The Dispatch Podcast - Democratic and Republican Infighting in Texas Primaries

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Steve Hayes is joined by The Atlantic's Elaine Godfrey, Kevin Williamson, Mike Warren, and David Drucker to discuss today’s U.S. Senate primary elections in Texas, as well as both Kevin and Elaine's on-the-ground reporting leading up to the heated contests.The Agenda:—Texas Democratic primary—‘Elaine From Atlantic … She Needs to Leave’—Texas Republican primary—The Trump endorsement—The impact of identity politics—Trump's impact on the midterms—NWYT: Regional chains Show Notes:—Listen to Kevin Williamson read his article here. The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dispatch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠by clicking here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes, joined today by Elaine Godfrey, staff writer at The Atlantic, as well as my dispatch colleagues, Kevin Williamson, our national correspondent, Mike Warren, senior editor, and David Drucker, a senior writer. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss the fascinating primary campaigns on the Republican and the Democratic side of the Texas Senate contest. We will also discuss Kevin Williamson's fascinating. piece on Texas politics and Texas more generally. And finally, for not worth your time, our favorite regional chains, you'll just have to listen to get a flavor for what that means.

Before we get into today's conversation, please consider becoming a member of the dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up at the dispatch.com slash join, and if you use the promo code roundtable, you'll get a month free. And if ads aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership, no ads, early access to all episodes, two free memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much, much more. Let's dive in. Welcome, everybody. I want to start with you, Elaine. You wrote a piece about Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Democratic Senate primary. You had previously profiled her. And I wonder if you might to get us kicked off. Just tell us about your piece. Your stories often pick up in other

outlets, other people talk about them. This one may be more than most. Can you just describe to us how you sort of came into the piece, what you were trying to do, and what happened? Sure. Well, thank you for having me today. Yeah, I did not set out to write the piece that I ended up writing. I was going down to Texas to write about the Democrats in this exciting, testy, ugly primary they're having down there. But the very first event that I attended for Jasmine Crockett, I was kicked out, notably after the event had finished. So I did get to talk to supporters. I got to sort of do everything I wanted to do and then got kicked out. And so the story that I wrote, it starts with that experience. Because I think it's very indicative of like the kind of candidate

that Jasmine Crockett is. She's a fighter. She's bombastic, a firebrand, you know, whatever synonym you want to use, she's the kind of person who would kick a reporter out of her rally for not liking their coverage, which is, you know, notable. I think a lot of people actually like that about her. I think that's one reason people like her is that she sort of takes no prisoners. And while I didn't like that, it was a great detail to start my story. Yeah, what was the ostensible purpose? I know that they described you at one point as a top-notch hater, if I have that description correct. And I wonder, are you a top-notch hater? And if not, what kind of a hater are you? You know, I have since asked a lot of my friends. I've done some polling. They do consider me to be a bit of a hater outside of my professional life. So maybe she was giving me an accurate read. Yeah, I was at the event interviewing people, had not been allowed to enter a press gaggle with her because they found out I was with the Atlantic. I guess they should have known I was there because I registered, but they sort of made a face and told me I couldn't come in and do the press gaggle. So I kept,

interviewing people outside, and then someone came up to me and said, you got to go. And I said, why? And she said, she read from her phone. It was like a text, I guess, from the Crockett team. And it said, Elaine, a white girl with a cap and a notepad. She's a top-notch hater. She will spin. She needs to leave. And then a bunch of guys with guns came over and took me to the side of the road. And that was it. Never happened to me before. Did this woman that came up to you? Was she from the campaign? Did she introduce herself? No, I think she did not introduce herself, but I don't think she was with the campaign. She had a badge.

So I think she was like associated with the event, like the event center there in Lubbock. Or security, yeah. Yeah, yeah, something like that. Because she was not, I think, with the campaign. Yeah. So let me ask you, Elaine, to take a step back and sort of fill us in on the other reporting you've done about Jasmine Crockett, about James Talleyco, about this very interesting. primary on the Democratic side in Texas, voters have been voting there for, what, a couple weeks, I believe, and go to the polls the day that we released this. So Tuesday, March 3rd. What's that

primary been like? And what do you think are likely to be the biggest factors as voters go to the polls in making their decisions? Big question. So I started covering this race back when it was a totally different race. It was James Talleyco. He launched his campaign in September, so he's a state lawmaker down there. But at the time, he was running against Colin Allred, former congressman, who has run unsuccessfully for a couple of things in Texas. And it was going to be, you know, I think that was disappointing to Allred's campaign when Tala Rico jumped in because immediately Tala Rico got all the star power. He's this Democrat who he talks about faith a lot more than any Democrat you've ever heard. Talks about God, talks about peace and love and spiritual healing,

does not really blast, you know, President Trump doesn't do a lot of smack talking. And that was sort of his charm. And he was, you know, raising tons of money, getting a ton of attention. Meanwhile, Jasmine Crockett, I think, who I also had profiled, as you mentioned, in spite, you know, sort of kicking off all of this drama. She had, this summer, just lost her second election for a House leadership role. I think she was looking for something different to do. I think she thought, I'm not going anywhere in the House. I should just run for Senate. I had heard she might run against Ted Cruz in a couple of years when he's up for reelection, but I guess she decided to go for it this time. And the reporting tells us that actually she called Tala Rico and asked him to get out of

the race if he would maybe run for governor. And he said no, obviously. And so immediately she jumps in, Allred jumps out. And then like very quickly after the holidays, This race became super dramatic, super ugly. Each campaign has these sort of, like, influencers, political influencers who are advocating for them and fighting with each other on X, on Instagram, on TikTok. It's become this like messy proxy war online between the two of them. Obviously, race is a big part of it. You know, there's accusations of racism basically every day from Crockett's side.

or... Jasmine Crockett is black. James Telerico is white. Yeah. Yes. That's right. Jasmine Crockett is a black woman and Tala Rico's a white man who, and they have this different approach and it's just become this sort of real existential battle about the kind of

fighter the Democrats want because Crockett and Tala Rico are both fighters, but they do that in a different way. So I think when to get to your, to the second part of your question, like what voters are looking for is who can best take on Donald Trump, who can best, you know, take on Republicans going forward. But first, that person has to win a general election in Texas. And so there's just so many, a lot of voters are playing this sort of 3D chess about, well, who can get elected. And so you have Crockett on one side who is bombastic, you know, very into insults, not afraid to stoop to Trump's level in a lot of these situations. She's called Governor Abbott, Governor Hot Wheels, because he

uses a wheelchair. She said a lot of stuff like that. Talarigo, on the other hand, much more gentle, I would say. He tends to direct his ire towards the billionaires. It's a much more sort of populist campaign. It's a much more, you know, let's hold hands and be together. And, you know, it's not us against them. It's all of us against the billionaires, I guess. So they both have sort of picked an enemy, but the enemies are different. Elaine, can I ask you about that in particular? Because you've written about this and others who have covered the race habits, the stylistic differences between James Tala Rico and Jasmine Crockett maybe seem to be obscuring their

political or ideological differences. You've described Jasmine Crockett as sort of bombastic, and that's her style. But she's much more moderate politically or, you know, on her positions on the issues. Gun control, for instance, she's sort of seeking a third one. way. And Tala Rico sort of sits in the more progressive camp, the maybe even closer to the Bernie wing, but with a style that maybe appeals to moderates, is that making it difficult for Democratic primary voters in Texas to know who to go for? Or is everything that we know about how the party sort of divides itself and sorts itself out? Is that all sort of been blown up by

this primary? Listen to you talking as though policy matters. Well, you know, it's cute. It's adorable. No, I think, like, that's such a good question, but on the ground policy does not matter. I mean, and it's not that these two were, like, so different on policy, but they are. I mean, Telerico is the one with the endorsements of progressive groups, the sort of big outside progressive groups. Jasmine Crockett has a lot of the establishment Dem endorsements. She's sort of the, she's like the Emily's List candidate.

She's the MSNBC darling. I think, but people view her. because she's woman of color, because she's loud. They assume she's the progressive. So, yeah, there is this sort of, well, he's a white guy. He must be more moderate. But voters just are going in with, like, that impression. They're not thinking about policies, at least not the ones I talk to.

They did not bring up, like, a stock trading ban, for example. Like, no voters were interested in that. Let's jump to the Republican side because there's an equally interesting contest on the Republican side, a three-man race. And David Drucker, you've spent some. some time down there covering that side. Who are the candidates? What are they for and what do you think voters will care about? Voters care about policy on that side? Or is this also sort of more about personalities and who can fight best? Yeah, well, it's a little of each, Steve. And of course,

when you're talking to Republican politics, it's always about who's going to fight and who's going to fight hard and who's going to, you know, who's going to fight the most aggressively and sort of the loudest and things like that. But just to set this up, we have John Cornyn, who's basically a 25-year incumbent in the United States Senate, was the Texas Attorney General before that, really reflects the sort of genteel conservative Republicans of the 1980s and 1990s as the party was blossoming in the South, previously a Democratic stronghold. Workmanlike, effective, and so, of course, therefore Republican primary voters are largely unhappy with him. Then you have Ken Paxton, the sitting attorney general, who may be the most scandal-plagued candidate I've ever covered.

And I'm not, that's not hyperbole. Extramarital affairs, bribery, misuse of office. In fact, he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives. He was not removed from office by the Texas Senate. It was a very close vote. His wife was one of the state senators. She had to recuse herself. But when you talk to Republican primary voters, they will tell you that he fights. And I'll get to a little bit more of that in a minute. We live in this era where 25 years ago he would have been disqualified from the current office, never mind higher office. And that just doesn't matter to Republican primary voters anymore.

And then we have Congressman Wesley Hunt, a military veteran, African American, articulate, well-spoken. He's aligned himself with President Trump, as every Republican does these days or just about every Republican. If this was a race between Paxton and Hunt, Hunt might have the upper hand, but he is a member of the House of Representatives in Washington, which means he's largely unknown. Texas has 20 media markets. It takes a lot of money to get known. And, you know, you've got to do a lot of small groups and glad-handing, and he's trying. My best sources with numbers that I trust tell me this is going to be a Cornyn-Paxton runoff because in Texas you need 50% plus one.

So that's what we expect after Tuesday's primary. Just a little word here. You know, I was in Texas, as Steve mentioned last month, and I spent some time with John Cornyn in El Paso. And he just laid it out from a very plain. And he's, you know, he's one of the more candid members of Congress I've ever covered. He said, look, my primary is a test for whether a normal conservative Republican can win a primary, a Republican primary in Texas.

He didn't mince words. He thinks Trump's endorsement could swing this race, but Trump is being cautious because he likes both and he doesn't like to pick a loser. When a few days later, I was in San Antonio at a congressional forum for a Republican primary in the San Antonio area. I was talking to voters.

And look, a lot of them said to me that they know Paxton's got skeletons, but hey, we all have skeletons. There was a female that I spoke to in her 50s, real estate consultant, something like that. And she told me that Ken Paxton, she just said that he's a fighter and he's got balls of steel, essentially, and the quote is in the story. And she was considering Hunt because she was a little worried about a general election with

Paxton and could he lose to a Democrat, but she said she had no problem voting for him and really liked him. I spoke to another voter who said, you know, I only hear from Cornyn when it's time for him to get reelected, otherwise I don't hear from him. And of course, that's because Cornyn's style is not to go on cable news every week like a lot of newer senators, and it's left the impression that he's not doing for people or doesn't care about people. And this is a problem in a primary that is really reflective of Trump's impact on the party. Finally, I'll say, as you had asked about, is this about issues?

Well, to a degree, yes, but it's not about the issues that we think about that concern a majority of voters nationwide, and that's affordability. You look at the ads, and I spent some time watching the nightly news while I was there, and I talked to Cornyn about this and others. This primary is all about immigration enforcement, border security, and fidelity to Trump. That's what the ads show you, and that's what voters were telling me. And not in that order. Fidelity to Trump. Well, yeah, first and foremost. A lot of this is just about who's closer to Trump and the contest behind the scenes to try to get Trump to endorse or maybe to not endorse.

I mean, I think if you asked Cornyn people a month ago, they would say, look, we'd love to have his endorsement. But if we don't get it, we just want them to be new. And I think that's been sort of the battle. What else can you tell us about the importance of Trump's endorsement? And am I right to believe that's the most important thing at this point? So yes and no. You know, we have seen, Steve, over the years that occasionally the president will endorse the more electable candidate. And the Republican voters in that state will say, I really like President Trump.

You know, I take a bullet for the guy. But I don't like that guy. I'm voting for this guy. This guy's also with Trump. but I know Trump likes him anyway. And, you know, there are some Republicans I talk to that believe that if Cornyn can get into the runoff not trailing Paxton by, let's say, eight to ten points, but maybe it's within five, then a Trump endorsement in the runoff combined with Cornyn's resource advantage can really

turn the tables on this race. And Cornyn has been on his back heel since the day John Paxton got into the race. He drew even with him for a while, Hunt being in the race. has scrambled that a little bit, but they need to keep it close. There's also a belief among others, and this is certainly the view of the Paxton team, that it doesn't matter who Cornyn and who President Trump endorses, because if he endorses Cornyn, there are so many Republican voters in Texas who don't think Cornon's doing the job the way they want, who think he's been there too long,

who don't think he's enough of a fighter. They know that Paxton is a Trump loyalist, that Trump will be happy with Paxton, and they're going to vote for Paxton anyway. And, you know, we should note that with few exceptions, and I mean, not just in Texas, but across the country over the years, incumbents who end up in a runoff lose, right? In 2012, it's the last model we have to go by, even though it wasn't a perfect model. Ted Cruz won the runoff over the city lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst. Even though Ted Cruz got into the runoff trailing Dewhurst by more than 10 points. It's just a smaller electorate. It's a more base-oriented. oriented electorate. And so there's always the exception, Thad Cochran in Mississippi in the 2014 cycle, beating Chris McDaniel in the runoff after losing round one. But it's going to be a tough haul for Cornyn. They know this, but they think they can pull it off if they can flood the airwaves with all of these scandals and let it sink in that Paxton is the only guy that makes this seat vulnerable.

and I would say if Tala Rico manages to get out of the primary on the Democratic side, that's more likely than if Jasmine Crockett gets out of the primary on that side. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the dispatch podcast. And we're back. You're listening to the dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. You know, I've been thinking, listening to both Drucker and Elaine talk about these races. There's this bizarre sense that it's like sending me back to the, 2016 presidential election where like it's possible that both candidates who come out of the primaries are sort of unelectable in Texas, which makes no sense because one of them has to be

elected. I mean, is there a difference? I don't know, Elaine, if you have thoughts or anybody else about who is the better Democratic candidate to beat Ken Paxton? And is that something that Democratic primary voters are also thinking through the specifics of not just winning a general election as a Democrat in Texas, but a particular beating Ken Paxton, yes, somebody who has the full faith and confidence of the kind of Trump MAGA wing, but has all of these other problems that seem to, a lot of Republicans are afraid that he will win the nomination and potentially put the seat at risk. Are Democratic primary voters even considering that or thinking through the implications of Paxton nomination? Yeah, 100 percent they are. I heard from tons

of primary voters about this. And some of them think, you know, at a couple Crockett events, people told me, you know, I think she has the name ID in a general. I think people would hate Paxton enough and sort of recognize her that they'd vote for her. But she has really high unfavorables in Texas, like people who know her either love her or hate her.

There's no in between. Reminds me of Hillary Clinton a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, the way that she, has spoken about Trump voters and not really needing them, not needing to persuade. She has told people, like, my strategy isn't persuasion. It's, you know, energizing a new electorate. That just, like, that hasn't worked. I don't think that's, like, the kind of silver bullet she thinks it is. And when I talk to Tala RICO supporters, they all, I think really to the last person, loved Jasmine Crockett, but thought she can't win in Texas.

statewide. And partly, of course, because they saw it as an identity issue, she's a woman, she's a black woman, but also partly because of the stuff she said about, you know, the governor, what she said about Latino voters having a slave mentality for supporting Trump. She's just like too in it. She's too controversial. She's, you know, too gaff prone. They think Telarico has a really great shot, especially if Ken Paxton is the nominee. Because a lot of Republicans are not going to be able to stomach voting for him. That's the assumption here. And maybe they'll vote for Tala Rico, this guy who's talking about unity and God and togetherness instead of being controversial.

And that's how Tala Rico's campaign has positioned itself as this sort of safe haven for Republicans for moderates. Yeah. Doesn't that assumption from Tala RICO's campaign assume that he's sort of maximizing the Democratic vote? And that's a question. I mean, Texas has a significantly large black voter population. They're, you know, largely Democratic and Democratic voters. And to win in a general election, you've got to have black voters in your coalition as a Democrat, as well as reaching across the aisle. Does Talarico have appealed to black voters who are maybe coming out for presidential elections but have to be persuaded to come out and vote yes, for a Democrat?

They might be used to voting for a Democrat. That's the question I keep asking myself about Talarico's sort of general election viability is what about black voters? It's a significant part of the Democratic coalition. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I asked Tala RICO about that. You know, he says we're not writing off anyone. We're going to get some black support. You mean in the primary?

Yes, in the primary. But I think in a general, too, he was talking about sort of, we understand this is a weakness that we have. Got it. Because Crockett's support among black voters is she's got that demographic, like, locked down. I think Latinos in Texas, harder to say. Talarico has done pretty well with them. He's really, he's done some Spanish language. He's tried to really get out there and be in those communities.

So I think he definitely recognizes that this is an issue. I think there's some sense among Tala Rico supporters that, like, you know, some of the most reliable voters, base voters for Democrats, are black voters. And they'll come out no matter who the nominee is. And I would say, too, I heard that. I mean, even at the Crockett rally, I heard from voters, almost all of whom were black, who said, we love Jasmine Crockett. It doesn't matter who the nominee is.

We will vote for them. Interesting. So I think, you know, anecdotally, that seems to be true. Yeah. Kevin, I don't want you to think that we brought you here just to be eye candy for people watching this on video. And I just know the pretty face. Happy to welcome you into this conversation. You grew up in Texas.

You've lived in Texas off and on. I don't know how many of your total years on earth you've lived in Texas, but a lot of them. And you were just in Texas doing a terrific piece for us that sort of doesn't lend itself. to easy summary in a format like this. So first, let me ask you to reflect on what you heard from David and Elaine and give us your sort of big picture thoughts about this primary, kind of what we should think about the primary going in, the possible scenarios we're looking at later this week

when we have winners on either side or multiple winners, maybe on the Republican side. Yeah, that hard to summarize writing style, by the way, is my strategy for not getting replaced by an AI here on a few months. So I'm working on that. I have to correct Elaine on something, though. You know, she wrote this piece about getting kicked out of the event and she was, you know, sort of on the edge of town. Ninety-eighth Street is not the edge of town. The thing about Lubbock is all of it looks like the edge of town. But there's miles more Lubbock past that. Good to know. Good to know.

Very low density population for a large city. You can tell that people are kind of thinking with this kind of, I think people try to be too clever, both as voters and activists and donors, and they end up running themselves in circles for no good reason. But you've got Republicans donating to Crockett because they think she's the easier candidate to be. You've got Democrats donating to Paxton for the same reason. You've got Paxton people donating to Hunt because his job is just to stay in the race to keep it from being a majority for Cornyn and enforcing a runoff. So all this kind of, you know, Mayberry Machiavelli and strategy stuff is kind of fun to watch, although I don't think it really amounts to very much. The question for the Democrats, which is much more important on their side, I think,

than it is for the Republicans, is between Tala Rico and Crockett, can whichever one of them wins win in such a way as to keep the other side's voters on team for the general election? Republicans aren't going to have that problem as much because it's got bigger numbers in Texas and also because they're insane. But that's another part of the story. Everyone seems to assume as a matter of conventional wisdom, especially among the Democrats I've talked to,

that Tala Rico is the stronger candidate against either Republican, certainly, I say, I, the Republican, there are three in the race, but let's not pretend. But particularly against Paxton, I'm not sure that's actually true. You know, he's a Presbyterian seminarian who seems to be taken at least some of this Jesus stuff seriously and, you know, as being meek and mild and all that. I don't think that's how you win an election. You know, Christians certainly are going to turn out and vote for someone like that in Texas. They want someone, you know, they want Pilate.

They want a centurion or somebody. They don't want someone out there acting like Jesus. They don't want to hear that for a second. It is complicated, though, because he is a Presbyterian and there are a lot of, like, You know Presbyterians in Texas? I don't know. They're mostly, I think PCA, which is not his denomination, but I don't know if there's any crossover there. But I kind of think she's probably the stronger candidate between the two of them and the general election because she's the trumpier, trollier, more dramatic candidate.

You know, 15 years ago, I would have said, probably would have agreed with the conventional analysis, but we're in this age of, you know, WWE pro wrestling politics. I mean, we literally have a president who's a veteran of professional wrestling that a figure like Crockett might actually be the stronger candidate. And in the contemporary modes of communication that are really important, she's awfully good on. She's very good in short videos and things like that. And is she going to thrive if you put her up in a, you know, two-hour presidential style debate with ABC News moderating? No, but that's not going to happen in this race. And even if it did happen, it wouldn't really matter that much. What she's going to live or die by is the stuff that she's actually really quite good at, I think.

So if I were a betting man, I would put my money more on her than on him. But of course, you don't get a chance to test that out because only one of them runs. My working theory of Texas Republican politics is that, you know, when I was growing up in Lubbock, this sort of weird sense of what I call Texas exceptionalism was not really all that strong. The Texas separatist movement and all this stuff wasn't really a thing. And my theory is that in the parts of Texas that are really the most like the rest of the country that are the least distinctive is where you really see this. And you need to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Texas, blah, blah, blah, blah. Also, Elaine, a bunch of guys with gun show up in Lubbock.

That's just Lubbock. Whereas, like, you know, actual cowboys in Amarillo and places like that don't have this, like, need to prove what great Texans they are. They're just, like, going to work and that sort of thing. So, you know, I was down in Dallas. And among the things I was doing down there is I went to a meeting with these private equity guys, a friend of mine puts on these seminars. And, you know, companies talking about their businesses and making pitches and they do this kind of speed dating thing with investor to see if anybody wants to, you know, ride a check for $50 million or whatever. And the conversations you hear in those rooms are really interesting because they're talking about, you know, the capacity of the utility grid and the size of graphene particles that are being made in such and such a process and what that means for the manufacturer of sodium ion batteries and all this really specific kind of stuff. And can we get, you know, behind the meter to get gas to power these data centers and outside San Antonio and that sort of thing.

And then people who are running for elected offers are talking about they're building Sharia compounds in the northern suburbs of Dallas. And there is an Islamic group up there that is trying to build a neighborhood that's going to be based around a mosque, but it would hardly be the only religiously themed planned community in Texas. We've got a lot of Mennonites there and things like that. Texas Republicans right now are spending so much time talking about Islamic law. And you would think that, you know, this was an election in Stockholm or something like that where you've got, you know, there's really large, unassimilated Muslim minority, which just isn't really much of a thing in Texas. I think that's because statewide elections there have been so uncompetitive for Republicans for so. long. I think the last Republican to win a statewide race in Texas might have been Ann Richards for governor, certainly. I don't know if anyone won any state ride races after her. I don't think so.

Yeah, the LG and AG, I think it was like in 1994, I think was the most recent one. It was like two people that I don't know their names. When Bush won and yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, back when they used to be a state treasurer and that's before they reorganized the state government. Kevin, let me jump in on this question of, you spent some time in your piece writing about epic, and I forget what the acronym stands for. East Plano Islamic Center. Yeah. And the sort of disproportionate amount of time that Texas elected officials are spending

talking about the possible arrival of Sharia law in Texas. And yet over the weekend, there was this horrific shooting in Austin with somebody who was, I think, very clearly at Islamic extremist. That was the point. They've searched his house. They've found, I guess, photographs of Iranian leaders, say he was wearing a sweatshirt. that identified himself as such. Do you expect that that kind of talk will increase,

given what we've just seen in Austin and in Texas generally? And if so, you know, 48 hours from a primary election, is that likely to be part of the way the voters are thinking about this? Would it matter in a primary? Are you asking me if I think Texas Republicans are morally above waving the bloody shirt and doing something tendentious and awful and exploiting a horrible tragedy for their own, gain? No, I don't think that they probably are. I think that will absolutely redound to their

benefit politically, and they will exploit it as much as they can because that's just kind of who they are. One hates to say that, of all the things to think about that episode, that the political timing of it, it's unfortunate for certain people, but that is the case. There are much more important aspects to that story than that. Yeah. But yeah, I don't think that Islamic terrorists who are, you know, shooting up bars in Dallas or nightclubs in Florida or running planes into buildings. in New York are spending a lot of time negotiating with the Public Utility Commission in the suburbs of North Dallas. It's just not what they do. Yeah.

And I just don't think these two things are very closely related to one another, except that they both happen to involve people who belong to a religion that has a billion odd followers. Yeah. Let me broaden this conversation out a bit beyond Texas to the 2026 midterms in general. And Mike Warren, I'll start with you. you know, conventional wisdom is solidifying that this is likely to be a very good year for Democrats. President Trump's approval ratings are sort of stagnating in the high 30s. The economy, their economic indicators pointing in a number of different directions, but certainly in terms of how people feel about the economy, that's a potential liability for Donald Trump and Republicans who've tied themselves so closely to Trump.

You have not that many competitive House seats, certainly not compared to how many there were 30 years ago in these. kind of off-year mid-term elections, but certainly enough, given how close the divide is in Congress today for Democrats to take over the House of Representatives, I think the expectation from virtually everybody who's following this is that they will do that, but a friendlier map for Republicans when you look at Senate contests. Having said that, you are now hearing smart analysts who believe that Democrats could potentially take the Senate. Where do you come down on this and how should people think about sort of the set of issues that will matter going into these midterms, if issues matter at all going into these midterms.

Yeah. It's funny, Drucker and I late last week kind of sat down together and just looked at the map together just to think about how we're going to be covering the next several months of raises. Did you guys also coordinate outfits? No, we did not. For those of you who are not seeing this on video, I think this is the second time in a row that you guys have shown up wearing basically the same thing. There was a sale at men's warehouse.

This is the uniform of the male reporter in D.C. I mean, what can I tell you? No, but we sort of looked for not the first time at this Senate map. I think I can speak for both of us where we said we're pretty skeptical that Republicans won't hold on to the Senate. There's just too many seats that they hold in pretty deep red states that are up for re-election. There's not a lot of opportunities for Democrats to take back. seats or to take seats that are vulnerable, and Democrats have some seats themselves that they are defending. Most notably in Georgia, there's a Democratic Senate candidate there who's going to fight

for re-election for the first time since a special election put him in office, John Ozoff. So I'm skeptical, but look, anything can happen. Also, we should, I should, you know, pump the brakes a little bit on the idea that it's a straight line from where we sit today to Election Day in November. Because, for instance, and I'm not predicting this at all. I'm just saying the factors that could contribute to the outcome of the 26 mid-term elections continue to develop. The Iran strikes that the president has just launched along with Israel.

I mean, that could redound to somebody's benefit. We just don't know whose. If everything goes well and all of a sudden, you know, Donald Trump is looking like a popular wartime president, not predicting that's going to happen, but just saying he's sort of, that possibility has now been introduced, could change things, could change his political fortunes, which would, of course, change things for Republicans and Democrats in those House elections. So I think at this point, however, if we are to draw a generally straight line from where we are now to November, unless that changes in terms of his popularity on the foreign policy

front, unless these economic conditions that I think are generally pointing toward, you know, kind of the status quo, which is, eh, things aren't great, things aren't terrible, something There are all these areas in which inflation has not really cooled that much. There are all kinds of follow-on problems from the tariffs and confusion in all kinds of markets about what kind of tariffs we're going to see next. All of that is looking bad for Republicans. It's looking bad for House Republicans in those vulnerable seats. Democrats are in a good position to win a probably small margin in the House.

And like, what is going to change? I mean, the question is, what is going to change? What is Donald Trump going to do? What are in Congress? We're talking about Congress. Congress doesn't do anything. And they're certainly not going to do anything at an election year, except maybe sort of, you know,

do the congressional equivalent of waving the bloody shirt and holding hearings and that sort of thing to sort of try to shore up their base. So what can Donald Trump do? What is in his control to change the trajectory? And, again, other than foreign policy, there's just not a lot of. options for him at this point. It's not really about issues. It's just about how people feel about the direction of the country. And right now, it's pretty negative. And that suggests a change in the

House at least. You know, I don't think it's likely that the Democrats will be ahead in that Texas Senate race going into the election. But if the unlikely scenario comes out that they actually are and it looks seriously like they're going to win that race, I think that will really change the entire sort of national tenor of the conversation because it'll be the biggest political story. in the country outside of whichever unconstitutional massacre Trump decides to launch in October. If Croc is close to that Senate seat, God help the Cubans. I mean, if Democrats late in the fall campaign are competing to win Texas Senate, not just keeping it close, then it's a bloodbath for the party.

Because Texas, even though the suburbs in the Trump era moved to the left and you saw, you know, this pre-middecade gerrymandering, the success of Democrats. running for House districts in Texas, it's still by and large a center-right state and a pretty red state. I think one of the reasons Democrats have failed to crack the code is they keep nominating progressives who just decide they're going to do it like a populist. And they think that if they do progressivism like a populist, that's going to mask the other issues they have with voters that are largely cultural. You know, and I've been waiting for them just for this, you know, maybe just to try, you know, to nominate a pro-second amendment Democrat who, you know, is going to be pro-choice,

but talks about it being, you know, legal and rare to try and bridge the gap. And they just, they can't bring themselves to do it. You know, the Democrats did win this big special election for a state Senate race in Tarrant County, which traditionally is sort of the last big Republican urban county in Texas. And they did it with a guy who is pretty progressive on the issues, but culturally, you know, he's a union guy, he's a machinist. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't seem like some sort of exotic specimen. And that kind of thing, I think, can work for them, yeah. And that was the key.

It was a cultural normie. Yeah. Can I ask you lay in a question? I want to ask you a question factually about Tala Rico and his approach on these cultural issues because, you know, one thing, if you cover Republican political events, and this has been happening increasingly, you know, House candidates, you know, Senate candidates, all those sort of things, it is very often that these open with a prayer. I'm curious. Tala RICO is somebody who went to seminary. He's very outspoken about his faith.

Are Democrats starting Tala RICO events with kind of prayers? Is that, which I think is sort of a, maybe a good indicator of whether or not Democrats are sort of getting the story here and sort of getting on board with reaching across the aisle culturally. Is that kind of stuff happening? I'm just curious what those events are like in terms of appealing to not just a Democratic primary voter. No. There are no prayers at those events. It's interesting you asked that because I was, this is my first time seeing his events. I've interviewed him before and everything, but I was looking for that too. And it's funny, the people who were there, actually, like everyone I talked to was like,

I'm not really religious. Not everyone. A lot of people were like, I'm not really religious, but I like that he does this. Like, it's, I think some people also think it's a schick that he's putting on. And like, it is a bit of a, you know, he's clearly leaning into it. but, like, he does believe it also. Like, he really is, you know, capital B believer. But, yeah, it's interesting.

Like, people just are excited to hear a Democrat talk about God, whether or not they believe in God. They're just like, they're like, yeah, we need one of those on our side, too. Yeah, the question for me is whether the voters who want to hear that from a Democrat, are they convinced in the way that I think you are about that he is a believer or that it matters to them. Yeah, I think, I mean, I, you know, this is very anecdotal, but I talked to some Republican primary voters who had voted for Kornan. I think I talked to like five of them. And this was in Arlington, which is like West of Dallas,

kind of purple. They had voted for Kornan and they hated Paxton. And they told me, we don't really like Democrats, but we do like Tala Rico, like partly because of this faith thing. They did believe it. They liked it. They thought he was a nice guy. So I don't know if that means they, you know, they actually vote for him if it's Paxton in November, but that was an interesting data point, yeah. We're going to take a break, but we'll be back shortly. Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. So let me end this section of our conversation with sort of an exit question

before we get to not worth your time. If you think back to the arguments that Republicans had going into the 2020 midterms, it was a big spat in the Senate between the campaign committee. about whether Republicans should offer an alternative agenda or if they should just run against Joe Biden. You had the same kind of arguments of every off-year election. Fast forward to this midterm.

You look at where Democrats are today. You've seen some of this. That argument has resurfaced on the Democratic side. You know, you have some Democratic candidates who'd like to lay out a real policy agenda and others who say, no, no, we just need to not be Trump. So I ask you a question to you all, is this basically just about Trump? You know, obviously it would be different in different areas, different races,

but isn't what we're looking at in November of 26, an up and down vote about Donald Trump? And I'll start with you, Drucker. Well, when you have a midterm election, it is globally always about the president, right? The midterm elections always function as either an endorsement or rebuke. of the president. And historically, it's a rebuke, right? It's just it's the way these midterm elections work, except in a few instances. But interestingly enough, the kind of strategy and messaging that breaks through with voters and gets them to support the opposition party's candidates and show up, and particularly in swing districts and swing states, where it's not a fate of complete that the rebuke is

going to push the opposition party over the top, is to talk about the issues that voters care about, right, and not to overdo it about the incumbent president. Remember, I had a fascinating discussion during the 2018 midterm campaign, and I was talking to a Democratic operative who was steeped in house races, and I said, so look, how much are you guys talking about the Russian investigation? And remember, at the time, it wasn't, you know, a caricature of an investigation. We thought that the investigation might at some point reveal something really newsworthy and potentially illegal and everything else. There was a special counsel and was a whole thing. And then there were all the other things that went along with Trump in the

first term because people weren't used to it and he was a shock to the system. And what this operative told me was, no, we talk about health care. People are really upset with Republicans for trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. This is the number one issue. And they already know about Trump. It's like it's in the air. Remember, this operative said something to the effect of it's like oxygen. It matters, but everybody has access to it. So they're not thinking about it. They're thinking about the thing that they need, the thing that they're worried about. And so I think the way you approach this midterm election, if you're the opposition party, which the Democrats are again, is to talk about the issues vote who's care about and not particularly because Trump is

is now sort of a normal for politics and not abnormal. Voters will figure out how they feel about Trump. They already know how they feel about Trump. What they want to know from Democrats is, what are you going to do? Yeah. At least he's pre-existing, if not quite. It may not be normal for us, but he's normal. Kevin, you mocked the idea of policy mattering earlier.

Is this just all about Trump? Well, you know, it's all about Trump, but it matters how you oppose him, right? Because Trump's a moving target. like he's blowing up Venezuelans in boats this week, but we forgot on about that next week because there's ice people in Minneapolis, dragging people out of their cars and shooting them. So it's a real moving target, but what's not a moving target is the price of milk. You know, Democrats who've been running on the affordability issue have had a lot of success with that, and there's a good reason for that because inflation is still high, even though it's cooled down from

where it was. It's not radically high like it was a year or two ago, but it's still pretty high, and it's high off the pretty high baseline. So you've got a lot of people like me out there with four kids who are spending $100 a week on milk and eggs or 150 bucks a week on milk and eggs. And it used to be 60 and they're pissed off about that. And, you know, Trump made all these promises about, no one cares if he's going to settle the Ukraine war the day before he's sworn in like he said he was going to do. But getting prices back down and stopping inflation, people really do care about that. And I think that these smart

candidates will be the ones who are talking about that and not talking about trying to focus on whatever the scandal of the day is or the big controversial issue of the day, whether it's Iran or something else because with Trump, that's going to be old news in three days because he's going to launch some of the new outrageous thing the day after tomorrow. I was only half joking about the Cubans, by the way. I like 50-50 that we go try to knock over the regime in Havana before the election. Elaine? Yeah, I think it's all about Trump. I think part of what makes this primary in Texas interesting to sort of, you know, circle back to that is you do have these two Democrats who are kind of embodying the two different ways Democrats can do this.

Very much. You have Crockett, who is very much talking about Trump, not much about the issues. I mean, she does, of course, but it's not like, that's not what people love her for. They love her for going up there and, you know, making fun of him and just letting the insults fly. Tala Rico is sort of testing the opposite.

He's talking about issues. He's talking about sort of national healing. They're both kind of on vibes. Like, they're both kind of, yeah, I'm making an appeal to vibes, but the vibes are different. And so that is what I'm interested in for Tuesday's race is like, okay, what do voters want? I think that'll tell us a ton about what to expect going forward this year. Mike, last word, do you on this?

It's all about Trump. I mean, even the issues that people say they care about, it's about Trump. But like Kevin said, you know, it's about the price of milk. And Trump said he would fix the Biden economy and he has it. People like that he's closed off the border, the southern border. they don't like the way he's approaching immigration enforcement in the interior of the country. It's just he's the sun. You know, there's maybe there's an eclipse every once in a while and some other issue blocks him out.

But it's Trump today, you know, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as long as he's on the scene. God, I hate that that's true. I think it's right. I think it's inescapable. Yeah. Elaine, earlier in the podcast, you mentioned that you were wearing a ballcast. That was in the description that the Crockett people sent to you before you were escorted out of her event. And it was a favorite detail of the piece that you wrote, which had a lot of my favorite details.

It was a great piece. We'll post all of these pieces, by the way, in our show notes. But your hat, you were repping a company called Menards. Can you tell us about Menards and why you were wearing a Menard's cap. I haven't been asked that in this whole crazy news cycle, so I appreciate that. Yeah, I was repping Menards. I love Menards. My friend got me that hat a few years ago. I have a sweater, too, that matches. Quality. Yeah. What is Menards for people who are not from the Midwest? What is Menards? I don't know. It's like a big super store of like outdoor equipment and like

farm stuff and I don't know. Is there a word for that? Hardware, farm stuff. Yeah. But also like lighting and like doors and like I don't know it's yeah I love Menards I used to go there with my dad on the weekends we lived in the country so we'd drive you know 20 minutes into Menards and walk through it where did you grow up I grew up in rural Iowa so outside of Burlington Iowa and yeah it just it's a it has such a nostalgic feel to me I remember the Menards in Burlington used to have a glass elevator and it would take you it was also the biggest story I'd ever been in as a kid it was huge yeah sure And so you'd take the glass elevator to like the third floor and you could see as you were going up, you could see all the floors of different stuff. And it was just so exciting. And yeah, I don't know. I'm a big Menards fan. The other funny detail I was telling my editor about was I had brought two hats actually. And the other one was my heated rivalry hat, which is the new gay hockey show that everyone loves. And so it would have been one or the other. I guess I'm glad it was Menards, but maybe that would have been funnier. I love Menards. And anybody, so I grew up where I went to Monarch. I went to Monards. I love Menards. So I grew up where I went to Monarches. The last time I went to Menards was to buy emergency long underwear and hand warmers before a Notre Dame football game a year ago.

And I love Menards, grown up Menards. Anybody who's ever heard the Menards theme song, once you say the word Menards, that's what plays in your head. Go ahead, sing it for us, Steve. Elaine was going to do it. Save big money at Menards. I should, I really should be sponsored for all the Menards talk I've been doing. You know, when the Crocket people said, look for the white girl in the ball cap, if they just said the Menards hat, the rest would have been implied. The rest would have followed. Yeah, exactly.

So my question, we do this, Elaine, and not worth your time. And I'm going to exempt you because you gave us this discussion about Menards. But we'll circle back. And if you have another one, you're welcome to chime in. For the others, I want to know, is there a sort of regional chain store or store that you, you grew up with, you're all from different parts of the country that's near and dear to your heart, that you, too, would be comfortable going to a Jasmine Crockett rally wearing a hat of this chain. And I'll start with you, Mike Warren. So, yeah, I grew up outside of Atlanta. There are so many chains, by the way, that started in Atlanta small that are now national. You know, Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, those kinds of things.

This is, I guess, no longer regional, but Waffle House was a big part of my life. It really throughout my childhood. I remember going to, it's a short, if anybody doesn't know, Waffle House is a short-order diner place for breakfast, but you can eat there. It's open 24 hours a day. The federal government uses the Waffle House index to judge whether, you know, how serious storm damage is. If the Waffle House closes in anticipation of a,

hurricane, it means it's going to be really bad. Grew up going late nights in high school to Waffle House. So I used to have around my license plate on my first car, my first little, you know, cheap sedan that I drove, a little follow me to Waffle House is what it said, you know, license plate cover that I cherished. It was, it really defined who I was in college. In fact, people just knew my car from following me to Waffle House. Now, in terms of hip, hipster trash affectations, that is worse than a Bass Pro Shop hat. Hold on. Can I say something about this? It had to become a hipster affectation. But, you know, it was not that for me.

It was literally the place I just grew up going to. My dad would take us, you know, my mom never wanted to eat at Waffle House, but my dad would take us in the morning. So it's true. It's like I'm like those guys who were drinking PBR long before it was cool. Yes. He was eating Waffle House long before it was cool. No, Kevin, I mean, I think that's a valid point. This has been a problem with mine actually with Papp's Blue Ribbon.

I was drinking Paps Blue Ribbon way before it was cool when it was, well, Well, it's not true. I haven't had a Pafston. I was drinking Paf's Blue Ribbon a long time, but way before it was cool. And then it's like the band that you used to listen to when they were obscure. And then they become popular, but you still have the T-shirt. And you kind of don't want to wear the T-shirt because it looks like you're jumping on this hipster trend. On the other hand, if you've got one of the original T-shirts from like small venue when they were first,

then it shows that you're authentic for people who think. way too much about this stuff. But it is a frustration with Pabst, in particular, to a lesser degree, with Schlitz. Kevin, do you have one of these? Well, yeah, I was making fun of Drucker's Men's Warehouse shirt earlier. Brooks Brothers, dude. There's a conversation we were having offline in which I learned that Drucker actually has very expensive taste in clothes.

But one of the things we determined over the course of this conversation is that I have an aversion to logos of any kind. I try to avoid them if I can. So a Waffle House logo would be way down the list of any kind of people. particular logos, I think I would wear. So two thoughts on that. One is I do own a baseball cap with the emblem of the Amarillo Sod Poodles on it, which is their minor league baseball team. And I kind of like the name. Not really much of a baseball fan, but I do like, and it's orange, which is good. What's a Saab Poodle? Sod Poodle is a prairie dog. It's a nickname for Prairie Dog. Oh,

Sod, S-O-D, yeah, S-O-D. Yeah, Amarillo Sod Poodle. Yeah, Amarillo Sod Poodles. But I like to think, and I don't like to think this. it's just tragically true that my face is an advertisement for wild turkey. And so I just kind of, everywhere I go, it's right there. And I don't really need to put on a hat or a shirt or something. Drucker, do you have one of these? You know, I mean, I grew up at the beach in L.A., right? But anything from, and I didn't really have, we didn't have regional chains in Malibu where I grew up, number one. We just had like one and done, right? I mean, there was Malibu lumber and there was. Trankus Market, but anything with Malibu is automatically elitist and it makes it look like I'm

trying to prove that I'm from Malibu, which I haven't lived in in, I don't know, 30-something years. But just to play the game here, I've been going through this in my head, well, like, okay, I've got to pick something, right? So what can I pick from L.A.? That's like, that was L.A., never really outgrew L.A. and was kind of cool. And there was this regional, what we called coffee shops back then, right? but not a coffee house in the era of Starbucks, but an actual, like a diner in a way, but we call them coffee shops. There was one called Norms.

They had one in Santa Monica. They had one in West L.A. There were a couple others. And there was one in the L.A. area I would go when I was in college, and they'd just keep refilling you with battery acid coffee all night for a dollar and a half. Oh, brutal.

And so I think I'd go with a Norm's hat if I was looking for something nostalgic and authentic and not completely off-putting. Yeah, well, my, would probably be Paps or Schlitz. I actually drank more Schlitz probably than Papsed back in the day. But for the purpose of this discussion, I'm going to settle on a different one that other people might have had because it's now reached beyond Wisconsin. And it's Cousins Subs. These are sub sandwiches that cousins started out in sort of the Milwaukee area and in southeastern Wisconsin. And there were just a few shops. Their main competition was another place called Suburpia, which I think still exists, but hasn't had the success.

that Cousins has. Can't imagine why. A million reasons. Yeah, suburbia. Cousins has had success for a variety of reasons. It's mainly sort of, you know, standard subs with much better bread.

The bread, of course, is the key. And the best one is their Italian sub. But they also sort of dip into regional delicacies on occasion. And when I was back and spent a lot of time in Wisconsin last summer, their feature, although I never had it, which just kills me,

was a fried bologna and cheese. sub sandwich. And it was not just any bologna, it was Uzinger's bologna, which is like the famous Milwaukee sausage shop. But here's the problem. I'm going to beg cousins to bring this back if I'm going to wear their hat because I went to cousins. And every time I went there, I love their Italian subs so much that that's what I ordered. I never got the bologna and cheese sub, the fried bologna and cheese sub, and then it went away because it was, I mean, it's not even like the McRib, which comes back every year. It's just like went away. And I've been missing it ever since.

And every time I think of it, my mouth starts watering. This has been the most Midwestern conversational with that bit on it. And I've known you, Steve, for 16 years. So that means it's the best conversation? I need a little Midwest detox after this. My experience with the McRib is that it comes back after about now. Elaine, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for giving us your terrific reporting and your Menards hat.

And Kevin, Mike and David, thank you as well. It's a good conversation. I think people are ready for the midterm elections and ready to see the results in Texas in the next few days. Yaha. Yaha. Finally, if you like what we're doing here, there are a few easy ways to support us.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And as always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns, or corrections, you can email us at roundtable at the dispatch.com. read everything, even the ones who have no local chains to which they're loyal. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in, and a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible, Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure.

Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.