Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/4/26: James Talarico Defeats Crockett, Dan Crenshaw Goes Down In Texas

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss James Talarico defeats Crockett, Dan Crenshaw goes down in Texas.   Murtaza Hussain: https://x.com/MazMHussain?s=20 Dave Weigel: https://x.com/daveweigel David Sirota: https://x.com/davidsirota      To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn.

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Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the on-purpose podcast. I'm joined by Luke Combs, award-winning country music artist and one of the most authentic voices in music today. The guy that says he's always going to be there and that will do anything to be there is the only guy that's not there. No matter what, I'm going to prioritize my wife and my children. dread the conversation with my son. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story?

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become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Election results in North Carolina, Texas, and Arkansas, very bad news for Republicans, but first of all, very good news for you guys. We're doing one month free breaking points. Go to BP free 26. Go to breakingpoints.com. You get a month free of this program. Sounds like we're trying to free the BP 26. We don't know who they are, but we want to free them. If you are the Senate Republican Leadership Fund,

you just burned through all of your money trying to keep Cornyn alive. So you really need this month free. Get that corporate discount. We'll take it. Exactly. So to discuss all this, we're joined by Dave Weigel of Semaphore,

David Serota of Lever News. Thank you, Davids. Thank you, thanks for having me. Appreciate you guys being here. So let's start. with, and we're going to do a second segment later on the Republican primary, but let's start with Tala Rico

and Crockett. Cerota, so it seemed like this started out as a race that didn't have any kind of ideological content to it, that it was like different styles, like different MSNBC styles, really.

That seemed to evolve as Tala Rico and while your take on this too, because I mean follows closely, As Tala Rico started embracing this top bottom, like we're taking on the billionaires, they're your real problem. And Crockett stuck with whatever the MSNBC stuff is. Yeah, I'm not sure what she was really running on. I'm not, it's like a brand, like a vibe.

I mean, look, it's all vibes, right? It's all vibes. I think Tala Rico clearly, as the campaign went on, recognized the, I guess we could call it proxy-wise, like the Bernie vibe. Like if you call the anti-billionaire stuff, like the Bernie vibe, right? Like, I think what I take away from this race is that people like him have realized that there is, that is the normal middle center of the Democratic Party. Oh, by the way, if people are getting their news from this show, he won. Yes, right. We should mention.

Right. Like, I think we've seen in a series of races that these candidates who are winning these primaries have, have recognized that while there's this debate going on between third way and the so-called left, et cetera, et cetera, that actually there isn't really much of a debate going on at the kind of voter level over anti-oligarch politics, that is now the just sort of mainstream normal of the Democratic Party, which I, you know, taking a long view now,

because Crockett was running on that too. Right. Yeah. And like, I just turned 50 recently, You're about as old as I am, right? Okay. Like, that may seem like a just like, not all that interesting. But, like, that has not been the way it's been up until now.

And so I look at that race and I say, wow, to think about how far we've come since, like, just Bernie 10 years ago, Bernie five years ago, that's my takeaway of a candidate who can kind of code moderate, you know, vibe-wise, moderate, but be the anti-billionaire candidate. I want to run that past you, Dave, because one of the reasons I thought this was such an interesting primary is you have the stylistic, stylistic hewing to norms from Tala Riga, who's almost stylistically, again, like a Biden candidate,

who says we're going to restore decency to the country. We're a pretty judge of candidate, a lot like that. Exactly, right. But then his policy prescription, he was trying to sell populism, really. Crocket was kind of the other way around. She had the style of post-Trump politics, but the substance of almost corporate dem politics. It's hard to say because they're both kind of mixed.

And you were on the trail, weren't you? I was last week. And David's right. And I would start with Tala Rico picked and polarized enemies. The enemies were corporations that were working with Donald Trump to impoverish you, the voter. Granted, this is a man who took money from Miriam Aedelson on a gambling. Yeah, I asked him. I think the opening interview I asked him about that.

And he had an answer. It was like, I'm not pure. That was a specific thing. going to do that in this race. It was, Crockett did not run a very tight campaign, did not use that as effectively as she could. She had lots of influence on his online calling him corrupt, but they got really sidetracked into identity where his stump speech was, it's one of those in a Buttigieg way. A stump speech, it's very memorable because it doesn't change very much. He would talk about inauguration day and the wealthy people sitting behind Donald Trump talk about

Elon Musk. The impact of the Stephen Colbert thing was him talking about, uh, the Trump administration opening the door for his supporters to own corporate media and control what you see. He called it the ultimate corporate cancel culture, is one thing he called it. But it was about the enemy is these people at the top who were dividing us. And it wasn't evading issues or pivoting. It was that. She was less clear. She mentioned that a couple times when I was covering her. She had some big events, some big conversations. But a lot more of what Democrats have not had any success with, which is how dare some, a felon, a 34, 35 count felon be allowed to serve in the government. Exactly. This guy is corrupt. We was like, okay, well, yeah,

Trump's corruption. But who is behind him? And like, how are you being distracted? And every time you're watching a reaction to him, what are you missing? It's this. It's, it's, it's, it's this policy. It's this, uh, debunition of Medicaid funding. It was that. But enemy first, which is, it's, it's kind of obvious, but there have been lots of Democrats who never get there and they're very, they're very loose and they do not say here's the bad guy I will take on the bad guy your life's better for this reason he did it all the time so when I was writing speeches

for Bernie Sanders some people some people would well one I'd get razz how do you write a speech for Bernie Sanders she says the same thing over and I mean that's like a that's where I got all my guy hair trying to you know put in new things

but the question of why do people show up to hear what they've already heard it was like I feel like a lot of people showed up on those campaigns because they liked hearing somebody recount and name the villains, the enemies, because it felt like no one else was naming them. And so when you say, you know,

when you point out that Tala Rika was actually naming villains, naming the enemy, I feel like that's like become code for authenticity. Code for like I am willing to name villains I am, the people who don't want you to name villains are the donors. Like the money doesn't want you to name that. And I think this question about what is left and right, what is moderate, what is, you know, liberal, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, the third way conference this week, right, was all about how, you know, the Democrats need to be moderate.

They need to, like, reject their left. I would ask a question, like, in this race, who does the average voter think in the Texas primary was the candidate? on the left or who was the moderate right I think those terms like don't mean anything anymore that's why I say you know when I when I when I when I'm referring to you know people ask where my my politics I'm like I'm not even sure the word left or right or moderate or like I don't think these terms mean anything yeah certainly not to regular people who are trying to follow this now the Hispanic vote swung wildly to Democrats this time either one of you

can take this, but Tom Bonnier, Democratic Data Analyst, and we can put this up in post. He flagged that, he says, Zapata County, turnout in the primary there yesterday, was 143 percent, the total number of votes that Kamala Harris won in the general election. That's lower Rio Grande Valley. Republicans vary in this high-profile manner, went and redistricted, Texas, to try to add a couple of members. And I want to get your take on this. It may end up being an incredible own goal, shoot yourself on the foot kind of moment. So he flags four of the districts, congressional districts, the 9th, 28th, 34th, and 35th that were redistricted in order to be Republican districts. In each one of them, Democratic primary turnout was higher than

GOP primary turnout. In some cases, by like three or four thousand, and other cases by 20 to 30 to 40,000 more votes. So these are, in order to get more districts, get more seats, you have to take a seat where you normally win by 30 and you take it down to like five or 10. And then you take those voters and you spread them out. But if it's a wave, all of a sudden, you've put all of these districts in range of Democrats. Which one are you want to More in that direction than back in napkin analysis been if it's just like a 2020 Hispanic breakdown

than those seats are hard for Republicans to win. I've been to that region a lot. I'd say there's a long period where Democrats were just into denial that it could change because Donald Trump was the nominee and listen to what he says and look at the numbers for Hillary Clinton. He got destroyed in that region. The Talarica campaign, I think everyone knows Chuck Rocha

as one of the strategist, but he spent a lot of time in the district. He was very clear on ice and making the argument that again Democrats I think are mostly comfortable making even if they don't like saying abolish. Well we agree with that immigration enforcement is good but why are they flaking down Hispanic people and seeing if they have papers? That's popular there. Border Patrol is very popular. If you've been to the South Texas people have It's a big employer. Well yeah you know the blue lights matter flag you'll see

a green line in a flag that's the Border Patrol flag. Myra Flores. Yeah exactly and he He was careful about that, but it was spending time in that area and also talking about religion. I think there were going to be a lot of criticisms of how he talks about religion. Many from me. Yeah, so it's a little more like Gnostic than most Hispanic Catholics are comfortable with. If it comes to like divinity or God's gender, etc. That's what's what.

Which, by the way, it's something that was hugely divisive in the Rio Grande Valley for Democrats, this question of like, what's moderate, what's not. I agree, the labels are really hard to say because it's like, he runs as a, kind of stylistic, moderate. Where is he on some of these cultural issues? Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley, independent type Hispanic voters, that might be an issue for them. It was. And I did meet Hispanic voters who were saying their family was MAGA the last election, or they've got right-wing Catholic family who share memes on Facebook and they can't believe they're a Democrat. But they can send them a Tala Rico video about something specific and say, well, this is what I believe.

And it was, it's not going down the litmus test of a Catholic voter who's pro-life. He's not going to match that. It's a gender-critical person. He's not going to match that. But just talking about faith in the way he did, quoting the book of Matthew, quoting the sermon on the Mount, just doing that versus the secularism they were used to from other Democrats. This beta work is not very comfortable doing that. A lot of Democrats are not. They don't go to church very much.

They don't talk about it. Going to church, the fact that he was a seminarian and, you know, he was a seminarian. talked about God at all, I think I was maybe a little bit cynical about that, because it's because when going in before I went there. But people just, they had not heard that. They were hearing Democrats talking about shouting your abortion and talking about, he would talk about Christian nationalism, which I think is more for the, you know, John Oliver audience. But the part they were hearing was, well, he's quoting the Bible. I haven't heard a Democrat come here and quote the Bible because he's not like Henry Quayar, who knows the region.

He's at least trying. And he made some inroads that way. But that plus the ice thing. And I've heard that from Arizona and from other places, too, that, look, they're not saying abolish ice. They're saying there has to be some Goldilocks bull in the middle. That is protecting the border and not chasing my friend down because he has a Mexican flag on his truck because he's fifth generation. He just has a Mexican flag. Well, last point before we go to Needle Alam, and you may have something to add, Sarota. It's just, Crockett was flirting with, like, just dragging this out last night. We're saying, looks like there's cheating in Dallas County.

This is what Republicans do. It was unclear what she totally meant by that. Just a half an hour ago. She really was going, stop the steal last night. Pulled back from that. And so she has conceded as of this morning, but she was going in that direction. I don't know if anyone wants to jump on that way.

I just wonder if all of this is actually something like more simple in that it is an anti-system vote. Yeah. Right? Like that, I mean, I'm just thinking through the last many elections. The last time the party that was perceived to be in power was reelected was 2012. Right? Like think about it. Like Obama winning re-election.

And then like every election seems like a referendum on who is perceived to be in power. And so I think, you know, when it comes to dicing different voting segments, I think the larger question is maybe it's as simple as the whoever is perceived to be, anti-system candidate is going to be the one to get that swing. Like are swing voters, Latino voters? Are they working-class voters? Maybe the swing voter is like none of those categories, and it's the anti-system voter who feels like they keep voting for change and not getting any change.

Right, which is in all of those categories. Yeah, exactly. So in Arkansas, we don't even know, you go deep into this, but they had a Supreme Court election. Kamala Harris lost Arkansas by 31 points. The Republican seems to have won it by about 10. So a 21-point swing in Arkansas, not great. Now, a race that we covered a lot in North Carolina four.

Valerie Fushi elected in 2022 with an enormous amount of crypto money and APAC money. She evolved in 2026 to APAC money and AI money. So better or worse. Quite a path. Wherever you can get it. She vowed that she wouldn't take any A-PAC money, so it ended up getting rooted through this other pack. She raised very little herself,

and so two plus million dollars kind of rained down on her opponent, Nita Alam, in the last week and a half, two weeks of the race. We can put up the results there. Has not been called yet. Fushi is up by 1,000 and 20 votes or something like that, little under roughly 1%. Doesn't seem like there are enough votes for Nidalam to come back. But what it does suggest is that absent this $2 million plus dollars,

and Nidlom had her own kind of anti or pro-Palestine super PAC that linked to Bernie, Hannah Ferdig, old Bernie organized her brand. It's kind of organized Muslim money is finally kind of breaking onto the scene. So she had some support, nothing. approaching what Fushy had. It does seem like that was decisive. Without that two plus million in the last couple weeks, she ends up, you know,

this incumbent would have gone down. What was your raid on this race? I mean, my question coming out of this race is how much is this going to change how all of the other House Democrats' campaigns? Nobody wants to win by it. You'd rather win by a thousand and lose by a thousand, but you don't like to win by us.

You don't like to have to work that hard. Right. I mean, and there was that, I think there was, it was an Axios piece earlier this week that it was 30 House Democrats now have primary challengers who've raised more than $100,000. Now, $100,000 is not going to win a Democratic primary, but it makes you nervous. Right? I mean, and I thought what's funny was it was like that, you know, unnamed sources, the House Democratic leadership are like enraged that there's so much money being spent on, And my takeaway from it is they've gotten so used to never having to fight at all for their party's nomination. And again, I go back to...

Demp. Tea Party. Exactly. And the thing is, I wrote a book back in 2007 saying, like, this was going to be a moment all the way back then. That's how old we all are now. Okay. Present time. Right. Okay.

We. I was 14. Right. There you go. Okay. that the rage of that moment was going to be channeled in one direction or the other. And I think what happened on the left end of that spectrum was it was channeled into the Democratic Party through the Hope and Change brand.

And on the right, it was channeled into the Tea Party. And I think now the difference in this moment is it's the same, if not more, level of rage. But the polls that show that the Democratic base is annoyed and angry and frustrated with its own leadership was not a condition that existed back then. And so I think that is what the current Democratic Party leadership is just not used to and is sort of scandalized by, right? Because on the right, in the Republican Party, the idea of Republican primaries against incumbents, that's become somewhat more normalized than in a, like, the idea that like a Democrat,

I live in Colorado. The idea that John Hickenlooper might have, and he does have a primary now, a challenge. Yeah, he's got a challenge. Right. The whole idea, like, you talk to people in democratic circles in Colorado. It's like, no one could possibly.

It's a blue state. No one's going to primary a sitting senator. I'm not sure what's going to happen in that race, but I guess the point is, it's a long way of saying, the presumption for so long has been that there will not be a challenge, that the people who are in power

are scandalized. And I think to come back to this primary, I think every House Democrat is going to look at that and be like, I don't want to have to run for just my party's nomination and have to deal with something like that.

Yeah, and Dave, not every Democrat can get the kind of help that she got from, and particularly from Hakeem Jeffrey. So he put her, within days of this, in days of Nitalam launching her campaign,

he put her on this three-person Democratic task force to write A.S. policy. And what that is is a giant signal to the AI industry that you need to shower money on this person. The others are Ted Lou and Josh Gottheimer, both voracious fundraisers, Gottheimer in particular. And so they did. They came in, 1.6 million at last counting. I bet when we get the final numbers, it'll be higher was Anthropics Coalition of AI. So it's the AI safety, people, the good guys. But so he did that. And then there was also this pact that he's connected

to that raised money from A-PAC, moved it through a separate pack so that it could, it was called Article 1-Pack, so that she could abide by her promise to not take any more A-PAC monies. But Jeffries can't do that for everybody. I mean, maybe he can't. Can he? So how are, to throw his question, how are House Democrats responding to this? And do you have any other thoughts from covering this race? Yeah, well, I covered more close of the 2022 race when did a, it's a, it's a, you know, It was an open seat.

And at that point, it was a more fair map, but anyway, it was a safe Democratic seat. And in that race, which you've been setting up, it was very clear that Foucher was the pro-Israel candidate. She got the APEC support. It just was not in the Democratic conversation as a top issue at the right then. What did she do in the advance of this race? She disclaimed the APEC money. It helped her in the end. But she made a very splashy at a town hall announcement that she would.

was not going to take their support anymore. She co-assigned, blocked the bombs. When the Iran war started, Nita was very quickly, she went to her house and cut an ad at when she was against the war. If she didn't do that, just a less energetic candidate in general, but she was opposed to the war too. So would she have one had she not done that? I don't think so. I don't think with that money. If she was running as Dan Goldman in that district, she would have lost. She needed to be critical of Israel. She had two things. She needed the pro-Israel money and she needed to be answered. Some memorable, okay, Well, I'm voting for this person and she's moving in the right direction. Right.

In 2020, and this is, I interviewed the then CEO of APAC in 2022 about how they run ads on what works. But in 2022, it was, this is good politics, but maybe we're going to do the issue. We're not going to say this is the best cano in Israel, going to say something else. And now it's they're giving them a little bit of permission structure to denounce in pro-Israel politics just because maybe they'll get there and they don't want more voices in Congress that are criticizing them. So I think that is one lesson for all these candidates. And there's Illinois primaries in the next week. But for all these races, if you have a progressive challenger, what do you say on Israel?

It's important that the permission structure has been created for you to, you know, denounce them three times and then get elected anyway. But what does that say about the power of their issue? We can look at the polling, but I think this is even more powerful to say that you cannot, in order to survive a primary by one point, she had to very performative. say, and also I'm against the issue. I don't think you said genocide by the end, but I'm against what Israel's doing, I'm against the war, etc, etc. You need $2 million and that. That's new. I think,

and just one other point, I think that it's interesting to think about the APAC issue and the AI issue. The APAC issue for a long time had been an issue where there wasn't as organized and motivated an anti-constituency.

So the money could go to candidates, and the candidates didn't have to worry about an organized popular opposition in a democratic primary. They were kind of helping moderate, oh, you're moderate and you're going to get the APEC money, too, so don't worry about it. And the voters don't really care. Now the voters really care. Where I think I'm terrified about, like, is the world going to survive, are we going to go into, like, SkyNet world? Is that the AI money assumes that there isn't a similarly organized voting block against them.

In other words, the AI money presumes for now that we can give a lot of money to Democrats, get them to be pro-AI because they don't have to worry that in taking the money and in being pro-AI, they're going to prompt an organized popular resistance with political consequences when they run for election. You see that with, you saw it with crypto too, right?

And you think about these dynamics where you want, a candidate to go out, you know, if you're a progressive, maybe you want your candidate to go out there and say crypto's terrible or go out there and say AI is terrible. Why aren't they doing that? Well, the answer is because I think at a candidate by candidate level, they fear that if they speak up, even if they sort of in their heart agree with speaking up and against, you know, deregulation of the financial sector, AI, et cetera, et cetera, that not enough voters will care and all it will do is prompt

a flood of money. Again, they'll become the next Katie Porter in that Senate. Right, exactly. They bragged about that. The answer is bragged about that. That's our example. We have your Sherrod Brown's head.

Do you want to be him? Yeah, it's like the money is organized on those issues, but the people aren't. The APAC was exploiting that in the sense of the money was organized, but the anti-AAC people weren't organized. Now that's an organized constituency in a way that does what happens.

One very small point is that a law, And then I add I mentioned, she did try to tie that to Foshae by saying, and she's supported by the sort of AI companies that are giving intel, that are helping prosecute this war and the ones that are building the data centers. And it was, I think maybe she was a couple weeks early for that or a couple, who knows how long it is. She started to make that argument, but it wasn't, it wasn't there yet. That's where she took it. I think that's where the people you're talking about will take it.

Yeah, and I think the data, the local data center stuff will, has the chance to actually create organized politically. Yeah. It's already been happening. Yeah, if I were her, I would have, yeah, she said, you know, it's the AI used by ICE and used by, right, for Venezuela and for the, and then Iran. Palantir. But, yeah, I think, yes, it's the data, like, the data center. In your, in your district, with the water and the energy and my electricity bill is going up. I'm against it, and they're coming in and try to railroad you.

Yeah. Because otherwise, it's like crypto and AI. It's like a bank shot. It's a hard sell because a lot of people like crypto and AI. Yes. And also, we're looking at monster turnout in Texas, by the way. I think that's something worth adding. It looks like right now that it's roughly double what it was for Beto's.

Not a hugely contested primary. In Beto's case, I think he won with like 90% of the vote. So you can understand why you would have a higher turnout this time around. But that's a signal that Dem base is organized and energized and ready to go in November. Yeah, if you told somebody a month ago, Crockett's going to be a million votes to say, oh, she's going to win. Nobody gets a million votes in Texas Democratic primary. That's usually the total. It's usually around a million.

This looks like it's going to be north of two million. Can I also say that, like, as somebody who has worked on campaigns, I do appreciate that if, you know, in broad strokes here, that Tala Rico seemed to run, as we were discussing before this, run like a quote unquote a real campaign, like organizers, like the ads had a message, sort of much more of a grassroots footprint than Crockett. Crockett sort of, you know, I think basically ran as like an influencer campaign, like a purely influencer campaign, not like not as much of a real campaign. And I think I worry about turning campaigns into just, I am with my iPhone, you know, making TikTok videos, not really out in the community and that being validated by voters. Like I think there's something good about the person who was, whose campaign was more great. grassroots, more in the community, more of a traditional campaign, was actually validated by voters.

And still used TikTok and Instagram. Yeah, for sure. In the service of that, rather than as a thing in itself. Interestingly, he got more money from K Street. Politico had an analysis of that last. But they both did. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark.

And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. he became the first bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected.

The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of He Said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the on-purpose podcast. I'm joined by Luke Combs, award-winning country music artist, and one of the most authentic voices in music. today. Luke opens up about success, self-doubt, mental health, and what it really takes to stay true to who you are when your life changes overnight. I hate fame, I hate the word celebrity, I hate those words, that you made me uncomfortable. But I think when you get to a certain point, the fame or the success or the influence, it just accentuates and exacerbates the inherent person

that you are. The guy that says he's always going to be there and that will do anything to be there is the only guy that's not there. Australia when Bo is born. My whole identity is that no matter what, I'm going to prioritize my wife and my children over my job. I dread the conversation with my son. What do you think you'd say? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move to the Republican results in Texas. We'll talk about Ken Paxson and and Cornyn who were going to go to a runoff in a moment. But let's start with Dan Crenshaw.

So this is a very well-known Republican. Emily might have talked about this. Very kind of reviled. It's just a gift. It's such a kid. Actually, I want to ask Emily. Why do people hate this guy? Yeah, why don't you say that?

He got absolutely obliterated, by the way. It was 50, as of right now, with 95% of the votes in, it's 55.8% to 40.6%. Crenshaw, I believe, got elected. I mean, he, this is, he got trounced. And Emily's very happy. And we're like, he seems like the other Republicans. So tell us, like, why people hate it. I don't get it.

I'm from Colorado where we have, like, Lauren Bobert and would never happen to Lauren Boebert. I don't think. What's Boebert and Crenshaw? Do they hate each other? What's their... I'm sure they hate each other. He's, I mean, he hates anybody who is aligned with Tucker Carlson,

but he also very high profile, had picked high profile fights with Sean Ryan, who was really popular with conservative. of podcast listeners. But, you know, just on a substantive level, he was out of touch with the base on foreign policy. He is an insider trading maven. He loves to trade on insidding. He's to trade. Well, he was a tie. He wouldn't call it, he wouldn't call it insider trading. But of course, he's in Congress and he's trading stocks prolifically, which is actually interestingly enough, one of the things that this White House has zeroed in on being an important part of the Trump

agenda for the midterm cycle. That's what they were at Capitol Hill Club talking about. Maybe do something about it. That's what they're saying that Trump is going to run Republican candidates in 2026 on stopping congressional insider trading. So do it. Because the insider trading should happen only in the White House. It's only happens on, it's only in the holly market for people named Trump and Winkgoff. It is a sacred task. But anyway, so. The insiders out just made. I'm sick of these candidates, Candace, creating their own coins and have people buy them for access. Amazing. But he's, but he's a secretist.

He's self-agrant, listen, he's just my perspective on him. He's self-aggrandizing anti-populist in ways that were wildly out of touch with the moment and just made him a really bad guy. From my perspective, I think voters probably had a similar perspective. But I go, you've, I think I've only ever talked to him like once. And in that conversation, he was talking to me about Tucker Carlson unprompted. So you set it up very well. He also, the remap of the state gave him areas he had not represented. They had not seen. his campaign ads, and he stopped doing these, but are you aware of his action movie ads, the Michael Bay thing, where he would parachute into people's districts to save them? They hadn't seen those, but they had seen, Tucker, Steve Toth, who won, Tucker had a long interview with him four months ago.

He didn't make a lot of news, because that's who outside of Southeast Texas knows who Steve Toh is, but everything you said, he was a interventionist, anti-populist, who was believed that part of the American First Movement, not all of it, was going to wreck the Republican Party. And that if that is the people who are voting, they might take objection to that.

It's really that simple. And I was a little surprised that, and you were saying you were surprised, but it wasn't on more people's radars because this is a project for years to get rid of that guy. I don't know who first coined I Patch McCain, but that was the way he was seen. This is a long run.

It might have been, probably him, yeah. But he did not. cultivate support from people who didn't like him in 2018. I was also struck. Chip Roy. He was doing that. And Chip Roy is running for AG. He had, Ted Cruz, I'll finally say, Ted Cruz endorsed Toh, endorse his opponent. A lot of Republicans have won of him gone. So part of it was personal, but it wouldn't have been possible if he wasn't so alienated from America first. If I was going to say, Chip Roy running for AG came in second to a MAG candidate. And that was more about Trump.

but it was also sort of the heterodox, can we trust this guy? His instincts are not the same as those of us who want to just keep resources in the country, who have questions about the 2020 election. And these are both guys who I think had big profiles in D.C.

Because this is how media works. You're more interesting to the media if you'll criticize your party for them sometimes. No interest in that in Texas. A lot of love and confidence that Donald Trump is doing the right thing. So if your brand is trashing, not just Trump, but influential,

conservative thinkers, and speakers, you've alienated more people than you'd alienate by, you know, going to the Rotary Club and insulting. They hear about that. And their media diet has changed in ways that clearly Crenshaw, who I think also has or had a podcast. I mean, he was trying to get that.

Yeah, yes. That was not as popular in his district as it was here. I also wonder if, in a race like this, how much somebody like Crenshaw is hurt by the fact that independent voters in an open press? as an open primary.

Yeah, you just pull a ballot. Right, but you have to choose. In other words, how many independent voters were animated by voting for Tala Rico and didn't come into a race? Couldn't pull a ballot. No, pull a ballot. For somebody like Crenshaw.

That's interesting. I mean, in open primary states, you can be a candidate in a primary and think you're going to be rescued by or helped by independent voters. But if there's a race higher on the ticket where most of the independent voters are going to be voting. They can't come help you.

Right. Right. You should be able to pick. I want to vote Democratic. Race by race? Yeah, that's not how it rolls. Granted, this is a pretty decisive margin so far. Totally.

Who knows where, yeah, I think that is a great point. Definitely bigger. The surprise is definitely that it was that big. It was that big, right? You were home as Texas knew he was at risk, but not that he was just walking dead the white town. 100%. Yeah.

And he's someone who came in with a lot of momentum because people might remember he got made fun of us looking like a porn star by Pete Davidson on S&L. And everyone was like, he's a veteran. and so they brought him back on SNL, and he was on Weekend Update, and everyone was like, this is the way Republicans will win young voters. Dan Crenshaw knows how to use new media and pop culture. So he had youth summits, Crenshaw Youth Summits.

Of his own, where conservative organizations, he was trying to do like a mini CPAC for young people in Texas where conservative organizations would like buy booths, and it never really got off the ground. But he saw himself as a light for the Republican Party, and this is a really decisive refutation of that. Let's talk about Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton, like Chip Roy, headed to a runoff with John Cornyn.

We can put F3 up on the screen. This is the results. Very, very interesting results in this race. Cornon overperformed what a lot of people expected. He's not quite a Crenshaw-style figure. He's been around Texas for a long time. He's obviously a senator, so he has probably more built-in goodwill, but is definitely friendly with leadership.

He's a member of the GOPIA style. No question about that. Lots of people in Texas. Angry about that post-Ewbaldy gun bill that Cornyn got behind, that's definitely been a problem for him. Wesley Hunt pulls in 13.5%. Senate Leadership Fund aligned with Cornyn, then lashes out at Wesley Hunt as he's defeated. And it's basically like, well, we could have avoided a runoff if you hadn't even gotten into this race. Those are not Cornyn votes. Wesley Hunt voters?

What do you think, Wigel? By the end, I don't think they are. because the last two weeks, in Texas you'd see the ads. The last two weeks was SLF going after Hunt. They wanted this number. So what is their theory of this race? It is get Cornyn above Paxed by any margin at all. If it was like the polls were a month ago, and it was Paxton 43, Cornyn 33, Hunt better than he did,

then Trump would look at that and say, this guy's a loser. I'm not going to endorse him. They just want Trump to endorse John Cornyn. Forget any other issue in the race. Just endorse him. And right now, in other rooms, I'm sure they're saying, we got Tala Rico, not Crockett. There's no runoff on their side. So we're not sure Paxton can win.

Texas Republicans are not that worried. I mean, they voted for, this was the story. I covered in 2022. Running it for AG after all of his indictments, George P. Bush was running as the savior who would save the AG's seat. And Paxton was fine. So it's tough to convince Republican voters. The people in D.C. who make these donations were pretty well convinced that that

Paxton would blow it to Talarica, so they're going to do that today. We're not talking about any ideological differences. There really weren't any of the campaign. The entire argument against Hunt was that he was a showboat who never showed up for votes. It was not, he voted wrong on something. It was just that. And Paxton just kind of, he wasn't raising as much money, but he was kind of holding his powder because he knew he had this locked in.

He had, I mean, this is similar what he got, I think, in the, his age year primary, because he had two challengers. I think he did a little bit better. But that's the story. It's just, to the extent there is a big Republican establishment, this has been their thing for years. It's just we can't really make a positive argument for our guy's individual record. We can say that Trump loves them. So let's just wait this out and see if we can get Trump in the race.

And the hunt thing, the hunt theory was, Gordon's so weak that I can leapfrog in and I'd easily win. That's true. And if Republicans blow this at some point, they'll say, why did we invest so much when we could have just easily held the seat with West. Wesley Hunt, who would not have any problem. No scandals. That was kind of the premises of campaign. I'm a family man. I'm a Christian. I'm a veteran. Look at this resume. It's incredible. I'll just hold the seat, no problem.

You know, you dance with them that brung you, and they knew Cornyn. They wanted him back. So it's almost depressing talking to these races. Literally no. Ideological difference. It is just, we know this guy. Let's help him out. Screw this guy for opposing him. Now, the Bannon, the Bannon wing will argue that that's not the case.

You know, they describe Cornyn as a ron. as a rhino a liberal I mean how far has the gun will I mean serious some of it is vibes right that he's friendly

with McConnell World and Thune World and that he'll you know throw Republicans under the bus if he has to at any point like some of it's just like this guy's been around

a long time he's probably not running for re-election he's like 77 or something so he'd be 80 at the end of this term way too so he would be beholden only to people

who are going to pay for his retirement Paxton you know was the first Republican AG to join Trump and trying to overturn the 2020 election. Paxton has gone after big big tech all over the place. To the Supreme Court.

He's more than a magistrate. He'll file these lawsuits on social issues that no other Republican. He'll get to the head of the pack. I think him and Andrew Bailey and Missouri. So that's an ideological. But if you are a religious conservative, he is the one fighting for you and what's corn and done on that? Even though he's a, you know, adult wear and the like.

It's always like going around. It's always like who these, it's always like who these politicians think they owe, right? I understand why Bannon and Maga wants Paxton and not Cornyn because it's not, I mean, you're right, maybe you go down like bill by bill, issue by issue, it's pretty similar, but it's the perception of who they think they answer to, right?

I mean, the, I think the perception probably among the MAGA folks is John Cornyn doesn't think he answers to us. Yeah, he answers to a lot. Right, and Ken Paxson clearly, does answer to us. Ken Baxson sees that his political formula is by aligning with us all the time. And that's what they want. Yeah. Well, last point that I was going to make is just so runoff May 26, got a couple months for that now. But also what the thread between our first segment on Dems and Republicans, I think that's interesting is this is one of the first midterm cycles post-20204. It's the first midterm cycle post-2024.

But it's also the independent media midterm cycle. Yeah. Right? Like, are we past the point of critical mass on independent media changing these narratives in a way that does really hurt incumbents and hurts establishment candidates where Anita Alam can make a race uncomfortable, where Dan Crenshaw can get trounced. And I mean, I don't know. I think that's that in Tala Rico can run ads on top versus bottom. I don't know. And it's up against huge money on the Republican side. If you count the uncounted C4 and C3 money, I'm curious if you would think this is correct. I've seen the like Paxton crowd and Baxon supporters saying it probably approaches a hundred million. That if you factor mail and everything in that we don't know about yet. And they made it by the last quarter of them. Yeah, yeah. They bought every point.

Yeah. And then behind Paxton, four, five, six million, like a lot of money, but nowhere near $100 million. They're now looking at potentially if Trump can't figure out a way to like nuke this primary. Another $100 or $2 million spent over. Is it two months or three months? Is it June? No, it's May. May 26.

So almost three months, March, April, May of Republicans, like, savagely attacking each other. So to spend $100 million and to have a guy who's been in office for decades, and before that was Attorney General of Tax, it was like, they know who this guy is. And still, he gets 41.9%. is it crazy to think that if Cornyn spends another $100 million the next three months against Paxton and Paxton beats him that then he's wounded enough

that it's actually a toss-up in Texas or should we not pay attention to Texas because we've been fooled so many times it's like Florida. Right. No, and Talarico then loses by eight or something. And it would be unlike 2020, sorry, 2018

with Cruz. Cruz has his enemies in Texas, but better at raising money, has no scandal, whatever you think of him, does not have any personal scandals, family man. It would be a weaker candidate they had in 2018, a stronger Democrat. No, not impossible. It's just, what's happened, it's that Latino vote shift. If that's what Ken Paxton's betting on, that the Rio Grande Valley is going to lock in the race for him, no, it would be a tougher race. I don't think they're full of it when they say that Paxton makes them spend money and Cornyn does it.

It would be a, he's part of the establishment race, but it wouldn't be, he would, again, have the money. And I, uh, they're just, Paxton has not, has not cultivated the sort of people who can just keep dipping in. There are a lot of them in Texas. And Paxton was very successful in 2024 in getting rid of in primaries, Republicans who voted to impeach him in the state legislating. Yeah, you're right. But that's a smaller investment. That's $200,000 you can take a guy out. It's not, if Tala Rico becomes a phenom, as he already kind of is, and then spends 100. Does Paxton have 100 from the NRCSSC? No. And you've seen turning point in groups that are still angry, that there wasn't that money for Blake Masters in Arizona, but there was money to save Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. It would be a continuing sore point for why should grassroots people get to it. Now, St. Leisure Funds the opposite of grassroots. They don't care about that, but that is the sort of thing that Tellerica can talk about.

my, like, D.C. wants this, this to happen. I, I, I, I, he had some donors in, that are in D.C. sure, we all do, but I, but this guy, this guy owes people and I don't. The elements of an argument there. And, but yeah, Pax is just, I do think it's underageous. He's the guy. If a social conservative wants to sue abortion clinics or to investigate clinics that do gender medicine for minors, he will do it. He is a, but Texans, Texas Republicans have not sent one of those guys to the Senate. They've sent more talented politicians who have some appeal beyond the conservative base. This would be new for them if they try Paxton. Now, everybody says Paxton is the more vulnerable candidate. The Paxton crowd that his defenders, they say the opposite. I'm curious for your

take if this is Cope or if there's anything real to this. Their argument is Cornyn has spent $100 million dollars attacking our boy. We love Ken Paxton. We are so mad at how vicious you have been to our guy. Yeah. That if Cornyn wins, eff it. We're staying home. And that a chunk of of PACs and voters won't even vote at all. I don't think I buy that. I think what I... The one grain of truth, I think, is that there's an argument that

John Cornyn being the nominee makes it easier for Talley to be the anti-system candidate. Right. Right. There in Washington, I'm... And you can imagine Tala RICO... He's been there.

He's been there. Yeah. Exactly. And Tala RICO can do the whole it's both parties in Washington. It's Washington as the problem, whether Republican or Democrat. And Paxton makes that harder. Definitely. Right? Paxston, I think, then what Tala Rico probably has to do is it's more of an anti-Trump campaign

or an anti-base of the, like sort of the extremist base of the, that's how it would be portrayed. More than a more percent of party. Yeah, exactly. They did want to run against Paxon, that's true. Yeah, yeah, right. But I do think that, like, Cornyn being the old establishment, I guess, which is kind of crazy, but can be portrayed as, like, country club Republican. Right?

Like, that's a whole different campaign that I'm not convinced is, like, not effective. Like, I think it can be effective. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, yeah. I did see Cornyn asleep on a plane recently with his mouth. I was open a little bit.

So anyway. Vote him out. He was asleep on a plane. But it was almost like Biden-esque, right? Except he was on a flight. So he should be sleeping on a flight. God bless anyone who could sleep on a plane. All right, we'll have to leave it there, everyone.

Dave and Dave, thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me here. This is a lot of fun. We appreciate it. Go check out, obviously, Samifor, and Lever News. That's going to do it for us today, Ryan. Yeah.

And so, again, breakingpoints.com. We got that month free. Is it BP Free 26? Yeah, that's your code. Like, free the BP 26. Don't share that with anybody else. That's just for people who watch this segment. No, this is for everybody.

Share it with a friend. With your friends, but not just not like people that you don't like. Do not share it with John Cornyn under any circumstances. He's not to have the code. He just burned $100 million. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Appreciate it.

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