Pod Save America - Choosin' Texas with Bobby Pulido
Episode Date: September 27, 2026Live from the Texas Tribune Festival, Jon, Tommy, Lovett, and Dan discuss the dream of a blue Texas and how the campaigns there are doing, from James Talarico's debate challenge to Ken Paxton, to Gin...a Hinojosa's momentum in the governor's race, to Donald Trump's decision to stay away entirely. Then they discuss Trump's special welcome — and ballroom tour — for Chinese President Xi Jinping and an assorted cast of tech oligarchs, and the Republican Party's growing frustration with their underperformance in typically purple states like North Carolina and Georgia. Then, award-winning Tejano artist Bobby Pulido, the Democratic nominee in Texas's must-win 15th district, stops by to talk about his race to unseat Trump-backed Rep. Monica De La Cruz.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.You can request a transcript by emailing transcripts@crooked.com. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.
Transcript
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from abroad.org. Welcome to POTSave America. I'm John Fabro.
I'm John Levin
I'm Tommy Vitor
I'm Dan Feiffer
We're excited to be here at TripFest
We're going to get into all the big races
Across the country and here in Texas
Bobby Polito is here
He'll be coming out soon
And before we get to the news
If you guys are free tomorrow
And you want to help elect Democrats
We will be doing two events
We'd love to have you at
We're going to be from one to three
three will be joining Votesave America and the Travis County Democrats for a canvas at Pan American
Park in East Austin. So, come join us. You don't need to sign up. Just show up. All right. Let's start
with the number one Texas Longhorns. And you know who's excited for the game tomorrow? Donald Trump.
But you know what? He's going to Tennessee. And he has no plans to come back to Texas.
so far.
I don't think he's coming back again before
election day.
He is, however,
planning trips to Alabama
and Oklahoma.
Yeah, I thought I would get some booze there.
But no real competitive
races in either of those states.
He has no plans to come back here.
And Republicans,
meanwhile, here in Texas,
Republicans are spending
the equivalent of the GDP of like a mid-sized country
to try to save Ken Paxton
and Greg Abbott and maybe even the Republican majority in the state.
Dan, what do you make of this new deep red state tour
that Trump is on?
Like, I did not expect five weeks out
or whatever it is from the midterms
Trump to be going to Alabama and Oklahoma.
I think we should just begin,
by saying it's so funny that Trump,
that if Trump wants to see the Texas Longhorns,
he could have come to Texas,
but he doesn't want to get booed like Ted Cruz.
So, I think
Trump looks at every problem
and sees the solution as more Trump.
So we sees his party cratering the midterms,
he's like, I got to get out there, got to get out there.
And his party is trying to steer him
into the least damaging place as possible,
which are the quintessential swing states
of Alabama and Oklahoma.
And even in Alabama,
I actually think he could cause them real problems
because he's going to Alabama too,
which is the district that is represented by a Democrat
Shemari Figures, which is one of the majority minority districts
that the Supreme Court struck down.
This is a district that Trump won by 14 points,
but 40% of the electorate in that district is black.
And we've seen since post-Kalai huge turnout among black voters.
So I think there's a very real chance that Trump could actually,
in trying to do no harm,
could do real harm even in the very, very deeply red district.
Let's hope so.
shout out harm
let's talk about the Senate race
here in Texas
you guys heard about it
Senate Republican Super PAC
is now committed to spending
another $30 million
against James Telerico
in the final weeks
and one Republican source
told Punch Bowl today
that they think they're going to hit
200 million all in
by the time this race is over
and even
though Dems though are getting outspent
everywhere, here in Texas, they are taking
James Taylor Rico's small but persistent polling lead seriously.
And last night, Thursday night, they launched a new super PAC
called Texas Forever.
So, Cavalry's coming.
Love it.
Senator Republican PAC spent more than $20 million
supporting John Cornyn in the primary.
Did not work.
Do we even think that $200 million can really
rehabilitate a candidate like Paxton, who most voters here do know extremely well?
Well, let's just ask people from Texas that question. How many ads would you have to see
to change your mind about Ken Paxton? And is there enough time to run those ads before the heat
death of the universe? How much would they have to pay you personally? Right. So there was a focus
group. Kristen Solstis Anderson ran this focus group, Fred of the show. And she had 12,
12, 24 Trump voters
who were either considering
Tala Rico or undecided
and she asked, what is the first
word that comes to your mind when you think
of either candidate? And they were not
totally sold on James Telerico,
but I just, these are the words that they
said for Paxton.
Crooked, criminal, crook,
crooked, crooked, bad,
immoral, disgusting, corrupt, morally
corrupt, and womanizer.
You know, they're on the fence.
So you can, you can do a lot
of good with an ad campaign for a new restaurant.
It does it work as well when everybody's been there and gotten food poisoning?
I mean, I assume all the money is just going to go.
It's going to be hard to prop up Paxton, but it's probably just going to, it's going to be
Tala Rico attack ads.
Hard negative, yeah.
I saw, speaking to Tala Rico, I saw that right here on this stage, Thursday, he challenged
Paxton to a debate on Fox News.
Yeah.
No dice.
No takers for that debate from Paxton.
Tala RICO did call Paxton's Choice low T.
Tommy, do you think there's any chance
that Paxton takes the bait at some point,
you know, considering at least Fox News is friendly or territory?
And if you're Telarico, you're the Tel Rico campaign,
do you keep pushing this challenge, like maybe by going on Fox?
Or is that not the best use of time?
I think for them, there were like a couple of times.
pieces to the strategy. The first was, how do we get through this interview at the Texas Tribune
Fest? And there's a couple ways you can do it. You could come in knowing that there's a bunch of
national press here, knowing that they're going to write up some headline about what you say,
and you kind of white-knuckle it and hope that the headlines are the best version of your
response to attacks from Republicans about your record, or you walk up on stage with a bucket
full of blood and you throw chum in the water, and that's exactly what they did here with this debate thing,
saying, like, I'm going to debate Ken Paxson, and we're going to do it on Fox News.
It works.
Not that you're all fish or anything.
No, the press are fish.
And it works beautifully with the National Press Corps.
Like, that was the headline he got.
And they followed up today with this video of Tala Rico calling Paxon's number and leaving
in a voicemail to invite him.
And it was all very clever and I think well executed.
I think bigger picture, when your opponent is, like, his whole message against you
is that you're a wimp and you're low T and your rejoinder is like, all right, bitch, debate me on Fox News.
Like, it's a home game for you.
that's a pretty good way to respond.
And do I think it'll happen?
Probably not.
If it does, like I think Talley Rico can hold the zone,
but we should just be...
You think?
Well, but at the end of the day,
at the end of the day, Fox News is Fox News,
and they are an extension of the MAGA media machine,
and that is true for Brett Bear, who would host the debate,
because we all, I think, saw pictures of Brett
and his lovely wife at the state dinner
at the White House two nights ago, right?
Like, he's very much...
People in D.C. treat some Fox News hosts like they are straight news men and women when in reality they're all sort of working for the same master.
But I think it was a smart play.
I think it's something he'll probably repeat.
Tyler Rico will probably repeat.
But I'm not sure it'll be like a focus.
I'm skeptical that it'll happen.
It's pretty extraordinary, right?
Because Paxton needs the debate.
He needs the help of a debate.
The fact that they are so...
That's if he performs the debate in a way that resembles a human.
Well, if you trust it, right.
Well, like, if you just, if you believe that
Paxton is a little bit behind
Talleyco, based on all the polls that we've been
seeing over and over again,
he's got to do something to change it.
And the fact that he's so, he is so,
has so little confidence
in his ability to win that kind of an argument
that even from behind, like, usually
the winning candidate, the candidate ahead is not the one
demanding an opportunity to have a big stage
in which they face the opponent. That's what
a challenger does. I think he should go on,
I think Tala Rico should go on, like,
Jesse Waters show and do the challenge there too.
Take the Jesse Waters challenge.
It's all about getting attention.
You know what I mean?
Like the throwing out the debate idea
was a gambit to get attention.
It worked.
Going on Fox News, it'll get you attention.
I mean, it's always to debate,
the version of the interview you're going to get on Fox News
is likely to be combative.
And maybe that's a good thing
because your supporters like it.
Like I watched the debate,
the interview Abdul El Sayah did with Jesse Waters,
and I kind of winced a bunch of times.
And I was like, I don't know about that.
But then I went out to Detroit.
and he did a town hall, and I saw people yelling to the stage,
you whooped his ass, Abdul, you know, so, like, people liked it.
Do you think Tommy that Talrico wants the debate?
I think so.
I mean, if I had the opportunity to stand physically side by side with Ken Paxson
and talk about my record, I would do it every day.
Talk about magging.
It's talking about the governor's race.
It wasn't that long ago that National Democrats and media types
were saying that Greg Abbott was a lock.
Not us, though.
We talked to Gina.
a long time ago.
And now she's, yeah, we were ahead of the game there.
It happens once in a while.
Did we see the pulse coming or did we change the pulse?
We don't know.
Yeah, exactly.
So Abbott's running scared now.
And one way you can tell is he has completely changed his tune from wanting Texas to be
a quote, epicenter of AI development a year ago.
And now he's imposing data center moratorium, or at least on new permits.
now that we're getting close to election day.
Lovett, what do you make of Abbott's data center pivot?
And why do you think the guy who won his race by 11 points last time around
is now in such a tight race this time?
Yeah, so I think a lot of Republicans have been caught off guard
by the backlash to data centers.
I can see it being an especially tough issue for someone like Greg Abbott.
The latest data is that the request for power for these new data,
centers in Texas would require five times as much power as is currently peak demand in Texas
in a state that, I mean, you all will tell me if I'm wrong. Have questions, concerns, lingering
doubts about Greg Abbott's ability to manage the electric grid? The other, sure, and the
other part of this too is, so it's not just that people really don't like the idea of having
a data center in their neighborhood. You think about the kind of people that are like maybe older
homeowners that might be really bothered by something like this. That's where Greg Abbott has won in the
past. That's the one group where Paxton does okay. And an older homeowner is also the kind of person
who shows up at a town meeting, fills out the form to provide their feedback, doesn't let something go,
and might change their mind when, you know, Hosa is the one who came out for a moratorium first.
I think Greg Abbott wants this to be a pivot. In reality, looking at what he's doing, he is
saying that there is a pause. He is allowing a process to unfauntary.
that could allow him to have basically complete flexibility
after the election in November
to either return to the policy as it was
or paper over it with some sort of cosmetic changes
and allow it to continue.
So I think he's just trying to get through this
without losing people for whom this could be a deciding issue.
We should talk about Inohosa's message.
She is running an ad
where a person who attended the January 6th rally
says she's voting against Abbott
because he's bought and paid for
by the billionaires and the corporations.
Lof, lost to J-Sixer.
They're a famously impressionable bunch.
And she's running another ad, pushing back on the two woke attacks
with a page from the Republican script saying,
my pronouns are mom, Texan, and soon to be governor.
Good ad. Good ad.
Tommy, what do you think of how Inohosa
has positioned herself in her strategy in general?
Sure. I was talking to a guy named Matt Engel earlier today
who runs the Lone Star Project.
He's a long-term, Democratic hand, some fans out there.
He said one of his rules for running successfully as a Democrat in Texas is don't get caught being a liberal.
And I think Gina is executing on that strategy.
I think, you know, as much as we all loved Beto and were inspired by his campaign, I think, you know, he got a lot of national media attention.
I think he became kind of like a national media darling.
And seen as like the great hope of the Democratic Party and that probably hurt him back here.
she's not going to make that mistake.
I think Gina has a tougher race because, you know,
Greg Abbott is not the most exciting candidate.
He doesn't have a lot of Riz, but he's got a lot of money
and a good ground game that's sort of operating year-round.
So he's way tougher than Ken Paxton.
And so her strategy is basically to win about 60% of the Latino vote,
to blow it out in the five big, you know, urban counties.
And then to get like double digits with independents
and then peel off as many
kind of rural Republicans
as she possibly can.
And the two ways they're trying to do that
is through issues.
The first is education.
So Abbott has a bunch of donors
that are big charter school supporters.
It's one of his guy, Jeff Yoss.
He's like TikTok CEO or something, right?
He's a TikTok investor.
And at the state dinner the other night,
they just listed him on the...
He's the guy who convinced Trump to...
To save TikTok.
And so he just says, Jeff Yass, TikTok.
Okay, yeah.
Great.
So Jeff Yoss is one of them.
And so, you know, he gives Abbott a bunch of money.
Surprise, surprise.
All of a sudden, money is getting routed from public schools to charter schools.
And that means that schools are closing in these communities.
You've got 150 school districts in Texas.
The kids are going four days a week.
That's crazy to me.
Crazy, awesome.
And then, you know, like, obviously it's like infuriating for parents, but then also,
if you live in that community, like you're losing the culture,
losing Friday Night Lights football, you're the biggest employer.
in the areas shutting down in some cases.
So that's an area where she's really targeting
like maga moms who are pissed about this issue.
And then the data center issue is another big opportunity.
There's a group called Breaking Ranks or Break Ranks,
which is a bunch of like, you know,
rock-ribbed Republicans, conservatives, and rural areas
who are furious about data centers.
And Gina has gone and met with them
and heard them out and made all this really compelling content with them.
And she's hoping to like get some of those voters
because if you can flip somebody, that's worth two votes
as opposed to just turning someone else out.
And so it's a, you know, it's a tall order.
I think someone I told me today,
like he thinks Gina's running dollar for dollar
the best campaign in the state.
He's just worried she's going to run out of dollars
because you got to do a lot of things.
You've got to turn out a lot of voters in big media markets.
You got to convince Latinos on the border.
You have to reach these rural voters.
So it's tough, but, you know, she's running a smart campaign.
I agree with that 100%.
She is running one of the best campaigns.
I think not just in the state, but in the country.
And the reason that I like it so much is it's so often
Democrats and Red States run to lose
by less than the person who ran before them.
And she is being aggressive.
She is taking bold stance and she's getting
out in front on issues like data centers,
flock cameras. She's doing these ads like this.
She's just being, she is playing to win
because she knows that the only way that a Democrat is going to win
the government in Texas is to run a very high-variant
strategy to take real risk and she's doing that. And that's like a model for what Democrats
should be doing around the country in these races. In these places, we haven't run governance races
in a quarter century. So there are a lot of house races in play here as well. As you'll recall,
Republicans famously kicked off the country's redistricting wars here in Texas last year because
Donald Trump demanded more House Republican seats, except now a bunch of the new districts
that they drew to elect Republicans are competitive anyway.
We'll be talking to Bobby Polito about his race against Monica de la Cruz in the 15th district.
There's an open seat in the 35th around San Antonio where Democrat Johnny Garcia is running against Monica De La Cruz's brother, Carlos.
In the 23rd, Katie Padilla Stout is working to beat that absolute lunatic Brandon Herrera.
And we've got an emerging race in the 11th where our own Vote Save America recruit, Claire Reynolds,
jumped into the race against August
Fluger and has a really good shot.
Dan, it's too early to tell, of course,
but how much of what we are seeing in the House races here
is, and the shift towards Democrats,
is due to the national environment,
and how much do you think it's something specific,
changing about the views of Texas voters
and different demographic groups of Texas?
Obviously, the biggest factor in Texas anywhere else
is the fact that the Trump,
the president is,
incredibly unpopular. He has launched an incredibly stupid war that everyone hates. It's raised gas
prices above $4 a gallon and diesel above $7 a gallon and made interest rates and mortgage rates at
7%. Like that is everything that's driving everything. But the forces that are sort of causing
the Republicans that possibly bottom out are magnified here in Texas because the two groups
who Trump is losing the most ground with across the country have the greatest concentration
in Texas. It's Latino voters who have abandoned Trump.
in droves. We've seen that, not just in polls, we've seen that in special election results
here in Texas, and it's working-class white women. And so here you have, you know, Texas is a state
where, you know, 30% of voting eligible population is Latino. We expect a quarter of the electorate
to be Latino. That shift is going to cause huge, it's a huge problem for Republicans that you're
not seeing in other states because here you have both a large working-class white population and
a large Latino population. And that is sort of, all the suburbanites,
and all this stuff. Trump lost those orders before. These are the ones he's losing now.
And so that's why Texas, this is a generational opportunity for Democrats to win Texas.
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All right, we're going to have more news in a bit, but we have a game first.
And we're back.
We come from the land of California to study your ways.
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shocking political scandals.
And so it's time for a game we're calling
two scandals and a lie,
remember the alibi.
Here's how works.
I'm going to read my boys here
about three scandals,
two of which are real,
one of which we made up.
You have to identify the lie.
Here we go.
First up, A, stole a $1,000
Montblanc pen from a security bin
at a courthouse metal detector
and was caught on video.
Next, B, said while purchasing ham for target practice was expensive,
it was still cheaper than a homeless person
while firing a gun at a ham.
Or C, once gave a sermon at his own church
in which he revealed his struggle to forgive Jesus for being Jewish.
Oh, my God.
Which did we make up?
I'm guessing B, but it's believable.
All the above is not an option?
No, it is not. These are sincere. There's no tricks.
I kind of think it's the church one.
But I don't know.
And?
Dan?
Decide.
The ham is just so specific.
Have you been inside love its brain recently?
Let's go with the church.
That's right.
That is one we made up.
The ham, obviously, Ken Paxton is the pen.
The ham was Brandon Herrera for Texas 23rd in a YouTube video.
So we stole the ham to shoot at the ham?
No, no, he purchased the ham.
He bought the ham.
the ham, shot the ham.
Yeah, shooting the ham was fine. It was the homeless person.
They should know. Poor use of ham, but sure.
Next up, called on his social media followers to vote in a poll asking whether Jews or Muslims
are the bigger threat to America.
B, posted a late-night video of himself railing against the perverted left, recorded what was
from very clearly inside a strip club, or C, said that a gun rage's dummies, empty head was
full of much, much like the average Austin feminist.
Ooh.
Oh my God.
Do you seem like they're all...
I think some of them are here.
I feel like these are all
Brendan Herrera, right?
Yeah, it sounds like it.
The first one I know is right.
I don't know what the next two.
What do you think?
Is it the strip club or is it the
mushy-headed Austin feminist?
I'm guessing he wasn't streaming
from a strip club, so I'll say that was fake.
That's correct.
Okay.
Actually, the poll between bigger threat, Jews or Muslims,
was Texas Railroad Commissioner-Candidate Beau French.
I mix those two up sometimes.
And yes, the Austin feminist comment was from Brandon Herrera.
Next up. Oh, bonus question.
Bonus question.
Herrera filmed himself firing a gun at bottles of ranch dressing,
and after they exploded, rubbing ranch dressing on himself
and declaring that the ranch would make him irresistible to whom?
Who would be irresistible to a ranch-covered Brandon Herrera?
The answer, fat bitches.
Don't, I'm just reading it.
Don't boo vote.
That was it good.
Yeah, don't boo vote.
Next up, use campaign donations to pay for his wife's hair extensions,
horse breeder, and psychic visits.
In a social media post, asked,
if you believe Harris's policies are better for Americans
than Trump's policies, you are, uh, is the poll.
Ignorant, a liar, retarded or gay.
or C was impeached in part over $20,000 worth of kitchen countertops.
Kitchen countertops, corrupt kitchen countertops.
I think that's right.
Is it the...
Which is it?
What do you think?
I guess an A.
Yeah, I don't even remember what A was.
It was the donations for the psychic.
And you're right.
It was both French with the poll.
And it was Ken Paxton,
who the House articles,
alleged that Austin real estate developer
Nate Paul paid for those countertops.
Wow. I bet they were fucking ugly, too.
Well, French really loves doing these polls, huh?
Yeah, he just wants to get a vibe check
on the people.
And that's two scandals and a lie,
colon, remember the alibi.
Wow.
All right, well, Texas isn't the only place
freaking out Republicans right now. We are now a little
over five weeks from Election Day,
and here's the latest headline
from the Best in the Business Forecasters
at Cook Political Report.
GOP on track to lose House majority
as 15 race ratings shift toward Dems.
That was today.
There we go.
Standing ovation for the Cook Political Report,
for those of you listening.
A lot of Dave Wasserman fans here.
Okay, so they say that the most likely outcome
at this point is that Democrats
pick up anywhere from five
to 15 house seats, which even at the low end would mean no more speaker Mike Johnson.
And it seems like this is where money really makes the difference at the end of a campaign like this,
where suddenly there's a bunch of seats potentially in play that neither side really thought
were going to be the most competitive districts. If you are sitting at the D-Triple-C right now
or an affiliated super PAC, like, how are you making decisions?
about where to invest in the final stretch,
knowing that you can't do everything.
Yeah, you can tell the Republicans know the House has gone
because they've moved much of their money to districts
that Trump won by 10 to 15 points.
So there's three districts that Trump won by 15 points
that they're investing in right here in Texas.
They're doing all across the country.
And the goal here is not to preserve the majority.
It's to limit the size of the Democratic majority
to make it easier for them potentially get it back in 2028 or 2030.
So this is where we're having.
basically unlimited money matters because it allows the Republicans to play in a whole bunch of
races to shore them up the Democrats cannot we do not have that money so Democrats have to be incredibly
disciplined about how to do it and it's like we want to win as many seats as possible we want to
send we want the largest majority possible it allows us to do the most stuff it also sends the
most powerful message to the country the post-Trump Republican Party to the CEOs law firms
media companies who have to countel to Trump that politics has changed in America but you
Hakeem Jeffries is Speaker, whether we have a one-seat majority or a 50-seat majority.
And so you have to be very disciplined how you spend your money.
And if I was there, the way I would think about it is, I think you can assume that given
this political environment, Democrats will win all nine seats that Kamala Harris won.
They currently have Republicans.
And some of those are, we're already going by a lot because they're the seats in California
that Gavin Newsom redistricted.
And then as you think about where are you going to do.
place your bets in other races around the country.
Like you have to, there's a, there's a number of,
I think it's 11 that are in districts that Trump won
by less than five points. And some of those
are, he won by like 0.1%.
Like in, or 0.02%, like in Virginia,
two or Virginia 1, I can't remember which.
And so where I would place my bets is I would look very
heavily at districts of the following kind.
One with large Latino populations, this is where there's the
greatest possible swing in the electorate. So I would look very,
obviously invest a lot here in Texas, but also in Florida.
Because prior, up until a few weeks ago,
you'd seen this real split between how the Latino vote around the country was performing
and how it's performing in Florida.
But that has changed of basically since gas prices won't even higher.
And so now there are districts like Florida 27 and Florida 13 that were thought to be
likely Republican that are now very well within play.
That's Florida 27 is Mary Alvira, Maria-Ara Salazar who ran the ad attacking Trump over
immigration.
Then I would look at some of these districts in the south that have large black populations
because I really do think one of the driving things here
is going to be a huge surge in black turnout
as a response to the Supreme Court
just eliminating like potentially a third
of the congressional black caucus.
And then you want to, I really think that
this is counterintuitive,
but I think you're going to make some real ground
in rural districts like North Carolina too
where they are, it is rural areas,
which is why Iowa's on the map, Ohio's on the map this time,
and frankly why Texas is on the map,
is that the rural parts of this country
that have been the most pro-Trump
have been hammered the most by the trade wars, tariffs,
the agriculture policy where Trump's response to high beef prices
was to import beef from Argentina,
which tends to make American ranchers not particularly happy.
And then diesel, right?
The cross-in, like, the agriculture economy runs on diesel,
and $7 diesel is crushing these people.
So I think there's some real opportunities in some districts.
This is why we have a couple districts in Iowa there in play.
It's the North Carolina Convention on.
You've got to just pick your opportunities
because we can't play everywhere
because we have so little money compared to the Republicans.
I think those spending restraints compared to the opportunity
are why you're starting to hear some, you know,
sort of operatives and candidates like voicing concern and frustration
that some of the traditional, like, big, big donors to the Democratic Party
are not viewing this as the generational opportunity that it could be.
Because I was talking to someone today who was like,
let me paint for you the, like, extreme optimistic picture,
which is Democrats are not only winning on the generic ballot,
But if you look at the top, like most salient issues, we are crushing in those areas as well,
which was not the case in 2024, right?
When Republicans made immigration really salient, Democrats reviewed as on the wrong side of it,
and we were getting hammered.
Then there's a Latino vote element that you talked about.
And then if you look at the special and off-year elections and the Democratic overperformance,
it's like 14 points on average as compared to 2024, and it's held.
and that overperformance is better than 17 and 18.
And so in a scenario where the results on election day
look more like the overperformance in those specials,
which we all stipulate is a different electorate
and they're weird and whatever,
but if it does, it is like truly a historic opportunity
to win statewide races, congressional races,
down ballot, up and down,
and it just feels like a moment when all the biggest donors
in the party should be pushing all their chips in the table
as aggressively as possible
and not holding back for,
for I don't know what reason.
Trump bothering them?
Yeah, I think there has been a huge shift
in the funding approach
in the large donor community
since 2024.
Part of it is people still angry
about how that election went
and feeling like they won a billion dollars
on fire in that election,
which is a fair quibble in some ways.
And then there are a lot of people
who are very afraid of being targeted by Trump.
Like just that your business is going to be targeted,
you're going to have, all of a sudden, you're going to, the FBI is going to show up at your door,
you're going to have regulatory scrutiny you wouldn't have before,
and so that has limited money.
You're exactly right, Tommy, because the, there is, the average polling error on the generic ballot
in a House race is about three points.
And there's a very real possibility that's three points in the right direction,
where you're looking at one of the largest swings in American history,
something where Democrats could pick up races.
We've never been thought possible.
We've been using 2006 as like the most relevant example of an election
because it's, you know, it's unpopular president, unpopular war, all of that.
But it very well could be a little more like 94 where everything changes,
where it's a realigning election.
And the other, I mean, you were saying earlier that, you know,
if Kim Jeffries is speaker, he's speaker and it doesn't matter if there's like another 10, 15, 20 seats,
Trump's still president.
But the important thing is to not just look at what this means for the next two years,
but to look at 28 and beyond.
because if this is an opportunity to win a bunch of house seats
that Democrats couldn't win in a normal year
because the environment's so bad for Republican,
then we pick up a whole bunch of seats
and then win the presidency in 2028,
then that's going to make it more likely
for that Democratic president to actually be able to pass a real agenda
through Congress because we got all these seats in 2026,
knowing that in 2032, then you have a typical midterm year
that the party in power loses seats.
And so you're just,
you're building up more seats now.
Not to mention the possibility of picking up Senate seats in places that in a more typical year,
we'd have no chance of getting, right?
Like the Dumer version of this shift, right, is there is this shift in places that have been hurt the most,
right, in places like Iowa, Kansas, people are talking about Nebraska, right?
But if we almost win those places while kind of doing as well as 2006 and a bunch of other places,
we don't get extra credit at the end for having not picked up those seats in this one,
one moment where we have the chance.
The Senate matters even more because you get it for six years.
You get to live through when the wave proceeds.
So, yeah.
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Well, let's talk about the Senate map.
Republicans started the cycle, you know,
hoping to hold North Carolina and beat John Ossoff in Georgia.
And now their campaign committee is asking donors
just recently for $9 million in emergency money
to defend Alaska, Iowa, Ohio.
Cook also moved Kansas where J.D. Vance was sent to campaign
from likely Republican to lean Republican.
Send him three more times.
I know.
And South Carolina,
they moved from solid Republican to likely Republican.
Republican Senator John Kennedy,
who's been campaigning in Iowa and Nebraska,
told Reuters that six months ago
he never imagined he'd be spending his time campaigning
in states like these
because they should be, quote,
fat guy layups.
Does anyone know what that means?
That was my question.
It's when you don't jump.
Yeah, you don't have a good jump.
You kind of just...
Lay it in.
You don't have a big vertical leap
because of your heaviness.
Does that make it easy?
Right.
No, that's the question.
You're a tall...
It's supposed to be easy, is what he's saying.
Yeah.
And a fat guy doing a layup
is not necessarily easy.
That was my question.
You know what?
I don't know.
Anyway.
Now, Tommy, Dan and I talked about this
on yesterday's show,
but, you know,
the New York Times Polls show
Susan Collins ahead three points in Maine
Democrats in Michigan
and New Hampshire are ahead, but still
underperforming the generic ballot.
How do you reconcile those two
pictures of the Senate map where
Cook is moving all these red state
races towards Democrats, but then we saw those polls.
We got the fat guy layups and a dual-est to dunk.
What I like about John Kennedy is he had to get
degrees from Vanderbilt, UVA, and
Oxford to sound that folksy.
You know that about him? Yeah.
If you go look at old videos of John Kennedy are amazing,
because it wasn't his voice.
Yeah, no.
He really learned the foxy thing later.
He's just a really smart guy.
Yeah, no, he's like, I'm Yosemite Sam accent thing.
I think, you know, the states that came out,
the concerning polling were,
let's start with Maine and New Hampshire.
Maine, like Susan Collins,
is overperformed in a bunch of elections.
She may very well do so again.
She's a known quantity there.
She drives us crazy, but they like her.
Also, Maine and New Hampshire, like Dan talked
about this historic swing of Latino voters that we're seeing nationwide and that's showing up in
these polls, Maine in New Hampshire, like two of the white estates in the nation literally.
So you're just not going to see that demographic shift showing up there.
Old too.
Old too.
And then, you know, Michigan, I think, is a little more complicated of his story.
You've got Abdul Sayed emerging from a primary where $70 million worth of attack ads were
dumped on his head and that obviously left a mark.
you have got a candidate in Abdul who is pretty progressive
and a state that in recent years been more purple or swingy
than maybe there's a bit of a penalty there,
although you also see Abdul winning on issues like Medicare for all,
like 60% majority support Medicare for all.
And then just old school Islamophobia could be a piece of it.
You guys, I'm sure, were forced to endure the midterm mini convention here
in Dallas.
Their entire focus, when they talked about Abdul,
was to basically blame him for 9-11
and, you know, accuse him of being a terrorist.
So it's just gross.
He was 14, I think.
Yeah, he was literally 16 years old.
And so, you know, we'll see if those things
add up to significant headwinds for him on election day
or if, you know, maybe it's temporary.
Maybe it's gone.
But I think those are the factors.
One update on another Senate story from this week.
So the reaction
to the New York Times story about Mary Peltola's alleged poor treatment of her staff,
offensive language, forced chameleon feeding.
That's not like a weird euphemism, like feeding her pet chameleon.
The crickets, you know, feed the crickets to the chameleon.
Anyway, the reaction has been considerably less pearl clutchy from Democrats than you might
have expected even a couple years ago.
Here's a good example from Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego when he was asked about
also a combat veteran, and he said, quote,
when I was 25, I had a really bad boss.
He made me run across an open fucking field
of raking machine gunfire to breach a door.
That's great.
Meanwhile, Peltola's opponent,
Republican Senator Dan Sullivan,
called the allegations very disturbing,
a character issue,
and the Republican campaign committee
called her dangerous and unhinged.
Stupid.
Love it.
How about those fucking,
snowflakes, huh?
That's amazing.
What do you make of the muted reaction?
Like, signs of growth,
just desperate to win,
a little bit of both?
Yeah, sure.
Look, I think there was a moment where,
especially when people were in their homes
and there was a lot of, like,
kind of toxic online culture.
People were afraid to say what they thought,
which is like, do I think it's great
if a boss calls an employee a f***?
No, but I think the Senate's more important.
But now we're like, no, the stakes are too high.
And we've just been through too many.
rounds of this and the fact that there are people that would be working for a democratic member of
Congress who may have been rude and mean at the darkest moment in her life by the way like after
experiencing incredible tragedy and then six weeks before an election to leak that to the times like
it's not a it is a privilege to pretend you don't have to think about the stakes everybody has to
think about the stakes and whether or not Donald Trump can appoint right-wing anti-choice judges
for two years whether or not we have genuine investigation
in the Senate, like these are the stakes in the election.
And there's not a gay guy from Austin
to underneath the docks in Provincetown
who wouldn't be happily called a cucking-guzzling f***
to have a Democratic Senate,
just a mincing, butt-munching ass pirate.
And if we have to get Mary Peltola,
honestly, we could knight her.
Go to find the gayest fucking person you can find
in the state of time.
Texas, in the state of Alaska,
have her kneel and have a sword, go to both
sides and say, you may call us
whatever the fuck you want, Mary Peltola,
if you win this seat.
Anyway, if you're listening, Mary Peltola,
come on Ponce of America.
That'll help.
That'll help in the home stretch.
You have to feed her lizard
and you're mad, then quit
or shut up.
It's also just like, if it was a dog,
no one would have said anything. It's just because it was a
chameleon and they get...
I had lizard.
growing up, it's not hard.
You give them like one cricket a week.
Fine.
What kind of lizards did you have, Tommy?
A bunch, man.
What were they called?
They weren't really commuter.
Anyway, they were cool.
Let them go in the yard.
They'd free range for a summer and then, you know,
probably there are on.
Subscribers will get a chance to hear
about Tommy's lizards.
Yes, that's a subscriber benefit.
I can't believe Mary Peltoll that won't come on,
by Dave America.
Yeah, so shocking.
I'll be seeing Love It Fish with her soon.
Finally, before we bring Bobby Polito on,
in case you were all wondering what critical issues
the world's two biggest superpowers and competitors
focused on during Chinese President Xi's visit to Washington,
the answer is Donald Trump's home renovations.
Trump gave Xi a personal tour of his brand-new White House helipad
and then told reporters that she has a, quote,
great interest in granite
loves granite
then at the state dinner
Trump went off script to invite she in the
entire room the entire dinner
to after dinner was over walked behind
the curtain and become
quote the first people to step foot
on the ballroom construction
site very exciting
which we learned this week from the Washington Post
was not originally designed
with sufficient emergency
exits and fire
containment measures
but when the
when the original architect pointed out
that the ballroom wouldn't meet building codes,
Trump reportedly said,
I am the code.
That's real.
Tommy, a lot of places we could go with this.
What do you think she thinks of Donald Trump?
He's just, he thinks he's a clown.
The whole thing was so embarrassing.
Usually a bilateral meeting between two great superpowers
has like a purpose or an outcome.
that you're preparing to get to.
This one was a joke.
They just, they continue to punt the trade war.
They didn't really figure out anything real about artificial intelligence.
Super intelligence.
Super intelligence.
Trump tried to curry favor with Xi by, by, with all this protocol and pomp and circumstances,
to include meeting him at the airport, which like, Chinese are big on protocol.
And I can just assure you that that made them think that Trump looked like,
subservience. I don't go to L.A.X.
to pick up my wife. No one.
Never. I'd say. Don Jr.'s like, oh, you're going to
pick up Xi at the airport. Cool.
Yeah. For sure. No.
I thought all those years you'd pick me up from camp, dad.
The one time Obama met someone at the airport
was the Pope, and he reports to a higher power,
as we all know. So it kind of
made sense in that context. The whole meeting was a joke.
Trump looks like an absolute clown in front of Xi.
She's got him over a barrel with like
rare earths and all these like trade issues. And so the
thing was just stupid.
He's got a thing for commies.
He does.
She, maddenny.
That's just Trump's kink.
All right.
When we come back, we'll be talking to Texas
Democratic House candidate, Bobby Polito.
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He's running against a Trump-Banked Republican in Texas's 15th District in one of the most competitive races in the country
could determine control of the House. He's also won a couple of Latin Grammys.
Please welcome Bobby.
Alita, thank you for being here.
Sorry, the Catholic came out in me.
Yeah.
Oh, I know, no, but me.
I'm Jewish, too.
We're fine.
Congratulations.
Totally fine.
So, Trump won Handley in this district in 2024,
but something is changing.
Your race is one of the races, I believe,
that got moved to the toss-up category.
Yes.
And your opponent in a recent leaked audio said of a poll,
Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, that's not good.
What are you hearing from voters about why people who may have voted for Trump
are sort of turning away from him and his allies?
Okay, there's two questions there.
That part where she said that was like really early in the year.
it's gotten a lot worse since then but but but i'll tell you you know people don't like it
lied to how about a novel idea there right they said there was going to be no new wars and now when
they put gas and diesel now that's six dollars a gallon they're reminded that they got lied to
um still waiting for a health care plan since 2017 um it's been one lie after the other really um the only
thing that he can probably hang his hide is that the border is secure, but now there's no chaos
on the border, it's chaos in the streets. And there's people really living in fear down there.
You know, the real Grand Valley is 94% Hispanic. And now that they are allowed them to racial
profile based on, you know, race or language, imagine what that does to a community. Any community,
I don't care which one that's living in fear cannot function properly. And people are really angry.
You've got to understand.
A lot of these voters were voting Republican because of, you know,
Chamber of Commerce Republicans, lower tax cuts.
They're finding out right now that those policies are actually bad for business.
And that's the biggest break that I've seen.
I think people right now, both parties are not popular because if nobody represents the people.
And, you know, we ran with a platform based on, I'm not here for that.
party, I'm here for you. And, you know, does that mean that I don't think people fit into the
heterodoxy of either party, especially Hispanics? So speaking of what's been happening with ICE,
so your opponent was originally very supportive of the Trump immigration crackdown, back cuts to
Medicaid, back the huge increase in funding for ICE and detention centers. She's now running
ads about getting
someone out of
detention, the detention
she voted to increase
by billions and billions
of dollars. It's amazing what happens when they think they're going to
lose. Right. What was your reaction to that?
What is your response to her claim that
she's sort of been looking out for people
that have been grabbed by ice? Oh gosh.
It's completely disingenuous.
I mean, everything started like
right after I won the primary
there was a group of Mariani and a couple of kids that had gone,
she took them to Washington to go play for her.
And she was actually like showing a selfie,
look, I'm here with Mariani kids,
and then they got detained.
And they asked her to go help them,
and she said there's nothing that she could do.
So on a Saturday,
I called her out for her hypocrisy.
I showed the video,
and by Monday,
She hauled out, I'm not lying, a big podium out at the detention center
and pulled one of them out like as if she was Joaquin Castro.
I would have never thought, if you had told me in 2024
that a Republican would be out there saying,
look what I'm doing for the immigrants, I would have told you you're crazy.
But she absolutely wants to have it both ways, and you can't.
Now, we're going to play a game in a moment,
but one last question, which is, you've talked about sort of people,
feeling dissatisfied with both parties.
One of the challenges, it seems, is you're dealing
with a caricature people might have of
somebody running as a Democrat.
First of all, what does that feel like
to you and what are the questions you get about that
and then how do you go against that?
Just honest. I mean, there is
a caricature. But, you know,
you got to understand, like, they gerrymandered
the district so much
that for a long time,
the Democrats would not go campaign
in these rural areas, because
they could win it with the vote in the RGV in the Real Grand Valley.
So we were kind of negligent in not going, showing up.
I'm not making that same mistake.
We've gone to every single county, the reddest counties,
counties that don't have a Democratic Party.
And the people need to trust you,
and you can't show up with three months or with a commercial to earn their vote.
And the polling shows that it's been working because we're actually showing up.
And I think that's the secret.
That's a secret sauce is we got to get out there.
It's a lot of work.
We're not going to win an election based on commercials or mailers.
It doesn't hurt that you played concerts in a lot of these places.
Well, before you were ever in politics, that must be nice.
Look, that's the foot in the door, but it doesn't close it.
I mean, it absolutely, there's a lot of people that want to know, like, are you a, you know,
this scary Democrat that we keep hearing about?
And you've got to show them that I just want you to have affordable health care.
you know i want you to i want people to be able to live their life without fear um and and once they
hear that they're like well i agree with that well so do i and so it's not that hard to be honest with
you the one thing i don't do is i don't go shame them for how they voted we don't talk about the past
um we're looking at the future and we're running that kind of race you know we're running against
somebody that's really trying to the same old smear tactics they called me a kintenetta singer right like
on primary night and like trying to be like Trump and we got invited to over a thousand
kinsenillas in one day and no I'm serious like we've had 5,000 invites since and we've done 75 of them
that's amazing yeah and and we actually send them uh you know we ask we have one ask
can we have volunteers there to sign people up?
And they go, yeah.
That's our grassroots movement.
Nice.
Well, you've graciously agreed to stick around for a game.
Austin, bring out the game hat.
Wow.
So, Texas, we love it here.
And even though there are some interlopers who are trying to turn Austin
into the God-forsaken love child of Nashville and San Francisco,
You said it I didn't.
I'm just kidding.
It still rules.
I got a giant plate of brisket last night,
and they just threw some extra on there for fun,
and maybe because there were some sadness in my eyes
because Tommy didn't come with me.
And even though I was stuffed,
I got a dipped cone on my way back,
and then I died, and then I saw Mitch McConnell,
and now I'm here.
For a game we're calling Choose in Texas
or Cowboy Up.
Here's how it works.
We have questions in this hat
for Bobby Polito.
Each of us will reach in and grab a question.
They're either oars, and it's rapid fire.
You just got to go with your gut.
Okay. Are you ready?
I'm ready.
All right. John, you want to kick it off?
Yeah, sure.
Try to get through as many as we can.
Okay. Beef brisket or pork ribs?
Brisket.
Tear down the Trump ballroom
or leave it up and host a massive record-breaking
Kinseniera there in 2029.
What?
Are we going to tear down the Trump ballroom
or leave it up and you'll host a Kinsenegera there
during the next?
mother down.
Okay.
Nice.
California or New York?
Oh.
Oh.
I hate you.
New York.
If you hated him, you're going to hate me.
Greg Abbott or Beau French?
Boy.
Oh, my God.
It's like gonorrhea or syphilis, right?
That's a good answer.
Baro sexto or Tolocho
Oh
Barco sexto
All right
Yeah
That's a good one
J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio?
Neither, but Marco Rubio
I had to pick.
Yeah.
Okay, okay, yeah.
Aggies or longhorns?
Oh!
I have a UT son right now.
Hook them horns,
man.
That's right.
Yeah.
All right.
That was easy.
Houston or Dallas?
I'm a Houston Texan fan.
Texas sheetcake or pecan pie?
I don't even know what the first one was that.
Texas sheetcake?
I never heard of that.
I haven't either.
I'm from the Valley.
Excuse me, man.
What do you guys think?
Did you say cheesecake or sheetcake?
Sheetcake.
Sheetcake.
Sheetkekeke. I've never heard of that.
Yeah.
Pecan pie.
Pecan better?
What do you guys think?
Oh, people want the sheetcake answer.
Penn Paxton or Beau French.
They're different.
Billy, man, like, shit.
Like, gosh, no, man, that's...
Paxton, right?
Yeah.
I mean...
Over both French.
Yeah, for sure.
It's a tough choice.
Yeah, it's a tough choice.
Dan or someone named John.
That's not...
I wrote this, and that is not what it said.
Gosh, I said...
I punched you up.
Dan or Tommy, go with your gut.
Tommy, you were the first one to interview me on podcast.
Oh, there we go.
Fair enough.
Grammys or Latin Grammys?
Oh, gosh.
I have two Latin Grammys.
I don't have a Grammy.
Grammy.
There you go.
Oh, wow.
All right.
Last one.
Ted Cruz's beard or Ted Cruz no beard.
God.
Oh, no, this is, and that was the last we ever saw of Bobby Polito.
He was like, that's it.
I'm going back to music.
You're asking me about fat Wolverine?
Sorry, man.
No, no.
Beard.
Yeah.
I think the less of Ted Cruz's face you see, the better.
Yeah, that's good.
All right.
Where can people go to Swarier campaign before we wrap us?
Bobby Bolito for Texas.
And, you know, we're down to stretch.
We definitely, you know, they have more money than we do, and we need to compete.
So, you know, we'd be really gracious if people could go in there donate.
Thank you so much.
And that's our game.
Thank you to Bobby Polito for joining us.
Thank you all for joining us.
And that's our show.
We'll see you all later.
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