Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune Trip Cast for November ninth, ninth,
twenty twenty two, the Day After Election podcast, live and in studio.
Welcome to everyone who has joined us in the room and also to those
watching us on the Lime live stream. My name is Matthew Watkins, Managing
editor of News and Politics for the Tribune, and this week I am joined
by politics reporter James Bartergan. Hello, Hey, James. Demographics reporter Alexa
Ua, good afternoon, and assistant to the regional manager Evan Smith. Yes,
I'm here to beg your groceries at the end. That's right. Do
you still work here? I don't still work here. No, Actually I'm
a ghost. All right. So obviously we're talking about the election last night.
It was simultaneously a fascinating and kind of oddly routine election for Texas.
Here we had Republicans kind of sweeping easily in the statewide offices, growing their
margins, you know, somewhat slightly in the legislature and reaping the rewards of
redistricting from twenty twenty one, but they failed to reach I guess what you
would maybe call their reach goals, which would be, you know, winning
three congressional seats in South Texas and knocking off Lena Hidalgo, the Harris County
Judge. All that to say, you know, I still think a pretty
successful night for the Republicans. We're going to talk about all those different races
and all those different things, but I think we should start at the top
of the ticket, where you know, for the last two years you could
have said about Governor Greg Abbott that at times he felt like a little bit
like a man without a base, a political base at least where you know,
on the right, on the most conservative wing of the party, the
most trumpy wing of the party, there were a lot of people who were
unhappy with him, particularly with his early actions on the pandemic. And then
on the left you had Democrats very upset over many things, most recently what
they were portraying as political stunts on the order. Then we come to election
night and he wins by eleven points, and I think you could argue,
and maybe we will argue about this later, that he might have had the
second most successful night of a Democrat, I mean, of a Republican nationwide.
That's that eleven point margin, you know, way bigger than the margin
that Ted Cruz beat Betteau O'Rourke four years earlier. So, Evan, I'm
gonna go to you first. Were you surprised by how thoroughly and easily Abbott
defeated a Rourke? I was, although the outcome is not that surprising.
We thought that Abbot and also Dan Patrick and Ken Paxson would win, and
they won. We thought the margin would be a little narrower, and we
were wrong. I actually think there's the election says more about a roork than
it does about Abbot. I'm sorry to not accept the premise of your question.
Betoo Rourke raised about seventy million dollars maybe a little bit less, which
is about seventy million more that Lupe Valdez raised four years earlier, and the
margin in those two races was basically the same. Donors could have spent about
seventy million dollars less to get the same margin they got four years earlier.
I mean, the premise that our work was going to win this race was
one that was hard for me to accept. All along, Governor had a
good night, Democrats had a bad night, but it wasn't entirely surprising,
you know, Yeah, James I think if you look at the national press,
the narrative coming out of last night is that it was a pretty surprisingly
good night for Democrats. That is not I don't think. I don't think
you can make that argument in Texas. What do you think the difference is?
Why did they not fare as well here as they did in other parts
of the country. What's a couple of things. I mean, there's systemic
barriers for Democrats to win in Texas. I mean, they've been out of
statewide power for nearly three decades. District thing and jerry mandering also, you
know, plays a major role. A lot of those races that were competitive
or that the Republicans were targeting had been drawn to benefit Republicans and make those
more competitive for them. So in certain sense, they don't have the same
advantages that national Democrats have, and they have a lot of the same disadvantages,
so it's tough for them. But I mean, also, the party
infrastructure is not super strong, and I think it's probably questionable how much stronger
it can get, particularly after a rough night like last night, where people
have spent money in big races like better Works, multiple races at this point,
really and you know, something that we were talking about just this morning
is just like, where's the funding going to come from for future democratic races,
whether that state house races or state wide races. I think that's going
to be a problem, and it's a challenge they've been facing for a while,
but now it just gets even worse. Maybe. Yeah. I mean,
we've talked about on previous podcasts about why is anyone sending Rochelle Garza any
money? Why is you know, this supposedly very vulnerable attorney general candidate.
Why is she not getting the support of the party where it seems like they
I'm sorry, the vulnerable candidate of course being Ken Paxton, not Garza.
Why why is there not that party support? And you know, I think
someone could answer that and say, look at these numbers. She lost by
nine point nine percent. She lost by just a little bit smaller of a
margin than becho Ork lost, And maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe
that would have been a waste of money. Maybe that money was better spent
going to other states where it's a little bit of both. I mean,
it's the party infrastructure and organization that I was talking about, because I mean,
she she wasn't a super strong candidate to begin with, it was her
first time running for any elected office, and trying to jump into running for
state white office when you're her first time around, it's very very difficult.
I mean, it's a big state. You got to have a lot of
money to do it. And when you jump into that with no name,
I D no political experience in the past. I mean, it's an uphill
battle. But then to your other question, I mean, like would and
you could sort of see it when she was here for Tripfest, she kind
of put her other panelists on blast at her at her panel and said,
like I am the best shot that we've got, and like, why aren't
people funding me? Like I'm a Latina, I'm a woman, Like I've
got a vulnerable opponent. Why aren't people funding me? Which I think sort
of hurt some people's feelings. I mean it's not great to, you know,
sort of tick off other panelists on there, But I think it.
I mean, she had a valid point and maybe some of the seventy million
dollars that were going to bed or Rourke could have gone to rachelle Garza and
maybe it makes a difference, but maybe it doesn't. I'm not sure that
she was the best candidate. We should also know turnout though, I mean,
if you look at we know that turnout during mid terms tends to be
lower than these sort of high watermark presidentials, which isn't great for Texas because
we sort of barely have half a registered voters vote in the presidential But if
you look at I was looking at the numbers just before coming up here,
but twenty fourteen, the turnout was in the thirty percent mark. Twenty eighteen
it got up to about fifty three percent right now, and the governor's race
turnout is around forty something. I think it might be forty six last I
looked, So, I mean, sure, we had close to the same
raw number of votes from twenty eighteen, but with more registered voters, turnout
is actually lower than it was in twenty eighteen. And I think a lot
of us went into this election thinking it would maybe compared to eighteen in terms
of turnout. It didn't get there at all. You could argue, you
know, would folks have turned out had there been more investment in an exciting
candidate that they could have gotten behind? Sure, but I think it's hard
to not to those numbers. Did not think that Democrats really can't do well
unless we hit something close to fifty percent turn out, and that's just not
normal for a midterm election. Let me just jump in and say a word
on behalf of Governor Abbot, and then say something about the Democrats, who
I actually think maybe more than your question had a good night overall, even
if they didn't have a good night on the statewide level. So I don't
like newspaper endorsements. I think they're stupid. I think newspapers should stop endorsing
candidates. The newspapers won't listen to me. I read the endorsements, even
though I think they should stop doing them. And I read the endorsements and
the governor's race. Houston, San Antonio, Austin endorsed Betu A. Rourke,
Dallas and Fort Worth endorsed Governor Abbot. And there was a line in
each of those endorsements in Dallas and Fort Worth that was almost the same and
it said, essentially these words, Texas is a prosperous state. It's the
economy. Stupid. Governor Abbot did what he did despite the many issues that
Democrats thought that they could prevail on abortion, guns, what have you.
Because the economy of the state is healthy. It's resilient. When we have
bad times, the economy holds on. In good times, our economy takes
off. The unemployment rate in Texas is low. Sometimes the simplest answer is
the obvious answer. Why did Greg Abbott beat bet to a Rourke Because the
economy trumps everything else. You may not like that. Other people may not
like that, But to me, that's the explanation. I'd also say that
what we've talked about Alexa and I talk about this a lot, is that
geography is as much destiny in Texas right now as demography is. Rural Texas
turns out to vote in extraordinary numbers and saves the bacon of Republican state wide
candidates. It did in twenty eighteen, it did in twenty twenty. It
did again in twenty twenty two. Whatever margins bet to urk ran up into
urban counties or in South Texas wherever the suburbs were effectively a draw. Republican
and Democrats fight to a draw. I think it was a little bit less
the case this time than in the last election cycle twenty twenty. Rural Texas
turns out an extraordinary numbers delivers votes for Republicans, and at the end of
the day, if Democrats can't figure out how to talk to rural Texans,
they cannot be competitive statewide. It is a very short conversation, but on
the Democratic side, I will say this state wides turned out badly. But
if you had told me Greg Abbott was going to win by double digits and
yet Myra Flores would lose her congressional race in the Valley and the Democrats would
essentially hold on in South Texas, including winning the Eddie Lucio seat Morgan La
Montia narrowly beating Adam Hinehjoso, I wouldn't have believed it. If you had
told me that bettu Rourke would win Harris County by only about nine points,
but Lena Hidalgo and the other county wide Democrats would also hold on, I
wouldn't have believed it. It was a weird night. The top of the
ticket did not necessarily predict everything else. And by the way, as you
say correctly, this legislature looks almost exactly like the d in terms of the
partisan breakdown. They did redistricting and they played defense to shore up Republican seats,
but they underperformed. Even by that standard. They only added one Republican
in the House and one in the Senate. I don't. I mean,
I think Democrats actually could find places where they thought it was a better night
than counterpoint. I mean, should Democrats be playing defense in South Texas?
Should Democrats be playing defense in Houston? No? But you know what,
like take the win, right? Yeah, But if we're looking at this
from a big picture standpoint, about is Texas becoming a more competitive state politically
over the long term? No, Well, then there you go. I
think there's a lot of Democrats who believed, you know, a week ago,
that the answer to that was yes. And I think if you look
at the history of Greg Abbott in particular, you know, he wins in
twenty fourteen by over twenty percentage points. He twenty sixteen happens, Trump wins
what nine points something like that. Yeah, twenty eighteen happens Abbott wins by
around twelve percentage points. Beto Arourke comes extremely close. If Beto loses by
six in this race, I think you can look and you can say that
trend line is still going on. You talk about the urban or the rural
firewall, you can look at the way the state is changing. It is
a state that is becoming much less rural, it's becoming more suburban and urban
areas where Democrats have been growing. Of course, demographics as well, the
state becoming, you know, the less. You know, the white non
Hispanics are now the not the largest demographic group in the state. But then
you have to kind of pause after this, and Alexi, you talked about
how the turnout did not match twenty eighteen levels, and you, I think,
have to begin wondering what was the outlier here? And you can look
at twenty eighteen where that turnout was so much higher, and it starts to
look more like an outlier than something plain out in a trend. And I
think if you're a Democrat thinking long term about this state, that's got to
be pretty concerning to you. I think if you're a Democrat, you're kind
of wishing in some ways that Trump was on the ballot in one way or
another this selection, because if you look at the margins over time in a
lot of these counties, it narrows when people are either reacting to Trump because
he's on the ballot, or it's in the midterm election reacting to that first
term of his as president. I mean, it really is a driving factor,
and without that, there's not a whole lot to write home about.
I also think, though, to Evan's point about this weird night where you
had some outcomes that were good for Democrats of top less gray at the bottom
or the opposite, we should also note that this is the first state mid
term without straight ticket voting. And I think in twenty eighteen we saw these
sort of sweeps of Democrats in a lot of these urban counties and people notice
that, but guess what, we had straight ticket voting, and so people
could select at the top and vote for every single Democrat on that ballot,
and that helped them. And this time around they didn't have that. Let's
suck a little bit more about Greg Abbott here. So you disagree with my
idea that he might have been the second most successful, well, I think.
I mean you're talking about Rod DeSantis being for the most successful. Well,
I think he did fine. And if I'm Greg Abbott or I'm the
Avid Political Operation and I'm looking at twenty four, I absolutely think that the
result last night positions him to run for president. I think it's going to
be a crowded field. And look, he's had a successful run with an
economy, you know, ninth largest economy in the world or whatever it is
that's consistently been, you know, at the top of all the rankings.
Like I think, I just don't think it was about him only last night.
If you look at what happened in Pennsylvania, doctor Oz obviously not performing
well. If you look at what seems to be happening, I guess it's
maybe too early to tell. In Arizona and the governor's race, for instance,
you see a situation where some of the most Trump aligned Republicans, some
of the more non traditional Republicans, did much more poorly than the Dysantis and
Abbot, who have both pursued very conservative policies over the term over their times
as governor, but have not kind of stylistically been the same as Trump.
And I can have it, Bear hugged him the way. That's exact,
people, you're referring to it exactly. And so if I'm Abbot right now,
what I'm saying is that I just showed you with DeSantis. Maybe you
don't say that part out loud, how Republicans can be successful, you know,
across the country moving forward in kind of a post Trump world, and
the way that Trump was a drag on the ticket for Republicans in Texas in
twenty eighteen and twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty probably as well. When you
remove him from that equation and put me at the top of that ticket,
we do a lot better. Well, I think it's easier said than done
when Trump is not running in the same election cycle. But when he gets
in, I mean, he just like sucks up all the oxygen out of
the room. Like I don't know if that will be a successful pitch.
Like once, if President Trump decides to jump into the presidential in twenty twenty
four, I don't think that Abin and DeSantis can clearly make that argument to
voters because Trump's base is so strong and so loud that I just don't I
just don't know. I mean that that may be the point, and I
did see Republicans talking about that, like we you know, this night proves
that we've got to move on from Trump if Republicans want to be successful,
But I just I think it's a lot harder, it's a lot easier said
than done. And even run if Trump runs I'm so glad you asked.
See. I actually think there's a much higher probability, and I think Trump
is probably going to run now. I've been thinking all along that Trump might
not run, or if he did run, he might not be the nominee.
The latter still remains to be seen. It looks now like the former
is gonna happen. He's teasing next week as an announcement date for a presidential
campaign. I think the probability, or the possibility at least of DeSantis running
regardless of what Trump does, is high. I have a hard time imagining
if Trump runs that Abbott runs. I could be proven wrong about that,
of course, but I just don't know where the lane for him is right
there, So we'll have to see. I mean, I totally agree with
your point that well Trump, I don't think Trump picks him as his VP
if he runs against him in a primary. I'm not sure that he would
be Trump's VP anyway. Trump's already gonna win Texas to the next presidential race.
Abbot doesn't really get him anything. Carrie Lake gets him something. Now
she has to win the governor's races this time. Christy nom well picking a
woman probably helps him in some respects regardless of where from. But again,
is Aba gonna run to your question, is Aba gonna run if Trump runs?
I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, Well, speaking of
people who run, Vetto O'Rourke has now run for three races. That's what
you call a segue. Yes, thank you, thank you very much,
thank you very much. He has now run three campaigns in four years.
He has lost them all. He has kind of been the standard bearer,
the kind of de facto leader of the Democratic Party during that entire time.
This, as you said, Evan was not a good loss. I mean,
he basically performed as well as the unfunded Lupe Valdez in twenty eighteen.
Is this the end for him? I think you can read an excellent story
on Texas Tribune about this very subject. You know, who knows who knows
politics is a crazy thing and that people can come back from basically the dad
and go on and have really successful I think, you know, even his
comments last night talking about this may be the last time I'm up here talking
in front of you all. The next person, the next door work that
will be on the ballot might be my wife Amy. That was a joke.
But you know, just comments like that I think indicate to you or
to everyone really that he may want to take a break. And to be
fair, I mean, running campaigns, particularly statewide campaigns in the state as
big as Texas is really friggin hard, and so like, he probably does
want to go home and spend time with his family, with his wife and
kids. So you can't really blame the guy. But also just politically,
it might be good for him, not just personally and for his mental health,
but it might be good for him to just like give give it room
to breathe a little bit. Right, People do have bit or work fatigue.
Voters certainly had it, and at this point voters had made up their
mind even before really the real start of the race about better o' work and
whether they liked him or not. So you know, you give it some
time. The positive name I D you know, goes down a little,
but you know what goes down more the negative ID and people might just the
same way that now people talk about President George W. Bush in some democratic
areas of the country and they say, gosh, we really missed that guy.
But you know, when he was president, they didn't really they didn't
really like him. So if you give it some time, you know,
maybe he rehabs his image. Maybe he reba rehabs his name. Also depending
on what he does, maybe he runs a nonprofit, Maybe he goes,
I don't know, to Wall Street. Maybe he becomes an organizer or a
big time fundraiser, fundraiser for the party. God knows they really need both
of those. So, you know, can he is it over? I
don't think that it's over. He's still a big name. It would be,
I think, unwise to completely send him out to pasture. But what
does he do next? I think that's that's the big question right now.
He's basically the Buffalo Bills and that he was very, very promising and got
there and got very close a couple of times. But I think he's Harold
Stassen, which is a reference that none of you on this stage are going
to get because you're too young. But I think he's basically somebody who ran
and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran, and now he can't
run anymore. I don't think he could run again. I think it's over.
I think this is it. I think I take him at his word
last night and the party needs new people. Where is everybody else? Yeah,
and better's defense, It's not like there are other people lining up to
run for governor that he kind of cleared out of the way. It was
basically him or knowing it almost felt like, right, he basically had to
be convinced to run this time because nobody else was running and the rest of
the ticket wasn't a super strong ticket, right, And so he came around
at a time in twenty eighteen where they were desperate, they had nobody.
And remember in twenty eighteen, I think the Texas Tribune pool showed that,
like nobody knew who Bette or work was when he started that race, and
he barnstormed the state and then people he sort of captured that lightning in a
bottle, but nobody knew who he was. So to his credit, I
mean, he did sort of revitalize this like minority party that just had nobody
to challenge. Ted Cruz didn't have a bench, still doesn't have a bench,
and he fulfilled a certain role over these last four years. But I
think there are major questions of could that money, those record breaking amounts of
money that he raised, could they have been put to better use by other
Democrats and also by bettel Ark himself. Like if we're talking about like organization
and fundraising, like some of that money, I think other Democrats and other
Democrats down ballot from him would argue, hey man, you could have you
know, spread the cheese around a little bit. How are should Democrats be
about their bench? Right now? What bench? I mean, it's interesting
to have watched Bethel run for two statewide offices now and kind of run separate
from the party sort of. I mean, they would have these sort of
events with the candidates, but that was never part of them. I don't
think that I'm not sure that they There was a lot of like tension between
them, but they weren't operating together in any sort of way. But I
also, I mean, the thing is, it's like, what are the
pathways to a bench for Democrats in Texas? Really? The only thing are
county judge positions, right, I mean, how there's nothing you can't go
much higher than at the state ledge. If you're in a seat that's been
jerrymandered, you know, you're just trying to hold on to it. I
just don't know that there's even a whole lot of field on which for on
which Democrats can even build up the bench. I think there's some interesting members
of the congressional delegation that you could look to. You know, Colin Allred,
Veronica and Escobar has made a lot of these. Lizzie Fletcher has shown
an ability to run and you know, more conservative leaning districts. Obviously that's
not true of her district anymore. I think one of the questions there though,
is, of course it would take a lot to convince them to leave
their comfortable seats and all because being in Congress is such a great thing.
Well, you know, it's you don't lose. They all they are all
now in districts that they can already's got little kids, and he might like
the idea of being back in Texas if he could figure out how to get
himself from there to hear. Look, I think all Read and Escobar are
both really talented Democrats like O'Rourke, escobars from El Paso. No one from
El Paso has ever been elected statewide in the history of Texas. Would be
interesting, actually, if she made a run at that. I think those
are two good suggestions. I think we're past the Castros, probably as statewide
candidates maybe, right, I know there was there's always been some discussion of
that. You know, I'm curious to come back to Lena Hidalgo about what
surviving this near death experience last night means for her. Right, She's an
enormous talented She has controversies, as everybody in elective office does from time to
time around her, and that was actually what put her on the back of
her heels in part this election cycle. But she she cheated death in this
cycle, so she gets another four years in this job. She's like barely
thirty one. I think there's been a lot of assumption to Alexis point about
local officials potentially being and also, she's the chief executive of a county that,
with four point six million people, Harris County would be the twenty fifth
largest state if it were its own state. You know, why did Lena
Hidagg run to gov for governor? She's already governor. She's governor of Harris
County, right, So I mean, I think you have to assume that
she is potentially somebody in the mix among the mayors that would be the other
category of people, you know, Sylvester Turner, Yeah, Eric Johnson eh,
sounds so excited. Well, I'm just saying like, if you're asking,
I mean truth tests this, are those people potential state wide candidates anytime
soon? But was I mean, was Bethel a potential state white candidate the
first time he ran? No? And I agree with you and James's point.
Nobody knew who he was. I think, by the way, that's
one of the differences between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two. People said,
well, he did so well last time, why didn't do so well this
time? Because last time he caught everybody off guard, and this time he
caught nobody off guard. The fact that nobody knew who he was the first
time was a feature and not a bug. Yeah, blank slate, right,
I mean, I think are there other people in the delegation for whom
that same or to whom that same thing could apply? All reads an example
sort of has a great resume, you know, Yeah, but you know
you mentioned the Castro. Is the reason that Castro's time passed was because they
kept it seemed like they kept looking at races and saying this is past year
and then passed And you know, joa king Castro I think still has a
strong presence in the state, but he's kind of rising through the ranks of
Congress. Of course, you know that, you know, seems unlikely that
Democrats will continue to be in control of the House. But you know,
you also it also has to be a situation where someone is willing to step
up and take that risk, and there are a number of talented people in
the LED slates roll though it's very hard to go from a House seat to
a statewide office. You know, I was the editor of Texas Monthly when
we published a story that saying Raphael an Chia is going to be the first
Hispanic governor of Texas. That was like two thousand and six. It's sixteen
years later. They still can't get him to run for anything other than his
seat. Trey Martinez Fisher is going to run for Attorney General any minute now,
just wait. Leaving aside the question of whether either of those folks would
have been successful, or anybody from the House would be successful, there are
a lot of people who have been mentioned to your point about the Castros overtime
as potentially that white candidates who for whatever the reasons, don't jump off.
You got to run. You can't win if you don't run. You might
not win if you do, but you certainly won't win if you don't.
And we wrote a story before the end of like the filing period last year,
which was like, why is better or running again at the top of
the ticket for this party that's supposed to be like the you know, the
Party of diversity, right, And we talked a little bit about like the
lack of a democratic bench, and a couple of things go into that.
One is that, yeah, people don't want to shoot their shots because they've
got pretty safe seats where they're doing a lot of the things that they want
to do. But also that like there just isn't sort of the infrastructure for
them to take two three bites at the apple like there sometimes is for Republicans.
Like you know, Eva Guzman is a good example. I think they
put her away or can packs and put her cam packs and put her away
in the attorney general primary this year, but she's still like in the like
ether of like Texas politics. And I don't think it's a big secret that
Greg Abbott and Date Feelin really would like to keep her around and ever be
a state wide candidate and another another time, but like that opportunity isn't offered
to democrats a whole lot, particularly democrats of color. You know, you
get a lot of better bettle works, you get a lot of Wendy Davis's,
Mike Collier, we haven't talked about mikeller also a three time loser at
this point, stay right, right, right. Candidates of color don't really
get that opportunity. It's like once you once you lose, you're you're done.
So it is, it is difficult. I think there has to be
some infrastructure and organizing to allow people to take multiple shots at it. And
you also, like it's also on the candidates, like you gotta you gotta
be good at politics, you know, like I think counterpoint to your Lena
id allgo thing like is she that talented? Like I'm sure she can.
She's governed well, I think, uh in Harris County, but the politics,
like she's not very good at the politics. Like that race I don't
think should have been as close as it was. Uh, she she really
got like out outran uh in terms of like Meeler's campaign did so much damage
before they started responding, And you really got to wise up if you want
to run a successful state wide campaign, which is the same thing that happens
to like most of these like Democratic camp it is, which is they swing
so far to the left by the time you want to swing back to the
middle where you're probably gonna win in a state like Texas, too, it's
too far. You've gone too far. And that's probably what happened to Betto
too. He was this blank slate to everybody in twenty eighteen. He swung
way far to the left during the presidential run, and in twenty twenty two
everyone knew what he was about, or thought they knew what he was about,
and they weren't buying what he was selling. Yeah, you know,
I was struck at how at the top of the ticket. In the state
wide races you didn't see much of a drop off between Abbot and Patrick and
Paxton. You know, Abbot won by or is up currently by around eleven
points. Paxton. Last I looked right before we came in here, it
was nine point nine points. That's not a big difference. In Harris County,
there was quite a bit of a drop off, as you mentioned.
You said, Betto won that by eight percent, and Hidalgo at least this
morning was leading by about one point five percentage points. That's a pretty good
drop off. You know who has an even bigger margin than Abbott Patrick were
passed it as Glenn Hay. You know, some of the down ballot Republicans
actually had margins wider than the ones at the top. If I were buying
stock right now looking ahead to the next state wide elections, I think Hager
is a buye, and I think there are a couple of others who are
probably buys also. I think you're finally seeing the next generation of these folks
emerge potentially. Yeah. And one of the things that some of us like
to do to get kind of the generic party breakdown is look at the Supreme
Court races, which are you know, races where very few people have any
idea about any of the candidates on the ballot, and most of those the
GOP advantages about nine percentage points, which is interesting because Abbott and really all
the other Sideway candidates outperformed that that baseline seemed notable. All right, let's
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All right, South Texas, let's get into it. You're so exciting.
I am excited, yes, because I have had individual conversations with Evan
and Alexa about this already, and they took very different positions on this.
So I'm hoping that they will just argue for the next ten minutes here.
I think we can arrange that, right. Yeah, So basically what we
saw here was three congressional seats that were being heavily contested t X fifteen t
X twenty eight and TX thirty four. Republicans ended up winning one of them,
Monica Dela Cruz defeating Michelle Vallejo. We had Henry Quaar winning by a
pretty wide margin reelection in TX twenty eight, and Vicente Gonzalez, who switched
from fifteen to thirty four due to how fifteen was redistricted, winning by a
smaller margin but not an insignificant margin in that race too. The Republicans,
I think, have you know, we've seen a little bit of a celebration
of that t X fifteen races. You know, we continue to make inroads
in South Texas. Democrats would beg to differ. So which is it,
Alexa, What should we make from those races? I think what you should
make of it is that jerrymandering works, and this is a perfect example of
it. I mean, if you look at CD fifteen, it was a
district that I believe had initially gone for Biden by two points. It was
redrawn in the opposite direction to go for Trump by two points. We should
also point out that these districts they're not they're not. They don't just exist
along the border. They stretch up all the way to horrible so I think
it was like a pejorative thing when they were first created. Anyway, not
great, but they run all the way up. I mean, these are
not sure they're South Texas districts because the people who are elected to represent them
tend to live on the border. But these are not just representative of the
border. In fact, there were white counties put on top of Hispanic counties
to make the district more Republican right when they reru Yeah. Well, and
the thing with CD fifteen, and we'll see this play out in the legal
challenge to the way the map was drawn next summer, is that the challenges
that they flipped precincts in and out of the district to pull out high propensity
voting Latino voters in that Iago County portion of it with lower propensity voters.
And that's how they sort of that's how they made the neighboring district thirty four
better for the Democrat They packed voters in. That's what we'll see play out
in the litigation. But I think, I mean, if you look at
CD fifteen, if you look at the breakdown of which candidate won each county
from Iago all the way up, I mean it's a gradient from blue to
red right, because it's still the Republicans. While they will sure they are
making some gains in some of these communities, these are not wholesale gains.
And even if you look at their one win, which was by design,
they did not win in the areas that they are purporting to make the most
gains in and the areas that are the population centers when you talk about the
valley and if you go one for three, that's not great. Indeed.
Yeah, I mean, I think the idea I was kind of surprised that
they the Kwayar seat was even something that they thought was realistic. Maybe that's
just because I'm from Laredo and too because thirty four was like a huge Biden
advantage. So after they readrown, Yeah, I mean, I think they
got real competent them into a frenzy. Yeah, And I think, you
know, there's obviously a mismatch between the expectations of how well they thought they
would do in some of these communities and the reality of how well they can
perform when they don't have the advantage of jerrymandering on their side. There's a
little bit of clarity, you know that seen in Jurassic Park, where the
person is standing so close to the dinosaur does not see that it's a dinosaur
until you pull back far enough. I think that the special election in thirty
four that Mayra Flores won was the dinosaur, and as we were standing close
to it, we couldn't actually see what was going on until we got a
little bit farther back from it. Special elections are special. They have the
word special in the name. They're not normal. They're low turnout. You
can orchestrate a sneak attack when in a special election in a way that you
cannot in a general election. The media, and it's a good thing.
We don't know anybody in the media were susceptible to being spun on the significance
of Flores's victory in the special election. We were all told see South Texas
as turning Republican, as opposed to they pickpocketed a district during a special election.
I've always suspected that the narrative coming out of twenty twenty was a little
bit uncertain. We had in twenty twenty a pandemic election in which one side,
the Democrats, campaigned from zoom from their houses, didn't leave the other
side of the Republicans pretended that there wasn't a pandemic and went out and knocked
on doors, and they were more successful in getting people to vote for them
campaigning in person than the Democrats were campaigning on zoom. And we were told,
aha, see this means that the Valley South Texas Hispanics are more open
to Republicans. I think it was a weird election cycle, and I wanted
to see what an actual election cycle where both sides were heating would tell us
about whether that was an anomaly or that was the new normal. I think
what we learned yesterday is that it's kind of inconclusive as to whether this is
the new normal. Yes, Valverdian Zapota counties, we were talking about this
earlier, did in twenty twenty flip from being longtime blue counties to being red
counties. They were in twenty twenty, they were again yesterday. And yes,
there's a district that now has a Republican candidate successful in the valley representing
the valley in Congress. But you know, the Saint Ankenzales beat Mira Flores
in that race, and you know, Democrats said all along, don't listen
to the noise on this. This is still a district that we can win.
I didn't see a lot of evidence in the Valley in South Texas yesterday
that the Republicans have made significant in roads. They've made some inroads to your
point, Well, but Janie Lopez is up in her district in eighteen thirty
seven. Sure, but Eddie Morales, we were all told Eddie Morales was
going to lose the past district. He did, and we were told Abel
Herrero was going to lose his district. He didn't like. I think it's
a mixed bag. Yeah, I have a different take. I don't think
it's inconclusive. I think actually, to you know, bring it back full
circle to like our our Texas elections more competitive. I think, at least
in South Texas, it does seem like they are more competitive. And actually
that may be a good thing for the voters of South Texas because Democrats have
been dominant in South Texas for so long that there is a dissatisfycent and those
those areas continue to be some of the poorest, more impoverished areas of the
state, meaning, hey, what have these guys done for me lately?
Right? And so there was this discontent. When we wrote stories about about
those areas, people were like, well, we've voted for Democrats for so
long, getting someone different, maybe a breath of fresh point when he switched
parties. Democrats have taken Hispanics for granted in the valley and then not done
anything. And I don't think they are I don't think voters are wrong to
say that. I think that they may have a point. And so when
you have a competition of ideas where Republicans and Democrats both have to get after
it, and let's be clear, Henry Quaar and Visensa Gonzalez did have to
get after it to win their elections. But it's actually good, Like it's
good for democracy, it's good for the exchange of ideas. It's good for
voters because they get to hear a diversity of opinions. And so, you
know, we're talking about Democrats versus Republicans. But for the voters this actually
may be good. They may like come out and listen to myra floors and
say, you know what, thank you for coming man. We don't like
your ideas. We're gonna stick with our guy. But I think this is
actually pretty good. Yeah, I think if you take a place like the
Rial Grand Valley. It has some of the highest uninsured rates in Texas,
probably in the country. It has huge I mean the uninsured rate for children,
the poverty rate. I mean, they're incredibly and horribly high. If
you're a Democrat and you are trying to make your case to those voters at
a higher level, right if you're not a city council person or a mayor,
if you're trying to run for state office in any way, you say,
hey, guess what would help you. Maybe Medicaid expansion would help you.
Hey, guess where that could happen. Oh, if we had enough
people at the legislature to vote for it, or if we had a governor
who would get behind it and campaign for it. I'm not saying that that's
what should happen and that's what those voters should support, but I think it
creates an opening for voters to have some sort of responsiveness from the people who
are trying to win their votes instead of just these assumptions of who they're going
to vote for. I think people in charge should make the case to people
about why they should be given the power that their votes give them, and
that they should work to make their lives better. And I think that this
competitiveness in these areas where people do need so much help on just like basic
life things does open the door for that. Yeah, I think that's a
great point, and I think it is about like, even though some of
these districts were gerrymandered, and even though the Texas electorate isn't what Democrats necessarily
want it to be, right, it's still more republican state, even independence
lean more conservative. What Democrats have to understand is that you've got to,
like, you've got to go out and win the voters that you have to
win in your district or in the state, instead of trying to tell the
voters what you wish that they believed and expecting them to come to you like
it's like, what do you all want? And that those are the issues
that I'm going to run on where right now? I think it's a little
bit of the inverse. I would second, by the way, what James
said earlier about competition being a good thing for everybody. We had way too
many races to call at seven o'clock just by virtual of the fact that the
party in power had no opponent in the other party. Last night because the
districts were drawn away where there was no competition, and so the party not
in the seat decided it wasn't worth putting anybody up to run against that person.
So you've got a whole bunch of districts around the state where you didn't
even have a choice, there was no competition. And I do think that
what you said is exactly right. It's bad for the voters in that community
not to at least have a choice of ideas to listen to. So good
for you for saying that that's good. All right, Well, we have
two microphones up in the room. Are there any audience members who would like
to ask a question? Good? Thanks, My question is for Evan,
but anyone's welcome to chime man. What do you think it would take for
Democrats to win stay wide in Texas? I go back to what I said
earlier about rural communities. I mean, I know that the conventional wisdom for
years has been you got to turn out more of your folks in your base,
run the numbers up, and ultimately that gets you over the line.
But you know the example I'll give actually, and Matthew called it out to
feederman Osrays, what did you hear about Fetterman's victory last night. You heard
that Fetterman liked bettoor work, traveled around to every county in Pennsylvania. He
went to rural communities deliberately, and he got the Demomocratic share of the rural
vote up to thirty five percent, thirty six percent, thirty seven percent.
We published a story a couple of weeks ago that show that in the last
four election cycles in Texas, Democrats have not cracked twenty five percent in rural
communities, and Democrats have not been competitive statewide. And the assumption is you've
got to get to at least thirty percent and probably even closer to thirty three
percent in those counties. You don't have to win them, but you just
have to get more people to vote Democratic. What's it going to take.
You need somebody who's going to be able to turn more rural folks out in
addition to getting not instead of but in addition to getting the base out.
Geography as well as demography is the only way that Democrats, in my opinion,
are going to get back to being competitive state wide. You may have
a different point of view bout this. I wonder no I think that's correct.
I think though that sometimes what gets lost in that is people will talk
about rural Texas and assume that we're just talking about white people, which is
which is not the case. And so I think that if Democrats are trying
to think about rural Texas and the sort of outwhach that can happen there,
there's probably a bit more common ground on different issues than people will assume because
of these assumptions that are made about rural Texas. And you know, the
other part of this is that the state is becoming more urban in nature.
But it's also important to note that these big blue urban counties, that doesn't
mean that everyone there is over eighteen and can vote, right. These counties
are growing because of immigration international immigration, they're growing because of domestic migration,
and they're growing because of natural increase because people are having children. And so
that doesn't necessarily just because we are trending to be a more urban state doesn't
mean we are trending to be a more urban state of adults who can vote,
And so we have to sort of think about it that way as well.
I'll say one more thing too, is that you've got to like lose
your innocence if you're a Democrat and sort of just just play the game,
you know, Texa politics full contact sport. And sometimes you gotta do things
that you don't necessarily like. You got to say things that you don't necessarily
like to get into office to do the things you want to do. Governor
Rabbit, I think is a perfect example. You know, he says the
things to keep moderate business minded Republicans on his side and does enough to get
the far right wing to go along with him because he can keep them appeased.
And if they don't like it how far he's or if they don't like
that he's not going far enough, all he's got to do is win the
primary. And then what else are they gonna do. They're gonna vote for
bett O'Rourke, They're gonna vote for Lupe Valdez. Like you just got to
sort of be smart about this stuff. And again, like we said in
the story, like with bet o' rourke, a perfect example is don't put
yourself in policy holes that you can't get out of, like guns, like
abortion. They've got to realize that, you know, particularly in rural Texas
and a lot of these South Texas districts that we're talking about. Those are
rural districts right where people have complicated feelings about abortion, where people like their
guns. You've got to be smart about how you talk about those issues,
because in twenty eighteen, PTO did show up to all two hundred and fifty
four counties. He didn't have specific policies about those things, so there was
no negatives once he said the things about guns, churches, and abortion.
But still even in twenty eighteen, still didn't get the percentage in those counties
up to a degree that he could be competitive. Yeah, I'm curious to
hear more about rural voters and hearing that they saved Republicans Bacon. You know,
there's this article that y'all put out, I think it was two days
ago about how rural Texan is really real. Texas is really struggling with hospitals
closing. The teacher shortage is terrible there. They have no broadband or poor
broadband. What I feel like there's a disconnect. So what do y'all think
is happening there? And why do they care about something else that we're missing?
What's going on with those voters. I'm probably the worst person to answered
this question because because I don't spend a whole lot of time in rural Texas,
but we're trying our hardiest and we've got people in rural areas of the
state now. But just to you know, we talked about it's the economy
stupid James Carver nineteen ninety two. Right. The other two parts of that
were, it's the economy stupid one. Uh, don't forget about health care?
Uh, and then change versus more of the same. Right, three
topics that they told the campaign workers to hit on, right, and those
all sort of affect you, like in your daily lives. Right, it's
the economy, healthcare, like, you want to talk about healthcare, You
want to talk about public schools with rural Texas because it's the number one employer
out there. You want to talk about the loss of rural hospitals like it's
a big issue out there, and you've got to just like focus on the
issues and don't get distracted by all this other stuff. It just seemed like
Democrats. Again I hate to pick on better or rourk, but like it
just seemed like they were just throwing everything at the wall during the campaign cycle
to see what would stick. Like, first there was the grid, which
was a very serious issue, but then you know, then all of a
sudden, the grid didn't fail, and then we moved on Operation Long Star
was real bad in January, and then better work started talking about Operational Loan
Star. Then some of those issues got resolved and we stopped talking about Operation
Loan Star. Right, you can't just be throwing everything at the wall.
You have to have a campaign strategy. You have to be talking about issues
that matter to voters, and they've got to This is a thing like I
don't think there's enough. And you know, if you talk to rural Democrats,
which there's not a lot of them, guess why, Jerry Manderin,
If you talk to rural Democrats, they're like, there is no infrastructure out
here. They don't come out here. So how are they going to know
our issues and what issues to talk about if they're not out here? And
that is part of like maybe some of the organizing and infrastructure that needs to
happen, because Republicans certainly have the infrastructure out there. Yeah. Well,
I also I also think that there's a disconnect between the priorities that democrats,
particularly on the national level, center versus the reality on the ground in rural
communities. So the idea of police brutality, for example, it's obviously a
real issue. It affects so many people's lives. If you live in Harris
County and you're a black person or a brown person, you probably have even
a personal experience that makes you identify with that issue. If you're a person
living out in Lubbock, that might not be something that resonates with you.
Right if you're talking about discrimination, if you're talking about fights over voting rights,
and you've never had a problem to vote because the one polling place in
your county is run by your grandma's friends who you see at the community center
and at the local church. Like, the experiences of people living on the
ground in so many of these communities are just so. I mean, the
contrast between that and the way Democrats and exactly the loudest Democrats, which are
those on the national level, talk about them, I mean, I'm not
sure the gap could be wider, and so I don't know that a Democrat
trying to run on a more local level would be successful until they can sort
of break through or close that gap in some way or another. I would
think the first step is showing up, but I would think the second step
is also trying to break something of substance to those folks and try to you
know, the same example that we that I offered about Democrats making their case
to people on the border. You know, what are the issues that matter
that could improve the lives of people in rural Texas and take those to them
and show them how you can actually feel like for them in South Texas,
like Republicans really chose to focus on the border and immigration and crime. Right,
if you're like a let's say, like I'm just picking Odessa because they
had the water problems earlier. You're a Democrat and you say, hey,
your water infrastructure is broken, you pick me, and we're gonna fix it
and we're not gonna have these problems with water infrastructure and you're gonna have water
to drink and water to use. Like, I think that is like something
that is much more affecting the voters of that area than some of the things
that Alexa was going to right, you know, in fairness to bet to
a work or anybody else who might travel to these counties, I do think
the problem is not that they're not talking about issues that affect people on the
ground. Yeah, the nationalizing of politics is not a help in those communities,
no question want that. We know that there are more than seven hundred
thousand kids enrolled in rural public schools, which is more rural students than in
seventeen states combined, but sixty percent of rural public school districts don't have advanced
placement classes. We know that seventy four counties all of the rural, have
no hospitals, thirty two counties all of the rural, have no primary care
doctor. We know that one out of three rural residents doesn't have access to
high speed broadband, which was a problem before the pandemic and became even more
of a problem with zoom school and telemedicine and lost economic development. And the
estimate was that because we didn't have sufficient access to broadbanded rural communities, there
was a five billion dollar lost economic benefit to the state of Texas. Like,
we know what the data tells us, but we also know that people
don't always vote in their self interest. This became clear to me first.
The time I was first aware of this was in the two thousand and four
presidential election. Which we forget. George W. Bush running for real election
almost lost. It was like sixty thousand pot smokers in Ohio. If they
had changed their votes, John Kerry would have been president. It came down
to Ohio, and in Ohio, twenty five percent of the people who lost
their healthcare during Bush's first term voted to re elect George Bush. It doesn't
always come down to the issues that affect you. Sometimes you vote against your
own self interest because you have a larger concern politically that Trump's all the issues.
So sometimes even talking about the issues doesn't matter. But I saw bet
To O'Rourke go to rural communities all throughout this election turn out enormous numbers of
people, relatively speaking, talking about the grid, energy, healthcare, education.
At the end of the day, the caricature of O'Rourke that the Abbot
people put forward was enough to trump small t Trump anything that he did.
In those communities people ended up voting against. You could argue their own self
interest in those counties where there's no hospital, in those counties where there's no
AP classes, in those counties where there's no broadband, it didn't matter because
the caricature of O'Rourke was enough. I think that's true, but I think
he also made it easier for them to do that. Oh of course,
Well back to your earlier point that by this time everybody knows Betto he had
a record that people were going to run against Abbot's. Abbot had plenty of
material that crews did not have four years earlier. Fair or unfair, I
agree, I agree with that. But you know you're correct to highlight the
rural communities as a big challenge. And now the question is going to be
in the next four years, will anything get done in those communities by the
people who got elected yesterday? We don't know. I mean I do.
It is strange because I don't get this sense, and maybe you all disagree,
but I don't get the sentence that Democrats have presented a forceful argument of
if you don't like the way things have gone in the last twenty five years,
if your life has not improved in the loft twenty fifty, if your
community has not improved, maybe you should consider changing who's in charge. Like
don't I don't think that that was a forceful, united message that we saw
from the Democrats. Necessarily that was Better's message. You said, you know,
if you don't like the last eight years, and Abbot Abbot Abbot is
the guy. I think that was better. But I think are on a
more widespread level, like don't you can't necessarily hang on one candidate. I
think if if you were as a sort of party infrastructure, you think that
that would be what you would build your entire effort around. But I suppose
you need a party infrastructure to do that. Well, it is their party,
I mean, this is to James's point, is their party infrastructure?
Right? If you're the Democrats, now, think about what it's like on
the day after the election last night. You're the Democrats. Now you're looking
ahead to twenty four into twenty six. There's another set of state white elections
in four years. You need to begin work now to think about where you're
going to find candidates. How are you going to put the infrastructure of the
party to work to avoid happening in twenty six? What happens now? I
mean they may be hoping for a Republican to win the presidency in twenty four,
So the first midterm is bad for Republicans. What happened in twenty eighteen.
But they're going to need to identify candidates they're going to need to figure
out. I mean, I don't envy the task of the Democrats in the
state right now. Yeah, and I think, you know a little bit
off of Alexis point, like maybe that message hasn't spread through and through the
state because like the organizing isn't there, Like in those you've got to be
in those rural areas. You've got to be on those like hard to reach
areas before the election year, right, Like you've got to build that out.
You can't. What people hate is you come into them when you need
something, right, you got no relationship with them, and then all of
a sudden's an election. It's like, hey, where the Democrats come vote
for us? Right, you got to do a little bit of the work
before that. I'm not sure that the Democrats have that infrastructure, and we've
talked about the Democrats, but also, I mean we have to give kudos
to the Republicans who have that infrastructure, have stayed leadership that is very strong,
having undisputed or maybe still disputed state leader in Greg Abbott, who gets
behind the down ballot candidates, who helps them out, who sends money their
way, sends kind donations their way. You just don't see that on the
Democratic side, and Bettel is to fault for that. Also on his end,
there was not that same type of coordination with the down ballot races.
He shirked that to do his own thing, which is his prerogative. But
that is the difference. On the Republican side, there is that infrastructure.
That's because they've been winning for almost three decades, but also because they are
very organized. They're all rowing in basically the same direction. Some of them
steer a little further to the right, but they're basically rowing in the same
direction, whereas the Democrats, I don't know which way they're rowing, and
sometimes they're rowing against each other. Just one last thing to add here,
which is that so much of politics is about identity right now. And I
don't just mean that by racial identity or gender or anything like that, but
the kind of groups that we sort ourselves in. And I think there is
a very strong perception among a lot of people in South Texas and rural areas
and some suburban areas of the Democrats being the sort of extremely online, extremely
kind of elite approaching looking down on certain communities like that, and there are
a lot of people who really don't like that caricature of Democrats, and I
think that's a big problem in Texas and beyond as they try to push these
policies, some of which actually benefit folks. But I think that's about all
the time we have for today. We are right up at the end of
the hour. So thank you to James, Alexa and Evan, Thank you
to our sponsors Raise your Hand Texas Texas twenty thirty six and Methodist Healthcare Ministries
of South Texas. And thank you to everyone for joining us. Thank you
tell me Y