The Keith Edwards Show - Trump Can't Believe What's Happening In Texas

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

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Do you feel that? There is a political earthquake underway right now. And the epicenter is Texas. Y'all, there is something happening in Texas. Something big is happening in Texas. Now, the first sign of this is what happened this past week in a state Senate special election runoff where a Democrat overtook a Republican in a Republican majority seat. The Donald Trump won by 17 points, and this Democrat carried it by 14.

That is a huge flip, and here's Steve Kornacki to talk to us a little bit more about that. And then I have for you a really interesting thing that might be happening in Texas where truly we might be able to flip the entire state red. But first, here is Steve Kornacki. For a state legislative election that gets this kind of attention. But it's the fact that, look, this is in the Fort Worth area in Texas, a 15 point win for the Democrat here. You mentioned Trump's margin in this same district with 17 points. So what is that? That's a swing toward the Democrats away from Republicans of 32 points relative to the 2024 presidential election result in this district.

That is broadly consistent with what we have been seeing. These are congressional special elections now that have taken place since Trump came back for his second term. And again, the story in these elections, no matter which party is winning, has been that Democrats have been overperforming relative to 2024. For example, April of last year in Florida in this district, it had been a district that Trump won by 37 points in 2024. In the special election for Congress last year, Republicans won it, but only by 15. So it was a shift there of 22 points toward the Democrats away from the Republicans. And in each one of these, you see a shift here. The smallest end, in fact, was that Tennessee special election at the end of last year, it was a shift towards the Democrats of

13 points. And again, at the at the larger edge here, you see 22 points that I just showed you. That's been the range we've been seeing in House elections. This one's a little bit more dramatic in Texas, which may have to do. There's some turnout variables. But overall, this is consistent with the atmosphere. I think that we've been seeing for a while now, certainly in Virginia, New Jersey, those election results, too, of trouble for Republicans. Trouble for Republicans. And this is just the beginning. And that's why it's really exciting that as we featured before on the channel, there is someone running for a U.S. Senate for Texas on the Democratic side

named James Taurico, who was actually just on the view yesterday and went viral talking about this. I mentioned that my granddad was a Baptist preacher, and when I was real little, he told me that we're supposed to follow Jesus' two commandments, love God and love neighbor. And I believe forcing my religion, down the throats of my Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist,

agnostic neighbors is not love. And it's why I have fought so hard for the separation of church and state. I was raised to believe that that boundary in our First Amendment is a sacred boundary. And it doesn't just benefit our democracy, although it certainly does. It also benefits the church because when the church gets too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice. And so I hope in the U.S. Senate that I can continue my fight against Christian nationalism because it is fundamentally un-Christian. It is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his death, and his teachings. I don't know a lot about the Bible, but that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me.

And I think that would resonate with a lot of people who feel like evangelical Christians have gone astray. And I do think, you know, what I would like to do, I would like to just, you know, we could test that message in Texas because I do think. that we have to meet Christian nationalism with an equal but opposite force. I think James Taylorico has a message that could potentially pacify

the insanity happening on the evangelical wing of that religion. It's interesting. Now, he was also on the view where he talked about bullies. Well, I was born to a single mom. She was a preacher's daughter from Laredo, Texas,

who left home at 19. She moved up to the big city, Austin, Texas, and she met my birth father, a 21-year-old high school dropout whose drinking problem sometimes led to violence. And one night after I was born, he became abusive again. That night, my mother's love rose to meet it. And she packed all our stuff into her little Ford escort. She drove me to the hotel where she worked. She begged the manager to let us stay in one of the rooms until she found this little apartment in East Austin. And there wasn't room for a nursery, so I slept in a crib in her closet. And she was so proud of that closet. She decorated

with toys and pictures. No one was going to tell her it wasn't a nursery. The only reason I'm on the view is because of my mom. And she is actually, she's actually here with us today. This is her, this is her first time in New York City. My mom Let me cry My mom is a fighter She showed me how to stand up to bullies That's what I've done in the Texas legislature

Standing up to the billionaires And far right extremists Who are hoarding wealth for themselves And stripping our most fundamental rights And that's exactly what I want to do in the U.S. Senate Jim San Francisco Also went viral when he said this About America

Being for the immigrant, The protester No more Secret Police no more disappearing people. This is the United States of America. We're not supposed to fear our government. Our government is supposed to fear us.

The most common commandment in the body. I love that. The government is supposed to fear us. I like that. I'm going to start saying that because I kind of feel like it's been the opposite for a long time where we fear the government. No, no, no, no.

We are the people. We have the power. We supposedly are the ones who get to vote in our leaders. So I do love that. I do love that change in energy. The government should fear us. I love that. Holy shit.

The Bible is welcome the stranger. Scripture says we welcome the stranger because we were once strangers. All of us have that immigrant story in our family history somewhere. All of us come from somewhere else. That's the beauty of America, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. America is not mass deportation. America is not masked government agents. America is not arresting journalists and executing people in the street.

America is the immigrant. America is the protester. America is the protesters. America is the huddled masses yearning to be free. Alex Petty is America. Renee Good is America. Liam Ramos is America. These brave Americans have been stolen from us.

At this moment of crisis, America needs patriots now more than ever. Wow. And, you know, there are more than 5,000 people at that rally. in Texas. It was an anti-ice rally. And this is all happening at the time when James Tolariko just actually got a big endorsement from the Houston Chronicle asking this question, Do you want to win or not? Democrats should make Tala Rico their Senate candidate. And here's a little bit of their reasoning why. They say here, nobody really knows what electability looks like in Texas because Democrats remain a generation removed from a statewide win. Still, we see campaigns,

come closest when they convince some Republicans to cross over, and only Tala Rico is working to assemble that coalition like Beto O'Rourke did in 2018. Goes on to say, Tala Rico offers Democrats their best chance to change direction because he's running a campaign that starts with an unblinking assessment of political reality. Texas is a red state. Any Democrat who wins statewide will have to persuade at least some Republicans to cross over. Now, of course, it's gone viral where Jasmine Crockett has said, she doesn't feel like she's, she needs to do that. I personally believe she does. The Houston Chronicle agrees that you do have to persuade some Republicans to cross over. It goes on to say here, at a time when the American people

have learned that the president and the wealthiest man in the world were piling around with Jeffrey Epstein, we could use a friendly lecture on morality. At a time when every algorithmic incentive in media and politics is toward hate and extremism, we could use a message grounded in love. Now, it did talk a little bit about Jasmine Crocket here and why they decided that she's not the right choice this time for Texas. And it says this. She has deliberately marketed herself as a left-leaning attack dog for viral zingers and rhetorical flame throwers. That would be points in her corner if she were running in Illinois or New Jersey or some other reliably blue state. But in Texas, it is a liability. This is literally what I have said on this channel. Her occasional elapses in court's hyperbole,

including a comment suggesting some Trump voting Hispanic Texans had a, quote, slave mentality also risk alienating precisely the voters, Democrats must persuade. And when we asked about her path to victory, Crockett pointed to celebrity surrogates as a way to win. And that is basically the party's losing strategy in 2024. So we already know if that doesn't work. So it says here, James Talarico is the only candidate in this race campaigning like he understands. that winning requires a new playbook, one grounded, evidence and persuasion, control your swing, make contact with the ball, bang on a trash can if you have to. Because politics, like baseball,

isn't about how powerful your swing looks. It's about whether you score runs. So I do think there is something big happening in Texas. I think James Salarico is a generational talent. And this article shows that perhaps with the swing happening in the country and the one that happened in Texas and with the message and strategy like Tala Rico, it could very well be that we flip Texas blue. And how nice would that be? I would like that. Would you like that? Thanks.