Bulwark Takes - Texas GOP Insider Reveals How Bad Things Are Getting for Republicans (w/ Garrett Fulce)

Episode Date: October 25, 2026

Texas Republicans are facing a nightmare scenario: Ken Paxton could lose, rural turnout is lagging, and the GOP may have to spend $400 million defending a state it once took for granted. Tim Miller talks with Republican operative Garrett Fulce about the growing anxiety inside the Texas GOP, the possibility of a Democratic upset, and why Garrett himself just voted for a Democrat.

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark. I am here with a guy that I hired, like, I don't know, a hundred years ago. He's at the Seeing Red podcast now. His name is Garrett Fulce. And, you know, he's showing a little wisdom lately. Maybe he hasn't had the same kind of wisdom I've had for the last decade or so we're about to discuss that a little bit. Garrett, how you been, man? I've been doing well, you know, new dad, kind of. I got a three-year-old and a one-year-old. So really ended on that and just commentating on. politics instead of working in it every day is a different animal as I'm sure you're aware. Welcome to the dark side. The light. Welcome to the light really. It's wonderful. You just get to say what you really think. You know, you don't have to spin anymore.

His show is seeing red as I mentioned. I was a Republican when I hired you. What was, remind me where did we have you? What was the first job that you were done? So I was in Iowa. So I was a tracker. So I was going to all of Bruce Braley's events. The Bruce Braley race?

Yeah. Wow. It'll come a long way. 12 years. Yeah. Yeah. So Garrett stayed in the Republican Party, moved to Texas. And we've been DM in a little bit.

He's written some columns. As we mentioned, had a podcast. Not thrilled with the direction of the Texas Republican Party. And the nominees in particular for a couple of offices. We'll get to that. But just kind of big picture, like just put on your analyst hat. What are you seeing? We're a couple of days into early.

vote, you know, it's dangerous to overinterpret early vote a little bit, but there's trends you can look at. What do you think is the state of play down there in the Lone Starstead? I mean, honestly, it's about best case scenario for Democrats on day one, and things are starting to, you know, revert to the mean as we get further and further into it. So right now, it's hard to say anything. But the weekends, when a lot of early vote happens, because in Texas, it's kind of split up. you have one big weekend, and it votes for two weeks, and then the weekend between early

voting and election days, there's no voting. So this next weekend is going to be where a lot of votes come in. And so, like, we'll have a better idea going into it, but at this point, it's still indicative of what the polls are saying. It's going to be a close race. Like, what's the level of panic among your Texas Republican kind of friends? Oh, it's not like in like, deaf. on three, like in the middle, people are worried.

And most of these people have never worked a competitive general, like, ever, because they've only worked in Texas. And so most people just don't even know what this feeling is. So I think that might be adding to it. So that's part of it. But also, a lot of people are working down ballot races where they don't have any control over it because, you know, the Republican economy plus the Paxton at the top of the ticket. and they're just kind of long for the right.

Yeah, so I was to say, what's been driving? I mean, it's so funny. Like, here we are, you know, just over a week out. And, you know, if a year ago, you'd said to me, like, Tallulica might really win. Like, the Democrats aren't really win Texas. And the government's race, might even be in play. You know, I would have said, that's the best case scenario for Democrats. That's, like, unimaginably good.

You know, and now, like, here we are today. And everybody's like, ooh, it's like, oof, you know, if, if, if, if, If Taylor Rico loses by one point, it's like, it's a catastrophe. You know, and so it's interesting, like, how much things have changed. What, what explains that in the year? And you talked to it, the Republican economy, huge shift in Hispanic vote. But, like, what else, you know, has changed that has made, you know, this such a winnable race for Democrats? Well, Paxon being at the top of the ticket.

And a year ago, I said this exact scenario. I played it out. And I put it in the hill. I said that if Paxton wins, the primary, he may very well still carry Texas narrowly, but they're outside Republicans outside of the state. I don't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save it. And that's exactly where we're at. And they still might not be successful.

And so that money could be in all these other places. Right now you're having about probably seven true toss-ups where they probably should be two or three. And if you were to think about that $400 million being spread elsewhere, where that's a major like impact across the ticket across the whole country because right because of that and basically i mean you know the amount of money there you know if it's being spent in alas shoring up other places oh i am alaska yeah yeah because tex is expensive and huge yeah it's expensive and it's huge um so it's just hard to get the coverage you'd want on the points.

And so that it kind of explains part of it. I think really there's a couple of weird factors is Republicans have to run up the vote in rural areas. And there's been a lot of consternation in the rural areas like in Iowa and like in other places about diesel prices about those concerns. But also there's been a lot of press in Texas about data centers. Texas was poised to become the number one data center state in surpassing Virginia. and there's been a lot of consternation about that. Democrats found a decent wedge at you to at least suppress some vote in some areas. And that's a major factor, I think, is pushing a lot of numbers down.

And then other issues similar to that, where, you know, you have gas prices, beef prices are going up. You know, in a lot of ways, that's good for Texas. Houston's the oil capital and Dallas has all the oil money. Parmians doing well. Yeah. So like those things kind of matter to people's pocketbooks, but also is helpful to a lot of other people. So it's kind of a wash on that issue. I think it really comes down to things like the data centers being up in and there's the issue of Texans push through Texas Republicans pushed through school vouchers or education savings accounts. And that's always been an unpopular thing in rural areas. And so a lot of people are upset. about that and still upset about it because that no one can see if the policy is even working yet because it just launched last August. I mean, in practice.

So you don't even have people who are like really like, oh my God, it's so good to like talk about it because the kids have been in school for two weeks. Yeah. So you've got, so basically what we're saying here is you've got depressed world turnout because of diesel prices data centers, maybe an education issue. you didn't mention this but I'll add on top of that you have a huge flip in the Hispanic vote based in part on some of those same issues but also in the way that the deportation campaign has been carried out you have as you mentioned unpopular Ken Paxton at the top of the ticket

impeached by his own party and energized democratic base I mean like those are basically the four factors that that are driving this and it's creating an environment that I guess you'd agree this is a better, like kind of almost a significantly better environment than 18 for better. Trump's first mentor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, it's similar.

I think the big, because at that point, Republicans hadn't really flipped the Hispanic vote. So that's kind of a net neutral. And so what was interesting about that one was just how much had been lost in the suburbs and suburban women. But a lot of those people came home and other people

kind of permanently went away. So it's a hard You didn't have the war driving up just at prices for... That is too. And that's true as well. And I think there's an interesting, like, kind of corollary to be made. A lot of has been said and been pushed on air, kind of redoing, literally redoing the they-them. That, Tyler Rico's for they-them, you know, to Paxton's for you ad in that motif. But the reason that ad was effective in 24 for Trump was that, you know, you'd had four years of increased gas prices.

increased grocery prices, etc. And there was a feeling that Democrats were only caring about the social issues. And so that resonated. Now we're two years later in the same factors are in play for Republicans and now we're the ones talking about it. I mean, it just seems like hackery from like the consultants who are just trying to like do something that's not going to get them in trouble after the fact. And, you know, for a loser. Well, I mentioned as to Kinsinger yesterday. There's this viral Reddit post from a guy that's like conservative guy saying, hey, my.

my kids are only hearing about trans stuff from you now. You know, it's like, you know, it's an ad, you know, commercial at every commercial of a football game. You have these mailers going out that are, you know, addressed to the student, quote unquote, you know, trying to tell them their rights. It's like this gambit to try to scare parents, you know, and they're talking about on the campaign trail.

It's on their news channels, you know, on right wing news channels. And so it's like, you know, the kids, like, if anything, are being exposed to this through all the ads. That doesn't mesh with, like, what the priority of that issue should be, given what else has happened. No, and it's all an attempt because everyone's looking at the polling and looking at the, like, I'm looking at the cross tabs and seeing that Republicans were only polling at 86% for the Republican candidates, regardless of Paxton or down ballot or even all the way down ballot, like a county judge's little stuff. it'd be like people as identified as Republicans were only saying they'd vote for those candidates at like 83 to 90 percent. Democrats were getting the usual 98 to 100 percent. And so clearly there's just an attempt to drive up that base.

But I'm not sure how many of those people are actually going to turn out because there seems to be about 30 percent of Cornyn's base from the runoff. It ends up being about a percent to 3 percent of the actual kind of general election vote that are so pissed off. they might just do a full flip to Democrat, not just not vote. Right. What do you thought about the mailers? Oh, I've written about it a lot. I've, I mean, I think it is, and you'll appreciate this as somebody kind of came up on the kind of the more white hat side of the opo and dirty trick side of things. It's just bad craft.

Like, it's clearly done by a professional because they covered their butts too much to like not get into too. much trouble. They have a LLC shield. They didn't really violate any laws that are like you can really tell. And so like they covered themselves enough in that way. But it's so obvious what it is that like you have these endless process stories about it. And is it going to be enough and is it going to be worth it enough? And at the end of the day, you're probably going to be found out that you did it. And like you said before, you just mailed a bunch of conservative kids, this stuff that their parents really don't like. So, I mean, how does that help you down the road?

Yeah. One more thing on the early vote, and then it's going to tie into the Bo French element of all this. Bo run for Railroad Commissioner for people who don't remember. We've covered this. He was the guy that was offended that there were Indian kids at the UT game, cheering on the UT football team, and was posting about that quite a bit on all the rumors out there about Bo. but very unapologetic on the white identity politics.

He posted this about the early vote. It's all this stuff. It's like, you know, Dallas is voting at 111% of what the 2024 pace was. Laredo is voting 110%. You know, these rural counties, Carnes, LaSalle, McMullen, Andrews, Gaines, Martin Winkler, that's all in the 40s and 50s. Is that like, is that legit what he's saying?

Or, you know, it's hard for, it's hard for me to take anything Beau French says seriously. No, I mean, the numbers are, they seem accurate as, I mean, because he's just regurgitating other stuff that I've seen as well. I think the, there is a problem for Republicans is that these rural areas aren't in any of these targeted congressional districts or any targeted state house seats, which is a whole other question we can get into. but like there's nothing else going on. So they just have to motivate themselves to go vote for the top of the ticket. And so I think you can really see that this playing out in those areas where Republicans do need to, you know, get their 80%, 75% to 80% of the vote and a higher turnout. How bad is Paxton Ben like just speaking about candidate skills as far as motivating this part? I mean, because this should be the one thing he's good at, right?

like motivating the MAGA voters? Shouldn't be this to turn out? Shouldn't that be the one thing that he's good at? I mean, you'd think that. And if he were the case, he'd probably be debating. He hasn't debated. I don't think he'd ever debated as Attorney General if he did. I kind of recall him doing some forums back in 2014,

but like on the primary side. But he hasn't really done anything in 12 years. When you're the Attorney General, you're actually not ever in court. It'd be weird if you were. And so, like, he doesn't have to get up. He's used to being on a, camera like this talking to a host and that's about it and no he's not the most charismatic guy he has a couple of funny Trump stories about being called in the shower and like waiting to hear

from him but like you know you hear that once eight years ago you hear it every two years until he's in the shower he's just that's it he just really wanted to like talk to the president he was expecting a call and he had to answer the call he was in the shower that's the I I saved everybody 10 minutes if they ever have to go listen to a stump speech but that was so Oh, yeah, fun, fun times. Everyone has to think about Ken Paxson in the shower. But the, you know, that's it. He's not the greatest on the stump.

He's kind of more of a, he reminds me of a pastor from the 90s. He'll set up a story. That's, you know, that's his anecdote. He goes into some red meat stuff. And it kind of resonates with people who are used to being in the pew and kind of having that 20 minute, like, bite size, you know, whatever. But that's not really great for rallies or the things you need to do to really raw, raw, the base. And so, no, he's not been great at turning out voters.

Back to Bo French. I mean, is it enough to make you go full cuck like me? I mean, you got to look at Bo French and think, this is crazy that this guy's on the ballot for my party right now. I mean, we can get, let's let's let's dive into that because he was the Tarrant County GOP chair who while that put out a Twitter point. poll that said, who has caused more problems for America, Jews or Muslims, right? And that spurred Dan Patrick and a lot of other people to say, hey, you should resign. This is terrible. And then he decides to run for railroad commission. While he was still for Tarin County Chair, he endorsed and they had the county party endorsed, which is weird in municipal races. All 11 competitive races, they lost.

is like Arlington, Fort Worth. This isn't some random-ass county. Like, that's a big... Right. No, it's a million plus people. Every single competitive race he endorsed him, they lost. Every single one of them. And so, like, him being involved is, like, a cancer to the people who are on the ticket with him or who he's endorsing. And so, yeah, I didn't vote for him.

I voted for the Democrat. It's the first time I voted for Democrats since I lived in Arlington, and the option was Democrat or socialist. How did it feel? No. Felt good, didn't it? Felt good. You know, just a little freeing.

Just to fill in one bubble. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's a new fee. It's new, but it's, uh, we'll see how it goes.

Like, if French is, wins, he's just going to, he's so, since the UT situation, he's stopped tweeting about racial stuff and started tweeting about oil and gas, which is what the position he's running for does.

But he is ultimately a, you know, of the Twitter troll variety. And as soon as he has the, doesn't have the consequences of having to deal with that, he's going to go back to tweeting about the scourge of needing to deport 100 million people, including naturalized citizens on their children and all of that. So it's, he's the kind of guy who quotes Nazi scholars. And I don't mean like people who kind of thought the Nazis were cool.

I mean like actual Nazi scholars. So like this is who we're talking about. This is not, this is David Duke level of just so far to whatever the hell he is that like racist and xenophob, whatever word you want to call him, whatever salad is it is. He's all of it and he's proud of it. You hear any of the country club rumors? So I have. Of course I have. I may have propagated some of them at some point.

But one of the leading kind of tabloid people has said that he's not been able to verify it. And he's been pretty good about sniffing out a lot of Republican. I'd be happy to hear the Bo's not one of my people on. I don't want him in the LGBTQIA plus community, you know, but whatever. There's some chatter. There's a lot of chatter. There's also chatter about relationships and the Houston Chronicle insinuated this. There was random photos of him in Getty with, I don't remember the guy's name, but he was a politician up in the northeast.

I don't remember which party, but he ended up having to resign because he was sexually harassing his male staffers or assaulting. I don't recall which. And so, you know, that's his, that's a random association with Beau French. So go figure. Seems like a trend. I just don't know why he didn't change his name to Bo Freedom. Like, if you're going to be the xenophobic hand in your last name is French, it just doesn't really work. Go on.

And also why, how is his name not spelled in the French way? You know, like there's a lot of, I just have a lot of problems with Beau French. I think it's another thing. that you indicated that it's not just, and we've been talking, you know, mostly about Tala Rica on the statewide. Let's just hit a couple of the races really quick. It seems like you're,

I open to the idea that Dina Hosa can win the governor's race? I'm, I think it's, she's, the way I put it is, you know, both French and Paxson are very much in the danger zone. It's the end as if it may not entirely be in their control,

whether they win or lose. I think Governor Abbott and on the, And then in the Inahos race is he would have to misstep at this point to push it over. Or something major, you know, obviously something major could happen. But I don't see Abbott's running a competent campaign. What's indicating to you that she's running so far behind Tauroiko that it's not winnable? It's more that Abbots run a competent race and he knows that did not have any money. And so there's some follow down, follow through with, you know, just turnout from the center.

race and stuff. But with how campaign finance works, typically you'd want to have a lot of money going to your governor candidate to run the field operation because you have untapped whatever. And that hasn't happened. And so that money has been almost wasted having to go through Tala Rico. And so just they've not, well, people have talked about like there's been a lot of value ad in Tala RICO being able to buy the ads at the candidate rates. Not a lot of it's been talked about kind of that, that's that differentiation with Texas campaign finance law of really being able to push Republican turnout. And I think Abbott's been, you know,

Abbott's been on air, his positive, he's not too, he's not under water. Are you saying there's a chance? Does she have a chance? Yeah, there's a chance. I think whatever the last time I sold the market, they had it like 30%. I think that's way too high. But it's, I would say, 15 to 20% chance.

It's how Rieke, you think, is a favorite right now? You use slight, probably 55. Yeah. And the House races moving to the House, the gerrymander backfires, basically. I mean, you end up losing two of the, you know, majority of Latino seats with Polito. Polito's definitely going to win, right? And Garcia, I think, his favorite. I like what's your sense on how the House map shakes out.

So I think there's three of them. I think all three go Republican, or sorry, go Democrat. But the interesting thing is that's still a net two. for Republicans. And so is it a backfire? I mean, you could have gotten five, but also could you have ever gotten five? So, yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, it's, yes, it backfires in the sense that you could have had five.

It could have been better. But in two years, you may be able to get those seats. And so would we have lost more seats if he had as long as he wants to be? So that one, not that one. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, but like, Quayar and Gonzalez are probably are looking good.

I think Herrera, the gun guy, a guy, a guy, a guy, is, I think he's like a little bit. Isn't he all the guy that like loves talking about like, you know, wops? I don't know. He's the podcaster. There's like very much had a lot of vulgar podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be, I mean, to be, I mean, honest, a lot of people out there in his district are veterans or no veterans.

There's a ton of their base. There's a ton of bases out there. And he does not say anything that's outside the realm. anything I've heard veterans say. And it's a show with veterans talking about like military and gun stuff. So it's like it's one of those things that it's rolling off most.

Most criticism's rolled off them out there because it's pretty explainable. Unlike other folks if they just say it out of turn. Yeah, sure. So that's 23. That's 23. Nine was it the other

another major one which is on the used to cover South like Houston and coming into my county and do some other stuff. And now it's over on the other side of Harris County. And I think it grabs some other counties over on that side. And, you know, it seems like it's going the Republican direction. Though, you know, it's listed as like something that could be picked up in a huge dim wave. So that's where it's said.

That was Al Green's old seat are, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's been around along. Sunshine. All right, Garrett, what else I'm going to ask you about? Texas House. I was hoping you're going to tell me that people are pissing their pants. I was hoping that you're going to tell me that the Republicans of Texas are pissing their pants.

I think I think you'll see that this weekend. I honestly, I think people are going to freak out at the early voting numbers. Okay. Who's John Cornyn rooting for in the race, do you think? Oh, he won't say. So, you know, he's probably rooting for the most chaos possible. But he's rooting for Republicans in the Senate. booth, that's a, that's a Tala RICO vote, right? John Kornan? If there were a Kalshi market on it, I would probably put it on, on, on Tala Rico for that. Yeah.

Yeah, we had Neil Bush that are the Cahone's to actually endorse them. But I think, I think Cornyn, W., George P. I think those are all silent Tala Rican, too. Those are all silent Tala Rican voters, I think. Yeah, probably. Probably. But a lot of people come out against French. A lot of people have come out against French and said the vote for

for straight up, Rosenthal or just our no voting. Yeah, even Carl. Carl Roved said that. I tried to get Carl on the show, but he didn't want to do it. Maybe soon. All right. Behind the scenes, you know, when I threw in with the anti-Trump cause, all the other trackers that I hired, like talking behind my back, there's a lot of jokes about the pearls or like what was happening.

Oh, sure. But, I mean, people have been making fun of you a long time. Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, it was not, it wasn't much new. I would say this. There were people who, and you'll see them pop up every once a while, who were, who kind of had earlier interactions with you before, before Jeb. And I feel like you had a change after Jeb where you were just way more about just like kind of helping people out a lot more. And so the people who saw you after that were, have a much more positive, like, experience and would talk nice, way more nicely with you.

That's a really nice way to put it. I was a dick before that, that's what I'm saying. I was a little bit of a dick. You were not known for your civility. Yeah. I don't think you are now either, but you were, you know, matured. I've softened. My heart edges have softened.

There's no doubt about that. You know, I became a father. You know, started caring about the people around me. I think that's fair. That's growth. That's what I call growth, baby. Yeah. That's part of a life well-lived, you know.

Nobody needs to stay the same way their whole life. That's not how it's supposed to be done. All right, buddy. Well, I appreciate you speaking the truth about what's happening down there. And maybe we'll be, you know, as we kind of are analyzing the data, as we get close to election again, all right? All right. Sounds good.

Thanks, Tim. Have it going. That's Garrett Fultz at the, I was about to call it the reddening. The red. Let's see. Seeing red. Seeing red. God, sorry.

It's 9.30. That's Garrett Fulse. Seeing red is his pod if you want some Texas Republican talk. All right. We'll see you all soon. Subscribe to the feed.