The Texan Podcast - This Means War(ford): Smoke Filled Room Ep. 23

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

In this episode of Smoke Filled Room, Senior Reporter Brad Johnson sits down with Luke Walford, former Democratic candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, to discuss the campaign dynamics, his post-election endeavors, including the founding of the Agave Fund and his efforts to revitalize the Democratic Party in Texas. They also talk redistricting issues and more.Listen to more Smoke Filled Room podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.Get 50% OFF The Texan's annual subscription now through Cyber Monday here: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/black-friday-cyber-monday/00:00 Intro00:18 2022 Railroad Commission Race01:35 Current Election Insights03:18 Save 50% off with Black Friday Subscription03:58 Post-Election Activities05:47 Strategies for Texas Democrats07:18 Redistricting and Gerrymandering12:06 Judicial Rulings22:34 Future Elections30:05 Predicting Voter Turnout31:34 2026 Election Outlook for Democrats32:09 Republican Senate Race Dynamics36:15 Straight Ticket Voting40:02 Latino Voters40:45 Recent Texas Election Analysis45:44 Billionaires' Influence in Politics49:17 Democratic Senate Race Candidates57:56 Future of the Democratic Party01:01:13 Voter Turnout Strategies for 2024

Morning, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter here at the Texan for this month's edition of the smoke-filled room podcast. This month we have Luke Warford. Luke, welcome. Good to be here. Nice to see you, man. Last time you were on the podcast, you were a candidate for office. Yes. And you were in the wildest race I've ever seen, which was the 2022 Railroad Commission race. You were the Democratic nominee. The Republican field was just insane. Like, just, the, the storylines alone in that field was nuts. What was it like running against that? I mean, honestly, it was incredibly fun, right? Like, I mean, I didn't win. Obviously, like, I set out to try to win the race if we didn't win.

So that's a bummer. But, you know, I'm still in touch with Sarah Stagner. And, like, I care deeply about the railroad commission race. And it was just, you know, like Wayne Christian, the incumbent, was this, like, former gospel singer who turned into oil and gas regulator. I mean, you're welcome to talk more about Sarah and her story. The video. But, like, Sarah is one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my entire life, like, unequivocally. The characters in that primary were insane.

And then you had, like, horrible tragedy with Sarge Summers passing away. You know, I talk about the wildness of Texas politics. politics. That is the most stark example of that. Oh, quintessential. Like you couldn't, you couldn't, if you wrote that, I wouldn't believe you. Yeah. You know what I mean? All of this year's election shaving up to be pretty interesting too with both French and then the, the, the Hawk Dunlap guy who said he'd eat a pile of manure before raising money. I mean, Hawk is, okay, so Hawk is another guy who was involved in the 2022 race. Oh, he is like also connected to Antina Ranch, which is the ranch with, like the, that's gotten all of the press about the, you know, like, like water quality.

Oh, okay. That whole story. And so I actually, when I went out to visit Antina when I was running, Hawk was there, Hawk spent, like, an entire day, like, taking me around and showing me what was what. And, you know, like, another, like, just great, super smart, super experience. Like, he's done oil and gas work, like, all over the world. And, yeah, just like, what a character. though. It's awesome. I think it's awesome that he's running. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what it is about that

agency, the office specifically that draws such interesting, you know, matchups. But it's just, like you laid it out, like gospel singer turned oil and gas regulator versus Sarah Stogner and all of Sarastognerness. And then, I think it's, I think it's something I not to, like, I don't know what it is. I haven't thought about the question in exactly that way. But I do think it has something to do with, like, Texas and Texas being larger than life and oil and gas being such a big part of the culture and the identity and the history of the state. And, like, because it's the oil and gas regulator, it's just like all that stuff comes together. I don't know. I'll try to come up with a better theory on it. Next podcast. Yeah, yeah. We can just

have it all about the railroad connection. Head's up. For Black Friday, the Texan is giving you our biggest deal of the year, and this offer is available now. For a limited time, get a full year of independent Texas-focused journalism for just $48, half off our annual regular subscription. Stay informed on the stories that matter to Texans, from politics to your pocketbook and everything in between without the spin of legacy media. You'll get full access to articles, newsletters, and more. Don't miss out. This offer is available now, but won't last long. Head to the Texan. News to claim your 50% off annual subscription. Now, back to the news. So tell me what you've been up to since you're a Democratic activist operative. Give me all the details. Where

you've been since that run? Yeah. So since running, I took some time off. I took a bunch of time to talk to folks all across the state. And like, you know, I'd worked at the state party before. I'd worked in the private sector before. But really like try to understand, you know, it's been a long time. since Democrats have won statewide. That's not any new revelation for anyone. It's a frequent headline at this point. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I just think, like, trying to take a step back

and really try to understand why that's the case, right? And, like, kind of going back to first principles, like, okay, seems like Texas voters don't really trust Democrats. Seems like they don't really like Democrats. Like, it's not, you know, the problem is not as simple as we just need to knock on more doors and then we're going to win all of a sudden. It's not a voter mobilization thing. it's a, you need a persuasion.

Well, it's persuasion, but it's almost like, okay, that, even that doesn't do it justice enough. Like, I think that sort of dichotomy, like, persuasion versus turnout is kind of like, like, it's definitely persuasion. It's too rudimentary. But it's, like, almost too rudimentary. I mean, or it's, or it's too, like, insidery. Like, actually this is, do people like us? Do they trust us?

Do they think, yeah, like, I, like, I actually think it's. like core human marketing stuff that you need to think about. And so we spent a bunch of time like talking to Texans, talking to people in the ecosystem, looking at how, like, Democrats win in other states, right? So they, you know, like how Democrats win in those states, what people think of the Democratic elected officials who are in power in cities here. And sort of the results of a lot of that work was an organization that I'm running now called the Agave Fund.

And basically, like, our theory is that we're trying to get Democrats elected statewide. And that in order to do that, you have to identify and support strong leaders that those, and that's elected officials and candidates, that those leaders need to be running on issues that are, that Texans actually believe in and support. And that we need to build a brand that's really differentiated from the national democratic brand. Like no national Democrat is going to win in Texas, right? you need a Texas version of what it means to be a Democrat. And so we run a bunch of programs sort of along the lines of doing leadership development,

staff training, having staff to support those leaders, doing polling and research. And it's fun. It's great. Obviously, it's a long-term plan, right? Like, do you have a, is it a decade-long plan? Or what's the time frame? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, you're in a lot of ways, Texas Democrats are trying to turn the Titanic. And that takes a long time.

And so we are, you know, this started in 2024, like in, you know, sort of January, 2024. And we set out, like, thinking on this on an eight-year time horizon, right? But within, along that line, like, 2030 is obviously really important and, like, redistricting. Yeah, right. Because of redistricting and reapportionment. Which is why we see a lot of these national democratic groups really spot like the Texas Supreme. court races, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the thing that I think is like really important, and this is like, okay, if you're a Democrat or a Republican, like the fact that our districts are

drawn in a way where like 10% of them are competitive or whatever, like that's bad. That produces, that incentivizes people to run towards the extremes. That incentivizes people. It makes the primary, the whole thing, right? The general election is not, doesn't matter that much. And so on both sides of the aisle, you get people running to the extremes. And, like, the reality is that it's an opportunity to not just, you know, redraw the lines in a way that benefits Democrats. I think it's an opportunity to redraw the lines in a way that's safe, or that's, sorry, safe, fair.

And what is fair, though, in redistricting? I mean, fair, like, really is, like, representation, like, representative of the people that live in the state. Like, really, you could get down to the math, which. which is like, okay, if Republicans win 52% of the vote, they should have 52% of the seats. And like... Why don't we just do a parliamentary system then? I mean, you tell me, man.

That's never happening. No, no, I don't think so. But like, you know, the point is we're just so far away from that, right? Like, you ask most Texans, you ask most people in the country, it's like, do you think representation is a good thing? And they're like, yeah. And the reality is like we've gotten into this place where the current, you know, the current congressional maps, just for example, are 25 to 13, right? Like, so that's, it's already politically weighted in one direction.

And then we're trying to make it 30 to 8. You know, in 30 to 8, it's more than 75% of the congressional districts in a state that, like, sure, Trump got 56% of the vote, but 56 is not 75, right? Like, that's not where we are. And I just think it, you know, that's not actually the crux of the ruling. But, like, people on both sides of the aisle should be against gerrymandering and, because it just produces all these really bad outcomes. Yeah. And the proportionality is a good way to look at whether a map is fair or not, right?

And in that regard, Texas is actually not that bad compared to other states, particularly Illinois. way, right? If you look at their breakdown, they had, what, three, I think, congressional, they controlled 82% of the congressional delegation. Meanwhile, they got 54% of Democrats did. So this is a problem across the entire country, whichever party, which kind of opens up the redistricting legal side. Can I just make one more point on that? So I think there's two ways to think about it, which is one is directly related to like percentage and how does percentage translate to seats. But the other way to think about it is the net number of seats each party gains or loses relative to what would be representative if that makes sense so like okay in Texas whatever if representation would be

22 to 16 and we're at 30 to 8 it's like okay that's an 8 seat margin or whatever that you're losing or 16 seat if it's the full swing um and Illinois might be bad from a percentage perspective and And there were a lot of people online, obviously, as you saw, being like, you know, all these states that had one congressional district and being like, well, they're 60, 40 states and it's 100 to zero. Like, I actually think the percentage thing when you're doing that can sometimes miss the point, which is like, and Texas is one of the states where it's the most net total number of seats out of, like out of whack. Because it's so big. It's a scale issue, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is totally a scale.

scale issue. And because, like, when you get to some of the smaller states that have one or two congressional districts, the numbers get way out of whack, right? It totally distorts the conversation because it's like, okay, they have two seats. Right. You know, and like... That the, the proportionality thing does reach the law of diminishing returns. Right, right. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when we're talking like California and Texas and maybe Illinois is included in there, maybe not, I don't know, but I'd include my home state, Ohio in that, it does give you at least a gauge on what's been done already, right? And that doesn't mean, like, everyone can have their opinion on whether the whole system needs to be

changed or just tinker at the margin or leave it as is, right? You know, there are people, especially when it's convenient for them politically to just say, political redistricting is totally legal, and it's going to happen. It's more of a cynical view. But, like, it's legit. It's a valid point of view on this, along with all the others. But at least, Let's talk about the ruling. Yeah. What did you make of the ruling that came out on Tuesday? Yeah.

So I think this is a really good point to pick up on, the point you just made about political, the political constitutionality of redistricting or the constitutionality of redistricting. And so I think a really important thing about the ruling, right, is there's a difference between what is allowed constitutionally and what is right and wrong or what people support, right? And so in general, if you ask people, like, do you want gerrymandering, do you want redistricting done in a political sense?

They're like, no, that's, like, either side, they're cheating, they're writing the rules in a way that benefits them. It produces these bad outcomes. So let's put that aside for a second. The decision that came out, like, sure, says this was politically motivated, of course. But that's actually not, that's actually is constitutional, right? That's not unconstitutional. That was the 2019 rich show decision.

Right, exactly. And this ruling went obviously a step further, which is to say this is unconstitutional because of the racial, this was racial gerrymandering, which was meant to disempower voters of color, which was, and like, take it a step further. And so I think, one, that's an important distinction. But then two, like, I just think it's, you know, the narrative about how we got here, right? Like, this was Donald Trump being concerned about the 2026 midterms and how he was going to do. He calls up Greg Abbott, who wants to run for president in 2028 and wants Trump's endorsement and says,

hey man, I need you to get me more congressional seats. Greg Abbott goes to his party. They try to jam, they do jam through these maps without a statewide vote, without, you know, This is not a thing that's popular. They jammed through these maps. And then a Trump-appointed judge who used to work with Abbott makes the deciding vote against the maps. Like, it's the justice system working for once, you know? There's one additional data point that I will point out that came before the pressure in Texas.

Yeah, which was New York redistricting, right? And that cost Republicans three seats. I don't know all the details of that, but I do know the result. And the three Republicans lost their seats, which made the margin in Congress tighter. Yeah. Which then caused the reaction from the White House to say, hey, let's do mid-decade redistricting, which is rare, not unprecedented, but rare. And then, of course, you get to the point of, I want to get your thoughts on the DMJ letter because that was just such a big factor in this. But in looking at this, Republicans had the – is a question of order.

So nobody draws a map without political gain in mind, whoever it is, right? But then you get to the second order question, and that's where this DOJ letter ended up running a foul, at least according to Judge Brown, that you can't include racial considerations, right? Now, in my mind, I'm watching the Republicans try and find a thread of needle on this, and they want to say roocho, roo, roo, the political, but then they're having to also mention both because of the PEDAway ruling and just PR-wise that they're not eliminating all the majority-minority districts. So they're citing statistics stating that these are, you know, a Hispanic majority CVAP districts. Yep.

I don't know how you can even possibly thread that needle. And the only way in my mind, and it's hindsight probably, the only way in my mind they could have done this was ignore the racial stuff altogether. Don't even say it. Don't even say it. Because you have this safe harbor of Rucho. Right. But you're inviting the credit.

I mean, they're inviting the risk, right? Yes. They invited this in. Well, and I think that the thing, I mean, I think you're spot on and the thing that I would say is, right, like this whole conversation and even the like California being like, well, you started it to Texas and Texas being like, well, you started it to New York. Like this whole thing's erased to the bottom, right? And like it definitely makes for interesting politics, but it like I do try to come back to what is like what produces a good outcome in society. like what produces representation or good governance or good policy.

And like it definitely isn't this. Like it's definitely not what is currently happening. And, you know, I, yeah, I'm not even really sure what the. It just is like the race to the bottom is a bummer. And I don't really know how it all shakes out, right? Because it sets this precedent where even if these maps don't pass, like, okay, then to Texas Republicans do this again next? legislative session, and then are we redrawing the maps every two years in all of these states? Is there just this, like, constant, and- It's a ramping up of the political warfare.

Right, I got to hope that at some point this, like, breaks into the, like, public awareness to the point where people are like, this is enough, guys, we got to stop. Like, like, we got to do independent redistricting. Like, this is just like, and I don't think it's bipartisan. compromise that gets us there, I think it's just like utter frustration from the public. Yeah, they're so, well, and the reality is people are pretty sick of politics already. And so, you know, part of me is like, oh my God, this is going to just keep going on and not. And part of me thinks that, you know, the right sort of like movement or organization of people against this stuff, like, you know, maybe this increases the salience and it's the thing that

finally gets us independent redistricting. So I sound confident. Is that, is that a little bit? Yeah. It's kind of like what's what got us, you know, denuclearization during the Cold War, right? Same general idea and principle there. But it was just as a reminder, it was pretty not fun until, you know, know, in the run-up to it, right?

There was a lot of, there was a lot, that was not a good period. Yeah. Cuban missile crisis, et cetera. So, you know, whatever. So. There's a little bit less at stake here. Yeah, yeah, totally. But yes, yeah. You're right.

Yeah. Tell me about, do you read the dissent? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What do you think of that? I don't know. I mean, first of all, it makes for, I think you can't not read it. and, like, chuckle a little. Like, this is...

I couldn't stop reading it. Right, like, it's... Right, like, truly. But, like, it just, I don't know. It kind of read to me, like, an audition to, like, anchor a show on Newsmax or something. Like, be a guest contributor on Newsmax. Like, I'm not really sure what the end game was. I don't know.

Like, I get that politics is theater. now and politics is attention and they're, you know, but it, but I do, I don't know, like, I hope that courts are insulated from that a little bit, but I mean, I guess not. Yeah, what was your take? I will say, I mean, all three of these judges were very highly respected. Yeah, totally. And I remember hearing from both sides coming out of this that they expected, whichever way that panel ruled, SCOTUS would uphold that. Yeah. And that's because this is a panel of very serious judges. Obviously, both the, the Republican appointed judges are now in the spotlight for two very different reasons. But I've never heard

anything bad in terms of just wanting to grab the spotlight from about Jerry Smith. He's been in there. He's a Reagan appointee. He's been in there for a long time. Now, you might hate his politics. You might hate his judgments. But the assessment going into this was all three of these guys are very serious jurists. Right. So then what do you make of the letter? So I think it's two parts. Yeah. He, he, First of all, he did lay out the case that if the state can somehow cast aside the DOJ letter problems that is a successful case for them to make to the Supreme Court, which is basically in that first order, second order questions, once we hit the first order,

that's all that matters. Basically, Smith's assessment is that all redistricting is political and only political, and therefore the courts can't touch any of it. So that's the case he's making. I don't know what Scotus is going to do. But on the personal gripe thing, I think he's pissed because he saw the, maybe he's misinterpreting the circumstances,

but only he knows what only he knows. In his mind, Brown dropped this 140, 160-page opinion on his lap and said, suck it up. This is what we're doing. And didn't give him enough time to write the dissent. That's why he went so hard

personally at the judge. It was an interpersonal thing. I mean, right, which, like, I think people... They're people too, but... Right, well, no, that's what I was about to say. People forget this about politicians and they forget it about judges.

It's like, they're just people. Yeah. You know? Like, like, I mean, if that's... If your explanation is, like, basic human psychology, like, that's probably right. Yeah. You know, honestly.

And there's no good. getting that out of it, even as much as we gussy up the courts as this apolitical branch and it's by far the least political branch, but that doesn't mean it's apolitical. Right. And it's certainly, I would argue, getting less political. Yes. Yes. Okay. So actually, I want to get your thoughts on the map itself. So let's say SCOTUS reverses upholds the map that was passed. That's a projected five-seat game, but it's more complicated than that. Yeah, totally. What is, as a Democrat, What are your thoughts looking at those five seats? Yeah, I mean, I think the narrative here was like, we've guaranteed five-seat gain.

But two of those seats that people were taking for granted were Henry Quayar and Vicenda Gonzalez, who are two of the highest electoral overperformers in the Democratic Party in the entire country. Yeah. Right. And so, and they redrew those districts in a way that was like R plus two or three. Like it wasn't, it's not a huge margin. And so I certainly don't like take for granted that they were going to win those seats, but they were certainly competitive, right?

And the Quayar seat actually is still Dem Lean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's D53. Yeah, yeah, right. It's a Trump plus 10. Right, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, your memory of this is better than mine.

And, yeah, I mean, and I think the reality is like, especially going into 2026, which is like, has the foundations of a good midterm or a good year for Democrats, like I was not, like, sure, it was going to be a fight to hold on to those seats, but I wasn't taking for granted a five-seat loss. I think the margins in CD-35, CD-9, like, that was a little bit more, those were a little bit more of a stretch. But then, like, CD-15, Bobby Polito, like, come on, man, if you could make up the perfect South Texas congressional candidate to run as a Democrat.

It is Bobby Polito. And, like, I understand that that was a, like, we, it was a double-digit loss in 2024, like, all this stuff, right? It's not, it's not an easy race. But, like, people across Texas are excited about this guy. People across South Texas, the thing that somebody said to me the other day, which I think is, like, I did not grow up in South Texas, obviously. I know you also didn't.

Why? How good still? But somebody said, like, Bobby Polito was the background music to our Kinseneras and our weddings. And I just think, like, that you cannot buy. There's no amount of money that can buy. It's like Trump. The cultural significance, right? Right.

And there's no amount of money that can buy that. And so, like, that is another one where I just, like, don't. You know, politics has been just like we see wild variance in outcomes at the congressional district level and state house district level. She's like, why, like, you know, 20 point swings in some of these election years. Well, part of that is candidate quality, right? Yeah, right. That's probably what you're about to talk about.

Yeah, right. But generic Republican never faces generic Democrat. Yeah, right. That's not a real thing. Right, of course. And like these are, I mean, to go back to what we were saying before, these are people running against other people who like, you know, this is, this is way over least. simplistic, but like, you can think, the way I think about election outcomes is just a math problem, which is, what is the starting point? Like, is it, is it R plus three or D plus three or whatever? Like, does the Democrats start at 42? Like, if we're trying to get to 50% plus one, does the Democrats start at 40 or 42 or whatever? And then do you get a bump or negative points for candidate quality? Like, do you overperform or underperform because of the macro environment? Because of, like, don't perform or underperform because of, like, don't

Trump, the economy, you know, who's in the White House? Is it a Trump midterm or a, or is it a Democratic midterm or Republican midterm? And so, like, you just see, with that sort of framing, we just see these massive swings, right? Like, I think people forget, you know, Beto lost, like, you know, two and a half points, whatever, in 2018. Democrats lost the Senate race in 2014, four years before, by, like, 25 points. like that's a big that is a huge and that's statewide like not to even mention I think we see bigger swings at the district level so yeah I don't know how we got in that point exactly but oh well I mean we can yeah pick up 26 now like yeah totally the Democrats have been chasing 2018 ever since it happened and not really gotten close yep you know the last year Colin Allred had a lot of hope especially because he was up against Ted Cruz who is of course the same guy that Beto was up against

and 18. Yeah. And he got beat by, what was it, eight, nine points. Yeah. Going into next year, the conditions might be there for 2018, right? Because at least the overarching ones you have Trump in the White House. Yeah. Republicans controlling Congress. And Democratic enthusiasm. Yeah. Do we get a 2018? Heads up. For Black Friday, the Texan is giving you our biggest deal of the year. And this offer is available now. For a limited time, get a full year of independent Texas-focused journalism for just $48, half off our annual regular subscription. Stay informed on the stories that matter to Texans, from politics to your pocketbook and everything in between without the spin of legacy media. You'll get

full access to articles, newsletters, and more. Don't miss out. This offer is available now, but won't last long head to the texan dot news to claim your 50% off annual subscription now back to the news i mean well first of all anybody who tells you they know the answer to that question is selling you something because uh because no one knows um but but like we should talk about what are the what do we see what do we know what can we actually predict so a few things number one like uh 2018 we democrats of course have been chasing 2018 but like actually since 2018, the conditions that existed in 2018 have not existed, right? Like, like, the, I know we all, people who are, like, voters experience an election every two years,

or more often that, but like every two years, right? And so we're comparing 2022 to 2018 or 2024 to 2018. But, like, actually, if you look at the data over a long period of time, like, every party does the best in a midterm when the other party is in the White House, especially recently. And there's like a few exceptions to that, obviously. But every party does the best when there's a midterm when the other parties in the way house. Candidate quality really matters, right?

And so Ted Cruz really flawed candidate in 2018. Actually, I think was a really different candidate by 2024, really different. Like his negatives weren't as high across the state. He did a bunch to reform his image, even though the can, you know, even with the Cancun stuff, right? Like, truly, which I think was probably one of the strongest hits against him. But like, the general conditions really had, this is the first time. This is the first

test. And Democrats definitely have a lot of reasons to be hopeful, right? And one, one thing that I've looked at, and like, this is, like, it's hard, right? Because you, polls do not indicate what's going to happen in the future. Obviously, like, I think issues with polling have gotten even worse in the last bunch of years. Why's that? Because we're terrible at predicting who's going to actually vote. Okay. Like, I think it's more complicated than this, but I think fundamentally Donald Trump has

totally, like, shattered models about who people think are going to vote. And so, like, we might predict among a certain group of people who's going to go to the polls, But if that's not representative of the people who go to the polls, like your prediction among that doesn't matter. And then I think there's like other problems like people are not using cell phones as much. You know, they're not using landlines as much. They don't, they're not going to be honest to a poll. There's way more skepticism about like somebody calls you and says, hey, Brad, who are you voting for? You're going to be like, take a hug, buddy.

Right. Or you're going to answer, but it's not going to be true. Yeah. Right. And so I think, like, a lot of the, and I say this is a person who does polling, right? We do public opinion research. We do focus groups. Like, you should do this stuff to try to understand what's going to happen.

But I think it's way more valuable in helping understand, like, what issues are most important to people. Our ability to predict, like, hey, this race is going to, this person is going to win or lose by two points or four points. Like, we're not that good at that, actually. I don't think. So, anyway, your question was like, okay, so what's up with 2026? Yeah. I think, like, we do have the general conditions of this being a good year for Democrats, right? Trump is in the White House.

He's incredibly unpopular. People are unhappy with the economy. We're in a global period where there's anti-incumbency, like anger, across the world, not just across the U.S. or even in Texas. You've got potentially on the Republican side, like that's just talking about the Senate race, like a cartoonishly corrupt, incredibly weak candidate in Ken Paxton. So, like, that's all interesting.

You're assuming John Cornyn doesn't beat him. No, I'm not. So actually, no, I think everyone for months has been, I think the assumption, like you talk to people six months ago, they're like, oh, yeah, Cornon's definitely going to win. And I actually don't, and obviously we've seen the polls tighten and then switch and then whatever. I think it's probably a coin flip at this point. I think there was an assumption that Ken Paxton would be better to run against,

but I don't actually think it's that black and white. Like John Cornyn, in some of the polling we've done, John Cornyn's negatives, like he is further underwater than Ken Paxton. Wow. In some of the polling we've done. He's incredibly unpopular with the MAGA base. he so like that will be hard to get through a primary he will get if he if he wins he will get through a primary having gotten beat up a lot spent a lot of money um and the question is like Trump is not

on the ballot this year and so I do think there is a like okay do MAGA voters come out for John Cornyn question that like you know we were talking about persuasion on the Democratic side but there is really a turnout question of like like Donald Trump had did see you know has seen record turnout in a bunch of his races, right? Like huge surge of enthusiasm. And so is there a differential in turnout for Ken Paxton, who is more of a Trump guy and style and substance, than John Cornyn? Like, you can totally make that argument.

Yeah. What about Wesley Hunt, though? You're just discounting him? I mean, we'll see. I don't know. I just think after 2016, no one is allowed to predict election outcomes anymore. Like, I just, we're not allowed. Yeah.

You know, and, and 2024, you know, 2024 folks were confident. And so I try to, I try to, anyway, people can do whatever they want. But I try to not predict election outcomes. I think going back to like 2026, the other thing that's interesting, right, is we don't have that much actual voter data, like what have voters actually done in the second Trump term. But we do have a couple data points. And so, like, we went in and we, the other day, I was looking at Virginia.

and New Jersey, which obviously different states, you know, whatever, different states, but like what are the swings from 2016 to 2017 and how do they compare to the swings from 2024 to 2025? And in both Virginia and New Jersey, it was like way bigger swings this year in 2025. So the magnitude of the anti-Trump wave in the individual gubernatorial election the year after he got elected was bigger this year. So that is some evidence that maybe there's going to be a bigger impact, you know, a bigger swing or a 2018-like swing. And then I'll totally like cut down my own argument,

which is like the Democratic Coalition has shifted. New Jersey and Virginia are incredibly, are not representative of the country. It's also an off-year election. Right. They're whiter. They're more educated. The Democratic Coalition has gotten wider and more educated.

and since 2016. So I actually don't think, like, they're perfect predictors. But my point is just, like, we don't have that much information. And there's the data, the information we do have suggests that, like, 2026 could be a good year for Democrats. And so I think just the last thing I'll say is that, like, we don't actually know, but we should be prepared for it to be that type of, Democrat should be prepared for it to be that type of year.

because, you know, we flipped 12 statehouse seats in 2018, but they were all these other seats that we lost by 300 votes or 1,000 votes or whatever, because we spent no money. There was no support. No one had dreamed that a year like 2018 could happen, and then it did, and we weren't ready. And so I think the question is just like, are we going to learn from that and be ready in case this is the type of year we hope to get? There is one factor that I constantly have to remind myself,

of when I'm thinking about this, straight ticket voting. Yeah, yeah, totally. The last election we had that in Texas was 2018. You had this groundswell of support for Beto primarily, and people hit the vote Democrat and all the way down. Yep. How's that play this time around? So I think about this a lot, too,

and I think it's such a good question. I think the general assumption about 2018 is that everybody rode Beto's coattails, I think there's, like, it's not impossible to imagine that there was reverse coattails that actually Beto did well because we had these, like, down-ballot, well-funded candidates. I think assuredly it worked in both directions, like unequivocally, that effect goes in both directions. But I also think we're seeing, like, a time where people are way more frustrated with national

politics now than they were in 2018. I mean, they're even more frustrated. They were obviously very frustrated with national politics in 16 and 18. But I do think there is a, like, we'll vote for our local person type of thing. Like candidate quality in down-ballot races really matters. And, like, the Senate race will get as much as either candidate might try to not nationalize it. Definitely the Democrat will try to not nationalize it because the Democratic brand nationally is so toxic and toxic here in Texas, those races do get nationalized a little bit,

whereas, like, we see State House candidates overperforming the top of the ticket by, like, huge, I mean, Eddie Morales, Jr., the example I always used is like Eddie Morales, Jr., who represents Eagle Pass, Democrat, you know, like pretty different stance on the border than, or on immigration and the border than the National Democratic Party. I think overperformed Kamala Harris by 19 points in his district. strict. And like, he's still almost lost. Right. Totally. Totally. But I think the, but the point is like, yes, he almost lost. The point is. Well, that just shows how much of a Republican wave that was. Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Totally. Yeah. And I just always think about this in terms of, um, like we don't spend enough time listening to the people in our party who overperform base the baseline. We actually

spend like way more time listening to the people who underperform baseline, which we could talk about for a long time. But like Eddie Morales is a really strong electoral performer. And you might not agree with him on every policy, but you cannot agree, you cannot argue with those results. And so I do think there is a, like, it's really going to matter who, the the split ticket or the straight ticket voting question. I think it really does come down to like, who are the people who are actually running in these races on both sides. Yeah. Right?

Like, you mean, you look at South Texas and the Republicans are going to have to contend with this, they're heavily Trump voters down there, although we'll see what happens going forward because there is some, a bit of buyer's remorse looking like in the polling. Yeah. But they're not Republican voters. Now, they were trending that direction. Yep. But they are not there yet, which is why, like I mentioned with CD28, it's still dem lean.

Yeah. But that's because they voted for Trump. voted for Democrats underneath. And that's something I don't think. Republicans had started to take for granted that. And now we're starting to see it go the other way. And who knows what they do to compensate for that. But those are voters that are up for grabs for either party, right?

I mean, I think one of the most important questions in politics in the next decade, whatever, is going to be what happens with? Latino voters in particular working class Latino voters like do they come back to the Democratic Party does the was the shift towards Trump Trump specific or what is it going to endure and expand beyond him and there's a lot of evidence that says it's Trump specific but like I genuinely don't think we know and and I just think like that's going to have huge implications for where Democrats can win where Republicans can win different paths to control of you know stay

House, Congress, the Senate, you know, everything. I want to jump back a bit and talk about the election that happened this month in Texas. Yeah, yeah. The biggest one to talk about is SD9, right? Where Taylor Remit, the Democrat, almost won outright. He outperformed. It was pretty expected he was going to finish first because all the Democrats stuck together and voted for him.

Meanwhile, Republicans split their ticket in this special election. But he outperformed the partisan lien of that by like eight points. Yeah. How did that happen? Look, I mean, I think there's a few things happening, right? One is, and just to like put it in context for folks, like this is a district that the Republican won by 20 points in 2024. And you've got a year later a Democrat finishing first in a primary, which again, to your point because there were two Republicans, not that shocking, but he got 48% of the vote, you know, after the Democrat lost by 20 points the cycle before. So I think that's really remarkable.

I think it can be understood in a bunch of different ways. The sort of two most important things are one, like he ran a race that was just focused on affordability, right? He was like talking about the cost of living and local issues and was laser focused on that stuff. And I think, you know, obviously the Virginia results, New York results, New Jersey have all gotten like a lot of attention. But this is a Texas, like a Texas example where he was able to run a race focused on the issues that voters are screaming. These things are the most important to us. And like Texas. They were screaming that last year.

Oh, totally. Except it worked the other way for Republicans, right? Right, right. Exactly. And now there is, yeah, now, right, there's this anti, like Trump is in the White House, right? And so you own the, you're your control. You own the economy. Right, you own the economy.

Exactly. and actually I think it's super interesting to think about if at some point the anti-incumbency thing ends up applying to getting Greg Abbott has avoided it Texas Republicans have like avoided the albatross of that so far and I actually think that's like a really interesting 2026 question or you know going forward is people are really frustrated with the way things are going and And at some point, they, you know, like, are going to blame the governor. I would imagine, right? Maybe not.

But why do you think he's been able to insulate himself so well? Look, I think there's a few things, right? I think one is, Texas is like, there are a lot of people moving here. A lot of people really like this state. It's growing really quickly. I think there are, like, some underlying issues, right, around health care and energy costs. and the cost of living and housing, you know, like, that are, like, causing some discontent but haven't, like, percolated up to, or haven't gotten, the groundswell hasn't gotten

to the point where it has electoral consequences. I think the other thing that's true is that, like, Greg Abbott has not been challenged by a strong candidate in a Republican midterm yet, right? Like, Wendy, right? I was going to say, you don't think Beto O'Rourke is a strong candidate but that was a no was with the democrat in the white house that's my that's that's exactly my point like like to go back to fundamentals his his strongest challengers have been in years with a democrat in the white house and so if you like kind of do the math problem it makes it like you know in hindsight 22 is not a winnable year like i ran statewide but like 2020 you do is not a winnable year for democrats there's not different things that betto could have done that would

have made him win in 2022. Like, I don't think that's the case. I think there were two, the headwinds were too strong. And so the reality is like Abbott actually hasn't been tested in a serious way. That doesn't mean that I think he's like incredibly vulnerable, right? He's got $80 million cash on hand. He'll be over a hundred. But like his favorability is pretty low.

Like his favorability is pretty low. And I think, yeah, to go back to, I mean, happy to talk about Abbott, of course. Of course, but to go back to Taylor Remit, like, the other thing that's true about that race is, in addition to focusing on the issues that people cared about the most, like, he ran a very localized campaign. Like, it was about, like, him growing up in the district and being a member of the community and a bunch of, like, local issues. And that was juxtaposed against the two Republicans backed by different billionaire interests beating the crap out of each other. And so I do think there is a little bit of voters kind of being like just like disgusted with the infighting on the Republican side. And either staying home or going to vote for Taylor. It has been, it has seemed like a big message point, the billionaire thing for Democrats, right?

But of course, Democrats have their billionaires. Totally. Right. Most notorious one, George Soros, everyone talks about, right? Jerry Smith talked about him in the dissent the other day. It wouldn't have been, you know, it wouldn't have been a dissent without at least three Soros. Right. They were 17, though.

Right. Right. Did you do a word count? I didn't word count. Somebody did it on Twitter. I saw that, yeah. Great, great. Yeah, I was that.

So is that a persuadable issue point, given the fact that Soros is intending, like his Texas majority pack, right? Yeah. They're hoping to have a really big presence. Like, I read the other day $20 million every cycle in the state. I mean, that seems like a pretty hard case to make against Republicans when Democrats are doing it too, right? Yeah, I mean, I think like the question a little bit becomes, so I think there's like a few parts of this to talk about. One is like should Democrats talk about billionaires in general?

And my gut on this issue is like that actually people want. to make a lot of money and get wealthy and get rich like we all would love that that'd be great right exactly so i don't think i don't think railing against the idea of like billionaires in general is like actually that effective and um and to your point like we all agree that we should get money out of politics and we all but like democrats are not going to stop taking money from super wealthy people and either are republicans until citizens united is you know reformed and there's contribution limits. And so I think the reality is like we don't, I don't know that trying to make the argument like, well, our billionaires are good billionaires and their billionaires or bad

billionaires is like the move. So, but I do think there is like a little bit, the way to, the way to navigate that from like a messaging perspective is, is the way to, thank you, the way to navigate that from a messaging perspective is, is specificity, right? Whereas like, I don't think we should be railing against billionaires, but we should be railing against Ferris Wilkes and Tim Dunn and what they're trying to do to our state and how much money they're spending and their vision for the state

that they're implementing through elected officials that they give lots of money to and that that vision is like wildly out of step with what most Texans want, right? That like undercutting public schools, Christian fundamentalism, like that is not, stuff that they say they are in favor of

is not stuff that I think most people in the state want. So if they know about it, if voters know about it, I actually think that can be effective. And then just the kind of other thing I would say on the issue is like the thing we should all be doing is going back to like a little bit of first principles here, which is like we should have a system that like people are not struggling to pay for health care. people are not struggling to get a good education, that their utility bills are not crushing them. Like, a little bit the conversation, like, you're always going to, on both sides, you're going to want bogeymen, right? Like, people are motivated by that a little bit. But I just think, like, we should be more specific on, like, who the actual people are and what they're incentive, you know, what they're trying to achieve and what their goals are in the state.

So I asked you about the Republican side already, but I want to get your take on the, the Democratic side on the Senate race. Yeah. Compare, contrasts the two styles, very different styles. Yeah. Allred and Tal RICO. And then, you know, maybe Jasmine Crockett jumps in. Yeah.

Which polling indicates would totally change the entire thing. Yeah. She'd be the instant frontrunner. But as far as the two candidates in the race right now, what's it looking like to you? So I think I would say two things, right? One is, Colin Allred, like, the thing that I always come back to with Colin Allred, and I think Colin was a really good candidate in 2024, is like he overperformed Kamala Harris by more than five points, right?

And that was more pronounced in the Rio Grande Valley. I think he, like, you cannot not argue with that overperformance, right? He's got a deeply Texan story, you know, football player, single mom, raised, you know, raised in South Texas, like all this stuff. I think he was rewarded for running a really good campaign, and he raised a huge amount of money. Like, he would be a very strong general election candidate. And I like... So why are so many Democrats nonplussed with him? I mean, I think the reality is that we, like, you're a little bit conflating and we're,

all conflating, like, hyper-engaged Democrats with the Democratic primary elector. And honestly, like, this gets back to an issue on both sides, which is, like, who actually votes in primaries, is not reflective. Not only is it not reflective of the party as a whole, it's not reflective of the state as a whole. And so, like, yeah, Twitter might be upset with Colin Allred, but I actually don't think that that necessarily, clearly it didn't have an effect on his electoral performance last cycle, right? And all of that, anything you, any criticism of him you heard you were hearing last year, right? Like when he was running. Oh yeah. He's not doing this. He's not spending his time here. Like, sure, there's plenty of things that you could say,

like you could criticize any campaign. You could criticize mine. Especially easy to criticize a losing campaign. Right. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the, you know, success as a million fathers and failures in orphan or, you know, a million others. failure's an orphan. So that is, as Conall read, and I think, like, if he wins the primary, if that's who Democratic primary voters end up voting for, like, that would be awesome, right? It would be great. And you see this in, like, the most, I think some Republican polling came out yesterday where

he's beating Ken Paxson in a head, right? Or tied or up by a point. Up by point, yeah. And then you've got James Tolariko, who just, like, so clearly is tapping into something that is producing a huge amount of excitement online, a huge amount of engagement online, national interest, he goes on Joe Rogan, he's raising a huge amount of money, like clearly at a time when voters are looking for something different, there is no one in the Democratic Party like James Tala Rico. And so I think if James wins the primary, it's going to be really

interesting to see how that plays at a statewide level, right? We've seen how Colin plays at a statewide level. He's pretty strong. He's pretty good. And I think with Tala Rico, there's this question of like, okay, is he an overperformer? How much of an overperformer is he? And that's like exciting and interesting.

And, you know, at a time when we're potentially like all of these macro conditions are setting it up to be a good year for Democrats and maybe there's a really it seems like there's going to be a really weakened Republican nominee. The fact that we've got two really strong candidates going against each other is great. And then I just think the last thing I'll say is like competitive primaries are good, right?

Like we voters are so frustrated with the system. I just think the idea that someone is winning a competitive primary and rather than being like anointed by their party is like a good thing and that is going to make it seem like they earned it and make them more likely the trust of Texas voters. They're good for everyone except the money guys in D.C. who don't want to spend money in a race that they think they shouldn't have to that could go elsewhere, right? I mean, that's a little case that Cornyn's making, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's interesting because maybe they're not good for those money guys, but like that kind of assumes that there's like one pot of money and one person controlling it. I think I was going to say the people

people it's good for in D.C. are the consultants who are making gobs and money on television commercials, you know, trying to win a primary. So I don't, yeah, I don't know. I don't really buy that. Like that Corny argument, that's just like very, it's a very, like, insidery. It's kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, right? Yeah, yeah. How do you convince an average Republican in Texas to give a crap about the main Senate race, right? I don't think you really can. Yeah. They probably don't even know there's an election in Maine going on right now. Yeah.

They might not even know that there's a Senate raise in Texas going on. Right. And that might help him raise some more money. But yeah, I mean, it's not boring, right? Yeah. Should be interesting. What about Crockett? Yeah, I mean, I think like the reality is, again, like, I'm not sure if she's going to get in or not.

and but the reality is like she is has tapped into is tapping into something really powerful and you know that's obviously different from what james is doing um but like that should not be ignored right like i i do think that there are a lot of democrats trying to figure out what uh how to operate in an attention ecosystem or attention economy like everyone's saying that phrase now but like Trump knew this intuitively and like obviously Newsom is trying to do a version of it but there aren't that many people on the Democratic side who are getting attention honestly like James Tyler could or Jasmine Crockett to be honest but like but like Jasmine Crockett clearly is tapping into something there and yeah I don't know it'll be it'll be really interesting yeah I mean

you're obviously correct that like she polls really strongly and I would certainly shake up the It seems like Democrats, after seeing Trump be, you know, the fighter for Republicans, they want their own fighter. And whether we're looking at 28 with Gavin Newsom or whoever jumps in or the Senate race, if that is what Democratic voters want, that will affect the nominees. Do you see that at play? Is that something you're seeing on the end? So I think people are, that's totally a thing people are saying, and some people say that in focus.

We've totally seen that in focus groups, too, that people want a fighter. Um, I just think, and I, I bring this point up around, um, like, authenticity to, which is, like, people say they want a fighter, but like, what do they actually mean? Like, what is fighting look like? Or what does authenticity look like? Like, I think the, the authenticity point is, um, like, people assume that when they say authenticity, they think of, like, having a beer with George Bush, right? Like, that's their version of it. The question is, like, are people going to like Jasmine Crockett's version of authenticity? or James Tilariko's version of authenticity. Like, they're both, I think, pretty authentic. It does that version of authenticity, which looks very different than the George Bush have a beer with me authenticity, like, work. And so I think both Tali Rico and Crockett

are doing fighter in really different ways than each other. And I think Colin is too, for sure, like in a way that is true to him. And I think the question is just like, Which one appeals? Right. And like we have elections so we get to see, you know? Like that's that's kind of the exciting part of this.

I read a profile on Gavin Newsom the other day in Politico and it quoted him and saying, basically asked him what kind of Democrat are you. Yeah. And he said, I want to be, I want the Democratic Party to be one for Joe Manchin and Zohanomadami. Yeah. There is a, much like in the Republican Party, there's a schism, at least a, a, a. a tug of war over which direction we go, both ideologically, temperamentally, things like that. What is your read on the Democratic Party, the future of the Democratic Party? Yeah.

So, I mean, I think a few things. One is most voters do not think of things in terms of moderate versus progressive. Like, that is a framing that is insidery and... Because that's policy. Right. But most people are not thinking about policy. That's not how voters are a lot of people are thinking about this, in my opinion. I think there's a couple things.

One is, like, it is clear that Texas, that somebody who wants to win statewide in Texas, a Democrat that wants to win statewide in Texas, should try to distance themselves from the National Democratic brand. They should say, I am, I'm not a National Democrat. I'm not one of those D.C. Democrats. I'm a Texas Democrat, and here's what that means. Like, I very much think that. The national brand is incredibly unpopular. It's incredibly unpopular everywhere, but it's even more unpopular here.

Like, they should clearly say, and I actually think there's an opportunity. Something about how big our state is, how our, like, long, deep history of independence. Like, there's a real authentic, believable way to do that that I think any candidate that's running statewide should do that. They should say, I'm a Texas Democrat. Then to your point, like, the answer to that question for me is just math. Like, in politics, the question is, like, how do you win elections, right? This is a zero-sum, you win or lose, right? You have one winner, you have one loser.

Our current coalition is not getting us to 50% plus one. So we got to expand the 10. And so that means inviting Zaraanamamani and Joe Mansion into the tent. And that's just like math, right? Like I don't, I certainly don't, at a time when Democrats have not won stay wide in 30, just to talk about Texas, which is what I know, like at a time when Democrats have not one stay wide in 30 years, the idea that we should be saying, oh, let's make the tent smaller is, it doesn't, you know, doesn't pass the sniffing.

Yeah, like what are we doing? Do we want to, like, and I just think it's, you know, kind of the last thing I'll say on that is that, like, it's okay to have, like, the point is that we should be talking about, to go back to Taylor Remitt's race, and then also to connect Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Cheryl, and Zora and Mom Donnie. Like, the common theme is affordability, right? And the question voters ask is, what are you going to do for me on the issues I care about? the most. And voters are yelling, screaming that the thing they care about is the cost of living and affordability. And so what matters is that we have answers to those questions that are authentic to the people who are giving the answers to those questions. And I don't know that it's right or wrong. Like it depends on the race. It depends on where you're running. It

depends on a lot of different things who the perfect candidate is. Back to candidate quality. Right. Yeah, totally. And so I don't know. That's where I come down on it. Okay. Okay. Going into next year, we've always been a pretty low turnout. State, country, it's just very difficult to get people to turn out. Yeah. What is the hope on that? Like, I've heard a lot, ever since 2018, demographics equal destiny. It was pretty clear that's not the case so far. Yeah.

But that doesn't mean you can't make gains. How do you convince people to get off the couch and go vote? Look, I mean, I think this is going to be a high salience election, right? Like, I think the – 2024 was high turnout, right? And we've seen a bunch of high turnout elections recently. And the reality is I think, like, Donald Trump gets so much attention and people are, like, really hurting and really, worried about the cost of living. And so there's like a frustration and a desire for somebody

to answer those questions. And so I think at its core, there are lots of tactical things that we could, that we should do to turn out voters and communicate with them and get our message out and have good candidates at the top of the ticket and down ballot and all this stuff. And I think the reality is that like people are really frustrated at the system and that it has been resulting in people voting at higher rates and higher levels of turnout. And so I think it is a like, how do Democrats put forward the best answers on what? For the people that are going to turn out? For the people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Gotcha. Okay. Anything else you want to add? No. This is great. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah. Thanks for having.

Thank you.