The Texan Podcast - Cruz's Campaigns Compared, Battleground Seats, GOP Chair Race: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 3

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

In episode 3 of The Texan's "Smoke Filled Room" podcast, Senior Editor McKenzie DiLullo and Senior Reporter Brad Johnson dive deep into the U.S. Senate race in Texas, comparing Sen. Cruz's races against former Congressman Beto O'Rourke in 2018 and Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32) this year.They also take a look at some of the other competitive races across Texas to keep an eye on this year, as well as a preview of the race for Texas GOP chair that is just around the corner.As always, subscribe to The Texan for full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/

Yard signs, Bradley. Oh boy. Do they matter? Do they matter to prevent a revolt from your supporters in the state? Sure. I still think the money is better spent elsewhere. We had this knock-down, drag-out argument, what, three years ago now? Also, do you think it's interesting that the nicest we are to each other is when we're alone in a room in a podcast with Maslin? Every time, everywhere else we're waging war.

I don't know why that's the case. I don't know. I guess we're fake on camera. That's probably exactly it. Well, howdy, folks. It's Mackenzie DeLulo here with Brad Johnson, senior reporter. Hi, Brad. What's going on?

Not much. What's going on with you? We're recording. I will say we're recording this weeks in advance. Yes. Because you're about to go gallivant for a little while. Yes. Where are you going to gallivant?

Well, two continents, actually. Technically. That's right. Yeah. Going to... Bang for your buck. actually, technically. That's right. Yeah. Going to... Bang for your buck. Constantinople. Constantinople.

Yeah. Making sure to say the correct name. Where might Constantinople be? Make sure to dead name the city of Istanbul. That's exciting. Now, how are you going to two continents? Explain that. Well, Istanbul is separated by two.

It's across two continents. Europe and Asia. I like how I asked you that question just so people might know the answer who don't listen. And you looked at me as if I was stupid because you've told me multiple times. It doesn't take just that for me to look at you like you're stupid. So it's kind of a regular thing. It's true. But whether I think you are stupid or not, that's a different question entirely.

I think it depends on the day. No, I don't think it depends on the day. I think the severity with which you think I'm stupid depends on the day. The spectrum. Sure. We'll go with that. This is going really well so far. Yes. So, yeah, I'm going on vacation for 10 days days and it's going to be nice. It's going to be

awesome. But by the time this goes out, I'll be back. So will I have really been on vacation? Tree falls in the final. Yeah. You're doing great. I'm just making stuff up at this point. So basically our topic today, we're going to be chatting through in advance of the GOP convention we will hit on the GOP chair race so we're going to talk a little bit about that every two years the state parties have their big conventions where delegates gather elected chairman take care of party business etc etc elected officials come in speak to delegates there's an exhibit hall with booths, yada, yada, all sorts of things happen. It's kind of a circus. Truly, it is.

Naturally, that's just how it is. It's political. So by definition, it also is a circus. Yes. But in the course of that convention, specifically at the GOP convention this year, there is a pretty heated and contentious and highly anticipated chairman's race. Basically the leader of the state party going forward. Matt Rinaldi said, I'm not going to run for reelection. So we have some major candidates that jumped in the race. So we'll

talk through that a little bit later. We've already spoken about the runoffs, which are right around the corner by the time this podcast is released. So if you want to get a little bit more of our insight on the runoffs, go listen to episode one of Smoke-Filled Room. Isn't that when we talked about it? A little bit of a primary post-mortem with a look ahead to the runoffs. We'll talk a little bit about runoffs, I'm sure, throughout the course of this podcast, but we're going to focus a little bit on the general election, where we're at, where Texas is politically, specifically the Senate race we'll talk a lot about, and then any sort of battleground races throughout the state that we'll also take a little peek at.

Yeah. Is Texas going to turn blue? Always, Brad. Okay. If you say it enough, it's bound to happen eventually, right? But that's where I'm getting ahead of myself. That's like further down. But I do think it's fascinating how the narrative has changed so much in the last six years about how Texas is politically, whether it's leaning where Democrats can find some sort of foothold.

Like it's changed so dramatically in the last six years, which that's part of why we're going to talk about this in the first place. But it's very noteworthy. Can you start off by talking to us about the TPI? We have a Texas Partisan Index of the Texan, which basically looks at the last several election cycles, tallies a score for a district or the state in terms of how that area leans politically. Where's Texas as a state at results from the last two election cycles

pared down for each district. So we have Congress, the Texas Senate and House, State Board of Education, and counties. And you can see the partisan leaning for each of those based on the last two cycles of results, specifically statewide results averaged out. So every statewide race on the ballot gets put into this calculation. And that, you know, accounts for a really high vote getter like Greg Abbott, and then lower ballot races such as Railroad Commission. Just kind of, you get the average, you get the midpoint that best reflects which way

any of these districts lean. And it's not a perfect science. You know, things can have the potential to change rapidly one cycle to the next, but usually it doesn't. and it's a pretty good estimation on which way these districts go. Texas itself is a 56% district. That's different from the 54% that it was in 2020. So after the 2022 midterms, the race got more red. Not substantially so. Or the state got more red? Yeah, what did I say? The race.

No, the state got more red, yes. And so that counters the Texas is on the verge of turning blue. Now, I will say R-56 is not an overwhelming majority for – it is a majority, but it's not an overwhelming one for Republicans. Take Oklahoma, just the north. Idaho. It's like if we were to do this calculation, it would be like R-20. So Texas is much more in play than a state like Oklahoma. R-20.

Yeah, well, I'm going off of Cook Political Index. Oh, got it, got it, got it. Sorry, they do it differently. R plus 20. So this, Texas, would be R plus, I'm having to do math, 12. Yes. Yes, thank you.

That's not my strong suit. You're doing a really good job. Brad has a calculator at his desk. I do. Like a big graphing calculator. I use that thing. I don't think you use those functions. No.

But I use that far more than the calculator itself than I did in college, which probably says something about my studiousness. But, yeah, so basically R plus 12, potential to swing one way or the other. We shall see. You know, the last time the Senate race was on, this Ted Cruz Senate race was on the ballot, was when Texas got closest. Which is how we're going to talk about this today, is like that six-year span, like how things have changed. Right. So you have another high profile challenger maybe not

quite as high profile as beta was in colonel red but you know there's been we'll talk about polling there's been some polling out there that shows uh the race is is pretty wide apart but also some that shows it's pretty close who knows which one is exactly accurate um it's probably somewhere in the middle i'd say but but it's a good gauge for whatever happens in November will be a good gauge for which way the state is actually going. We see all this economic growth, this population growth that brings in new voters. Do they come in? Is it the conservative voters who are displeased with California moving here? Is it voters from New York? Same kind of dilemma there.

Or is it something entirely different that's going to make the state more competitive? So far, the state is getting slightly more red. So that's the TPI. You can check it out on the website. We have a whole webpage for it, and it's pretty easy to see maps districts charts all the info and the data right there and i do think to your point it is worth noting that if you were

to ask somebody in a different state how red texas would be they would not expect it to be 56 percent now just because we're in the 50s does not mean that it's necessarily competitive for Democrats on a statewide level, but it just means the margin is a lot less than people might expect. Yeah. Texas was this super red conservative bastion. And by no means is it Georgia at the moment, which is actually a battleground. And it's also by no means California, which is incredibly progressive. But it just has this persona that is kind of larger than life as Texas is. But politically, there's a lot more, I'd say, middle ground in play. And it's not as, like I said, it's not Oklahoma in terms of partisan leaning. But Texas obviously is a huge story in everything and takes on a lot of massive

political fights that we've seen in the legislature the last few years. It's at the forefront of lawsuits and legislative pushing the envelope on policy. And it's just the big elephant in the room, basically. And so it was interesting to come here and see how it actually is firsthand. Totally. It's significantly different than the mythical reputation that people have outside the state. Yeah. And that's just reality, right?

I don't think that's surprising for anybody that lives here. Things are always more complicated. Right, yeah, especially those engaged. There is a totally different attitude for people who are involved in the political scene, even just as opposed to an average voter on either side of the aisle. I think they have, like, perception is in part reality. But I do want to, right off the bat, give a baseline for what we're talking about here. So in 2018, Cruz won re-election with 50.9% of the vote.

Beto got 48.3. Apparently I can't read today. 48.3 to 50.9, and a third-party candidate, Neil Dykeman, got 0.8%. So that's about a 220,000 vote difference. And this was after hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into this race. I need to look at the final number, but it was over, it was north of a hundred. 80 crews was like north of 55 million. Yeah, it was well over a hundred million dollars. Most expensive Senate race up until that point in U.S. history. Unbelievable. It resulted in 12 Texas House seats flipping from red to blue. It resulted in 12 Texas House seats flipping from red to blue. It resulted

in two state Senate seats flipping from red to blue. The Texan would not have been founded if that had not happened that cycle. But regardless, it was a huge loss for Republicans across the board and I think inspired a lot of fear in the hearts of GOP activists across the state, political operatives, whatever it might be. But at the same time, and this is where we'll dovetail a little bit into the polling that we're seeing right now for the candidates in the Senate race, it discouraged, I think, national Democrats from investing that same kind of capital in a race in the future. Beto was a candidate who at the time had not as much political baggage as he does now, right? He had not run for president and made national platform stances on different issues, specifically talking about guns. I think that's a pretty big

turning point for his likability in Texas and appeal to more middle ground voters. We saw it really come back to bite him in the governor's race last cycle. Absolutely. But I think watching all of this money, this organization, this infrastructure on the left, on the Democratic side, enter Texas and not yield the results that they were so excited about, I don't think they necessarily, you have to ask, you know, operatives if they expected to actually flip as many seats as they did. So there certainly was a yield to their effort, but there was not a statewide yield of a statewide office. Democrats still haven't won statewide in 30 years. And now you're looking at today and national Democrats are pretty disinterested in what's going on in

the state level here in the statewide level here in Texas compared to other states. I will say the other thing, the other factor there is that— And compared to 2018. Sure, yes. But one of the reasons that the National Democrats aren't pouring a bunch in is they're trying to maintain their seats. They're not trying to flip seats. Absolutely. At least that's not the main target. They're trying to preserve their majority. So I think that's a factor as well with this.

Totally. we will see, saw the NDCC, NDSC, say that they were going to put in, I think, a seven-figure ad buy or digital ad buy for Allred against Cruz. It's not like they're not going to spend money. And Allred's a very formidable candidate. Like, I'm not saying that at all. But the energy level and the attention from the National Democrats is totally different than it was in 2018. And I will say, too, I think it's fair to say going into 2020, a lot of that enthusiasm and media narrative, like that all continued to be in Democrats' favor of saying, hey, they still have a chance in Texas. So it didn't stop in 2018. That was a launching point for Democratic effort in Texas. But then you get to 2020 election results and you see how Trump fared, 52.1% compared to 46.5% for Biden in 2020. So we're talking about a result that did not yield what Democrats were hoping. And that's,

I think, where it turned. Yeah. Well, and also add to that, on that same ballot was Senator Cornyn. And he won, I think it was by 11 points, maybe 13. It was a pretty significant margin. Need to far outpace what Trump won by, though both of them still won fairly easily. Just a wildly different dynamic than we saw in 2018 in the razor-thin margin at the top of the ticket with Cruz and Beto. Yeah, I think it started at 8%. I had to find the final results.

But, yeah, it was a very significant win for Cornyn. What are you looking at? Oh, no, it was 53.5 to 43.9, Cornyn versus Hager 2020. Okay. So 10 points spread there. By about a few percentage points then? Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Pretty wild.

And interesting there, too, because corn in is certainly not popular among GOP primary voters in the way that other elected officials. Well, the general election is an entirely different constituency. Totally different ballgame. Okay, well, then let's talk about this. Do you have anything to add on the 2020 cycle? Anything there? You were covering the cycle then for us. Seeing the, you know the aftermath of 2018.

Well, I mean, just COVID was a wild factor in that. And obviously that will not be replicated this time probably ever maybe. Knock on wood. But that just threw everything kind of haywire and campaigns were struggling to campaign, especially on the Democratic side. I remember seeing a lot of reports about less door knocking activities and, you know, more remote voter contacts and maybe that affected them and the ability to at least try and come close to what they did in 18. But overall, it was just, you know, I remember covering all this stuff and

it was whiplash inducing all the lawsuits. And nobody really knew what the rules of the game were going to be until the very last minute because, you know, early voting got extended a week. But then there was a lawsuit against that and that got dropped, or at least it got denied by the Supreme Court. There was stuff about mail-in balloting, you know, all this stuff. And this is just, 2020 is just kind of an anomaly. Yeah. Partially because of that. Absolutely. And that's where we saw going into 2020 that the headlines kind of remain hopeful for Democrats.

There's a lot of, okay, will Democrats be able to, based on the infrastructure and fundraising ability that they've fostered in the last few years, will they be able to compound the results of 2018 to flip more seeds? Yada, yada. And that didn't happen. Right. Which was fascinating to watch. And that's where I think the narrative stopped and a lot of the momentum kind of took a turn. Now they're trying to reestablish that. Yes. As always, which is how it works when you're the party at a disadvantage in any given political dynamic. Yeah. And, you know, in politics, there's no such thing as a lost cause because there's no such thing as one cause.

It's just a constant fight, constant tug of war on both sides. And it always will be. So this cycle, we have got Cruz. We've got Allred. Cruz, of course, senator, junior senator here from Texas, but a very prominent national figure, previous presidential candidate. I mean, he has a platform of a platform. And he's going up against Colin Allred, former NFL player, congressman from the Dallas area. Walk us through what we're seeing in terms of polling momentum.

Give us a rundown of this race so far um so there's two main polls that i've seen in from state outfits uh the latest one is the texas hispanic public policy foundation and that has well on the top of the ticket trump plus 12 over biden so there's a gauge there uh cru is plus 5 over Allred in that one, broken down by a couple different demographics among Hispanics. Trump's plus 4 in the state. Allred, though, is plus 5 over Cruz. Independence, Cruz is plus 3. So a pretty tight margin there. The Texas Politics Project had one in February,

and that had Cruz at plus 14. So a significant difference between those two polls right there. If I remember correct, or if I read it correctly, all red was up among Hispanics plus two. And then among independents, Cruz was plus three. Now, something throughout all these polls that we've seen, Cruz, Trump, and Biden also fit into this. The unsure category is almost nothing. Everyone has an opinion. Already. Already. Is that unusual for this point in a general election cycle? I guess I'm misstated. So on the fave, unfave ratings for each of these people, it's 1% at most for each of these three. Everyone knows how they feel one way or the other. They like them, they hate them. Cruz has been marked by that for a while. He's a

polarizing figure, but also quite loved among some of certain contingent of voters, right? Who back him to the hilt and always will. Trump's similar in that. And so, but then they have, you know, on the flip side, voters that hate, they hate their guts and will crawl over broken glass to vote against them. So that, that's an interesting dynamic there, especially when you add the fact that All Reds, I forget which one of these two polls it was, but All Red's undecided in the fave-unfave was like 40%. So the strategy here on both sides is to move that 40% undecided one way or the other. And Cruz has been attacking All Red on energy policy votes, his just general voting with the Biden administration on whatever policy it is.

I think he put out something on the Ukraine aid bill that we saw over the weekend. Now, obviously, that's significantly far away from when this thing gets released, but from what I'm recording recording it was this past weekend. And just various other, trying to paint him as a leftist, very progressive. And Allred, throughout the primary, tried to take the moderate lane, and he probably succeeded pretty well. I mean, he won without a runoff. And going up against someone like Roland Gutierrez, a state senator

with a pretty high profile in terms of specifically representing the Uvalde area, Uvalde, the city where there was that tragic mass shooting at an elementary school, Rob Elementary. So he immediately has become, you know, following that tragedy, the spokesperson for those issues, and has been very willing to take progressive policy stances in a Senate run by Dan Patrick, where that is not received well whatsoever. Yeah, so then the other way on for Allred, he wants to move that 40% into the favorable category for him. And so there's no other – that's the persuadable group.

How do you view Allred – this is just like a separate – separate from the poll. Allred versus Beto, their profiles as candidates. Allred's actually out-raising Beto at the moment. Which is crazy to think about. Well, the money for Beto came in during the summer, and it came in in a tsunami. It was massive. Tens of millions of dollars. Yes. Maybe that happens for Allred again. We'll see. But as far as the stage in the race, he's out-raising them. Now, it's also interesting that breaking down the fundraising stats, Allred and Cruz have both raised in the first part of this year

around $10 million. So they're about on par there. But Allred burned through 96% of that money that he raised. Now, he has other money that he raised from before. Like, he was running since, what, May of last year, I think. So he's been raising money the whole time. But in that most recent tranche of money that he raised, he burned 96% of it. And the biggest section of that was TV ad buys. So you see them putting into action trying to move those voters,

that 40% that's undecided on him. And I guess the best bang for your buck are the TV ads just because they're expensive, but they have the most reach. And in a statewide campaign, you're not worried about, oh, I'm hitting voters that aren't in my district. Right. You're hitting people you want to go out and vote for you, no matter which area you're buying in. Yep. So on the fundraising front, we'll see how he does in the summer,

but he's outmatching Beto at the moment. I think he's got, whether this is his fault or a factor of how much, especially the media loved Beto as a person, as a persona. As a character, almost. Yeah. Allred has not been getting that kind of treatment so far this cycle, at least from what I've seen. What do you think?

I totally agree. But I also think there was this novelty to Beto that we did not, like we're not seeing now, right? The challenge to cruise by a well-funded and formidable challenge. Like this is take two, right? This is, we've seen this before. People are less excited because it already failed the first time. And we haven't seen all red jump on any tables. So, you know, that's doing something mean he's a he's a big dude he's a he's a former what linebacker right

i don't know what position he played he'll need a pretty sturdy table but i do like that's what i'm kind of getting at when i'm asking about the profile of the candidates i think they're so different i think the legibility for both of them is there, particularly now with the, and when Beto first ran for Senate with the platform that they were on with the votes they had and hadn't taken, the stances they have and hadn't taken. I think they're both positioned similarly in that. But I think Beto was, I mean, he was a megaphone of a candidate. And that in part was due also to the media being excited about his candidacy. I don't think that's a stretch to say that at all. Allred's a different animal in that regard.

I think a little bit more reserved in how he approaches different campaign stops, like in how his energy comes across to voters. But he's very personable, very likable. And I think a lot of folks were immediately like, oh man, that's like a good person to choose as a challenger to go up against somebody like Cruz. And one of the, this was my perspective watching from afar because I wasn't here yet.

But Beto, he tried to find this middle ground on guns. And I think at the time. At the time. Yeah. Yes, at the time. Not during his presidential run. At the time, that was particularly notable in the news because of a couple school shootings across the country, including in Texas. Right.

So he saw that as a wedge issue. All red. The wedge issue I've seen him talk about most is abortion, and specifically about the state's law, according to him, going too far. Now, I haven't seen him really voice where he thinks the line should be, at least in much detail, but the first ad that he ran, or one of the first couple ads that he ran, was specifically on abortion law,

following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs-Jackson decision. What do you think about that angle for Texas voters? Abortion generally? Yeah, like Allred's angle with abortion. Well, there was a poll put out this morning by Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, and it showed that the breakdown of preferred abortion restrictions – this is of all different, I assume. I didn't check it, but the breakdown here was an exception just for life of the mother, 15% preferred that. An exception for life of the mother, rape and incest, 29%. An exception up to 12 weeks, 29%. And then an exception 23 to 24 weeks, 29%. And then an exception, 23 to 24 weeks, 27%. And so, you know, broadly speaking, public opinion on this across the country is more voters than not are opposed to restrictions in the

first trimester and opposed to no restrictions in the third trimester, and generally where we hash it out is in the middle. I think that's moved a bit because of policy advances like Texas has made. So the line that we're arguing from has moved right. So maybe that skews some of these results, but generally the average voter is not in line with a Republican primary voter on the issue of abortion. That's not surprising. That's kind of how it works. Yes, exactly. So I think it's depending on if he doesn't step in it and pick.

I think Beto in the governor's race came out and said he's for no restrictions. That seems so long ago, that governor's race. Yeah. It seems so long ago. I don't think that was probably a good political position to take in Texas. There could have been a middle ground there. Again, we're not talking merits of the policy here. Right.

We're talking about political. And messaging. Yes. I think he probably did himself a disfavor there, along with running for president and making the comments he did about guns. But we'll have to see how Allred really finds the whatever middle ground he thinks he's going to find here on this. Because it's probably there but also the question is is it is it that big of an issue right now in texas the results

in ohio and kansas would suggest it is fairly big but you don't know if that translates to this state right until we see it translate you know and i think tex Texas is where a lot of people look to see how things are trending. And obviously there's a huge, like each state is different. We have to look at demographics and the border plays a huge part in the different factions of voters in the state. I mean, that is a huge, not just the border as an issue, but the people who live along the border. It's just an entirely different animal, right? And you have to look at that when you're considering the eligibility or likability of a candidate who's running on these kinds of issues. But, yeah, I immediately thought about the more national referendums on abortion.

But all I can say, Texas is where people look to see some of those trends. And what happens in other states may not at all dictate how Texas goes on an issue. Texans are who they are, and they are very bold in that way. You mentioned the border, voters on the border. If I remember correctly, the results of the primary, and obviously Allred ran away with it and he avoided a runoff. But I think I remember seeing something about him underperforming in South Texas. Now, Gutierrez is from that area, represents that area, or at least part of it. And so

maybe that was the main contributing factor to that, but that shows at least some weakness in that one reference point in that part of the state. And I'm sure Allred will be working, his campaign will be working hard to try and turn that around, make him more of a border hawk, at least more than the average Democratic congressman is. So because, like you said, the border is such a big issue, so important in the state. And frankly, Governor Abbott's winning the political fight over that issue right now. It's political. It's economic. It's like it's everything. Yeah. It hits on everything from that perspective. And, yeah, I think the governor is definitely winning on that issue.

Yeah. I think we saw some calculated comments about SB4, and I can't recall if Allred waded into that at all. I don't remember either. That's the last thing I was thinking about at the time. But it doesn't jump out to me, so that says something, right? Yeah, because everyone else was. So I don't see, he's not one that comes to mind lambasting the SB4 bill, which is currently in the middle of a court fight.

So we'll see where that ends up. But that shows to me that he's trying to be tactful on how he attacks that issue. But of course he is. Well, right. Of course. That makes complete sense. Is there any other polling or highlights from polling you want to cover before we kind of move in? I mean, I jumped ahead and started talking about just dynamics in general.

But is there anything else in the polling that you want to hit on before we continue? I don't think so. I think we covered the last two that I saw. But I think clearly the fact that the NDSC, National Democratic Senatorial Committee. You did a great job of rolling that out. The fact that they're not coming in big tells you where they see they're pulling out on it. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about money a little bit, but that is, I'm impressed with Allred right off the bat

as somebody who can raise this kind of money in a race like this following in the footsteps of a candidate with a high profile like beto where he had once he was the candidate and once it was clear he was putting in the work and touring all 254 counties which we heard ad nauseum in that cycle but regardless he did right he was out there um and after that happened, I mean, people took him very, very seriously and did so very quickly. And it resulted in huge gains for Democrats. And then seeing momentum kind of wane over the last few years and seeing a candidate like Allred, who again, is very formidable, come to the forefront with a lot of money in the bank,

is so notable. I mean, he matched Cruz, but he was like $100,000 off Cruz in the last fundraising report, wasn't it? Like, wasn't it just like $100,000 off Cruz in the last fundraising report. Wasn't it? Like, wasn't it just like $100,000 apart? $200,000. $200,000. I think it was. Yeah.

But that's like, for the millions these guys are raising, that's a drop in the bucket. Yeah. Well, a couple points there that Cruz is also out-raising himself from 2018. So that's notable as well. So the Cruz of it all. Yeah. How do you see his reelection effort shaping up this cycle? I think he's in a better spot than he was in 18.

First of all, you don't have a rather unpopular Republican president in the White House. Instead, you have a rather unpopular Democratic president in the White House. With that same Republican former president. Right. Yeah. Returning to the ballot. I don't know. But it's a more favorable environment just right off the bat for Cruz. And he's kind of weathered a lot of the ammo thrown at him. There are no real new hits. Yeah. Or new substantive, like new crazy hits that are gaining a ton

of traction. Right. So, Cruz is who he is. He's kind of a, he's got a huge profile. He rocks the boat in the Senate. Some people hate it. Some people love it. Some people are critical of him not having rocked the boat enough more lately as, you know, incumbency becomes part of his story. Yeah. So regardless, if he's going to run for president in 28, he's got to win this race. Yeah.

Otherwise, that's probably not in the cards. The other thing I wanted to say was you reminded me of the Beto going to all 254 counties thing. In school, I remember hearing a story about Nixon. I think it was when he ran against JFK in 62. That was 62, right? I'll double check. Yeah, because JFK was assassinated in 63. It was, maybe it was 60? Yeah, that was 60.

60. So Nixon, I think it was this race. It was one of his presidential races, but I'm pretty sure it was this one. He had the same thing, only in all 50 states. So he's, frankly, wasting time campaigning in Alaska for votes that he's going to get. But making that his platform of saying, hey, I'm going to everybody. And it sounds good. Of course.

And from a purely ideological perspective, like, sure, like, it's a good thing to go talk to everyone who's, you can, who's going to be represented by you, right? So I get that, and it's a good talking point. But practically, it's not efficient because you need to go where the voters are and going to Alaska in a presidential race, especially more than once, is a waste of time. Straight up is, yeah. So, you know, obviously Texas isn't nearly as big as the country. It's still a big state. And so if you're going up to the northwestern most county in the panhandle where there's, you know, what, 50 people that live there or whatever it is, that's why we see these races significantly focus on the 35 corridor. And that's where most of the people are.

For sure. But I do think in the Beto instance, it played so well for him. I think that's an anomaly in that you have a candidate running against Ted Cruz, who is painted as a radical. That was the whole argument was like, let's get back to common sense. That was Beto's whole platform, which, again, he tried to return to and couldn't after his presidential run. But that was the platform and people bought it. And I think it's evident people bought it by the electoral results. And I do think that those photos of him going to little cafes and diners and bars in these rural counties played significantly into his –

and you had attendance of these things that were wild and scary to Cruz's team. And you had – we're getting into this a little bit, but like the sheer number of yard signs that popped up in neighborhoods where you would not think them to be, one, politically involved in a state-level race like this or concerned about a state-level race like this, maybe a school board race, maybe a city council race, maybe a state house district race,

but to see Beto yard signs go up in yards where they have Republican candidate signs up as well on a local level where you see explicit evidence of crossover voters in rural counties that are red to the bone. Like that was wild. And I think that was, it was all momentum. And somehow the energy of Beto's candidacy and campaign translated. Yeah. It translated big time. Now, I will say, you know, talking to some Allred friendlies or those in Allred's camp, they're trying to do things a bit differently.

Specifically, again, I wasn't here, so I'm just going off what I was told. Beto waited until the very end to go negative on Cruz because he tried to remain above the fray. Common sense, positive, everybody's candidate. Yeah. Right. They're not doing that. All right is not doing that. They are hitting Cruz every day on everything they can possibly get their hands on.

And Cruz is returning the fire, right? This is not, one candidate is not trying to run a solely positive campaign. Would you find it accurate to say a positive ad, the aim is to bolster a candidate's image, whereas a negative ad is just completely strip and tear down and chip away at your opponent's image right like it's a it's a fave on fave game right back to the 40 that's really up for grabs here yeah which is huge i mean that's a huge deal yeah um and i do think it's also notable we've heard from a few people too just the because we have we have trump on the ballot this cycle i think that's a huge factor that we haven't even talked about i don't know if we have time to delve into it but it is um i mean trump being on the ballot and at the top of the ticket

is huge for this and i think an indicator of republicans assurance and confidence in texas remaining strongly read is a lesser involvement from the Republican, the RNC and other institutions at the high, you know, the national level compared to when Beto was on the ballot. Although, of course, I'm sure Cruz's camp and Republicans or Republican activists throughout the state would say they got involved way too late in 2018 and weren't concerned enough resulting in losses across the, like, that's an argument to be made for sure. But I, you know, I don't think there's that same level

of concern that we're seeing from folks in 2018, 2020 on the national Republican level for this race specifically. We also see Trump distracting from that a lot. You know, the trial that's going to be going on. There's that. And there's been reporting that money, the top echelon of GOP operatives have been telling, particularly aligned with Trump, have been telling the guys lower on the totem pole across the country that they need to send money to the national committee for his criminal defense. And specifically, I've heard things about the Trump camp wanting candidates who use his likeness on their fundraising materials to send a percentage to the RNC or to Trump's campaign himself. That's going to hurt down ballot. And the Trump team is raising a lot of money themselves, but I think they're being outpaced by Biden, at least in the first part of this year,

significantly. And then he's got all this money he's got to pay for the criminal defense that's distracting from not only just the amount of money is Borchess, but also his time on the campaign trail. So there's just so many other factors in this that it's not really a good, a parallel, an exact parallel from 18. Yeah. Even though Trump's back involved in the situation. Totally different.

Yeah, absolutely. But not seeing RNC field staff or those kinds of operatives present in Texas is fascinating. Yeah. Yard signs, Bradley. Oh, boy. Do they matter? Do they matter to prevent a revolt from your supporters in the state? Sure. I still think the money is better spent elsewhere. We had this knock down, drag out argument, what, three years ago now? Also, do you think it's interesting that

the nicest we are to each other is when we're alone in a room in a podcast with Maslin? Every time, everywhere else we're waging war. I don't know why that's the case. I don't know. I guess we're fake on camera. That's probably exactly it. We had an argument a long time ago on our weekly roundup where Brad and I,

yeah, straight up knock on drag out fight on whether or not yard signs were worth spending money on from a campaign perspective i argue that they are like they're um a net positive you argue that they are unnecessary and that money is better spent elsewhere so we're not entirely opposed i'm not saying that they're the most important thing and you're not saying they're the most detrimental thing but i think that they are more helpful than they are harmful. And I think that is evidenced in the Cruz v. Beto race of 2018. Okay. Do we need to hash this out again?

I don't know. I don't know how much to go into this. I don't know how much. But I do think it's worth talking about in this instance. I have not seen that be a player at all this cycle, but we also are pretty far out from the general, right? We have months and months until we're in the heat of the general. So, which is also notable in that we have a runoff left. Like, we're still nearing the runoff. We still have time before that. And we have candidates who are

battling out in primary battles still, like party, you know, same party, fighting each other tooth and nail. And then we'll turn to the general, right? So I think more so we're just talking about the big political dynamic at large statewide. But there's going to be a lot more time for these campaigns to actually ramp up, specifically on the local level for the smaller races in Texas, the smaller districts that might be in more competitive general election areas. Yeah. And there's some of those. Absolutely. We can talk about them. Before we go into the GP chair race, let's talk quickly about some of the general election matchups that we will be watching.

HG70, I think that's going to be an interesting one. It was even last cycle, so it was rated 50-50 last cycle Republican-Democrat. In this cycle, I believe it's D-52, so just a little bit in the Democrats democrats favor we have an incumbent democrat mahalo plaza currently in office this will be her first re-election bid it was a tough um obviously a very tough against jamie jolly and yeah 22 yes 22 last cycle um so i'll be watching that this time she's going up against um Kennard, which will be fascinating. I think he's going to be a Cruz staffer. Cruz is one of the first guys to come out and endorse Kennard.

So I think he's got some history there with the senator. The primary was very lackluster. There were three candidates. One of them ended up either being disqualified or dropping out. And then the other two, Kennard and Joe Collins, raised like a combined $30,000, I think. It was very low. That's what I think will be so interesting about this cycle

is I think the question in this race is how tough of a campaign will Kennard wage against Playsa? What will this matchup actually look like in November? Because we have not seen huge chops, you know, from Republican challengers in this district this cycle. Yeah. So what will that look like in November? And this is a Collin County seat,

but this seat specifically has the slice of Dallas that's in Collin County in it. Dallas obviously is quite blue. With a Republican mayor who was elected with a Democrat history. Yeah, right. We'll see how long that Republican mayor is. But it is, of the blue cities in Texas, it's, I'd say, the most moderate voting base. Didn't Biden win Fort Worth? Or Tarrant County?

So you wouldn't say that's more conservative? I wouldn't, but I think Tarrant County at law, I guess that's whether or not you'd consider Tarrant County a red county still. Yeah. I think I was, I still consider it that way just in terms of the statewide, or excuse me, the county-wide elected officials who are in office like the republic you know the the mayor is a republican like or quote-unquote a republican considered for a non-partisan office but you know affiliated with republicans so i think there's um some discussion to be had there for sure but i still consider it a republican county and that's a county not a city too as tarrant versusant versus Fort Worth. Fair. Yeah. Okay. What other races are you watching in November? We'll go quick through this

so we can just mention a couple. Well, there's House District 80. That includes Uvalde. Tracy King's district that is an R51. And Tracy King was a Democrat. Was a Democrat. Or is a Democrat. He is, yes. He is retiring.

And he's been there for a while. But the Republican nominee is Don McLaughlin, who used to be the mayor. And he was the mayor when the school shooting happened in Uvalde. Called Beto a sick son of a gun. Yep. Or some other word. That's the word he used. He's raised a lot of money.

He ran away with the primary. He's notable in that Huffines, he endorsed Huffines when Huffines was running against Abbott. Yes. And Abbott, in his crusade for new House members that would be supportive of his school choice members, endorsed McLaughlin. Yep.

Very notable. Yeah, very odd bedfellows. Totally. So he defeated J.R. Ramirez and Clint Powell. And then he will face, there is a Democratic runoff between Cecilia Castellano and then Rosie Cuellar, who I believe is the sister of Henry Cuellar. Congressman. Yes, congressman from South Texas. In the 28th district.

That was a very narrow race. Castellano finished with just about 29% of the vote. Cuellar finished with just over 27%. So neither of them were even close to avoiding a runoff. And it was a pretty competitive race through all four of the candidates. But a lot of people think that's going to flip. And a lot of people think that there's not much Democrats can do to prevent that from flipping. It's still pretty down the middle, but it is favoring Republicans, it looks like. And that is the one seat that favors Republicans that's

currently held by a Democrat. So that's something to watch. Any others for you? I think the congressional races are where a lot of attention is going to be focused on. We have the 15th district, which is Monica de la Cruz. We have the 23rd, which is Tony Gonzalez. For now, who knows? He's in a runoff. We'll know in a few days from the release of this recording of the 15th district which is monica de la cruz we have the 23rd which is tony gonzalez for now who knows he's in a runoff um we'll know in a few days from the release of this recording of whether or not he'll be um replaced by um herrera as the as a republican nominee for that district um that's an r55 district de la cruz is r52 and the 28th district is Henry Cogar's district, and that's D54. So we'll definitely keep an eye on those races,

but I think that's where a lot of the time and money are going to be spent. And just in terms of the geographic locations of these districts near and along the border will be very interesting. And I think this will tell us a lot, too, about the dynamics of the Biden and Trump of it all at the top of the ticket. You have two nominees, candidates, presidents who have dealt with unfavorability and popularity issues

in ways that we haven't seen two kind of going at it in the same way. So very curious to see how that all shapes up in those districts. Yeah. A couple others I'll mention quickly. SD27, that's the only really competitive Senate district that's down on the border. Morgan LaMontia is the incumbent Democrat. This is D52 district.

This was Senator Eddie Lucio's district. Yes. Before LaMontia took it. This is her first term. Yes, correct. And... Or he retired and she ran. The challenger is Adam Hinojosa, Republican. He ran last time, so he's got name ID. Deja vu. And I assume there's going to be quite a bit of money put into that.

I think Dan Patrick, once he's done trying to take out the House Speaker, he'll turn his sights to that because that will actually be a race that he can gain ground on in the Senate. Maybe move the supermajority back up to 8-2-3. I don't know, whatever the fraction is that they've changed it to now. But that's another one to watch. And then you've got John Lujan in San Antonio. That's an even district. And he is, I think this is his first term,

right? So that's something I think Democrats are really going to gun for and they could flip it easily. Republicans could keep it. We're going to see a lot of money pumped into that once this primary fray is done. We're still waiting. But until then, Lujan's going to have to work hard to keep that seat. I think Democrats will see that as their best flip opportunity and will go to the mat on it. Yeah, absolutely. Delightful. Okay, well, let's jump into the Texas GO gop chairman's race if you don't have anything

else on all about the ground of it all um also wild that battleground is a word that's been largely stripped from the vocabulary of texas politicos yeah thanks for redistricting yeah and just a change of dynamic which we we just talked about. We talked about that for Ad Nauseam. That word was thrown around. Yeah, literally it's all you could talk about. Yeah, wild. Okay, so we are, when this is recorded, or excuse me, when this is released, just days away from the Texas GOP convention,

give us a quick 30,000-foot perspective of who the candidates are and the political landscape going into this race. So we've got the first one to jump in was Dana Myers, who is the current vice chair of the party. She jumped in to challenge Rinaldi before he announced his retirement. Well, he would retire from the seat. Yeah. He's probably going to do something else.

We'll see what it is. Yeah. Listen to our candidate draft if you want to know where we think he'll end up. There you go. Then you've got Abraham George, who is not the latest entrant, but the second-to-latest entrant in the race. He is former Collin County GOP chair. He ran against Candy Noble for state house during the primary and lost.

And then within the span of like 30 minutes, it was very coordinated, obviously. Rinaldi announced he was not running for re-election. George announced his candidacy. Paxton announced his endorsement of George. And then Rinaldi announced his endorsement of George. So right off the bat there, it sounded like he was the frontrunner. I don't know that that's the case anymore, but he's definitely one of the top candidates, I'd say. Myers as well. Then you've got a couple guys who've been in various Republican campaign circles for a while. Two guys that ran for GLO in 22. That's Weston Martinez and

Ben Armenta. Martinez being somebody who's very familiar to Republican primary voters. He's on the ballot often. Perennial candidate for all kinds of stuff. So those two are in the race. And then the latest entrant is Mike Garcia. He is the former executive director for the Texas Freedom Caucus. He's been a staffer in the legislature. I think he was chief of staff for Senator Kevin Sparks during the last session and pretty well known in conservative activist circles, but he jumped in a few weeks ago. Yeah, that was a big entrance, I think, and immediately he'd had some, because of his

connections, some endorsements lined up that rolled out really quickly. Maze Middleton, endorse him. I think the Kingwood Tea Party backed him, if I recall correctly. Sounds right. He's one to watch. It's an interesting addition to the race because before you just had Myers and what their opponents would label the establishment Republicans, I think they would take issue with that label. But then you have George, and he is backed by generally the same group of people in the party that was behind Rinaldi.

And so those were probably seen as the two frontrunners. Then you throw Garcia in there, and that's kind of thrown a wrench into this. We'll see where he ends up on it, but it's not. Yes, to the Kingwood Tea Party, by the way. We're good. It's not a nothing candidate. For sure. It's definitely something to watch.

I think the biggest detriment to his campaign right now is just the timing in which he, like it was just later in the game when he entered, right? I think that's the biggest challenge for him. I think, you know, like you said, we have, but also the political dynamics at play, I think are so fascinating because you have, like you said, George entering the race, very much a Rinaldi-Paxton affiliate, I guess you could say. And we saw 22 SREC members who were really aligned with that faction of the party endorse him. Yeah.

And explain who votes. Who has a say on the chairman? Who are they campaigning to? Delegates at the GOP convention, which is in San Antonio, May 22nd through the 25th. It's pretty darn close. Yeah, May 22nd to the 25th. Yeah, actually. Yeah, well done.

Spot on. I can't do math, but I can do dates. So however many delegates show up there, it's often called the— Should be a few thousand. Yeah. They will cast ballots in their SD conventions, and the winner has to receive, I think, a majority of Senate districts. I think. Am I wrong on that?

I don't. Well, they have to. To go to the floor, they have to, I think, win three Senate districts. Oh, okay. And then they do what? Ballots on the floor? Ballots on the floor. Yeah. There wasn't much of a race last time. There wasn't really any race, right? No. Yeah. What? Like ballots on the floor? Ballots on the floor, yeah.

There wasn't much of a race last time. It wasn't really any race, right? No. Yeah, so. No. Rinaldi won that easily. The real race was for vice chair. Yeah.

I forgot about that. That was wild. This will be a crash course in how it's all done, and we'll have to refresh our memories of exactly how this all goes down. But it is, yes, it's the delegates that they're campaigning to. It's a few thousand people. There are also alternates and just attendees at the convention as well, but they're not voting in the same way that delegates.

Like, that's not how that works. We'll keep an eye. We did also reach out to, this is just kind of a 30,000 perspective, a Republican operative, political operative, who's well acquainted with these circles and in a lot of these conversations, just to get some perspective on a third party perspective on where he sees the race shaping up. So I'll read this just kind of as some background. The race for Republican party chair is currently highly uncertain due to a large number of candidates and the apparent lack of preparation in their campaigns.

In previous races, candidates had established strong ground games with volunteers and local leaders well in advance. However, in this race, most candidates have decided to run hastily and without adequate preparation. Current Republican Party of Texas vice chair is the only candidate who has been announced for a significant period of time. She came out as the opponent to retiring chairman Matt rinaldi well before others joined in the race while all candidates are vying for the conservative label typical it's like a primary race all over again there remains ample opportunity for someone to emerge as the front runner by effectively rallying support the race is nuanced and only a few thousand delegates deciding at the state convention in less than five weeks. Less than a week when this comes out, I believe.

Consequently, victory is up for grabs for any candidate who can assemble a solid campaign and effectively communicate their message to the delegates. At this point, the candidates' convention speeches are going to play more into the outcome than people might expect. Of course, this may change by the time we are nearing convention. We have a couple more weeks here where people can get their act together. And I think we do have some more organized candidates in the race now, and things are changing and shaping up a little bit more differently, but they are in a time crunch. And explain to how you see arguments about the role of a chairman playing into a race like this. And the role of the party, right?

I mean, those go hand in hand. There's constantly been a fight over the party and how active, where the focus should lie of the party. You know, one wing says that, and that's probably the wing that's in power at the moment, that there should be just as much of a focus on policy than on winning elections. And if not more, maybe. Obviously, it depends on when we're talking. Because if it's during the legislature, obviously that policy is going to be more on top of mind. During elections, the election is going to be more top of mind. They're also not so concerned about ensuring Texas remains red.

They're like, Texas is red. So let's focus on governing. Right. And then, you know, on the other side, and these are the two polls, there's a bunch of positions in between these two. On the other side, there's those that believe the party should just focus on winning elections and not tell Republican legislators how to legislate. Back Republicans ad nauseum. Yes. And, you know, not engage in policy purity tests.

You know, that's thrown around a lot. Focus on getting Republicans elected in office and go from there. You know, there's been a lot of fighting over the financial viability of the party at the moment. Always a talking point in these races for chairman. Oh, yeah. And, you know, back when James Dickey was chair. He did testify at hearings. That was three chairmen's ago. Yeah.

But he also raised a lot of money. And I think it's safe to say he focused a bit more on the election side. But there was also, he was a regular at committee hearings testifying. So there's that. Specifically for Republican priorities, right? Right. But then you had Allen West come in and really start being critical of elected Republicans. You know, he, I mentioned a lawsuit earlier against the state for, during 2020, he was part of that. He sued governor Abbott over

an executive order, uh, uh, to extending early voting. He lambasted, especially house Republicans. I don't remember him quarreling with the Senate at all. Um it was a much different approach. And it was kind of more hostile towards those in elected office. And they didn't take kindly to that. It also resulted in worse fundraising, quite frankly, than under Dickey. The fundraising argument goes back and forth, and there's counters about pass-through funds and how much money is really raised and what are you putting into the convention accounts versus the federal account versus the state account.

It's hard to keep straight, but everyone has their arguments about it, and the arguing really never ends. But we've seen a focus from at least multiple of these candidates for GOP chair that fundraising needs to improve. And I think that's a bit of a – they all want to raise more money, right? But the emphasis is on the emphasis they place on this stuff and how much they talk about the need to fundraise better. And part of that probably means not being as critical of certain wings of the party that donate money.

And when you jump into policy fights, you're naturally going to shy away people that disagree with you on it, and that has hurt the bottom line, even though they'd argue that they accomplished their goals. So it's just a giant... Quagmire. Quagmire is a good one. And it's always going to, um, Quagmire. Quagmire is a good one. And it's always going to be a theme in this stuff, but especially with this vacancy happening.

Yeah, absolutely. And because this is the executive of the state party who is tasked with doling out campaign funds, fundraising, shepherding policy priorities to the legislature. Like this is such a, it's administrative as much as it is political. And I think that plays a huge role in it. You know, like you say, making sure that fundraising is talked about while they're campaigning, those kinds of things. The functions of the party, because these delegates, SREC members, you know, the folks who are at the forefront of the discussions with the Republican Party of Texas care about those things because they face them every day. Another X factor to watch in this is the Texas people, the Texas nationalist movement. They, of course, have grappled with Rinaldi. They very much dislike

Rinaldi because he denied their petition to place a Texas question on the primary ballot. And the question is, can they organize in such a way to be a significant voter block behind one of these candidates? Or do they just kind of disperse across whoever they personally like and it just kind of waters down the effect of their block vote. I don't know how it's going to turn out. They are part of the delegate process. There are members of the Texas Nationalist Movement who are delegates to the party convention.

It's just going to be interesting to watch if, because of what happened with the petition, if they can coalesce and strategize in such a way that they can actually affect this in some fashion. And it was rumored for so long that there would be a candidate from that faction enter the race for chairman. We've not seen that, but it was talked about. Can you jump in at convention? I think you probably can. I think you can, yeah. That'd be interesting to see. It would.

And the vote happens on the last day, Saturday. So we'll keep an eye. That'll be May 25th when the election occurs. No shortage of drama. No shortage of fun. We'll keep an eye on it all. Any last words, Bradley? No.

This was fun. I'll say farewell to you for a couple of weeks, and then you'll be back. And by the time this is out, you'll be here, so it'll be irrelevant. But farewell, my friend. Yeah, thank you. I'm certainly not going to Istanbul for the reason most guys of my age and my follicle amount. I didn't know that was a thing, but now I do. Every time I mention I'm going to Turkey or Istanbul, someone goes, oh,

is that why you're going? That's so rude. I mean, it's kind of fun. You're a good sport. I'll enjoy having your dog hang out with my dogs while you're gone. Yes. At least for part of it. You will enjoy that. Well, he might. He might enjoy poncho. He might not enjoy

milo but regardless he'll be with us it'll be great okay well folks thanks for joining us in smoke filled room

we'll catch you next time it's not very smoky in here it's important you know