started pushing this judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton messaging, and then I saw a state representative, Mitch Little just tweeted back,
why wasn't today judgment Day? Like kind of like, you know, you think that like another three months of this is gonna suddenly, you know, change everything, and voters are going to really change their opinion on Ken Paxton. Brad, I don't know if you have thoughts on where this is going.
It's a big wonder whether which way the Wesley Hunt voters go. And I think the question there is which is a bigger brand problem in terms of who they're picking. Is it Cornyn's moderacy or relative moderacy or is it Paxton's personal baggage? And I guess then they have to make the decision. Do they want to give Democrats exactly what they want, which is a Ken Paxton led ticket? Doesn't matter? You know, this is still a red state
until proven otherwise, and it has been getting redder. And the conversation among a lot of these activists is, so the hell, what you know, who cares if Kaxson's the top of the ticket. Maybe we don't find that ideal, Maybe that's going to cause headaches for us, but this is still Texas and to this point, the blue wave hasn't materialized at all.
Patrick, yet, I'm just gonna say, well, we're still talking about Wesley Hunt. I'm actually more curious where Wesley Hunt's financial backers go rather than his more than where I'm curious where his voters go.
And that's because.
You know, I'm a junkie, But I mean, you look at the amount of outside money that was spent on Wesley Hunt's behalf in this campaign and in the several months leading up to the campaign to build his state wide name ID. A lot of it was anonymous money that we still don't know the source of, but it
was significant, and by some measures, more outside money. I think I could by objective measures, you could say more outside money was spent on behalf of Wesley Hunt in this primary than it was on behalf of Ken Paxton. So clearly there is some heavyweight donors that have been hanging back, shielding their identities behind the scenes supporting Hunt, and so I'm curious where they go, because, as we just discuss, money matters a lot.
This mysterious day that we're talking about. But apologies to the crowd, because we've been asked about Wesley Hunt and all four of us are like, well, who knows, you know who? They could go either way.
Really, somebody could find out.
Here's the thing, Actually it does. I mean, I guess we'll see if Wesley Hunt makes an endorsement. I guess. But really the important thing is does President Trump make an endorsement and does he take into account what Brad just said, which is that James tall Rico is now the Democratic nominee. This is the scenario that Republicans Senate Republicans have been fearing, where James Talerco potentially runs against Cam Paxton. Does President Trump say I don't like that matchup.
Cornyn looks like he can win it, and Cornyn he's got Chris la Civitta on his side. Lasibitta sent out some tweets yesterday that are not family friendly, and we can't say, but they were much stronger than judgment day about what they plan to do to can pack in this in this runoff. So I think that is the big question and sort of what happens.
There, Renzo, how would a Trump endorsement blow all this up?
Well, I actually almost wonder the strength of the Trump endorsement at this point, based on some other races that happened last night.
But we're gonna we're gonna get to that.
Within the Senate primary. I think obviously it would put things more in Cornin's corner. And I think another point about corn In with just how strong of a surprisingly strong of a campaign he ran and being able to turn out voters across the state. I think the conventional wisdom had been that in a runoff, the the excited, the animated anti corn voters we're going to be the ones who would turn out more, and that corner would
be doomed in a run off. But if it is such a low turnout environment as en typically are, then I think last night Cornan proved that he's able to turn out his voters.
So you know that's another point, is calm, I.
Say, yeah, I think we are obviously going to see Republicans spending a god awful amount of money and spending a lot of time and energy fighting each other. You're James Tallerico, you kind of get to like stretch out till the general, pinch your pennies a little bit, spend your money on building that general election campaign. I mean, how does that advantage him? Brad, you want to take that.
How does that advantage Cornyn tall Rico. Sorry, yeah, I'm sorry, I tuned out for a second. Tall Rico's When I look at a tallar Rico candidacy, and I try and look at it from the Republican side, I am not really caring about the Senate seat. Yeah, I don't want to lose that if I'm a Republicans. But I'm more worried about down ballot in the Texas House specifically, and that is people in our sphere. That is what they've
been talking about for days and days and weeks. You know, they already had the ads cut with Jasmine Crockett's viral moment. Whether it was taken out of context or not doesn't really matter, because the ads would have been run about the slave mentality of Hispanics in South Texas who voted for Trump. That's not the case anymore. And Tallarico performed very well down there on the ground. Sentiment I heard was the valley is very excited about tall Rico, and so I think.
That I think you mean Pallarico.
Tallarico.
Sorry, I'm white, is Rice. I can't. I think that more than anything is going to have is going to be the biggest effect in this race in November. The Senate seat is one of one hundred. If Republicans, if they're a majority in the House, drops significantly or even they lose that in my view, maybe it's because I cover this every day that is far more significant than one Senate seat.
I mean, well, first of all, you know, we're gonna get Tallerrico in the valley. We're also going to get I saw the tweet going around. A very exciting thing, which is getting to hear President Trump mispronounced tall Rico probably, which gonna be so fun for everyone.
I like how James pronounced it.
Yeah, yes, that's how they pronounced it in the ad. You guys, this is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Nobody canceled me.
Please any better you than an give the rest of us something? Please don't especially, I mean, so, I mean, this is going to have it. This is sort of this marquee race. We did see Democrats turn out in huge numbers, sort of comparably, we're seeing these little pieces of the puzzle. I mean, we saw a Senate District nine flip for a Democrat in Terrent County for the
first time in decades. Slash potentially ever, and yet a Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since nineteen ninety four, Patrick, is this the year the Democrats really changed that?
Before you answer that, how many times have you been asked.
That on this change off this stage exact chair?
Yeah, you know, I don't know if this is the answer to the question, but.
People don't usually tell me that they're dodging the question. They just do it.
Look, I think the moment is very similar to twenty eighteen first mid terms of a you know, of a Trump term. So the national environment, you know, favors Democrats. And I think tallar Rico is is similar to Better or Work in some ways. He's different from Better or Work in some ways at least different from the twenty eighteen version of Better or Work, who was a little
resistant to professional political advice in that race. And I think some people looking back on that race, which you know, betto, would have taken a little more professional political advice and he maybe would have beaten Ted Cruz. I think tall Rico, just based on watching him in the prime Mary clearly is willing to take professional political advice and surround himself with you know, knowledgeable and very capable consultant.
He's got the opposite, maybe a little bit of paraality exactly.
Yeah, yeah, you could, you could argue go too far in that direction. So those are some key differences I think between Tallerrico now Beto in twenty eighteen. But you know, we saw in twenty eighteen this is now drussing more of the Republican side of the race. We saw in twenty eighteen how a Republican you know, can win a Senate race in Texas, but it could be closer than his party wants it to be and there could be disastrous effects down ballot. You know, Ted Cruz won by
I think three percentage points in twenty eighteen. But down ballot Democrats picked up two US House seats, they picked up I think a dozen state legislative seats, and then there's like politically, there's a ripple effect, you know, that creates new stars within the Democratic Party in Texas. Two of the people who picked up seats that cycle were Colin all Red and James tallerco and they ran for statewide office and continue to build the Democratic bench in Texas.
And so that's all to say, when you have a Republican who underperforms at the top of the ticket. You have to consider all these down ballid effects, not just in the moment, but how it could launch the careers of people who can continue to try to try to change the face of power.
In Texas, something that I think we need to take into account. Patrick's absolutely right about the general environment looking very similar to eighteen. Something we don't know how it's going to play out. Is there's no more straight ticket voting. Is that a good thing for Democrats or a bad thing for Democrats when we get to November. I don't know, but it is a big difference, and probably it doesn't
play much at the top of the ticket. But what I just said about down ballot in the state House, you know, that could very well affect things massively and be a different factor compared to what we saw in twenty oh.
But that's probably good for James Taller Rico, right, because when you said the thing about straight ticket voting, I said, oh, probably bad. But then tall Rico's counting on crossover voters.
Well, it could be good for tall Rico, but not shift the rest of the environment.
Here's a broader blue Yeah, I see the other thing I'll say about the original question of what does this do for tall Rico.
There's this truism in politics, right if your opponent is what you guys said, hell fire is raining down on them, you just get the heck out of the way. Just get out of the way. Let those two guys shoot at each other. And I think tall Rico is going to be very good actually at campaigning with down ballot people, better or rot. There was a criticism that he wasn't great at that. I think James tallerco he's a creature of the house. Oh sure, he's out there with Bobby Police.
He certainly understands the importance of it. But it's a different thing entirely mechanism wise to going getting motivated by tall Rico, casting your ballot there and then making it all the way down the ballot versus just hitting one button and going all the way down ballot for Democrats.
This is the reality we live in now, which is no more straight ticket voting. There was this criticism, I think from the Crockett campaign, which was that he didn't care about down ballot races, which I thought was completely unfair. I mean, he's a guy from that su I think he's going to be very good at that, probably has learned that lesson from Beto O'Rourke. I think it's going to be interesting to see sort of how they coordinate.
But listen, they're Texas Democrats. Always an opportunity for them to fumble.
Thank you for that. Let's talk about money, which we've sort of been alluding to. Obviously huge money at the top of the ticket, but in two races slightly lower down the ballot on the Republican side, we saw the impact of just huge spending. In the attorney general's race, which you mentioned, May's Middleton self funding close to twelve million dollars of his own money to his campaign, really putting him on top of Chip Roy they're going to
a runoff. And then in the comptroller race, Don Haffeins, who loaned his campaign ten million dollars, just wanted outright jumping over Christi Kratick and the sort of pseudo interim or pseudo incumbent interim comptroller Kelly Hancock. Renzo. Is it just all about money? Is that the only thing that matters anymore?
Middleton's first name is Maga, right.
That's that's correct.
Yeah, yeah, because based on all the ads that.
You're Maga Maze Middleton yet.
Just you wait, yeah, so I'm sorry, what was the question?
Is money? The only thing that to get the Maga May's joke out is money? The only thing that matters? Can you buy an election?
Well, when you've got a race where I mean nobody really knows any of the candidates, I mean, Chip Roy would be the known name in that, but uh, as we've been talking about at the top of the ticket, just getting that with the money, with the ads, getting your name out there is still you know, the most effective way, it seems. I mean, I think we were all in that social media bubble where it seemed like Aaron Wright's was a movement, but Twitter is still not real life. Yeah, this many years later.
I mean, Packson's chosen successor and Aaron Wrights yes calling forth of four and.
Yeah yeah, And I was going to say, I mean, I think this all proves that running state wide in Texas is a very humbling experience. And even if you enter a primary with high name ID, a national profile, you know, strong endorsements, if you don't have the money to spread that message statewide, then you're at a serious disadvantage and I think you would apply this to the You could extend this kind of to the power of
the Trump endorsement as well. You know, Trump endorsed so many people in this primary in Texas, and even if he didn't endorse someone, they had him in their ads, you know, and he was just ubiquitous whether he endorse someone or not. And as a candidate, you know, you have to have the resources and the political know how to be able to deploy you know, your ads in a way that cuts through all that noise and makes
clear that you can own your Trump endorsement. And that's really hard, especially if Trump endorses you late in the game. You know, Sid Miller, the agriculture commissioner who lost reelection, you know, finally got his long sought Trump reelection endorsement on Friday, but it was after early voting had ended. We were going into the weekend. You couldn't really submit
any more TV ads to the stations to air. And so that's a moment where, yeah, you got the Trump endorsement, but do you have the money or the strategy or the professional know how to get it out? And I don't think Sid Miller in that case had all of that. Maybe he was, you know, maybe he was going to lose no matter what. But there's a contrast with Don Haffines, the comptroller candidate who romped to victory, but he also got a very late Trump endorsement the same Friday night
that Sid Miller did. And I talked to his campaign and they said, you know, they had the ads already created just in anticipation of a potential endorsement, so that within twenty to thirty minutes after Trump put that post on true Social, they were calling state you know, they were calling station managers and saying like, hey, can you get the TV ad up saying we're endorsed by Trump.
And so again that all goes back to just my broader point that if you don't have the money to get out that message statewide or the political know how, then you know, some of these things that we consider big advantages a Trump endorsement high name ID to begin with, aren't really that big of advantages.
I've talked about this potentially even on this podcast before, but like at my nail salon, it's just all the TVs just show like a YouTube channel that's just like AI generated videos of animals playing with each other interrupted
by Don Haffins ads. That is just like I mean, that's just like the they're just buying ads, space and time everywhere that if you went to that nail salon, you know, once a month for six months, you would be like, Don Haffines is the only person running from office in the state of Text Well.
Can I can I jump in here? Because it's two things. It's not just the money, because there have been people who have a lot of money. Tony Sanchez, right and Russ what did he have like forty million something ungodly right, seventy million, seventy million dollars in two thousand and two for Tony Sanchez from the Dream Team and just was a complete dud. I mean we refer to that as the biggest laws I think in in a ticket for the Democrats. So you can have a lot of money
and do a bad job. Don Huffines had a lot of money, did a good job. But who runs his campaign or who's his big political consultant, Alan Blakemore, he knows how to run campaigns in Texas. He knows how to run Republican campaigns in Texas. You gotta have to know how. And the other thing is that it's incredibly humbling to run a state wide race in Texas to Jasmine Crockett. And this is why I was on the Jasmine Crockett train for so long in terms of thinking
that she would win. We've been watching this woman win races that she had no business winning for the last six years. I mean, she's talked about it. She said the establishment was against me when I ran for the state House. The establishment was against me. Of course she got the EBJ endorsement, but most of the establishment was against her when she ran for Congress. So I said, this is a person who has something here. But running in a congressional race, as Colin already found out, is
very different from running a wide race. You've got to be able to level it up all that much more. And that's why I'm watching Talla Rico and sort of what he does to level up in this next phase of the election.
One of the big winners of this election cycle was Terry Lowry and his link letter. If you look at the the money spent by these candidates made Middleton, John Cornyn was actually on it. Don Huffines bou French was on it. It's it's a mail piece that is sent out to every every Republican voter across the states, and it's pay to play. But the pay to play works, it turns out and every one of those candidates outperforms what we thought they were going to do if not.
In hulf Fine's case, went out right. You know, of all the polling bo French we saw he was down at like eight percent. He was on all these slate cards link letter being the biggest one but not the only one for Railroad Commission, for Railroad Commission, thank you, and uh it's it works, it really does. And you look down ballot further at some of these House candidates. Dennis Geeseman just upset Stan Kitzman. You know, he was
on a lot of these slate cards. It's it's kind of a dirty tactic, but politics is dirty and it works. And in watching the results come in, I couldn't help but think man Terry Lowry is going to make a killing next cycle.
I mean, right, it's a huge state. It's hugely expensive to get your you know, TV ads up if you can sort of get in with those sort of key key players, which often also cost money. I mean, let's talk about the Trump endorsement and the Abbot endorsement, which frankly a muddled night for both of them. We saw Governor Greg Abbott endorse Kelly Hancock for comptroller who lost,
but Nate Sheets for AGG commissioner who won. Meanwhile, across the exactly across the you know line, we saw Trump endorse Don Huffins for comptroller who won and Sid Miller for AGG commissioner who lost. Does any of us mean anything, Renzo, Well, no, you can say.
No, Yeah, I know.
I just assumed that a voter who doesn't know any of the candidates, doesn't anything about the race, but has decided they're going to go vote, is going to google, you know, the candidates and who's endorsed them, and uh see that Donald Trump is back to this person and be like, oh, no, there it is. But uh, you know, in this mid term, President Trump was not on the ballot. And you know, I think that in some of those races like uh CD nine down in you know, Southeast
Texas with Briscoe Caine and Alex Mueler. Uh, those are races where uh, you know, that's not the top of mind for voters.
Uh.
And you know, at that point, I think it probably becomes a bit more of a coin flip of where they're actually going to go. And was I think when we saw the strength of the Abbot endorsement was in the Texas House, the state House primary cycle twenty fourteen, when you know he was touring the state with those candidates, going to their districts and boosting the vote for them in the area. But with a bunch of these congressional races, Like was like, how often did have it show up with Brisco Caine?
I don't know, not often, yeah, right, And certainly like on the Trump endorsement, I mean, it's like a true social post that you then get to put on your ads. It's not like boots on the ground.
And I also think there's been some people in conservative circles discounting the the validity of a Trump endorsement, like does does President Trump actually know these people or has somebody told him to endorse?
Uh? And there's that mysterious day.
I think it's it's less complicated. It's that somebody mentioned all the ads, maybe was Patrick, that all the ads had Trump on it, and everyone's calling themselves a mega conservative. How do you know the difference between who has a specific endorsement and who just loves Donald Trump?
Right, Maga maze, you would be led to believe was endorsed by Trump.
Right and exactly. You know, I think the endorsement still has a lot of value, But when it's getting drowned out by every single ad you can possibly see that has Donald Trump's face on it, people don't. People don't go look up who is endorsed by who they see the TV ads. And if one candidate is touting a Trump endorsement or blazoning Trump's face on everything and the other one's not, they're going to be more likely to go that way. But if they're all doing it, then it's kind.
Of a wash.
And I'll just add two things on that. Trump really didn't do much for his endorsed candidates this cycle in Texas beyond issuing the truth social you know post. The most he did beyond that was he appeared in Corpus Christi on the Friday afternoon, on the last day of early voting, at an ostensibly official event, and brought a couple of the candidates on stage to say a few words. We've seen in other places in the country and even in Texas, what Trump can do when he really cares
about a race. I mean he'll come and do multiple candidate, multiple rallies with that candidate on stage. He will go on the attack against their opponents. His political operation will activate and reach out to who they've identified as the you know, Trump loyalist voters in Texas. You know Trump even you know, does these telephone rallies the night before elections. I didn't see any of that. There's any evidence of
that this time around. So Trump's endorsement was ubiquitous in his primary, but he didn't really you know, put his shoulder into it from any of these candidates.
Will we see that in the general though, Like, does that shift as we go into a general election? Potentially?
I think so? Yeah, I think Trump Trump.
He spoke to a local TV reporter after his rally event in Corpus and said that he plans to be involved in general election in Texas.
But Trump says a lot of things. I mean, how involved is he going to be? I mean, he's got now we're dealing with the situation in Iran. We don't forget Venezuela. He's got dealing with things in Congress. He's got a lot of things going on. The economy is not.
I think that'll all be wrapped up by be wrapped.
Up by no. But here's here's my point. Here's my point, and I'm going to earn my pro bone no paycheck from the Texas Tribune for this event. If I'm going into the runoff, Patrick, I would rather have Abbot's endorsement than President Trump's, because Abbot is pounding the pavement. He's out there holding events with his with his endorsed candidates, and he knows where to go find the votes in Texas. I mean, before the AP called the ad commissioner race,
the governor called it first. The governor congratulated in a sheets and they said, basically, we're done. We know this state better than the AP essentially, which they probably do because they know where to go find those votes. He's going to go pound the pavement. And also, let's not just I also, I think the Abbot endorsements are going to count a lot. But I've got to point out
because I told her I would. Kate McGee, our former colleague here at the Texas Tribune, did a fantastic job covering Nate Sheets, and Nate Sheets had a great and Sid Miller and Nate Sheets had a great ground game. Things that Kate. I'm reading Kate's tweets right now. Miller was up for reelection a couple of times before, and the Texas Farm Bureau did not endorse him. This time. They did not endorse him again, but came out for Nate Sheets. A lot of Sid Miller's enemies came out
of the woodworks. He ran a good campaign, but I still say, if you're going into this runoff, you'd rather have Abbott on your team here in Texas than Trump, because Trump will forget your name if you lose an St. Nine race. Yeah.
At that same Corpus Christi event, he mispronounced multiple congressional candidates that he had endorsed.
He mispronounced their names, which speaks to.
Your point, I mean, and to your point, right, you can get the Abbot endorsement and then just stick Trump's face on all your mailers and you know, sort of get the same message out.
I think the reason Abbot was so effective last year was not really the power endorsement, although it does carry some weight because he is in a Republican primary, fairly well liked, but it was he spent all this money, specifically for these House candidates. You know, Mark the Hood had Abbot face to camera talking about how he's better on the border than Steve Allison in that race. That's why it was so effective. We didn't see that this time. You know, Abbot did do some ads for Kelly Hancock
and was taking him around the state. You know, he could argue whether huff Finds was just running away with it or not. But it wasn't.
Hard to be right of hulf Finds on immigration.
Yeah, it wasn't the same kind of brawling that Abbot did in twenty four because Abbot was on the ballot himself and he's trying to his well. A big part of his strategy was running ads across the state, particularly in the non metros, to boost turnout, because when you get someone who turns out in the primary, they are
far more likely to be a general election voter. So he had more things on his plate than just I'm going to get this school choice bill and to hell with all your Republicans who voted against it.
This was a different cycle, which is interesting. I mean, I think that there we've seen a lot of politicians who have success flexing their muscles on one thing and then say like, I'll just keep doing that and see what I can sort of get done, and maybe over time sort of that power diminishes. So I think we're certainly seeing Abbott. I mean he has threatened to, or you promise, to use his massive war chest to turn
Harris County red, to turn the Valley red. I mean, I think we're going to see a lot of involvement, but it certainly maybe a little bit more judicious than President Trump coming in and you endorsing.
He's going to spend a lot of money to turn both those places red.
I think, good thing, he has a lot of money on his side. I mean the other piece of this is a weird night for incumbents. I mean we talked about Sid Miller, who has been the Agriculture Commissioner since twenty fifteen, has withstood a lot of scandals, a lot lot of baggage, a lot of just weird headlines about him over the years. Was polling was showing him really leading going into the election, and then you know, lost
pretty thoroughly to eight sheets Renzo. I mean, anything we can read in the tea leaves from that.
I think that as you said, Sid Miller has had this comment. Yeah, but I think Sid Miller in particular also did not get along with Greg Abbott in particular, and just the Austin environment, and so.
It's a good euphemism.
Yeah, yeah, but just say the swamp Prenzorenzo.
Yeah, No, I just think that in that particular race, just all the money, all the support was there for or make sheets. Yeah, I feel like it's as simple as that.
Yeah, to borrow some language that we used in a takeaways piece for The Tribune this morning, I mean the Trump and I think what last night show is the Trump endorsement remains powerful, but it does not absolve candidates of all the unique issues, the issues that may be unique to them, you know. I mean you still need to, you know, not have a massive personal scandal that you're
dealing with. If you're Tony Gonzalez, for example, you still need you still need to have the campaign resources and know how as we discussed, to deploy that endorsement in an effective way in the case of similar perhaps and so, you know, the Trump endorsement just doesn't solve all your problems. You can't get that Trump endorsement and just rest on your laurels. You also have to be, you know, running a good campaign and not dealing with other baggage that could counteract that.
I think she's just ran a fantastic campaign, kept the pressure on the whole time. Miller expected a Trump endorsement to come in, and it did at the last minute, but probably too little, too late at that point.
And that's the other thing. That endorsement came so late Friday night early voting could closed. There.
I'm here and there's a pretty three hours later. Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's it just did. It didn't break through, and Miller didn't have the money to make it break through. And if that had come, you know, the Friday before early voting, like all the other Trump endorsements did, then you might have something there. But he banked on rural Texas coming out and saving him like it had done before, not just saving him, but pushing
him way up. Sheets ran away with the suburbs. I think looking at the map, it's pretty clear, and I think a lot of that's the slate cards. I keep harping on it. But it was a tremendously effective move for him, and he also had the money to be on TV. Miller didn't pretty basic.
I think yeah, the other I mean you mentioned Tony Gonzalez and incumbent who is now facing a run off with Brandon Herrera. Just replay of twenty twenty four where he beat Herrera by four hundred votes. The difference obviously being that Tony Gonzalez now has a very significant personal scandal hangovers head allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. Patrick, I mean, how messy? How much messier is that race going to get? In this runoff?
Well, I want to see, first of all, if Gonzalez is actually going to stick around for the runoff. There is a period after the primary where candidates who qualify for a runoff can choose to have their name remove from the ballot, effectively handing the nomination to the other runoff opponent. That happened in I believe it was twenty twenty two when Van Taylor also was rocked by allegations of an affair in the days before his primary.
He got forced into a runoff.
He admitted to the affair, apologized to his constituents and said I'm withdrawing from the runoff and I'm not seeking reelection.
We'll see you know, if Gonzales does that.
Last night, he had a tweet that said onward to May, so it's clearly trying to signal that he's not going anywhere. Of course, I'm sure he's you know, there could be a renewed push by House Republican leadership the White House today to get him to drop out of that runoff. So I don't necessarily look at his tweet last night and think that means he's actually one hundred percent going to be in this runoff. So that's the first question I want to get answered, is Gonzales actually stick around
for the runoff. If he does, he's he's definitely the underdog. And I mean this is if you look at the numbers, you know, he you know, his support plummeted from early voting to election day results, which suggests to me that the toll of that scandal, which kind of broke out the beginning of the early voting period, really began to sink in as we got closer to primary day, and he ended up as as of before we came to this taping, you know, he was actually the you know,
in the second place spot behind Brandon her Era. So you know, he's got a really tough race ahead if he sticks it out.
Can I just jump in to say, as you were speaking about whether Tony Gonzale should step step aside here, I got an email from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics and Washington crew saying the headline Tony Gonzalez should resign. So there's gonna be a lot more growing pressure. But then what happens, because then you get Brandon Herrera and then what does that matchup look like against a Democrat? Yeah, that's true.
What I've something that I've heard from you know, Republicans in Washington is you know this this this time around, in terms of the battle from the majority, they're they're more focused on the numbers rather than getting the right kind of Republican. And so I think that actually benefits Herrera here, that Republicans are just so desperate.
I'm saying for the voters of CD twenty three, sure have an appetite for.
Yeah, But from the perspective in DC, maybe because of the environment this time around, you know, leadership is less concerned about getting a Herrara in that seat as long as it's a Republican.
Briefly, Brad, we saw another incumbent just eliminate entirely in Representative Crenshaw losing to Steve Toath. What happened there.
There's a lot of national punditry talking about you know Crenshaw there. I know that he is finally getting knocked off. I think this is just a very hyper local situation. He pissed off a lot of people in the district and couldn't overcome it. Part of that was his voting record.
But you know, the the when during redistricting there was an adjustment made I think because Toath got caught on camera saying some bad things about Trump, and they in one of the revisions that ended up the final one, they adjusted CD two a little bit and it was supposed to advantage Crenshaw and it didn't. I think his candidacy had just run its course. And you know, Toath ran a good campaign, but he's also a state rep
there and he had a base of support. And also, this is Montgomery County, or largely Montgomery County we're talking about, which is you know Moco Loco, right, It's it's a crazy place. It's one of the most conservative counties in the state. And they do things like this and they booted his butt out.
You can't run too far to the right in Montgomery County. Yeah, I like ye, James briefly, and then I think we're going to go to audience questions. But you know, redistricting, we saw shake up a bunch of other things. We saw Julie Johnson, you know, into a runoff with Colin all Red. We saw Al Green and Christian Menafie head to head. We look ahead to the general where we're gonna be able to finally get the answer to was this mid decade redistricting a boon for Republicans or a
dummy mander? Is the Democrats like to forecast? How does what is it?
How?
What was the impact of these new maps and all that drama on the primary?
I mean the impact on the primary, of course, is the Democrat on Democrat battles. You're mentioning Christian Menafe versus Al Green, which is going to be a very interesting race, but an incumbent there now, I guess two incumbents technically fighting it over, Julie Johnson now having to fight with Colin all Red. That's really kind of Colin Allredd's whole deal. He jumped into that race late when Julie Johnson ha
said she was in it. But there's another incumbent in trouble because I think Colin Allred was leading that one. And then here in Austin, Lloyd Doggett and Kasar having to sort of duke it out, Lloyd dogget having to sort of get pushed pushed out. But the Republicans, I'll say, whatever happens in November, right, Brad, whatever happens in November, the Republicans have finally succeeded in pushing out Lloyd Doggett through redistricting.
So it was all for the Republicans, you know. That was the long That was the one that we we got to get dogged, the Long Con. Yeah. Yeah, Well, I think we've got questions from the audience, if.
You if you'll permit me here, if I can just jump in right here. You know, I used to co host this podcast with on Our Clibenof, she's a good friend of mine. A couple of weeks ago we were sitting around and she said, you know what I would really like for my birthday is to sit around with four guys and just dissect the primaries and dissect the primaries. So we've already fulfilled wish one. Then she then she
told me, I wish there was a crowd there. I wish there was a crowd there, and that they just gave me a round of applause for it being my birthday. You guys think we can make that happen. That's thank you, Happy birthday.
I appreciate that. Honestly, thanks to the election, I've gotten to be awake for almost all twenty four hours of my birthday, and that's exciting.
So I also think I was standing next to Eleanor and James today when we acknowledged.
We would not talk about the birthday, but here we are. Yes.
So a few questions from the audience, and I know it was something that you had hoped to cover, but questions about what now in terms of Dallas and Williamson Counties, what happened, both the what it means in terms of process and so forth, but also a number of voters who felt disenfranchised and what that means for campaigns needing to remedy those relationships. But also just in terms of investigating what happened.
James, can you give like the thirty second overview of what happened with Dallas and Williamson County.
Yes. Basically, the Republican parties decided that they didn't want to do county wide voting, which those counties had moved to something like ten or fifteen years ago, which reverted them back to doing precinct voting. Under Texas law, if one party decides to go back to precinc voting, then
the other party has to do so as well. I will say this one caveat, and that led to confusion from voters who didn't realize that county wide voting had been eliminated for the primary, so they were showing up at the wrong precincts. That led to a lot of confusion, a lot of voters being turned away, and obviously these lawsuits ensued to extend polling hours. The Supreme Court of Texas got involved. I will say this caveat this question of disenfranchisement, I think is a bridge too far. Obviously
it was a huge inconvenience for voters. But these counties knew it, the parties knew it, the campaigns knew it, we all knew what the rules were. I think it's a bridge too far to say that it was disenfranchisement and I will.
Say, I mean, like I think the Democratic Party was saying, like they've been warning the GOP about this potential impact since they made this change, but.
That I was in the election spent a million dollars to educate people about it.
Yeah, and also, you know you have an obligation to you can rail against the GOP, you also have to educate your voters and make sure they're getting there, which I think some of the campaigns made it stronger effort on than others. But I mean chaos at the polls in Dallas and Williason County. I think essentially it sounds like Dallas County is saying, you know, if you were in line at seven pm, your vote counts, and that's where they're kind of leaving it. But we'll see what unfolds from there.
Sophia from Austin asks turnout in the Senate primary was historic, but down ballot was still barely above one million, and many other statewide contentious selections. Much of the country will look at the headlines and think that voters are really motivated, but they're hardly breaking double digits among registered voters.
What are your thoughts, Brad.
Do you want to take that. I mean, you're I met sort of the down ballot, are we what's going to be the impact?
And clearly there was enthusiasm at the top of the ticket, no question about it, both with contentious primary fight on the Republican side and also for the first time in a while, a Democratic one as well. So clearly a lot of enthusiasm. But that enthusiasm drops off down ballot. You know, I think people might be a bit harsh to say voters are lazy, but you know, like it, see.
Voters are busy with a lot on them, with a lot on their mind.
Okay, But if you're already at the poll and you're casting a ballot for tall Rico and you don't go down ballot.
Right, well yeah right, I would assume they're thinking, I don't know, I don't think they're like, it's so many.
Times they didn't get down to the buck they did, and I think that's just kind of baked into our society right now, Like it takes a lot. Think of how much money these campaigns are spending just to get people to go. I was in I was in Lubbock last week and I'm sitting at a bar and I hear these two old dudes talking next to me, exactly the kind of demographic John Cornyn wants to turn out and help him get above Paxton. And they acknowledged that there was an election, uh this week. One of them
asks are you gonna go vote? And he goes, hell, I don't know, then goes oh, I might not either. I mean, campaigns are spending a fortune to try and get people exactly like that to the polls, and they're not. They don't even know the Wednesday before the election if they're even going to turn out. I'm glad I'm not a I'm glad I'm not a consultant running a campaign, although they're probably making pretty good killing on it.
But it's better than some I mean, the most one of the most search terms that takes people to the Texas Tribune website every single election day is when is election Day? And like people, it's like a real voter education problem and civic education problem.
I go back to my government class in high school where I was the only one awake the entire time, and look at.
You, now, I know right, yeah, Patrick was.
Just say, if you're if you're a Democrat concerned about turnout in Texas then you should be asking James tall Rico, what are you doing in the general election to build a coordinated campaign that integrates with down ballot candidates and make sure that you guys all rise together and that you know that there's not as much of a drop off and turnout down ballot because that is in battleground
states and truly competitive states. You know, that is the traditional role of the candidate at the top of the ticket.
Yeah, absolutely, Just one one more question. Ashley from Austin asks, based on assertions in the memo from Cornn's camp this morning and conversations I've had with other staff, Paxton being on the ticket will drag other ours down throughout the rest of the state has had a strong enough in argument to get to the to get the Trump endorsement. Will state GFP leaders quietly asked Trump to help Cornyan.
I mean, this is the big question, right, Is Paxton actually a drag on the ticket? I don't know, Patrick, Do you have thoughts well, I.
Mean we saw polling during the general election. I'm sorry during the primary about this question, and honestly, you know, especially toward the end, I didn't find it particularly decisive either way. I mean sure, there were polls that showed that, you know, John Cornyn would beat James Tallerico by a wider margin than Ken Paxon, but to me, not by
that much of a wider margin. And so, you know, I think one of the more realistic and convincing arguments is the one that I advanced earlier, which is like, you know, sure, maybe Ken Paxon can win this race if he's a nominee, but he would underperform potentially in a way where there is damage down ballot, and that damage down ballot, as I point out earlier earlier, could be very significant to the future of the parties in Texas.
Well.
I think our politics reporters who I know are also finding important news during this event for joining us this morning. With that, I turned it over to Allan Ars close us out.
Fantastic, Well, thank you guys so much for joining us, Thank you all for attending. The events like this are made possible by the Texas Tribune members, so we encourage you to go to our website become a member, support our work, and thank you all for your wonderful insights today. Thanks for coming, Thank you