The Texan Podcast - Early Voting and More to Come: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 9

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Races to watch and more political insider information from McKenzie DiLullo and Brad Johnson, this month in the latest episode of "Smoke Filled Room." The team covers the actual unprecedented events of the Roberson case, the polling numbers from early voting results, and how they expect the general election to shake up the Texas House and Senate. Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

The ad has like this cockroach crawling across the screen all over it, just scurrying. And it is really striking. An Austin insider texted me and says, after seeing that, all I can think about is that cockroach. Wow. Dang. Yeah. And they have the cockroach crawling across that together yeah i mean it's campaigns that at this point there's no there's almost no uh you know guidelines they just throw

everything they can at it because it's the home stretch and it's winning time. It's October. Yep. Howdy, howdy, folks. This is Mackenzie DeLulo here with Brad Johnson on another episode of Smoke-Filled Room. Bradley, happy Thursday. Happy Thursday. Second podcast of the day. We're knocking it out. I know.

So far, we've not gotten sick of each other, but the jury's still out on when that ticking time bomb will explode my bet is the second you walk through the door of the office on monday so this podcast will be live and i'll be back in the office which is kind of crazy to think about it'll almost be like you're in two places at once almost like i'm in two places at once that's kind of the the secret to the Matrix, I'm thinking. And then the next one, we'll finally be back in person. I know. We're going to do this whole remote nonsense that was forced upon us. We really did.

A couple of in-person anyways. This was like not normal. For us, Smoke-Filled Room, the majority of the episodes have been filmed remote. Yeah. Because someone had to go, you know, trek across Europe. That's like one of my favorite reader emails I've ever gotten was like, wait, why is Mackenzie exiled? By her own choice. It was quite funny. Because she she lost a it was like a survivor

contest yeah i got sent to exile island is that what it's called in survivor i should know i love survivor i should have watched in a while so good um okay well let's chat about what we're gonna chat about let's give an outline i think right right up front, the important, very timely, big news story is the Robert Robertson case. We are recording the Thursday before this releases. So anything that happens between now and then, unfortunately, we will not be able to cover, but we will do our best to cover what's happened up until this point. And then the vast majority of this podcast will be dedicated to the election, which at

this point we are just a little over a week away from. It'll be quite, there's a lot to cover. We'll get into some specific races. We'll look at polling. We'll talk about the difference in general primary coverage, what that looks like from our perspective. And of course, all the big races on the ticket. So any additions, Brad, before we jump in? I think you hit them all on the head. Boom. Boom. Okay. Well, let's talk about this story that's been dominating the news cycle in Texas and has certainly, like I said earlier, taken up a lot of space on the national stage as well. Robert Robertson, death row inmate.

Walk us through, Brad, the allegations that are being levied against him and then also why this has taken a turn why this is in the news yeah so it stems from a 2002 incident where nikki curtis robertson's biological daughter was taken to the hospital and ultimately pronounced dead. She had multiple points of trauma, according to the autopsy, on her, all over her body and her head, and eventually Roberson was arrested and ultimately convicted with her murder. He was sentenced to death, and since then he has appealed multiple times and in multiple venues. First, appealed the conviction. Second, appealed to get a stay of execution. He was supposed to be executed, as this is published, not last Thursday but the previous Thursday. And after a lot of back and forth in the courts, his execution was stayed by a civil subpoena

and a subsequent decision by the Texas Supreme Court. And this came after he had exhausted all venues in the Criminal Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled kind of on a procedural ground that it didn't have the ability to rule on this. This is up to clemency is wholly a power delegated to the governor of Texas. I think it's slightly adjusted there based on whether the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles recommends it. But regardless, it ultimately lands with the governor. The governor did not issue clemency. Then came the subpoena as a last minute, last ditch effort. It was novel. The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence basically set a committee hearing for the following week and said,

we want Roberson to testify. Obviously, he can't do that if he's dead. It was a clear maneuver to stop the execution, first and foremost, right? Now, the reason that they're going about this is they believe, members of this committee believe that he is innocent. And the claims of innocence have stemmed largely from the Innocence Project and trickled out into a bunch of different individuals. You know, Dr. Phil was a big name in this at the hearing that happened last week. So was John Grisham, famous author. I think he writes crime books.

Various other people there they had at the hearing. They had a juror. They had a juror from the original conviction. They had Robertson's defense attorney, a few other people. The hearing was really one-sided. And I mean, if you ask the committee members, the purpose it was to give Roberson's side of the story.

There was a back and forth trying to get Roberson to testify himself. He is in the Huntsville prison. And there was a lot... TDCJ was like really close to bringing him to Austin to testify. Ultimately, he did not. The House committee said that doing so over Zoom would not be sufficient because he is autistic, and he wouldn't convey well enough, in person would be better suited for him. So they basically held the committee hearing anyway,

even though Roberson did not show up, and they're hoping to bring him either to Austin or to do a hearing at the prison themselves to get Roberson's testimony about what he says was a wrongful conviction and his team says he was railroaded and multiple things the thing chief thing cited most often is the junk science, specifically about the shaken baby syndrome. From my understanding, the shaken baby aspect was brought forward by either the defense team as a suggestion and then further suggested by some other experts that they brought in to analyze the situation. Basically, they identified, from my understanding, they identified what's known as the triad,

the three symptoms that you see in shaken baby. And since then, basically, shaken baby syndrome has been declared junk science. The Texas legislature passed a law, I think in 2013, that declared any conviction based on junk science to be invalid and providing a method to throw it out and retry. So that is what the House Committee is wanting. They want a retrial of this case. And there's a lot of back and forth. The brother of Nicky Curtis, who was a young boy at the time, is now 26, talked to Mark Davis, Dallas radio host, last week,

and said that this guy is lying, that Roberson's lying, he's exaggerating his autism. He says he absolutely killed Nicky Curtis. So overall, it's become this PR fight. It is no longer in the courts, at least for now. Maybe it goes back there, I don't know. But it is now a PR fight. It's in the square of public opinion. We saw the Office of the Attorney General put out a bunch of documents and pretty graphic documents about Nikki Curtis's death from the original trial.

The autopsy report, the medical examiner's findings, a response from the medical examiner back then to allegations that this was a shaken baby syndrome conviction. And she says flat out it was not. It was blunt force trauma that killed the child. So there's two aspects of this. There's the criminal side, and then there is the civil separation of power side, where you have this legislative committee effectively block an execution. And the execution is carried out by the executive branch, or it's supposed to be. You have the legislature that writes laws, the judicial branch that interprets them and applies them, i.e. in a criminal case,

deciding whether someone is guilty or not, and then applying a punishment, and then the executive branch carries out the punishment. And so TDCJ and the governor, they're within the same branch. They have the same responsibility here. So it opened this can of worms in a debate over separation of powers. Is the legislature overstepping or are they properly asserting themselves as the predominant branch? And I go into this in my fourth reading last week. I won't go into all the details. But the legislature is the predominant branch.

So the argument from them is, in this case, we are applying our authority adequately and in a correct manner. The counterargument is that this is not the legislature's duty that this lies with whether a man is executed or not for that whether that's followed through or not is something for first the judicial branch and then the executive branch so there's two there's two channels to this and obviously one is very serious with uh you know a man's life online you know if he is innocent and he's executed that is a massive problem that's an indictment of of the system right but on the other hand you have justice for this dead child. And it's an incredibly weighty subject and tensions are flaring on both sides. It is, I don't know if I've seen this at this big in recent months. Obviously we had last year that was just insane, but this is like such a personal issue that the fractures are just populating like crazy.

So then you set that aside. Now you have this more forward-looking debate over the separation of powers. So all of that, to wrap this up, is why this thing is having such a big impact and resonance among not just the Texas political sphere, but news in general. And, you know, you bring in Dr. Phil to testify. His name carries weight. You know. Whether he's right or wrong, I don't know, but his name carries weight. And then you have the fact that courts have relitigated this many times and have come to the same conclusion. So this is something we're going to be talking about for a while. I think, if I recall correctly, his execution has been stayed for 90 days. And we'll see what the Supreme Court rules on this separation of powers issue.

We'll see if a new trial is granted or if the man is executed once we come to the end of this window. Thank you. Capitol Hill veterans and political advocates shares behind the scenes perspective that cuts through the noise. If you want the inside scoop, subscribe now to the Beltway Briefing here or wherever you get your podcasts. I know. And I think one thing to bear in mind, folks, when we talk about Nikki Curtis is she was two years old at the time she was killed. So keep that in mind whenever we're talking about this too. That is an important point of information. And yes, it is a 90-day stay on his execution. So there's a lot that can happen between now and then, right? And I think just to your point, Brad, it's been a long time since we've seen, we've certainly seen a lot of legislative fights in the last year and a half, and they have been hot, and it's been difficult, and there have

been emotions flaring and tempers raging. But I'll say that this is a different kind of legislative battle or legislative sparring, because there is a two-year-old child whose life was ended prematurely and a man on death row. There are lives on the line here. And that immediately will spark a more emotional response from folks, especially when sincerely held beliefs about innocence or guilt are held by the folks having these conversations. And we'll continue to keep an eye on all of it and encourage folks with the disclaimer that there's a lot of graphic information contained in the articles because of the nature of this case to go read Cameron's coverage on our site to get the full detail. We have all the documents either included or linked so you can read them yourselves. And that's really what we're doing is just trying to give you the information so you can understand what's going on if you care to. And this, it's odd, I think, in a lot of ways to talk about any sort of

legislative drama around this case when it is one of such importance and it carries a lot of weight and it's a horrific situation. But it's, you can't go talk about this without talking about these, the separation of powers issues, the constitutionality of this, right? What this could mean for reforms in a legislative session. There's a lot at stake here, even just in terms of the policies that are being discussed and acted out right now, and being fallen back on by the folks at the forefront of these conversations. And of course, that means next session too.

We may see a lot of, we just have a lot that we might be seeing from folks in terms of reforms. And Brad, I think it's notable as well to talk about who the people are on these committees that are part of these hearings. Very notably, David Cook. I believe he's the vice chair. And he is essentially the Reform Caucus's dubbed speaker candidate to challenge incumbent speaker Phelan. And certainly receiving a lot of blowback for being on the committee and part of this. Now, of course, certain members are much more vocal about their explicit positions. Cook has very much just been part of the process and been part of leadership of this committee. But I think the two at the forefront are Joe Moody, a Democrat, and Jeff Leach, a Republican, who in the past have certainly partnered on many different criminal justice type issues, whatever that may look like.

And so seeing them partner on something together is not necessarily rare, even despite their partisan differences. But David Cook is certainly part of the conversation here about who's coming under fire in all of these hearings. Yeah, and Cook is the vice chair. He hasn't been especially public about his thoughts on this situation like other members of the committee were, like Jeff Leach or Joe Moody or Brian Harrison and Nate Schatzlein. Brian Harrison especially has been very vocal. And so you have the speaker's aspect of Cook. He's getting flack for participating in this from mostly those on the political right wing of the party. Those that you could probably generally classify in the Paxton camp of things. And those who've been typically very supportive of Cook's candidacy for speaker, specifically in that he's challenging Phelan into being offered as an alternative to the sitting speaker.

Yes. So, you know, especially after the Attorney General put out all those documents that I mentioned, who is very critical, very critical of what the House Committee is doing. Does that bleed into whether he continues to support David Cook or not? You know, I think probably they'll separate these into two issues, but it is very hardly. Everything affects everything. I say that all the time. And even if this is not something that's going to turn the tides against David Cook, it might chip away some things just because it's that heated of an issue. And, you know, Cook, he was not.

He was asking questions on the dais. The bit that I saw, I didn't take it as him taking a similar position as Leach or Harrison or Moody. But he was still participating in it. And you could see him getting flack for that. Now, of course, put this all into context. What matters in a speaker's race are the members. They're the ones that have votes. The people on the outside have minimal effect. But there are things they can do to affect outcomes, right? So,

you know, I don't think this will impact the speakers race massively, but it only takes building up a few things for the ball of momentum to get rolling the opposite way. And that's what speakers races are confidential on the list. But I think we generally know who those two are, Pat Curry and Gary Gates. But he hasn't announced any additions yet. Now, you know, I'm sure they're working it. They're talking to members who are on the fence trying to get them to jump on board. Of course they are. How close they are, I don't know. Probably depends on who you ask, right? But the fact that Cook has not continued to pile on momentum after that, publicly at least, I think that tells you something.

First of all, that a lot of members are waiting until after the election to decide who to back. But on the other hand, no news is kind of good news for Dade Phelan on this end. And we've talked about the math. We're not going to go over the math again. But Phelan, given his position, is just on the odds. It's easier to get to 76 from where he is than to not. And of course, throw in all the caveats about the GOP caucus meeting and the vote there. But overall, this is, in what has been pretty quiet for the speaker's race since Cook announced that, this is kind of flaring it up a little bit. And then you add to that fact that two of the most anti-Felon members,

Brian Harrison and Nate Schatzlein, are getting blown up by their allies on this issue. So the implications run long and deep on this. Doesn't mean it's going to affect much of anything, but it could. It really could. I think the timeliness of, or exactly how long this issue continues to be part of the conversation in legislative circles will really be telling. And I'm curious to see what that will look like. And like you said, and we've said time and time again on these podcasts, when we talk about the speaker's race, this will pretty much be the extent to which we talk about it in this podcast, because we have an election coming up. But this is certainly, we have a long road ahead. And there's a lot that can happen between now and

the beginning of session when that vote is taken for the speakership. But regardless, this is, I think, also because there's not much happening in the speakers race, at least publicly, you know, idle hands are looking for something to talk about, especially when it comes to the speakers race, right? And if a bunch of other things were happening, I don't know that this would be at the forefront of people's minds in relation specifically to the speaker's race, because Cook is certainly part of the leadership of this committee. He's the vice chair, but not someone who is publicly advocating for one way or another on this case. So I think that's also a big part of it is it is kind of quiet on the speaker's race front right now. Yeah. OK, Brad.

Absolutely. So let's go ahead and pivot then to the election. The whole reason we're talking on this podcast today, obviously, we're so close. When this comes out, we'll be eight days out from the election. Wild to think about. I want to zoom out quickly, Brad, and talk a little bit from our perspective about how specifically in a state like Texas that is red, right? Certainly there are opportunities for Democrats each general election cycle, but how does general election coverage change compared to a primary in a state like Texas? Well, I think first and foremost, there's just fewer races, especially after redistricting, right? In 2018, in 2020, 2018, of course, you saw all the flips from Democrats to 12 in the House, two in the Senate.

And then there was a question of whether that builds again. In 2020, it didn't. Stayed about where it was but the the sheer number of races during the primary is just whiplash inducing um you know on primary night following gosh 30 40 races yeah for each reporter. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And like there's 30 to 40 like top level. Then you have all the other ones that are somewhat contested. Or a local like the local primaries are just as contentious as those on the legislative side or the federal side. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, it's, I would say that's the biggest difference. Other than that, you know, just kind of the themes change, right? Like you go from a primary, and obviously it depends on which side of the aisle you're

talking about, but a primary of focused on heavily social issues, a wide array of social issues, I'd say, but also intra-party fractures. The Republican side, of course, school choice was one. The Paxton impeachment was another. On the Democratic side, you have moderates against progressives. You have, you know, take Sean Theory's race. That was first and foremost a fight over child gender modification. You know, there were other themes as well, like the Reader Act that she voted for. But those are the battlegrounds there. Now, of course, when you get to the general

election, everyone runs to the middle for the most part. Sands a couple of issues, right? And we talked a lot about the wedge issues in this general election being abortion for the Democrats and the transgender stuff, whether it's biological males and female sports or the bathroom stuff or child gender modification for Republicans. Other than that, though, they're all talking about we need to focus on getting the economy back on track. We need to close the border or at least try and fix it somehow. That has more crossover appeal for the electorate. It's less about these massive cultural issues, again,

excluding those wedge issues. So those are kind of my takeaways. What do you think? I think, I mean, like you already said, so many of the districts in Texas are decided in the general. So there's only a handful that are really that contentious and that's thanks to redistricting. It's thanks to on the state level being a pretty solidly red state. There are factors at play that make, you know, the general a little bit more boring in some aspects in the primary in terms of the sheer number of races that you're following. The primary is often where the nominees are chosen in terms of the person who will assume the seat after the election, right? That's typically when the person is chosen. So, but at the same time, the distilled number of races going into the general and the

messaging mirroring so much of what's going on the national level makes the general incredibly interesting as well, of course. And are we on the edge of our seat? Absolutely. Is it fun? Absolutely. So it's just a different vibe and it's an entirely different workload. There's a lot more analysis type coverage than sheer number of like, oh my gosh, we have cover does these dozens and dozens of races in the same way that we do when it comes to the primary. Right. So it's a little bit of a different approach in that way. We're very much looking for trends in terms of voter turnout, specifically in a state like Texas. obviously after beto democrats have had their eye on texas and that has receded a little bit um since we've had several election cycles and texas is just a solidly red state but it's close

enough where people will be watching it for the first like it's a it's something that's very important um and looking for those opportunities for democrats is something that like that's not going to go away anytime soon. Maybe the spend on the state level might go away a little bit, but not that much, right? It's still very contentious. So I think there's a lot of eyes on the data, and we are hungry for it as we approach the election and after as well, because after the elections, when we get a lot of the data that we're really hungry for. So we'll keep an eye on all of that. And in relation to that, Brad, let's talk about early voting so far. At this point, we're still the fourth day of early voting, but we have a couple of days worth of data that

we're looking at. You wrote a piece on it and I'd encourage folks to go and read your piece about the Texan. But talk to us a little bit about what we're seeing so far in terms of early voting. Yeah, so through the first couple days of early voting, you're seeing a Republican surge compared to four years ago. Now, this is occurring in the context of Republicans significantly discouraging their voters from casting ballots, either through mail ballots, especially through mail ballots, and also early. There was the push, vote on Election Day. So we're seeing Republicans shift that. And now they're increasingly pushing voters to turn out for early in-person voting.

And so far, based on modeling I was given, this is just through the first two days, the GOP turnout is about 10 points higher than it was back in 2020. And that's... Compared to the same period of time, right? The same two days. The same couple of days. Yep. Now, also, it's hard to compare it exactly.

Actually, it might not be exactly two days because it's... There were three weeks of early voting. Right. So I think what they did was they they adjusted for that. Right. So whatever that makes sense, whatever the period of of days where the fraction would make up, I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. The pie chart, whatever section of the pie chart would equal the two days from the other. Yeah. We're not math people. We're doing our best. Republicans are seeing a much bigger turnout in early voting than in past.

And they're really optimistic about that. The question is, does this cannibalize their election day vote? It might, it might not. Like, it might be a picture of a broader trend of increased Republican votes. You know, something that kind of reflects that is the number of voters who are new, younger, and Hispanic, that cross-section, in 2020 voted Democrat at a 2-to-1 clip.

But so far, through this same period, of course, but so far, that is flipped entirely. Now they're voting Republican at a two to one clip. So that's a massive turn, you know, that suggests some gains that Republicans are making. Now it is just one demographic, right? And so we shall see where this ends up and if this has the staying power. But, yeah, so I guess the only other thing I'll add on that is that, you know, somebody responded to our tweet about this story and was like, cannibalizing? What does that mean?

Well, use your brain, brain dude it's a common saying so yeah you're the snarkiest of the snarkiest hey if that person listens to the podcast i hope he feels bad about himself because he is dumb brad i i don't even know what to do with you i have like this brad is the kind of reporter who will send me a tweet or an email in response to a snarky reader email or something along those lines, which we certainly get. We are a news organization. We expect it. That's the nature of the beast. And we certainly don't want to have our heads up in the clouds and be unaware of our faults. But a lot of these, of course, are silly reader emails that we

get that Brad gets a little bit frustrated by, to say the least. And let's just say that there's an approval process for any response that Brad may be whipping up. I'll just say you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What um what's what's the what's the cartoon character you identify with bradley in your soul i have no idea what you're talking is it the or is it like from oh dang i don't remember in brain like the old man yelling at a cloud oh yeah from the simpsons yeah that's brad so if you ever wonder what's going on inside his brain beyond his professional exterior that's what you should uh understand so if you do uh take it upon yourself to write brad a reader uh an email that he might receive a snarky just know that there will be a response

um a very filtered response coming back to you because that is the nature of the beast and we appreciate our readers yeah somebody somebody who cares very deeply about our readers and does not want bride to scare them away okay let's move on to um i had i had things to add on early voting and then you got me off track when you spoke poorly about somebody on Twitter. Okay. Early voting. Okay. I also want to say, too, that we are, it's notable.

Everyone talks about, okay, a lot of people are moving to Texas. Absolutely they are. Californians are moving to Texas. All that. All the data we have seen up to this point points to those voters being Republicans. At least with a lot, the vast majority of them, right? If you look back at 2018, which we'll talk about a little bit here, Cruz versus Beto, there's data to suggest that Cruz would have fared much, much worse had there

not been those new voters in Texas who moved here, who voted Republican and supported his campaign at the ballot box. So that's also something to keep in mind, too, when we're looking at this data, because that's obviously a huge talking point is, are these Californians moving to Texas to turn it blue? I think we are continuing to keep an eye on that. Everyone is very curious about data after every general election. We've had several since then, and we're seeing all the same results at this point. So, um, on that point, um, Ross Hunt, who runs Hunt Research, he's the one who gave me this data that I wrote the article about. Uh, he, on that topic of new voters, he, um, he said that across the state, generally, people that are just moving here or have recently moved here in the last couple cycles, they're modeled to be more Republican

than Democrat. Now, that changes when you go to certain places, right? Like, if you go to Dallas suburbs, they're more likely to be Democrat. Austin, same thing. But overall, it's kind of reflecting what we saw in the exit polls for Cruz in 2018, where Ted Cruz lost native Texans. And the two things that pushed him over the edge were rural Texas, of course, and then these Texas transplants that are that were predominantly voting Republican. So it looks like that's kind of happening again. Again, you know, who knows how it shakes out but that's kind of the trend at the moment yeah absolutely very curious stuff okay let's move on to well let's talk cruise all red

let's get into this um i do want to add in here that in that race with beto and cruise back in 2018 it seems like yesterday in so many ways, while Cruz is on the ballot again. But Cruz won by 2.6%. Okay, so it's about 200,000 votes. So take that into consideration when you're thinking about a state as big as Texas is. It was millions of people coming out to vote. I think about 4 point something on each side, right? That's like, we're dealing with a lot of folks coming

to the polls and 200,000 votes. And of course, that was a very different election year. And we could talk ad nauseum about that. In fact, we kind of have on a previous episode of Smoke-Filled Rooms, if you want all the details on kind of the differentiation between the 2018 trend and cycle and this election season, certainly go listen to that. But Brad, what does Allred have to do to win? Yeah, so I'm going to briefly set the table on the context. For example, Donald Trump get across the line. But the reason – the biggest reason this environment is different or one of the biggest ones is that Trump is on the ballot. And so the Trump vote that doesn't turn out when he's not on the ballot is going to turn out.

So you have these two, like, counteracting forces. Maybe they just cancel each other out, but at the very least they negate the pro-Trump force, negates the returns of the anti-Trump one, especially when there was a vacuum in 2018. So that's the environment within which Allred is swimming here. We talked a lot about the 1968 Richard Nixon campaign. You have this candidate who is not particularly likable on a pure personality perspective, talking about Nixon. And so the playbook they ran was heavy on TV ads. Allred's doing that. He's raising tons of money.

I just saw in the pre-general report, 16 days between the Q3 report and this one, Allred raised $11 million. The man is prolific at fundraising. Then you have, so you have all that money being dumped into TV. Then you have these more like curated events. In Nixon's case, it was incredibly curated where they would stage town halls. They'd stage questions in these town halls.

There's no wild card factor like there was with Beto O'Rourke when he's just stumping across the state doing this whistle-stop tour. For Allred, it's a lot more controlled. Now, he's not, from what I've seen, he's not taking stage questions. He's either not taking questions at all or, you know, there is some, here and there he has taken media questions. And it's not – most of the events that I've been to have all been very friendly for All Red. There's no opposition force within there.

But I'm sure it's happened on the trail. It happens everywhere in every campaign. So that's kind of the playbook. And it seems to be working to some degree. You know, the polls we see have him anywhere between seven points down to one point down, I would say. And I think it's probably somewhere in the middle. That's what my gut says, four to five points. You know, maybe as low as three, but I'd say four. I think that's... Which is a familiar margin for Republicans versus Democrats on the statewide level in Texas, right?

Like, that's not an exceptional number. Yeah, especially when we haven't had independents go vote yet, right? Explain that. Why do you say that? Well, we talked about the front-loading of these Republican voters. At least it might be front-loading. Independents do not turn out until the very end of early voting or election day because they wait so long to make a decision. Now, that's not all independents.

I'm sure there are some that have turned out, but most of them make a decision late, and that's when they start going to the polls, and that's when they affect things, right? Because naturally, if they're independent, they're not red team, blue team right off the bat. They might lean one way or the other, but they also might be torn. Some of them might be this mythical Trump all-red voter. It's not entirely mythical. I told this on Weekly Roundup, but I'll say it again.

A friend of mine is a Trump all-red voter, and I think the reason he voted all-red is because of ted cruz sports jinx theory um imagine making a a political decision based on that um i hope this person listens to this podcast because that is truly ridiculous i'll let him know he said that um please do but you know all red's gonna have But Allred's going to have to get Trump Allred voters, I think, to turn out, or at least dissuade a bunch of Trump supporters from jumping down one more notch on the ballot to back Cruz. And Allred is pinning a lot of his hopes on abortion. That is meant to drive up the Democratic progressive base and get some of those crossover voters. You know, white suburban women is generally the demographic that is cited on this, that this issue moves. They're already in the Democratic camp or they're friendly to the Democratic camp at the moment,

particularly with Trump on the ballot. So All Red needs to drive up that base of support and he needs, I think, a pretty big undervote from the presidential for the Senate race. Do you foresee that happening though though, in a cycle where Trump is on the ballot and Trump's the one leading Republican voters en masse to the polls? I mean, there's a scenario in which it does happen. But even then, it might not be enough to get him across the line. Depends on how much Cruz runs, underperforms Trump. And, you know, there's theories. I've heard Republican theories, internal thinking Cruz might actually pull this out because the transgender sports issue might actually exceed Trump. He might outperform Trump. I don't know about that.

That's tough to see. But it is possible, right? Especially if that issue is being as effective as it sounds. So, you know, Allred also needs Mitch McConnell's PAC not to come in and dump a crap ton of money back in Cruz. And so far, that hasn't happened, probably because Cruz called Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. And, you know, oh, look, it's the consequences of my own actions biting me in the rear end. So, you know, obviously McConnell doesn't like Cruz, and vice versa. Cruz has hit back that, well, McConnell, if you were a team player, you would come back me

because I'm Chuck Schumer's number one target, and there's an argument to be made there. But I don't think it's too surprising that Mitch McConnell has not come in for Cruz on this. And as long as he doesn't, that gives Allred a shot, I think. And we just saw the Senate majority pack, which is kind of tiptoed around dumping money into the state because they must be questioning how close the race actually is. But they finally put in $5 million of an ad buy. They're starting to run that as of today, which is Thursday, tomorrow, which will be Friday, in three cities. I think it was Houston and San Antonio were two of them, and then Dallas is the other one.

So that will be airing. It's abortion-focused. Democrats are really pinning a lot of their hopes on this abortion issue, and specifically that it didn't really play in 22, certainly not as much as Democrats had hoped. But now we've had a couple years to see the results of the states of Texas's abortion ban, which is a ban across the board except for saving the life of the mother. But there have been complications with that. Who's at fault there? You know, there's debate over whether it's the doctors who are failing

to interpret the law correctly. There's debate over whether it's the law being written poorly. You know, the fact that there's no rape or incest exceptions. That's a theme constantly. So Democrats are kind of banking on this issue being all of a sudden appealing or motivating because of these extreme cases of women who have had to, who have left the state to get an abortion or remove an ectopic pregnancy for whatever reason because their doctor was telling them they can't do it. One woman, Kate Cox, she's a feature for All Red. Her child had a fetal abnormality, and they said the child wasn't going to live after it was born, and so she went to get an abortion. both sides will argue about whether that's morally good or not, but

that is a situation where I think you get more sympathy as a Democrat on the issue than just we need to reinstate Roe specifically as it was marketed back then, particularly

by opposition among Republicans, abortion as birth control. So these extreme examples, I think, are giving Democrats a window to get more support from them, from the abortion issue. And that's what they're banking a lot of this on. Which just as Republicans are pushing the men and women's sports, any sort of child data modification like that specific angle, and they know what they're doing with that polling. They know exactly why this issue is resonating with folks. The Democrats know why this angle, this election season is working for them. And so that's why you'll see, you know, Katie Cox at a lot of All Reds events or like this is that that's what's going on. Like there's polling, right? There's polling and they know what issues are going to hit home with voters this cycle and they hit home on them. Property taxes in the border are big in Texas and legislative

races. They are going to hit on that both sides both parties and public education funding school choice like they're they know right that's why you hear about them because voters care about them that cycle and the polls are telling the candidates and the campaigns that information um can i can i add one thing on the wedge stuff so yeah we should go read brad brad's piece by the way he has a great piece up about all this stuff thank you um so you have these two wedge issues one democrat lobbying against the republican one republican lobbying is democrat on the abortion issue cruz has evaded the issue because it's not good like look at all the polling it's not good for republic, look at all the polling. It's not good for Republicans right now. And that's why Democrats are running on it, like you said.

But the one thing I think Cruz has over Allred in this competing wedge issue situation is Cruz, while he supported the kind of restrictions that Texas implemented on abortion, he did not vote on that. You have to make the case indirectly that, oh, Cruz helped get the justices on the Supreme Court that then overturned Roe v. Wade to tie him to that. And the case is definitely being made, but I don't think it's as easy of a case to make as pointing at Allred's vote against the Protecting Women and Girls Sports Act or supporting the Equality Act, which as part of it listed allowing biological men who identify as women to compete in female sports, right? sports right so i think republicans get the advantage on these wedge issues and i think we're seeing that in the polling because it is a harder thing to dodge for all red than for cruise

specifically in this race too right that may be different in a different situation but specifically in this race i get that um well let's talk then we have so much to hit, Brad, and we're already at 50 minutes, so let's run through this. The margin, we keep talking about the margin, what that will look like on the state level, and specifically what we're talking about there is the presidential, for the most part, right? Is what percentage will Trump get, what percentage Vice President Harris will get. It'll be interesting. But Brad, what are polls showing and why does this margin matter? We're consistently seeing Trump ahead of Harris five to polls have generally shown that. And let me pull up the RealClearPolitics polling average.

So the RCP polling average right now has Trump at plus six. And I think that kind of reflects reflects I think that's pretty accurate at least as things stand right now obviously October surprise notwithstanding whatever that is I think that's pretty on point then if you look at the Senate race that has Cruz at plus 4.2

on the RCP average. And you have the Emerson poll yesterday that had Cruz up one while Trump was up, I think, six. That's a wide discrepancy there. Then you had the University of Texas poll just a few days before that had Cruz at plus seven. And Cruz was actually outperforming Trump on margin. But they were pulling in the same amount of support, 51%.

Allred was pulling below Harris. And so this is going to change a lot. But the 2020 margin for Trump was 5.6 points. We haven't seen before the convergence of these two factors, these two massive races on the ballot together, with Cruz, who is either beloved or hated by the electorate, and all-Red Who is a largely unknown quantity, although that is becoming less and less so because of Cruz and Republicans' hits on these transgender issues. Then you have the wild card of Trump that I mentioned earlier, and the attraction for him from this new previously nonexistent, unreliable set of voters and the opposing hatred of the former president from obviously Democrats but a lot of independ independence as well. So polls are all over the place, but generally the RCP average has it,

the pair between four and six points as a margin. Could end up a lot different, but yeah. And I, like the reason that matters is if you have another, for example, Republican in a swing district who's looking at this and saying, OK, I really need those on the top of the ticket to pull in voters coming to the polls for Trump or for Cruz, if that's what's motivating them, or vice versa on the Democrat side, that they will be able to poll in voters for their smaller district and have a little bit more wiggle room, perhaps, in a swing district with more margin at the top of the ticket. So just something to keep an eye on. Let's talk about the top races. Brad, we have a lot. Not as many as the primary, but still a lot to get through here in the last little bit of this pod. Let's talk congressionally. The 15th congressional district and the 34th are two that we're certainly keeping our eye on.

Talk us through why. So they're both South Texas. So add that context. You know, it's a battleground. Republicans want it. Democrats want to keep it. And so Texas 15, you have a Republican incumbent in Monica de la Cruz facing Michelle Villarreal, Democrat. And then in the other race, you have Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez

against former Congresswoman Mayra Flores, the Republican. Both of these are rematches from the 22 race. So all of these candidates are known quantities in the districts. I think when I wrote the top races piece a couple weeks ago, I put as the subheader for Texas 15, the Democratic flip, and for Texas 34, the Republican flip. I don't think either of these races are going to flip. I think the party that holds it is going to hold the seat.

The reason I think that is Texas 15 is moving rightward. So if you look at the TPI, it's still close. It's R52, I think, maybe 53. It's close. But it has increasingly getting more red, but the deficit for Republicans on the partisan index line is substantial. It's, I think, D58. Was D64. Myra Flores really outperformed it, that rating, in last cycle.

But she still finished, I think, seven, eight points down. So I think those two are going to end up chalk. Now, I have been hearing something to watch is the 28th Congressional District. Hasn't got a lot of attention, despite the fact thatry quayar the democratic incumbent was indicted but from some republican operatives i've talked to they're seeing some strange things happening in laredo jay firman is the republican running against quayar he's gotten no money and the nrcc hasn't come in help him, which is surprising because you'd think that's an opportunity for pickup for them if they can give them enough resources. But then Cuellar is also not raising a ton of money.

So it's kind of a race to the bottom, it seems, in this race. Now, obviously, Cuellar has the power of incumbency on his side, but I haven't been following that one too closely because until recently nobody cared about it and no one thought anything of it. Furman was kind of a non-entity as a candidate. That's still kind of true, but there might be broader factors at play. So, um, yeah, so just something to watch on election day there in Texas 28th, but then you got the other two, those are the two big ones. Yeah. And I, just a reminder for folks to Myra Flores is who, um, won the congressional seat

was in office for like five months or something along those lines, and was also made national headlines, not just because of that win in South Texas, but because she was Elon Musk's first Republican he ever voted for. Now you got there stumping for Trump. This is a pretty wild turn of events. And that's also why that name might be more familiar to folks who aren't as tuned into politics typically in districts that they don't live in, right? Mayoral floor is certainly shot to prominence after all of those different moves. Let's talk the Senate, Brad. There's only one Texas Senate seat that we've got our eye on in terms of partisan difficulty. Senate District 27. And this is a hot race. It's, I think, one of the top legislative. Well, I think it's the top legislative race everyone's looking at in terms of Texas.

I'm fascinated to see what happens. There's so much money being poured into this race with Morgan Lamantia, Adam Hinojosa, and it is a wild race. So walk us through a lot of where the money is coming from and what you're seeing in this race, particularly. So you have. And what this means for the Senate, right? This is a big, this is a huge deal for the Senate. Exactly. Exactly. So you have, it's again,

another rematch in South Texas. So again, add all the South Texas context. This is a battleground. Republicans want it. Democrats want to keep it. Then you add the Senate context of this, where if Hinojosa wins, that gives Dan Patrick more cushion against the supermajority line in the upper chamber. It's not going to change the supermajority line. He's not going to have to lower it. But if there are a couple, and there are a couple, disaffected Republicans in the Senate, if Hinojosa wins, it makes it less likely that they can cause a ton of trouble for Patrick

on the policy front. So that is why Republicans want this. I'd say more than any other, more than the bragging rights of, hey, we want another race in South Texas, right? You add the fact that there is just a crap ton of money being dumped into this, mainly by Morgan LaMantia, the Democratic incumbent. Her family is loaning her lots and lots of money, millions of dollars. They are one of the largest beer distributors in the state. So the sheer amount of money coming into the race, that's a factor. Hinojosa is no slaps himself. He's raising over a million dollars, probably raise more once we see more reports trickle in. We'll probably see, we are seeing third parties come in.

Texans United for Conservative Majority dumped a lot of money into this already. They'll probably dump more. They want this seat. That, of course, is the former Defend Texas Liberty PAC. I won't go into all the details there. We talked about that ad nauseum. But this race is a hotbed for this just electoral fight whatsoever. And the two candidates are getting really punchy. They both have aired really spicy, to use your word, ads.

And they're not pulling any punches on this. The one that really stuck out to me and that I got an interesting piece of feedback on, and it is running down there, it was Lamantia's ad about health inspections of Hinojosa's restaurant. And it talks about how it failed inspections, yada, yada, yada. But during this whole thing, the ad has, like, this cockroach

crawling across the screen all over it, just scurrying. And it is really striking. An Austin insider texted me and says, after seeing that, all I can think about is that cockroach. Wow. Dang. Yeah. And they have the cockroach crawling across the screen with Hinojosa's face on it.

So, like, linking that together. I mean, it's campaigns. At this point, there's almost no guidelines. They just throw everything they can at it because it's the homestretch and it's winning time. It's October. Yep. So, that race is absolutely one to watch that's what i'm gonna be watching most closely as results roll in further dynamic in this the northern part of the district nueces county down a little bit down the coast uh they are kind of Hinojosa's banked votes.

They're going to vote for Hinojosa. The question is by how much. And then the other question is down in the valley more, can he cut into La Montilla's lead there enough to get over the edge. And he only lost by roughly 600 votes, 700 votes last time. It was a very narrow race. And both sides want this bad.

Obviously, LaMontia's family is putting their money where their mouth is. So they will spare no expense to keep this seat. And heck, they might. And if they do, that would be, it will be fascinating to watch LaMantia in the Senate next year when she's traditionally, she's on the more moderate side, but she has taken some votes, just like Colin Allred did, on these more progressive, transgender-focused issues, and Hinojosa is using that against her. So throw in the fact that the thing I talked about with Allred being able to point to his voting record,

Hinojosa is doing that. And LaMantia has a rebuttal to it that this isn't a problem in Texas, and there are more important things to focus on. But I don't know if she's going to be able to make that case well enough. So we shall see. But, yeah, it's a fascinating, fascinating race. And especially with that early voting 10% additional turnout we're seeing, it's going to be very interesting to see how and if that translates in SD 27. And of course, if it holds out through the majority of early voting and how election day turns out, right, this is very preliminary data. But immediately, you're thinking about these districts where a lot of money is being poured

in and you know, both parties have a chance at either taking or retaining the seat. Let's get into houses or house races here, Brad, and run through these. Big picture, how many seats could really flip in the Texas House? How many seats are really in danger one way or another? I see HD80 definitely flipping. That's Don McLaughlin against Cecilia Castellano. That is the Tracy King seat, Democrat. It's the only Democratic-held seat that has a GOP leaning on the Texas Partisan Index. So it would take a lot for Castellano to win that seat, even more so now that Rosie Cuellar, sister of Henry Cuellar, who was the Democratic, one of the other Democratic candidates for the seat, lost to Castellano in the Democratic runoff.

She backed McLaughlin. So that's going to be, I think that's a GOP bank. Most of the people I talk to expect that to flip. Add to that the fact that Castellanos kind of tied up in that Bexar County voter fraud investigation that we talked about a while ago. I don't know. I don't think there are any allegations against her. It's against her consultant, who is also a staffer in the building in the texas capital but no doubt mclaughlin is in his camper using that right

so i see that one flipping uh very much potential democratic flip is HD 118 in San Antonio. That's John Lujan, Republican, against Democrat Christian Carranza. Talk about some tough campaign rhetoric going back and forth in that race. Yeah, I went to the debate the other week down in San Antonio. They did it along with the 121 race between Marklehood and Laurel Swift. And it was a few days after the clip came out where Lujan said that, you know, if his hypothetical daughter had been raped and impregnated, that he would hope she would have the child. And that has been turned into John Lujan would force his hypothetical daughter to have her rapist baby by the Carranza campaign. And that's just, that is a misrepresentation of what he said.

He said it very clumsily, though. And so he opened the door for this to be used against him. Tough to be on campaigns. It's so hard. I wouldn't want to do this why does anybody run for office i i don't get it that's why we just talk about them and you know critique all the flubs like we wouldn't do it ourselves right right um yeah we're casting the first stone i guess so yeah that's definitely one that that's that's a toss-up district.

That is one Democrats really have an eye on flipping. Then, you know, in HD 37, the conditions are kind of there for a potential flip, but not really because Democrats are not really coming in for jonathan gracia he's a pretty formidable candidate but the money's not coming in for him the money is coming in for jenny lopez the republican and you know as far as candidates go she is she obviously won a tight race and flipped the seat last time, so she's no slouch. But she's not like this. Who would I compare her to?

She's not like Mark LaHood, who is very compelling as a speaker. And so that just sets a limit, right? So Lopez, I think, from what I'm hearing, she's in a decent spot, and especially so with more money coming in. So I don't know if that will flip. Overall, I think we're going to see maybe a no change whatsoever. Let's say you have 80 flip and 118 flip. That means the House makeup stays the same. Some who are more optimistic think Republicans can pick up two or three net gain.

Democrats are also thinking they can make some gains. I was just in Round Rock yesterday with Representatives Cody Harris and John Busey. Busey is a Democrat from the Williamson County section of Austin. And he was telling me that they're eyeing the Caroline Harris-Davila seat as a potential to flip. I don't know if I buy that just based on the TPI for that, but crazier things have happened, right? So that, especially in Wilco, where there's so much growth happening, that just kind of throws some wild cards in there. So overall, I think we only get a net gain of one either way. I don't think we see many races change hands. Also because

it's harder to flip seats down ballot because the enthusiasm isn't there. The undervote is massive. And so things kind of, especially in this Trump era where this whole other section of the voter base that didn't really exist before now exists not a lot of them are going to turn out go all the way down the ballot for these these seats so that's what my gut says who knows like it Republicans are really targeting Eddie Morales in 74 Robert Robert Garz is the Republican. In 34, Mary Elise wrote about this on our website. You can check out her piece.

But that's Denise Villalobos, Republican against Solomon Ortiz Jr., Democrat. Talk about another race with some haymakers thrown via campaign ads. That's something Democrats, A, they want to keep that, and they feel like they've got a good candidate in Ortiz. Republicans also feel like they have a good candidate in Villalobos. So I think that one kind of can go either way, although that would be a much more difficult lift for Republicans to flip than certainly 80.

So I think it will come out to be about a wash but margins are so fine this far down the ballot in these small house races that a couple breaks here there can can really shift something yeah and i think if i was putting money on something today i'd say republicans come out with plus one that would be my guess. Just based on what we're seeing, based on polling, based on trends, I think Republicans will probably have a bit of an advantage even in these districts. SD27, I don't even know. I'm talking to House races specifically. The Republicans get one extra plus one at the end of the day. That doesn't mean that there will be a couple Democratic wins

in some of these districts than there will be, but I think there will be, you know, a plus one for Republicans. And I'm looking specifically at like House District 70, right, where I think there's certainly some folks who, you know, Steve Kinnar, the Republican, is attending a lot of these meetings ahead of session to kind of figure out who he'd vote for for Speaker. If he's not there, that's one less Republican there. And that's an uphill battle for him, right, against Mahalo Plaza. It's a very active Democrat in that area and flipped the seat a little while ago when it was even from Republican to Democrat. And now we're, you know, it's a little bit more of an uphill battle for him as we've seen everything shift since that election. So there are certainly areas

where, but then again, the Tracy King seat, right? I think that's like, that kind of cancels that election. So there are certainly areas where, but then again, the Tracy King seat, right? I think that's like, that kind of cancels that out. But at the end of the day, I think we'll see a plus one for Republicans if I was to put my money on it. And Dallas County is interesting too, right? Dallas County has got a lot going on. We have, you know, Morgan Meyer and Andrew Chan Button. Both of their names are staples to talk about during a general election cycle. They are two Republicans, the last two Republican seats in Dallas County for the House, and certainly folks that have been targeted by Democrats for many, many cycles now. And even now we're seeing local precinct chairs, local party activists on the Republican side

say, hey, it might be even better to vote for a Democrat than these Republicans. Like there's even opposition on the Republican side for some of their voting records and just the ways they've handled certain issues. Very interesting. And they're certainly in danger of their seats turning blue. Maybe not as much as others, but that's always the concern. There's not much margin there. If some Republicans siphon off to vote for Democrats to oust these Republicans, there's not much margin for them to lean back on if there's enough momentum there. Right. Well, in those two seats, you know, the conventional wisdom on the Republican side is that those are the only Republicans that can hold those seats. Right. With Angie Chen Button's seat. That's the argument, yeah. And that's a big reason why you see all this money coming in for them from the Republican side every cycle. I did hear that in the finance reports,

Avery Bishop, who's a very young Democratic candidate, she's viewed as pretty formidable. Did you just almost fall? Yeah, I think the chair just broke. I will not make any more comments. Maybe I just ate too much. I will not make any more comments. I will be in big trouble.

Big, big trouble. You will be. Not that that's prevented you from doing something like that before, but I digress continue brad um i had heard that bishop it seems like either she has run out of money or she has just stopped running tv ads she raised a ton lots of money for i think it was six hundred thousand dollars in the last report and that's I think that was the most out of any Democratic challenger.

Now, Button is a prolific fundraiser in her own right, so it's not like she's outfunded by Bishop. But from what I heard the other day, it sounds like Bishop has run out of money because she was expecting more to come in, so she spent what she had to get her to boost her numbers up right in advance of the home stretch now maybe more money comes in i don't know we'll see and actually monday the eight-day report something like that um maybe have more light

shed on that but yeah it's those two seats especially are important for Republicans. And, you know, they've kind of become this proxy fight of about the speaker's race. Like you mentioned with the Dallas GOP activists, this proxy fight about between, you know, those who are more moderate and those who have purity tests. They have to back the contract with Texas. Otherwise, we will vote for the Democrat. I don't think that's going to get much support. We saw Abraham George and Matt Rinaldi, the current Texas GOP chair and the previous Texas GOP chair, come out and condemn that.

Although it was a pretty vague statement, they did not want this to happen. They did not want the two members to get censured over this. And they certainly don't want Democrats in the seats. Rinaldi being a former Republican representing part of Dallas County. Yeah. Right. That's kind of the angle there as a former GOP chair. His seat was one that was flipped in 18. Julie Johnson took him out. So yeah, those are two fascinating ones to watch. I think something I'd add about 70 is, which district was it that I said? Oh yeah. Like how I said Monica de la Cruz's district is moving rightward, Mahala Place's district is moving leftward.

So not only is Steve Kennard, I don't recall him raising loads of money, not only does he have an uphill battle on that and just the sheer fact that he's running against an incumbent, but the district is becoming more difficult to win for a Republican. And that's something to watch, too. After this year, if Placel wins by enough, Republicans probably aren't going to go after that again. So, you know, she... Which is exactly what she's aiming for, right? She doesn't want to run another tough campaign, so she's going to pull out all the stops.

No doubt, no doubt no doubt so and maybe she does it and then she basically has a seat for however long she wants it provided she doesn't get primaried from the left so that's kind of the game that we see playing in a lot of these races um but yeah i guess the only other thing I'll mention on this is I touched on 121, Mark LaHood versus Laurel Swift. That became a little bit more interesting this week because Steve Allison, the Republican incumbent that LaHood took out in the primary, announced his support for the Democrat and Swift. So I don't know if that's going to affect anything. I think certainly LaHood is safer than John Lujan, but that doesn't mean he's safe.

Yeah, those Bexar County seats are definitely something people are going to be focusing on. You know, also, LaHood signed the reform. He was in the reform caucus vote. And if he isn't elected, then, you know, that's one less vote that that group has, just like Kennard, right? L bit more is much more up in the air he hasn't committed um he has complimented dade feeling he did at the at the debate but he said i gotta win my race first i can't make any commitments on the speaker's race because you know i might not even be a state rep so what's the point yeah lots to keep in mind there specifically with the speaker's race. And we will talk more about the speaker's race. We've already released an episode on it, but we have lots more to talk about.

And we'll certainly do so more after the election, specifically in knowing who will be assuming their legislative seats come January. january but that's a huge point of um of interest is figuring out you know who of the reform caucus group um will make it to their seats in january it'll be interesting and you know there's a pretty solid chance that this thing's over by the time we have our next uh podcast because when Dade Phelan won, he announced he had the votes, what, two, three days after the election in 2020. And so especially once you know who the actual membership is, the ball starts rolling faster. Whichever way that the momentum takes it, the ball will start rolling faster. Whichever way that the momentum takes it, the ball will start rolling faster. It is very unlikely that we go into an open speakers race on opening day.

Yeah. I highly doubt that will happen, but it is possible. Absolutely. Yeah, expect some movement on this mere days after the election. And on election night, Brad will be in houston watching all things cruise all red so keep an eye on his twitter keep an eye on all our reporters feeds and we'll be publishing throughout the night publishing all day the next day so we'll keep everyone

updated on what's going on and make sure to go subscribe to the Texan because not only will we be reporting live we'll also be doing a ton of newsletter analysis leading up to the election as well as coverage and you want access to all of it Brad anything else to add before we peace out on this episode happy home stretch of the home stretch of the election we're almost there that's right we're so close well folks thanks for listening we'll catch you next episode and if you have Home stretch of the home stretch of the election. We're almost there. That's right. We're so close. Well, folks, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next episode.

And if you have any questions, email us. We'd love to hear from you. To where, though? Which email should we choose, Brad? Your email? Your personal one? That's fine. Editor at the Texan.News. Send it in to editor at the texan.news it's on my twitter so

it's not like nobody can find it okay everyone since brad loves reader emails oh shoot i don't actually he actually does he actually does b johnson at the texan.news brad you did this to yourself folks kind of reader email happy election home stretch and have a great rest of your week we'll catch you on the next episode you