Speaker 1: This week's episode of the Tribecast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Texas Tribune Membership program. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Tribecast for Tuesday, July twenty ninth. I'm Eleanor Klebanoff,
Speaker 1: law and politics reporter here at the Tribune, joined this
Speaker 1: week by A. Matthew Watkins stand in politics editor, Jasper Sharer.
Speaker 2: Jasper, thanks for being here, of course, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Matthew is in luxurious, beautiful Porto ransis the place to
Speaker 1: be in the summer, and I would make fun of it.
Speaker 3: But we are in the Texas capital, so not much better.
Speaker 1: I am curious, Jasper, before we jump in. This is
Speaker 1: your We're in the special session. You're now an editor.
Speaker 1: It's your first session in how many years that you're not? Sorry,
Speaker 1: I should tee that up, first session? How many years
Speaker 1: that you are not on the floor of the capitol.
Speaker 4: Oh man, Well, I started covering state politics as a
Speaker 4: reporter right around when the Dems broke quorum. I guess
Speaker 4: you know, I might have specified broke korum the first
Speaker 4: time if we get a second one momentarily here. But
Speaker 4: so twenty twenty one, the first special session there was
Speaker 4: my first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not the first time two thousand and three, but
Speaker 1: the right right first time.
Speaker 3: Also probably wasn't the first.
Speaker 2: The first tis time history.
Speaker 3: John Morritz would say, you know right, this was the
Speaker 3: second time.
Speaker 2: It is a longer memory than me. Yes.
Speaker 3: So are you missing being on the floor.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 4: I mean it's been sort of slow so far, so
Speaker 4: it's you know, I miss kind of the idea of
Speaker 4: being around the hustle and bustle. But I still feel
Speaker 4: I can live vicariously through through you guys being there.
Speaker 4: So do you want to trade Maybe I'll maybe I'll
Speaker 4: make my way down there, just to relive the glory
Speaker 4: days a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love that. Well, we're going to jump right in.
Speaker 1: You know. Last week we had an episode with the
Speaker 1: chair of the Texas Democratic Party, Kendall Scudder, sort of
Speaker 1: looking at the dems prospects for the twenty twenty six midterms.
Speaker 3: This week we are going.
Speaker 1: To look at the other side of the aisle, the
Speaker 1: Republican's prospects. I will say we did extend an invitation
Speaker 1: to GOP chair Abraham George, who it wasn't the right
Speaker 1: time for him to join us, but he said he
Speaker 1: plans to join in the future. So we will extend
Speaker 1: that invitation and open invitation to Chairman George Yes anytime.
Speaker 3: So in his stead we have the Dean of.
Speaker 1: Texas Talk Radio, Mark Davis, on the air for more
Speaker 1: than forty years in the Dallas Fort Worth area. His
Speaker 1: bio and I think we would agree with this, says
Speaker 1: the foremost conservative voice locally and nationally, a morning fixture
Speaker 1: on six sixty Am The Answer. He is also a
Speaker 1: columnist for the Fort Worth Start Telegram, McClatchy Newspapers, Newsweek,
Speaker 1: and town Hall.
Speaker 3: Mark, thanks for joining.
Speaker 5: Us, great pleasure. Thank you guys, appreciate being here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, I want to sort of start
Speaker 1: before we jump into twenty twenty six and talk about
Speaker 1: you know, look back in time a little bit and
Speaker 1: talk about twenty twenty four, you know, just a gangbusters
Speaker 1: election for Republicans in Texas nationally. I'm curious, Mark, were
Speaker 1: you anticipating such a good year for Republicans nationally, you know,
Speaker 1: with Trump at the top of the ticket. How to
Speaker 1: sort of line up with your expectations.
Speaker 5: It's everything is relative. And as I'm sitting here doing
Speaker 5: shows in this room, talking about the presidential race, talking
Speaker 5: about national issues. Talking about Texas issues, the Texas landscape
Speaker 5: seemed pretty baked in. Democrats have had a long and
Speaker 5: tortured experience ever since I've been back in my native
Speaker 5: Texas nineteen ninety four. Oh, we're going to turn it purple.
Speaker 5: We're going to turn it blue. Guys, how's that working out?
Speaker 5: And I don't know, never say never, but that's not
Speaker 5: happening even in the near term.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 5: Nationally it was not as cut and dry because Trump
Speaker 5: is always the X factory. There's going to be hot
Speaker 5: passions obviously for him. That is going to spark hot
Speaker 5: passions against him. So I think what solidified my confidence?
Speaker 5: I mean Trump, He's a known entity, He's Trump. I think,
Speaker 5: you know the level of positivity he's going to attract,
Speaker 5: you know, the high level of negativity that's going to
Speaker 5: be there to meet those positive folks, those supporters on
Speaker 5: the battlefield. So the real difference was what were the
Speaker 5: Democrats going to do? And as things just got progressively
Speaker 5: worse for the Democrats presidentially from the obvious even my
Speaker 5: dog knew it, cognitive decline of Joe Biden, and then
Speaker 5: they give him the hook and then forward the Kamala
Speaker 5: Harris candidacy, without a single vote being cast for her,
Speaker 5: without a saying I mean here, I am doing a
Speaker 5: conservative talk to saying Democrats, I feel for you. I'm
Speaker 5: taking calls from Democrats saying could we please have a primary?
Speaker 5: Could we please have four or five people? And maybe
Speaker 5: Kamala would prevail in that scrum or maybe not, but
Speaker 5: at least something that resembles fair competition. That did not
Speaker 5: serve her well. Kamala was also not served well by
Speaker 5: her complete, near complete lack of campaign skill set. It
Speaker 5: was one of the truly worst campaigns ever run by anyone,
Speaker 5: and as that began to take shape, the Trump victory
Speaker 5: became a lot easier to envision because while there were
Speaker 5: a lot of things that were unknown, a lot of
Speaker 5: things that were hidden factories yet to be played out,
Speaker 5: one thing that was clear, and that was the Democrats
Speaker 5: and dug themselves an enormous hole, which is part of
Speaker 5: why Trump won.
Speaker 1: It's such a like how quickly things evolve in politics
Speaker 1: that Trump was the known quantity in that election, Like
Speaker 1: when you think about twenty sixteen or everyone was like,
Speaker 1: what the heck is happening with this guy?
Speaker 3: And now it's like the safe choice, the more predictable choice, the.
Speaker 5: Familiar, the familiarity, and even it even gets weirder that
Speaker 5: with all of his personal paccadillos, with all of his
Speaker 5: you know, wheels off behavioral things, one of the reasons
Speaker 5: he won is that he was the normalcy candidate that
Speaker 5: I know. That's the kind of thing that I mean
Speaker 5: what but by that I mean not by being a
Speaker 5: conventional candidate in his own way, but through things, you know,
Speaker 5: I feel, pardon me, things like border normalcy, which means
Speaker 5: having one gender, normalcy, which means knowing how many there are,
Speaker 5: a certain trade normalcy, which involves bringing the playing field
Speaker 5: into a better level place. So even in the way
Speaker 5: that Nixon, who is not real popular one in nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty eight and seventy two, by being kind of a
Speaker 5: normalcy candidate, even though he might not have been that popular,
Speaker 5: a lot of voters said, well, I can think what
Speaker 5: I think about him, but it seems like either he's
Speaker 5: less crazy or the other people are too crazy. And
Speaker 5: that too was part of the twenty twenty four when.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting comparison to that, to that Nixon
Speaker 1: election and just sort of you know people, you know,
Speaker 1: without condemning any of our elected officials sort of the
Speaker 1: devil you know, versus the.
Speaker 3: Devil you don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say it was pretty striking to see
Speaker 4: a fourteen point win in Texas. I mean I didn't
Speaker 4: I don't think any of the polling, you know. If anything,
Speaker 4: I think the one of the takeaways was just, you know,
Speaker 4: we can only rely on polling in Texas so much
Speaker 4: coming out of some of these recent cycles that you know,
Speaker 4: not universally across the board. I think there were some
Speaker 4: posters who got pretty close, but I don't think anyone
Speaker 4: was fully predicting fourteen points for Trump. I think it
Speaker 4: was eight and a half for Cruise at the end
Speaker 4: of the day. So and that really sets the tone
Speaker 4: in kind of a problematic way for Democrats heading into
Speaker 4: twenty twenty six, even though folks are talking about them,
Speaker 4: you know, having just sort of the national wind at
Speaker 4: their back just by virtue of it being a Republican
Speaker 4: in the White House midterm cycle. But on the other hand,
Speaker 4: we're coming off really a landslide blowout two years ago.
Speaker 1: Right, I Mean, conventional wisdom would say twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: a midterm year. The president is you know, dealing with
Speaker 1: some unpopularity issues passing, you know, some policies that we
Speaker 1: will probably you know, by twenty twenty six be seeing
Speaker 1: the impact of in one direction or another, you know,
Speaker 1: putting aside the ongoing redistricting fight that could change things
Speaker 1: on the congressional front. Mark what is sort of your
Speaker 1: crystal ball telling you at this point for you know,
Speaker 1: the lay of the land coming into twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: For Republicans, let's talk about the sort of a midterm
Speaker 5: map that you referred to the way it usually goes
Speaker 5: for Republican and Democrat presidents alike, is that when when
Speaker 5: you win the White House, the first midterm is the
Speaker 5: pendulum swinging back the other way. And the other thing
Speaker 5: that usually happens in a president's second term. Ask Bush,
Speaker 5: ask Reagan. Everybody starts to get tired of you. It's
Speaker 5: like a coach, you lose the locker room. But here's
Speaker 5: the thing, and history may record that Trump losing, I know,
Speaker 5: did he the Trump not regating the White House, not
Speaker 5: reoccupying the White House in twenty twenty might have been
Speaker 5: the absolute best thing to happen to him, because this
Speaker 5: Trump two point, Oh imagine if he had won it
Speaker 5: had been, first of all, you'd be gone by now
Speaker 5: who knows what we'd have. And I take calls every
Speaker 5: day from people who say God's timing, Mark God's timing.
Speaker 5: I'll leave that to individuals to discern. But there's no
Speaker 5: doubt that he was able to hit the ground running
Speaker 5: like a freshly inaugurated first termer. And talk I mean
Speaker 5: energy with a capital E, rather than the kind of
Speaker 5: fatigue that can kick in at Bush's second term, Reagan's
Speaker 5: second term, Obama's second term. There's something about that th
Speaker 5: if sixth, seventh, eighth year of being president where everything
Speaker 5: just starts to become a slog. Trump has been spared
Speaker 5: all of that, coming back for a two point zero that,
Speaker 5: like the Grover Cleveland metoreum, is non consecutive, and it
Speaker 5: means that it's a it's a kind of a fresh
Speaker 5: start that the usual conventional second drug president does not Yet.
Speaker 5: So here's how this goes to the midterm. The fatigue
Speaker 5: factor might not be so large, and Trump may be
Speaker 5: I mean, listen, these first six months have been exhausting.
Speaker 5: I mean for critics and fans alike, just keeping track.
Speaker 5: You know, the usual saying is, you know, are you.
Speaker 5: Are you tired of the winning yet? You know, and
Speaker 5: it hasn't all been winning, and some of it's been difficult,
Speaker 5: and there are critics to be found around every corner.
Speaker 5: But it may be that that pure results and a
Speaker 5: kind of an eye opening change in the kind of
Speaker 5: voters that Trump is attracting, poaching away some of the
Speaker 5: working class, poaching away. Listen, that implies poaching, implies theft,
Speaker 5: like you're not entitled. Increasing numbers young voters, increasing numbers
Speaker 5: of minority voters. If this continues, you can't help but
Speaker 5: feel pretty good about Republicans and the midterms. But then
Speaker 5: the lesson of all life kicks in, and that is,
Speaker 5: don't ever get comfortable. Also, the midterms are forever. Primaries
Speaker 5: in Texas in March November of next year is like
Speaker 5: on Carl Sagan's cosmic calendar. It's it's the deep deep distance.
Speaker 5: So the only thing is certain in life has change.
Speaker 5: Pendulums can swing in a variety of ways. But you
Speaker 5: have to say, if the elections were held right now,
Speaker 5: they'd go pretty well for Republicans. But they're not held
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 1: Right and if you think about everything that's happened in
Speaker 1: the last six months, you know, and then how long
Speaker 1: we have until the midterms. It's like that could go dependulent,
Speaker 1: could swing back and forth, and just how quickly think
Speaker 1: Trump moves, you know, through everything. It could really go
Speaker 1: in a lot of directions between now and then.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, I mean you think back to that crazy
Speaker 4: period in July a year ago where you get an
Speaker 4: assassination attempt to change in who the you know, presumed
Speaker 4: Democratic nominee is going to be at the top of
Speaker 4: the ticket, like you know, let alone a year and
Speaker 4: a half.
Speaker 2: These things can change, you know, on a on a dime.
Speaker 4: And I think you know, there's also the conversation about
Speaker 4: who ends up being the nominee for for Republicans, I guess,
Speaker 4: you know, the various nominees, not just for the US
Speaker 4: Senate race that everyone's talking about these days. But you know,
Speaker 4: I think that could you know, that's another thing that
Speaker 4: has to play out before we have any sense of
Speaker 4: what November a year and a half from now, will
Speaker 4: look like.
Speaker 3: Right right.
Speaker 1: I will share a fun fact, which is that you
Speaker 1: mentioned Grover Cleveland, the only other non consecutive president I
Speaker 1: you might know this. My cat is named after Grover Cleveland.
Speaker 2: And God knows that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I actually adopted him.
Speaker 1: The reason he's named after a president at all is
Speaker 1: that I adopted him on the eve of the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen election. I was living in rural Pennsylvania, was covering
Speaker 1: the election quite a great I was out at Trump
Speaker 1: rallies all the time. I was out in Scranton with
Speaker 1: Hillary and out with you know, Trump. And and I
Speaker 1: adopted him, you know, maybe like right around Halloween, so
Speaker 1: right before and then I thought I'd name him the
Speaker 1: second most catlike name of a president, just Grover, the
Speaker 1: first being.
Speaker 3: Millard Garfield.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna go Millard Millard.
Speaker 2: I approve that is good.
Speaker 1: And now it's funny because we I did not realize
Speaker 1: that that was the election, you know, of course, you
Speaker 1: know where at that time, I didn't know who would win.
Speaker 3: But I also didn't know.
Speaker 1: That he would go on to be the next very prescient,
Speaker 1: non consecutive president. What did you say, God's timing there, you.
Speaker 5: Go, It works in a number of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, detail real quick.
Speaker 5: On the notion of things that could change. Because you're
Speaker 5: sitting there, we all agree it is July about to
Speaker 5: the August the primaries are still a good way down
Speaker 5: the road in November, seems to be on the district rise.
Speaker 5: But if you are a Democrat and you're and your thinking,
Speaker 5: and pardon the way this sounds, you're looking for something
Speaker 5: to go wrong, as a Republicans do. When Democrats something
Speaker 5: wrong that we could weaponize, that we could take advantage
Speaker 5: of that we can turn to our advantage. Look at
Speaker 5: what they would be there really would be either the economy,
Speaker 5: the border, the world and the world go crazy. I mean,
Speaker 5: if we get a Russia Ukraine East deal, if we
Speaker 5: get some end to Israel and Ammas where they can
Speaker 5: actually be defeated, we can have actual peace in the
Speaker 5: Middle East. On the economy, inflation seems pretty under control
Speaker 5: right now. The tariffs that everybody thought we'd be, you know,
Speaker 5: in our front yard eating our neighbor's liver because the
Speaker 5: terriffs were going to destroy us and send us into
Speaker 5: fourteen recessions and sixteen depressions, it simply has not happened.
Speaker 5: The things that in the border seems silly me secure,
Speaker 5: that's what's the thing that's going to go wrong. What
Speaker 5: I guess, the economy always can, the world always can.
Speaker 5: But boy, It's one wonders where the bottom drops at
Speaker 5: what we would need to have happen that would suddenly
Speaker 5: be such a chink in Trump's armor, such an enormous
Speaker 5: hole for him to dig out of. Again, anything's possible,
Speaker 5: But that's part of my confidence is high because the
Speaker 5: things he actually ran on are things that actually for
Speaker 5: the moment, seem to be working well.
Speaker 1: And I think, and we'll talk about this with some
Speaker 1: Texas candidates as well, like they're certainly in Texas a
Speaker 1: sense of like it would have to be significantly wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, even tech for Texas Republicans particularly to turn
Speaker 1: on President Trump. But you know, there are certain candidates
Speaker 1: in Texas who sometime seem a little impervious and to
Speaker 1: your question, know what could go wrong? What could go
Speaker 1: so wrong that it would change the political calculus or
Speaker 1: the common wisdom. Let's take a quick break for a
Speaker 1: sponsor message, and then we'll get into some of.
Speaker 3: These Texas specific races.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is supported by members of the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 1: Texas needs trusted journalism. Help sustain fact based reporting with
Speaker 1: your donation. Become a member of the Texas Tribune today
Speaker 1: at Texastribune dot org. Slash donate Texas Tribune dot org
Speaker 1: slash donate. Well, you know, Mark, obviously, when I talk
Speaker 1: about sort of teflon candidates, let's talk about the Cornyn
Speaker 1: Paxton race for US Senate. We you know, I know
Speaker 1: you've talked to John Cornyn plenty of times in your career.
Speaker 3: I'm you know, our long time.
Speaker 1: US senator facing the toughest primary of his career. What
Speaker 1: are you sort of reading in the tea leaves there
Speaker 1: and or by Tilei's I mean very clear polling that
Speaker 1: he is falling behind.
Speaker 5: He Gosh, this is we could do five episodes on
Speaker 5: this alone. Cornan has been a fixture for a really
Speaker 5: long time. Conservative callers have been calling me for a
Speaker 5: very long time talking about how dissatisfying they are with Cornyn.
Speaker 5: Surely this time we're going to primary him. Surely, this
Speaker 5: time there's going to be a more bold conservative. And
Speaker 5: this is before the ascendants. Yere Trump and it simply
Speaker 5: never ever happened. Was it Steve Stockman who came within
Speaker 5: forty of him in twenty fourteen or so, That's as
Speaker 5: close as anybody's gotten. He's been untouchable. Now, nobody has
Speaker 5: been running against him named Ken Paxton. So let's go chronologically.
Speaker 5: If we're talking a few months ago, the Attorney General
Speaker 5: is someone who has taken some slings and arrows, been
Speaker 5: through some controversies, and emerged virtually unscathed. You could not
Speaker 5: find somebody who is a staunch Packston supporter who said,
Speaker 5: some of this tax stuff, I'm out, some of this
Speaker 5: courtroom stuff, I'm out. Even some of the personal stuff,
Speaker 5: I'm out. You could not find that. But that was
Speaker 5: very three months ago. Speaking of change, you could say
Speaker 5: things have changed. So now with Angela having filed for divorce,
Speaker 5: and with the corn And team clearly willing to come
Speaker 5: out with some I mean brutal as coming after the
Speaker 5: well brutal and accurate. That's what makes them so brutal
Speaker 5: about the personal stuff. The big X factor here, the
Speaker 5: big variable is how much will that hurt? Can it
Speaker 5: can't not hurt him? If it's only one or two
Speaker 5: percent of people who go, dude, I love you, but
Speaker 5: I'm out, then of course he's still viable. Some internal polling,
Speaker 5: which is almost always useless when Kennedi's go, oh, I've
Speaker 5: got my own polling, Sure you do. They tell you
Speaker 5: what you want to hear. He had like a twenty
Speaker 5: point lead on Corny, and I think the ut Tyler
Speaker 5: people came out some weeks ago and showed it as
Speaker 5: roughly a ten point lead, but that was before all
Speaker 5: of this. I think it'd be a good season for
Speaker 5: a little bit of polling, like right now, to see
Speaker 5: if it were more like eight or nine, or more
Speaker 5: like one or two, or if the leads evaporated completely.
Speaker 5: I don't believe it had as as this whole, messy, unfortunate,
Speaker 5: sad story played out. I believe you mean, the least
Speaker 5: scientific thing in the world is talk show calls and Twitter.
Speaker 5: But they're interesting, they're anecdotal. You find out what a
Speaker 5: smattering of people think. And I said, listen, if you
Speaker 5: have been a strong Packston supporter, but this is just
Speaker 5: a bridge too far. I had always said. One of
Speaker 5: the things I always said is if Angela forgives him,
Speaker 5: then who are we to continue? Who is anybody to
Speaker 5: continue to bog down in the personal stuff? Well, Ken
Speaker 5: can't use that anymore, his supporters can't use that anymore.
Speaker 5: So my goal was to find out how much it mattered.
Speaker 5: And in a few days of calls and a few
Speaker 5: days of Twitter, polls for whatever they're worth. It just
Speaker 5: it looked like almost nothing. Now I know that it's
Speaker 5: not nothing. There has to be a voter defined by
Speaker 5: general supportive Paxton, even a strong supportive Paxton. But this
Speaker 5: is just too much. My friends at Texas Values, Jonathan
Speaker 5: Sign's wonderful group, they've been aligned with Paxton on issue
Speaker 5: after issue after issue after issue. But one of the
Speaker 5: things that means a lot to them at Texas Values,
Speaker 5: hence the name, is the sanctity of marriage. And so
Speaker 5: they pulled their endorsement. And that's not like they've endorsed
Speaker 5: Corn in or they don't want Ken to win, but
Speaker 5: they just cannot have their endorsement there in their literature
Speaker 5: for him. That can't be your best day on the
Speaker 5: campaign trail. But if it is just a small bit
Speaker 5: of damage, which it may be, I'll never forget one
Speaker 5: of the text We have a text line. We got calls.
Speaker 5: There too many ways to get hold of me these days.
Speaker 5: But somebody wrote me and said, Mark, there's no amount
Speaker 5: of Paxton misbehavior that makes John corn unacceptable. And now
Speaker 5: this is a pretty maga based, grassroots conservative thing to say.
Speaker 5: But if that's prevalent, of course, Paxton remains viable now.
Speaker 5: Is this me predicting that he will win. Absolutely not,
Speaker 5: because I think even that ten point lead is phony.
Speaker 5: This will be a close race, It will be hard fought,
Speaker 5: and the driving factor will be who offers himself up
Speaker 5: as the most reliable Trump ally in the remainder of
Speaker 5: this Trump term. Paxton's credentials are absolutely rock star quality
Speaker 5: on that, but the person, the personal stuff may be
Speaker 5: a bit of a drag on that. For Cornan, around
Speaker 5: whom there has been interest doubt. I don't think Cornan
Speaker 5: likes guns as much as he wants you to think
Speaker 5: he does. He certainly didn't. He certainly did not like
Speaker 5: Trump as much as he now seems to like him.
Speaker 5: I mean, there is zero distance Cornyan is Trump. Ever
Speaker 5: since Trump won, it has been a genius bit of positioning.
Speaker 5: All the ads show Cornyan and Trump. Cornyan loves Trump.
Speaker 5: Trump loves Cornyn. He's one of the most valuable allies
Speaker 5: he has in the in the Senate. Quick thing, and
Speaker 5: I'll shut up. I'm sorry, I don't. I don't know
Speaker 5: if they'll be an endorsement. Would would would Trump endorse Paxton?
Speaker 5: It looked for a while, you know, six months ago. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 5: sure they've been friends forever, but would would he want
Speaker 5: to issue that kind of a slap to a sitting
Speaker 5: senator who's very important to him now? And if Trump
Speaker 5: endorses Cornyn, WHOA, there's a large part of the base
Speaker 5: that will go into open revolt. So that seems to
Speaker 5: me like a race where Trump is able to say, Ken,
Speaker 5: I've loved him forever, good friend, Cornyn, valuable, ally important guy,
Speaker 5: I love him and just kind of stay out of
Speaker 5: it and let voters have their say. And what will
Speaker 5: that say be. I have no idea. It will be
Speaker 5: a measure of how much rockstar power Action is able
Speaker 5: to maintain, and I think it's going to be considerable
Speaker 5: versus how good a job Cornyn will do of convincing
Speaker 5: voters that he will absolutely be a Trump ballet. And
Speaker 5: he's done it, quite frankly, a wonderful job of doing that.
Speaker 5: So that's where it lays. I think it's a close
Speaker 5: race and one of those wonderful things that are impossible
Speaker 5: to call right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think what you were saying
Speaker 4: there about the you know, the voters who have that
Speaker 4: view that you know, whatever Paxson's behavior is you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's irrelevant in assessing whether Cornyn, you know, whether
Speaker 4: they'll ever support Cornan. I think that's kind of the
Speaker 4: that encapsulates the challenge that Cornan is facing right now.
Speaker 4: And I guess it also gets to the other point
Speaker 4: about you know, electability and kind of the argument that
Speaker 4: you know, I think this could potentially play into Trump's
Speaker 4: decision about whether to get involved.
Speaker 2: You know, he wants to maintain the Senate.
Speaker 4: There's sort of this view out there that you know,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe Paxton still still wins, but the National
Speaker 4: Republicans have to put their resources more so in Texas
Speaker 4: than they would like, and that takes away from you know,
Speaker 4: North Carolina, other states. I mean, I guess I'm curious
Speaker 4: Mark if you have any thoughts on the electability question
Speaker 4: and sort of you know, Ken Paxton. I think you
Speaker 4: can look at any data point you want to sort
Speaker 4: of justify your view. I mean, he was, you know,
Speaker 4: he came within striking distance of losing in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: but on the other hand, twenty twenty two, he wins
Speaker 4: by a comfortable, I think ten point margin. So given
Speaker 4: all the kind of the data points swirling around and
Speaker 4: what you've heard. I mean, do you feel like Paxton
Speaker 4: presents an electability problem for Republicans if he's the nominee
Speaker 4: or not?
Speaker 5: Not as much of one as the Corn team would
Speaker 5: have you believe. So, so, what does Corn bring to
Speaker 5: the table a track record of being thoroughly palatable to
Speaker 5: a sufficient number of Republicans to win comfortably ever since
Speaker 5: he's been running. Who doesn't want that? There are people
Speaker 5: who want to say that if Paxton is the nominee
Speaker 5: that he will be a lot more vulnerable. I don't
Speaker 5: know that that's true. Is it mathematically? Do the data
Speaker 5: points suggest that cornin First of all, either one of
Speaker 5: these guys beats Colin all read period paragraph, end of story.
Speaker 5: There's zero chance of a Democrat winning. To see, the
Speaker 5: question is how big will the Republican margin be now?
Speaker 5: And listen, all those of us in conservative land we
Speaker 5: still remember and are still stung and frightened by how
Speaker 5: freakishly close Beto came to Ted Cruz in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5: I mean, how in the world did that even happen?
Speaker 5: And it makes us think you never can tell when
Speaker 5: it might happen again. Colin all Read, ain't betto? Is
Speaker 5: what comforts me at night. But here's how this comes.
Speaker 5: With the data points and the notion of how either
Speaker 5: of them might go, it is possible, in fact probable,
Speaker 5: that Cornyn would win by a slightly larger margin than
Speaker 5: Paxton would. But since if I'm right that there's no
Speaker 5: chance of a democratic victory, go with whomever you like.
Speaker 5: It's not one of those situations where well, we like
Speaker 5: this Republican but he might lose. That's just simply not
Speaker 5: the case. Here's here are the variables. No matter, this
Speaker 5: is going to be one of the ugliest, most expensive, messy,
Speaker 5: terrible primaries in the history of the stick. Great business
Speaker 5: for me and the talk show, been great business for you,
Speaker 5: all those of us who are in punditry and analysis.
Speaker 5: You know, the gods will be smiling, but there'll be
Speaker 5: so much blood on the walls by the time they're done.
Speaker 5: And whoever loses, they're going to be a lot of
Speaker 5: people who are really upset the people who voted for
Speaker 5: If Paxton wins, the people who voted for Cornyn are
Speaker 5: going to have to be wheedled and cajoled and attracted
Speaker 5: to come over and vote for Paxton. Using the logic
Speaker 5: we can't have a Democrat win, remember betto, We can't
Speaker 5: have that happen again. And I think that would be
Speaker 5: largely successful if Cornin fends off the Paxton challenge. Look
Speaker 5: Out the Paxton people who didn't like Cornan before and
Speaker 5: are really going to be bitter about him now are
Speaker 5: going to have to get that same appeal message like, Okay,
Speaker 5: the primary is over. It was rough, it was nasty,
Speaker 5: but now we got to gather together as Republicans do
Speaker 5: what we're supposed to do, and that's beat Democrats. And
Speaker 5: so you've got to come over and find a way
Speaker 5: to hold your nose if you view it as holding
Speaker 5: your nose and support John Cornyn anyway, that I believe
Speaker 5: is a harder sell, which is why Cornyn would probably
Speaker 5: if I'm just packing crazy predictive numbers, I think Cornyan
Speaker 5: wins by eight and packs and wins by four. But again,
Speaker 5: that's at the electron right now. If something if Cornyan's
Speaker 5: support for Trump is somehow drawn into doubt, if the
Speaker 5: if the personal stuff starts to take hold with Ken
Speaker 5: in a way that it's not doing right now, then
Speaker 5: either of those figures is shiftable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just feel like We've heard this argument
Speaker 1: a lot from DEM's right of you know, I mean
Speaker 1: that was almost the argument that like George P. Bush
Speaker 1: and if Husman we're making, which is, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't put him up because he'll lose to a Democrat.
Speaker 3: Obviously he won handily, so it does.
Speaker 1: Again, a lot can change, but it's sort of like
Speaker 1: with President Trump with Pax, a lot would have to
Speaker 1: change if nothing has sort of penetrated his base. Yet,
Speaker 1: let's turn briefly to the who the heir apparent to
Speaker 1: the Attorney General's office. We're gonna have our first open
Speaker 1: GOP primary for Attorney General in a decade, the first
Speaker 1: without you know, packs the specter of Paxton hanging over it.
Speaker 1: So well, let me say this, I think the specter
Speaker 1: of Paxton is hanging over this race pretty effectively. But yes,
Speaker 1: without your yeah, without the embodiment of Paxton in the race.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've talked about this on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: but the field for the GOP looks pretty set with
Speaker 1: you know, Senator Mays Middleton, who is self funding ten
Speaker 1: million dollars in his campaign so far, State Senator Joan
Speaker 1: Huffman sort of a little bit more of the establishment,
Speaker 1: Houston base and Aaron Wrights, who is former assistant Attorney
Speaker 1: General to Ken Paxton, former DOJ attorney, getting a lot
Speaker 1: of money nowhere near ten million dollars, but really trying
Speaker 1: to carve out his lane as the Paxton air apparent
Speaker 1: mark just to begin with, like what you know in
Speaker 1: terms of your listeners and people you're talking to? Is
Speaker 1: there awareness about this campaign? Is there awareness about these candidates?
Speaker 1: What's the name recognition issue?
Speaker 5: Here? As as state senators, Joan Huffman and May's Middleton
Speaker 5: start out with an advantage because no one knows who
Speaker 5: Aaron Rights is, or they or they didn't until a
Speaker 5: few weeks to you they know now if they pay
Speaker 5: some attention to social media and they've been watching some
Speaker 5: of his media appearances, that they take a look at
Speaker 5: Ken's endorsement of him, which is not a small thing.
Speaker 5: The way this one shakes out right now is is
Speaker 5: Joan Huffman is going to get a lot of the
Speaker 5: GOP establishment Ava Guzman style vote. May's Middleton is a
Speaker 5: better conservative than Joan Huffman is. But is he is
Speaker 5: he Paxton friendly enough? Is he does he kind of
Speaker 5: maga grassroots enough? Not that that's gonna not the best
Speaker 5: ninety percent of Texas Republican voters. I mean, if it
Speaker 5: were a Cornon wouldn't have been so unbeatable for low
Speaker 5: these many years. But with Aaron Wrights around, I've spoken
Speaker 5: to this gentleman a couple of times, and he has
Speaker 5: like no fear. He's just jumping in there and saying
Speaker 5: and being very vocal about the very Pacstonian kinds of
Speaker 5: things that he's going to do. He was on I
Speaker 5: think a station in Austin recently. I just to clip
Speaker 5: the other day. I'm coming after these blue cities. They're
Speaker 5: not going to be able to do these guys. I mean,
Speaker 5: it sounded like the absolute linear continuation of the Paxton
Speaker 5: style of being Attorney General. I don't know that May's
Speaker 5: Middleton is ever going to say that that I'm going
Speaker 5: to do everything Paxton did, at least in office. I
Speaker 5: know that Johan Hubban's not going to say anything like that.
Speaker 5: So the variable will be how much do Texas voters
Speaker 5: how much do Republican first in the primary. Of course,
Speaker 5: how much do Texas Republican voters want an absolute continuation
Speaker 5: of packs to style policies. There's a lot of evidence
Speaker 5: that that's exactly what the Republican flavor is going to be.
Speaker 5: But for fundraising familiarity, name recognition, both May's Middleton and
Speaker 5: Johan Huffman have more. So Aaron Rights has all the
Speaker 5: all the right ingredients. He is he certainly has you know,
Speaker 5: the right talking points, but still an upill climb.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it also strikes me as kind of a
Speaker 4: the ultimate test of whether voters still care about you know,
Speaker 4: experience and whether you know, kind of that as a
Speaker 4: campaign pitch. You look at Aaron Wrights kind of pitching
Speaker 4: himself as the you know, he was the offensive coordinator
Speaker 4: under Paxton, if you like what Packson was doing suing
Speaker 4: the Biden administration. I was at the center of that.
Speaker 4: Joan Huffman kind of making a similar but different experience
Speaker 4: based argument talking about her you know, time as a
Speaker 4: judge and prosecutor, you know, overseeing a bunch of important
Speaker 4: committees in the Senate. And you know, Middleton obviously has
Speaker 4: that experience in the Senate as well, but he doesn't
Speaker 4: have that type of you know, Aaron Wright's style legal credentials,
Speaker 4: just being sort of enmeshed in this conservative legal movement.
Speaker 4: But he does have ten million dollars. So I think
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of the ultimate test of whether you
Speaker 4: know the voters care enough about experience to overcome just
Speaker 4: a seemingly on its face insurmountable money advantage.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm going to make an observation about experience.
Speaker 5: It has never mattered less, and I don't in Republican
Speaker 5: Land particularly, and the evidence of it is there every day.
Speaker 5: There's a guy who ran for president who had no
Speaker 5: political experience and got more passion than anybody since Reagan.
Speaker 5: His name is Donald Trump. I mean, obviously experience meant
Speaker 5: something for two point zero because he had been president,
Speaker 5: which is why two point zero is even better than
Speaker 5: one point zero. He knows Washington now. But the Senator Cornyn,
Speaker 5: when I talked to him, always it talks about you know,
Speaker 5: and I say, listen, you and Ken, it seems like
Speaker 5: you're going to if you indeed have become the Trump
Speaker 5: acolyte that you offer yourself to be. Isn't it pretty
Speaker 5: true that you and Ken will have just about the
Speaker 5: same voting record. I mean, what's really going to be
Speaker 5: the difference between what kind of cenator you will be
Speaker 5: and the corn and response is very, very often. I
Speaker 5: have all this experience, experience, experience, experience. I won't say
Speaker 5: it doesn't matter. Oly matter. Experience is a good thing
Speaker 5: to have. But what Republican voters in particular looking for
Speaker 5: is how's your fight? How much will you fight? What
Speaker 5: kind of energy do you bring? Do you draw? Do
Speaker 5: you have the right enemies? I mean, do you have
Speaker 5: your eye focused on battles against wotness, battles against profligate spending,
Speaker 5: battles against you know, unconstitutional governance. If you've got your
Speaker 5: eyes clear about that. Not only do we not care
Speaker 5: that you don't have experience, we love that you've come
Speaker 5: from the private sector because I think there's a kind
Speaker 5: of what we've had it up to our eyeball with
Speaker 5: career politician little bitner for twenty five years. Big deal.
Speaker 5: Give me somebody with a with a fresh eye, a
Speaker 5: fresh take on things. So I'll just say that experience
Speaker 5: is never a bad thing to have. But I don't
Speaker 5: know when it's ever been less important.
Speaker 1: An experience is all relative, right, I mean, you've got
Speaker 1: I think the AGS race is a great example of this.
Speaker 1: You've got Aaron Wright sort of portraying himself as the
Speaker 1: political outsider and also the one experienced, you know, as
Speaker 1: the offensive coordinator that sort of backs someone like Senator
Speaker 1: Middleton into a corner of you know, well, his experience
Speaker 1: is in you know, state legislating, which is sort of
Speaker 1: almost the worst of both in the eyes.
Speaker 2: Of the republicability.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I will say, you know, Center Middleton has
Speaker 1: gotten a ton of support from other members of the legislature,
Speaker 1: many of whom are grassroots Republicans.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think there's sort.
Speaker 1: Of the the social media, the attacking in TV ads,
Speaker 1: TV hits, radio hits like that makes a huge difference
Speaker 1: in terms of name recognition. And then there's sort of
Speaker 1: the the underground world in which a lot of politics
Speaker 1: happens that's less obvious to the to the naked eye.
Speaker 1: I think where I do think Center Middleton is pretty
Speaker 1: experienced in working in those circles or the GOP donor yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we could obviously get into a lot of
Speaker 1: other races, but we will sort of leave it there.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mark, just big picture, you.
Speaker 1: Know, what are you what sort of your outlook for Republicans,
Speaker 1: you know, between now and when we when we get
Speaker 1: up to that primary and then ultimately general, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the variables you're keeping an eye on.
Speaker 5: If if recent history is a prologue and once things
Speaker 5: have been going in a certain way, only two things
Speaker 5: can happen. They can continue in that certain way, or
Speaker 5: the pendulum can start to swing back. Paxton remains a
Speaker 5: rock star in terms of what he has done. The
Speaker 5: personal stuff is a big We'll see whether it's a
Speaker 5: Chinese water torture. If he can say but death one
Speaker 5: thousand cuts, let's go with that over time. If it
Speaker 5: starts to wear him down, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 5: think that it will. What he has done is sufficiently
Speaker 5: impactful that I think it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 5: gives Aaron Wright a chance in a battle where he
Speaker 5: would ordinarily have a big struggle against Tufman in Middleton.
Speaker 5: That's going to be an interesting three way race. Dan
Speaker 5: Patrick remains just a force of nature. He is ageless.
Speaker 5: He's out there even things that are that are not
Speaker 5: one hundred percent popular in the conservative base, the THC band.
Speaker 5: He will not let go of that THC band. I
Speaker 5: happen to think he's correct about that. But I took
Speaker 5: a lot of calls and we remark I love Dan Patrick,
Speaker 5: but he's wrong on the THC thing. He doesn't care,
Speaker 5: he thinks it's right. He's going for it. Various the
Speaker 5: ways in which he has piloted the Senate in a
Speaker 5: way that gives the Texas Senate a better sort of
Speaker 5: legislative image than the Messy House does. Coming off the
Speaker 5: difficult era, Dade feeling, although the Dustin Burroughs era seems
Speaker 5: to have gone much much much better, remains a power
Speaker 5: and to finish at the top there with Governor Rabbit.
Speaker 5: It is not the same Greg Abbott as four or
Speaker 5: six or eight years ago. I was not to make
Speaker 5: everything a measure of the calls I take or whatever.
Speaker 5: But it's the people I talked to it it's the
Speaker 5: studies of human nature that I get from doing this
Speaker 5: show every day. There was conservative frustration about Abbott to
Speaker 5: the extent that when Don Haffins and Alan West ran
Speaker 5: against him, I took all kinds of calls from people
Speaker 5: who said, hey, Mark Abbot's Abbot's going down.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 5: It's either Alan West or Don Hoffines. And by the way,
Speaker 5: I love Allan West, I love Don Hopkins. Hupfinds ride
Speaker 5: a great campaign. Hop Fines would say something about property taxes,
Speaker 5: Abbott would say it the next day. Huff Finds made
Speaker 5: Abbott a better candidate four years ago. But I told listeners,
Speaker 5: to their chagrin, there was no way Abbott was getting beat.
Speaker 5: There was no way in the world either of these
Speaker 5: primary challenges would come close to him. Because what you've
Speaker 5: got to do, it's the Mark Davis rule of primaries.
Speaker 5: The only way you're going to win. It doesn't matter
Speaker 5: how awesome you are, how much we love you. You've
Speaker 5: got to create a desire to fire the incumbent. That's
Speaker 5: what Paxton's got to do. He's got to create it. It
Speaker 5: doesn't matter how awesome Paxston is or the great things
Speaker 5: he's done in the rock star status he has. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's lovely. That's why he's going to come close. But
Speaker 5: he will only win if he creates a palpable desire
Speaker 5: on the part of a state that's loved him for
Speaker 5: two decades to fire John Cornyn. If he can do that,
Speaker 5: he wins. If he can't, then he doesn't. The point
Speaker 5: being here is that Abbot has read the political room
Speaker 5: so well and read and has seen the trumpification of
Speaker 5: text at the further trumpification of Texas that I don't
Speaker 5: hear a peep of conservative complaint about Abbott anymore at all,
Speaker 5: which would seem to indicate, by a long winded way
Speaker 5: of saying, that the deeper red status of Texas either
Speaker 5: continues or stays where it is, the notion of the
Speaker 5: pendulum swinging back and maybe a hint of purple working
Speaker 5: toward blue. Maybe Colin already has a chance and throw
Speaker 5: it redistricting, which we do at a whole week there
Speaker 5: may not simply be you know, Martin Beezy and Julie
Speaker 5: Johnson may not be around anymore. But let's just say
Speaker 5: that it's trending well for Texas as a red state.
Speaker 1: And you want to talk about a war chest, I mean,
Speaker 1: Governor Abbot just was it twenty million dollars in a
Speaker 1: week and eighty six million dollars total?
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, And that's I mean, that's a big part
Speaker 4: of the conversation with twenty twenty six too, just thinking
Speaker 4: about back to twenty eighteen when you know, as we
Speaker 4: were discussing, things got really close, but we had Governor
Speaker 4: Abbott kind of lifting all boats on the Republican side.
Speaker 4: Further down the ballot with his blowout when that same year,
Speaker 4: and you know, to your point, Mark, I think with
Speaker 4: Abbot sort of reading the conservative tea leaves and you know,
Speaker 4: shoring up his right flank. I mean you just look
Speaker 4: at the agenda that he's rolled out for this special session.
Speaker 4: I mean it's kind of a grab bag of anything
Speaker 4: you could you could want that hasn't yet been accomplished.
Speaker 4: So I think he's a pretty bulletproof heading into March.
Speaker 1: Ran if he's got all that money and no primary challenger,
Speaker 1: it's a lot to a lot of wealth to spread.
Speaker 5: Around an enviable place to be.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Our colleague alle Hundro Serrana, when we saw that number,
Speaker 1: said imagine what the Texas Tribune could do with that money?
Speaker 3: And I said, are you proposingly Rob craig donation?
Speaker 5: Time for that donation, bitch.
Speaker 3: Yes exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Dave Carney's jumping jumping to send that over
Speaker 2: to us. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're top of the list for right now.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you know we will have to leave it there,
Speaker 1: but thank you so much for joining us, Mark, this
Speaker 1: was a fantastic conversation. Yeah, before we head out, we
Speaker 1: will just say thank you to this week's sponsor, members
Speaker 1: of the Texas Tribune, which could be any of you
Speaker 1: who are listening. Become a member of the Texas Tribune
Speaker 1: today at Texas Tribune dot org slash donate. That is
Speaker 1: this week's episode of the Trip Cast, Jasper, Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Our producers are are Chris and Rob. You can get
Speaker 1: this podcast anywhere you get podcasts or on YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com and we'll see you next week.