The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 1, 2024

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Family Members of Robert Roberson’s Deceased Daughter Push for Execution in Letter to House CommitteeRep. Jeff Leach 'Ex Parte' Messages with Court of Criminal Appeals Judge over Robert Roberson PublishedFour Takeaways from Texas' Last Campaign Finance Reports Before ElectionDemocrats Prioritize Abortion in Closing Pitch to Texas Voters at Kamala Harris RallyBrad’s thoughts on the Cruz rallyRepublican Don McLaughlin Faces Democrat Cecilia Castellano for South Texas House DistrictIncumbent Republican Angie Chen Button Faces Democrat Averie Bishop for Dallas County House DistrictDPS Reports Increase in Special Interest Illegal Immigrants, Unaccompanied Children Crossing BorderTexas Sues El Paso Doctor For Allegedly Prescribing Gender Modification Hormones to ChildrenThe One Right Before the Election: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 9Cozen 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

Ride in a garbage truck, ride on a jet, see how McDonald's works, stay up late, just kind of stand there listening to music, meet Joe Rogan, pure optimism. So, I thought that was a pretty fun look at the final days of the Trump campaign. Yeah, just something fun and light. hello everybody this is senior reporter brad johnson here at the texan i'm with cameron abrams another reporter and yet another reporter mary elise over in houston mckenzie was supposed to make her triumphant return to an in-person podcast today. But she, in her aged state, threw her back out. Wow. And so she is horizontal at home, probably near death, I think. And at least she sounds like it.

So that is going to have to wait until next week when we've got some exciting stuff coming. Not just the election. Right. But Mac just texted me reacting to my statement about her. Stop doing that. You're going to throw me off the whole podcast. And so it's Halloween. We've got the election next week.

Got some cool offerings to come we're going to do a live stream on wednesday night reacting to the election and the results so we'll have more information about that watch your emails and um i think it's gonna be fun yeah i'm excited for it yeah so we'll have a bunch of people involved in that. As many people here at the Texans as we can, but of course all of us will be there. So yeah, keep an eye out for details on that. Since it's Halloween, we've got Trout, Maslin's dog in the office, and he is Bat-Dog today.

He's got wings on. I don't think he realizes what he looks like. But it's a good costume. Cameron. Yes. Random question. Okay. Keeping with the Halloween spirit again,

what is the worst injury that you've ever had? We were talking about this before the podcast. We were. I have two I can go to um both football related one during the very first game of junior year our i played offensive line and i was much bigger back then and there was a fumble and i dive on the fumble there's a huge pile up on top of me and during thisup, someone had came in and knocked my helmet straight up my face, which tore off part of the skin on my lower lip.

I did not realize it at the time because of the adrenaline was just pumping. And I had recovered the fumble. It's forked down. And I had a visor on my helmet you know trying to look cool I and I was the long snapper so I go over to the ball bend down and blood just starts pouring onto the visor and I can't see out of it I do the snap go to the sideline take my helmet off and everyone's eyes are just huge they're like oh my gosh because i look down in the front of my jersey it's just covered in blood my entire face so i had the worst crusty disgusting face for like a month afterwards as it was healing up the other injury um was the very

senior year very last padded practice of the year senior year and we're doing walkthroughs or whatever and a guy on the defensive line falls onto my left knee because i'm i'm just walking through this but the some other defensive line guy was going all out for some reason he falls i just feel three pops in my knee and i just fall onto the grass and i just scream oh it's over it's over for the ucl yeah and um so this was on a thursday you know games friday i don't go to school on friday i go to the doctor they are like yeah we can't recommend you play on this thing i don't listen at all i go and buy a knee brace i tape my knee, put the knee brace on, take about 10 ibuprofen, and play through it. Wow.

And so. Wow. Well, Mackenzie is providing live commentary, and I just want to respond to her nonsense. Okay. She goes, worst injury? How the heck does that have to do with Halloween? I mean, the scar you had from the first injury would be a pretty good Halloween costume.

Yeah. And also, you know, that was a lot cooler way to injure yourself than the way Mackenzie did. So there's that. Marylise, what you got on that? Okay. Well, mine is much less gruesome, but it is a little bit odd. So I have, I don't know if you can tell through the camera but my pinky is crooked because when I was about six years old I punched my brother my older brother um and so it just kind of you know messed it up messed up the bone structure a little bit that was definitely an embarrassing doctor's office appointment because the whole office I remember was just laughing at me because I had this like messed up pinky from hitting my brother but you know it's all right now it's just a little bit crooked did you punch him in the face um I think it was like the side of his arm or his shoulder oh but I guess I got him pretty good wow mine was dodgeball related I was throwing a ball and

some kid ran in front of me my My arm hit him and shoulder popped out. So that doesn't. Did you just pop it back in right there? Well, it popped halfway out and went back in. But, man, that hurt. Yeah. That hurt. That wouldn't have made a good Halloween costume like your scar would have.

Well, you could wear, like, the average Joe's dodgeball outfit. I was that in college, actually. With a sling. Yeah. That would have worked. Yeah. Okay. Without further ado, let's get to the actual stuff people want to listen to rather than us blather.

So let's preview the election a little bit. Obviously, Tuesday is the day we've all been waiting for. I am just ready for this to be over with. But we're not there yet. So Mary Elise, you're going to be in Houston with me. We're going to go to the cruise event. You're also in Houston. You're always in Houston,

but you were at the Kamala Harris rally on Friday last week. Tell us about that. What was that like? Yes, it was an interesting experience. So I think we'll talk about this later on about the podcast, more about the policies that they discussed. But event-wise, I was honestly shocked at the turnout. When I went into the stadium, they had thousands wrapped around the block. And whether that was for Kamala Harris or if that was for Beyonce, I'm not sure, but it was definitely packed.

And they had a lot of music. Honestly, the first hour or two felt a lot like a party. They had a lot of music and strobe lights. So that was interesting. I'd never been to a presidential rally before, so it was a first. Cameron, you're going to be up at the All Red event in Dallas, right? Hopefully. Hopefully. Okay. That's the plan right now. What are you going to be watching as we see things rolling? Well, just being an outside observer to this race, I know you have covered this extensively, but it seems as though Democrats have been really focusing on this Senate race. And there's been lots of money poured in, lots of political advertisements put out, and, you know,

a lot of energy behind calling already you know we we all watched the debate we talked about it extensively so I'll be interested to see what the turnout is what the energy is sort of like in the room as votes start coming in coming in because if the polls show show that it's been a close close race. The question is how close, right? How close is it going to be once votes start coming in? If it remains close, what people start saying in the room,

if it starts to show a big swing either way, what's going to be the reaction? So it's going to be an interesting experience because I've been to local house races, Senate races, watch parties before, but never federal election races. So just getting that whole experience will be something, you know, that's new for me. And for both of you, it'll be your first election, big election covering as a reporter. Yeah. It's hectic, it's chaotic, but it's fun. It really is. You know, I've,

this is my third one here in Texas, and it's, this one is going to be the most fascinating, I think, just given everything at stake. Well, because where are you going to be? I'm going to be at Cruz's event in Houston. So obviously that's the top dog, the top race to watch. But, you know, and also it looks good for Republicans so far through early voting. The latest update I saw, Republicans have about a million vote lead in GOP modeled early vote turnout. Now, does that hold on election day? I don't know. But Republicans are feeling good right now about

up and down the ballot from early voting. But the thing I'm going to be most interested in watching is not actually the Cruz all red race. It's the Senate District 27 race in the state legislature. That's between incumbent Democrat Morgan LaMontia and Republican challenger Adam Hinojosa. There was about 650 votes between the two last time when they ran in

2022. LaMontia won. But this time it's even more expensive of a race. Both candidates are spending millions of dollars. I should have a piece up maybe by the time this podcast goes out, maybe shortly after on Friday on the race as kind of a wrap-up, what it's looking like.

So that's what I'm going to be watching most closely, I think. And there's a lot of implications to it, not just partisan bragging rights. Republicans really want that Senate seat to continue to say that South Texas is trending more red, if not turning red, right? But also you have a lot, and I've written and talked about this before, a lot at stake in the Senate, because if Hinojosa wins, that gives Dan Patrick more cushion between what he's hoping to pass and the supermajority line. So if there are any disaffected senators, Republicans, that want to try and screw things up for Patrick, throw a wrench into his plans, which there are a couple who might want to do that at various points. This could, Hinojosa's vote could make them less able to do that

and make Dan Patrick more able to get across the line what he wants to get across the line in the way he wants it fashioned, right? So a lot up for grabs in that race particularly. Obviously, the House races will determine a lot with the speakership. We'll play into that. You know, we might have shortly after the election someone claiming they have the votes. Maybe they don't. It's all up in the air, but, you know, that's possible.

Yeah. I think feeling in 2020, I think it was two days after the election that he had his, I have the votes press conference. Maybe it was three. It was really close after. So that is, that's something to watch there as well. Congress, you know, all this stuff. So it's going to be fascinating to see uh a lot of for grabs yeah well just pivoting to the probably the biggest race we have yet to touch on the presidential race yeah you know um like you're mentioning, this is my first experience covering an election like this as a reporter. I know during the 2020 election, we were all sort of locked down still a little bit at that time.

And I can remember just sitting and watching television and following on Twitter at the time, watching votes roll in. But now it's going to be different because you're going to be covering a race. You know, I'm going to have to be doing multiple duties at one time and, you know, catching up on stuff as it comes in. But what what's your sort of general thoughts on on the presidential election as things stand right now? Because for me, it seems as though what we've seen in polling that it's extremely close. It's going to really come down to the wire. But like you had mentioned, Republicans' early vote turnout looks really good. And there's been conversations that it could be a potential blowout,

lots of people speculating about that. What's your sort of vibe on how things are going right now? I don't know which way it's going to go, but I think it's going to end up similar to the 2020 election. Whoever wins, I think the margin will be about that because I think you're going to have a lot of really close races in these swing states. And, you know, obviously Arizona went to Biden by, what, 10,000 votes in 20?

And so, you know, the Electoral College makeup may look a lot wider of a gap, a lot larger of a margin than the actual results show. So I think we're going to have a really close race like that again. In Texas, the question is, can Trump hit double digits? And I wouldn't bet on that right now. Double digit win margin. I think he won by 5.6 in 20. I think he'll probably grow that.

In Texas. Yeah, and that's based on what these early vote returns are looking like. It's possible he gets double digits, but that's such a large increase to get from last time to this time, right? Growing a 5.6 margin to a 10-plus margin. So I think he'll probably be somewhere in the middle, 7%, maybe 8%. Just a hunch, but... Yeah, I mean, there's no question Trump's going to win the state. It's just a question of by how much, right?

Yeah. And does that trickle down lower to lower ballot races? Do those hardcore Trump voters turn out out for do they go down the ballot for ted cruz well that was so that was a lot of the conversation uh in 2022 when the red wave was a red mirage and a lot of the conversation revolved around trump not being on the ballot yeah but now that he's back on the ballot is that going gonna have a down ballot effect yeah so that'll be something well and you know we kind of saw it in 18 when Cruz was last in the ballot there was the recoil against Trump but he wasn't on the ballot to

pull his those hardcore people that don't vote otherwise to the to the polling locations right because he wasn't there. And that's one reason why Cruz was so close. But now Cruz does have the benefit of running alongside Trump. Maybe that helps him. What's your read been, Mary Elise, on the presidential election? If you're looking for a political podcast that goes beyond the headlines, check out the Beltway Briefing. I'm Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies.

Every week on the Beltway Briefing, our team of former Republican and Democratic presidential appointees, 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. It's a good question. I've been thinking about it a lot lately because this is my first time covering I mean an election like this um I am honestly stumped um but I I think that the I saw that Kamala Harris said something recently about she saw the polling and she said that like the polling doesn't look good but she still feels confident about her chances um so I don't know. I'm just curious. I'm not super familiar if polling is usually very close to how the turnout ends up being, or is it usually, I don't know, Brad, would you say that the polling is usually for a presidential race, do you find it to be usually pretty accurate or is it sometimes far off?

Well, so take 2016. Maligned often for the polls getting it so wrong. Right. The polls weren't that wrong in these swing states. They were just wrong enough to get the result wrong and the projections wrong. And so the electoral votes swung the other way towards Trump. And it was really close in Wisconsin. That's the main one people always talk about, right? For 2016, Wisconsin swung Trump's way. The polls were off by just enough for the result to go Trump's way. And so kind of like what I was talking about with this race, with the, you know, Arizona being decided by a very tight margin in 2020 and Biden's electoral college margin looking pretty wide, same thing there. So I think generally the polls are in the ballpark. There's also a question, though, of what is a likely voter?

All these polls are modeled on likely voters. And the way pollsters do that is... Well, the best ones are likely voters. Because sometimes you'll read a poll and you don't look at the methodology and it's registered voters. Yes. So what constitutes a likely voter? Well, that's the question, right? That's up for interpretation. It's up to the individual pollster trying to decide that. So they ask questions like, how motivated are you to vote? Will you turn out? Are you definitely going to vote? Are you maybe going to vote?

Are you on the fence significantly? All this stuff. So all these different questions are used, demographic modeling is used to try and figure out what exactly is a likely voter. And if that's wildly wrong, well, the polls are going to be wildly wrong. Well, yeah. And you also got to look when trying to judge these polls, how many people were polled as part of as part of it right because sometimes you'll get a poll that is put out there but maybe they only talk to you know 200 people or something you know but yeah when you're doing doesn't

give like a great picture of the electorate right when you know when you're doing a statewide poll especially in Texas a 200 person sample size is not sufficient yeah you know so it all varies you know there are pollsters that public pollsters that you trust more than others for me Jim Henson at the University of Texas, Texas Politics Project, is one of the top, you know, he's the one I go to. They just put their likely voter modeled poll out in October. They were among the later ones because they were, Jim was questioning, I don't know if we really know what a likely voter is yet. So I'm not going to just make a guess and get it wrong. I'm going to wait and put that out there at the latest point possible.

I think they had, what, Cruz up 6 or 7 on Allred. We see internal polls from Allred that have it tied. I've heard of other polls, intervals that have crews up six yeah I don't know yeah I really don't it's tough to judge right now and I think a lot of the pollsters whether it be in the Senate race or presidential race they're still trying to correct on the heirs of 2016 and so for people who are listening you know diving into those numbers looking at crosstabs, that's always super important when trying to read polls. And if you want a more deep dive on the election, along with some other stuff, you can listen to Smokefield Room podcast that was put out on monday with uh me and mckenzie um but before before we pivot off this

do you you or mary-elise have a maybe long shot prediction like something that is probably not going to happen but you there's like a slim chance that it might like trump winning minnesota or something crazy you know or you know trump winning the popular vote or um it could be related to the cruz all red race or maybe even a senate district race or a texas house district race or a Texas House district race. Imagine if Trump won California. That ain't happening. That is definitely not happening. Okay, that's my prediction. That's my long shot.

Yeah, talk about a long shot. I'll say Republicans take the Senate, the U.S. Senate, by one. Wow, okay. So the. Senate, by one. Wow. Okay. So the slimmest of margins. So if Trump wins, that means he'll control both houses then? Provided they keep the House. Yeah.

Which that's a slim margin right now. You know, I guess it would be Republicans win the majority by two because it would be 49-51. You can't win it by one. So there will be one above dead even. Wow. Okay. I have nothing. I have not paid much attention

to other Senate races. But that's my That's your long shot. That's the one i'm pulling out of my sleeve yeah my long traba is trump wins the popular vote oh i think play touch on what mary elise said you know that's very long shot that trump wins california but if we look at a state like california the massive amount of population that they have there, I think they have the largest number of registered Republicans in California. Oh, do they? And so you see how Trump has... Well, that's a... You don't register as Republican

in Texas, so it's not like... Yeah, but I'm just saying like by population size well right but you don't think texas if they had actual registered republicans would i'm sure that's true outpace california i think they probably would but we don't have that here if we see like trump is campaigned in coachella you know he went to madison square garden in in New York and had a massive rally. His campaign seems very confident about winning the popular vote. And so that's my long shot, that he wins the popular vote and wins the electoral college. It's been, last thing I'll add before we move on to more stuff, but it's been fascinating to see the shift in momentum.

Oh, yeah. You have, after the assassination attempt, looked like Trump had it in the bag. Then Biden drops out, goes the other way. Kamala has massive momentum. And it seems that it's petered out. And it kind of feels like trump has the edge on momentum right now although well look at look at the contrast in the uh the rhetoric and the signaling from both of these campaigns in the in the final week we have trump riding around in a garbage truck

in his orange vest we have him doing the madison square garden rally with hulk hogan coming out like a wrestling intro we have him doing the mcdonald's photo op that went incredibly viral you know really showing like oh this is the fun campaign right it's sort of showing off oh this is a diverse coalition of people coming together you know we're trying to have good vibes here whereas the kamala harris campaign over the recent weeks we've seen comments about trump being the next hitler he's gonna usher in fascism really like a painting a dark picture of what America could potentially be like. So one side promoting fun, the other side promoting fear. And so just an interesting contrast in the signal. I don't know if that is because they are seeing internal polling that is going to be indicative of the

outcome. And this is what they see is motivating people to get to the polls. I'm not sure. But I just think that's an interesting contrast between the two campaigns right now. There's a reason campaigns and consultants go negative. It works. It doesn't mean it doesn't work every time, but it works. And that's why they go negative. So I think there's more to the Harris strategy than—

But if you look at polling, again, going back to the polling discussion, like harping on democracy is on the ballot or harping on January 6th was a dark day for our country, those don't poll high with the electorate. It, again,'s always the economy. It is immigration. It's those dinner table issues. Yeah. Well, you know, at this point in the race, everywhere, it's about making sure your people turn out to vote.

You're not really changing any minds at this point and kenzie pointed this out in the very annoying text she was sending um that pennsylvania turnout is kind of the inverse of texas's very high democratic turnout you know harris wins pennsylvania it's probably over right based on the math yeah that is that is the prize well we've been seeing a majority of the money from both campaigns going to Pennsylvania. Because both the campaigns see that as the pivotal state. Yeah. Yeah, and I've heard discussions of that as well, that the way Pennsylvania goes is the way the election goes. I'll swing that towards Trump.

Okay, let's get back to the format and move on to our stories. We'll touch on some of this stuff more in these articles. So, Cameron, let's change topics to the continuous Robert Robertson case. There were more updates this week, specifically family members of Nikki Curtis, the deceased two-year-old from way back in 2002. They came out publicly in the past week with their own letter about the situation. Give us the details. Yeah, this is something that was routinely discussed, like how does the family feel about the ongoing saga regarding Robert Roberson's case?

And they have now put out a public letter, and I'll just read a little bit of it here for people. It says, quote, let us be clear. We do not believe Mr. Roberson should be put to death simply because he is a bad man. We believe his death sentence should be carried out based on the facts of this case which remain true today as well as the overwhelming evidence that was presented at the trial that led to the jury's verdict and this letter was signed on by Nikki Curtis brother aunt grandfather so three names connected to Roberson here that are essentially putting their views out into the public. And an interesting aspect of this is State Rep. Cody Harris delivered the letter to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.

He has been part of this opposing faction within the Texas House. And he represents the county where this happened. Correct, correct. And so there's these two sort of factions that have emerged, the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee faction and then a separate faction. And they don't really, you know, fall down on typical GOP fractures, right?

Right. It's not like the far right, the moderate. It's all over the place. And so that's been really interesting to notice. And glad you brought that up because it could have effects down the line, especially as this separation of powers issue continues to roll along. That's something that is still going through the legal process. Something that I'll mention before we move on to the next aspect of the story is there was actually a separate letter that was published at the same time that I came across from Thomas Roberson, who is the older brother of Robert Roberson, who was taken sort of the other side of this other family letter.

So dueling statements from family members connected to Roberson, opposing factions within the Texas House regarding Robert Roberson's case. Very complex set of issues that we're dealing with because it's not solely about Roberson being put to death. Like I mentioned, it's also regarding separation of powers issues. So a big mess that we're trying to sort through. And it's not going to stop here. We still have until January where the stay is supposed to be lifted on the execution. So we still have a few months until then. Yeah, Supreme Court has a big topic on its hand right here.

And so another thing happened related to this, the legal complexity of Robert Roberson's case came with another wrinkle that I don't think anybody expected involving specifically state rep Jeff Leach. Yeah, well, because Jeff Leach has been intimately involved in this case. He's been one of the two most outspoken. Exactly, exactly. You know, he's done the rounds on media, whether it be on radio or television, talking about this case. He's really pushed for a retrial. He is really convinced that there has been evidence that was suppressed during the trial, misrepresented, and that Robert Roberson deserves a new trial. But what was essentially revealed over this past week is the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a letter detailing, quote,

ex parte communication between Jeff Leach and a sitting judge. And what is ex parte communication? Yeah, so it's a legal term for when one party in a case or someone connected to them communicates directly with the judge about case-related issues without informing the other parties. And this letter that was issued has the entire string of messages. And it was to Judge Michelle Slaughter. That's correct. That's correct. And in this string of messages, it shows Leach is hesitant to begin this communication because he's worried about the legal and ethical implications of what is going on. And in this text thread, I'll just read a little bit here.

He says, quote, Robert Roberson deserves a new trial. Only sending this message to you and you alone as my friend and as a wonderful judge who I have so much faith in, I hope you'll consider doing so. There was some fallout from this we saw the Texas Attorney General Kim Paxton announced that he had made a criminal referral against Leach and called for his resignation over these messages Leach himself came out and responded saying that he admitted to the communication and that he was essentially apologizing for what was happening. So, you know, again, another aspect of the complexity in this case, I don't know what the downstream effects of this are going to be on the legal disputes that are in front of the

different levels of our legal system right now but definitely something that could play a role yeah well and it's my first thought on this when I saw it was that so leach is a part of the civil case, right? He is a counsel for the House in this case to enforce the subpoena. And obviously that relates to the execution, but it is a separate case from the criminal case that involves the execution warrant of Robert Ruberson. Obviously these things are entirely intertwined.

But, you know, I can see where he might think, oh, these, first of all, there's nothing before the CCA anymore. Second of all, I'm not party to that. But, you know, it's, and he would readily admit this, It's a very bad decision. And if nothing else, if there's no legal ethics problems, which there are, it's a bad look PR-wise. And Paxton and Leach do not like each other stemming from the impeachment stuff. Leach got up and spoke against Paxton during the impeachment trial. There's no love lost between those two. So Leach kind of handed Paxton, you know, at least a pointed talking point, if not a win, PR-wise, on this.

But, you know, it's all happening in the con this is it's all happening in the context of the broader fight over this one guy well yeah and kim paxton and the attorney general's office has been involved in this as well they released a bunch of documents that were presented at trial and they've they've taken a strong stance regarding roberterson. And so all three levels of our government system here, you know, the judicial system making these rulings. We've had the attorney general's office and we had Governor Greg Abbott and his general counsel file a letter essentially that called in the question the separation of powers yeah issue so yeah it's very complex set of issues we're all trying to deal with and grapple with and still have months to go until we have a decision so keep following us and we'll keep reporting the news thank you cam, Cam. Moving on.

I wrote a piece on the finance reports, the eight-day finance reports filed, as the name would suggest, eight days before the election. I have a whole spreadsheet. If you go to my Twitter, it's the pinned tweet. If you want to see all of the finance report numbers for statewide, Congress, the legislature, state board of education, it's all there. You can check it out. Some of the themes that stuck in my mind when I was going through these, first off, and I have this in a story, you can read more details there on the website, but Republicans look to be nervous about a few Texas House races in certain counties,

specifically Bexar County, Harris County, and Williamson County. Millions of dollars has been pumped in to those races in this latest report, which only spans 30 days. So it's not like the last report where the members had, candidates had, you know, from July 1st until end of September to post all this, to raise all this money. This is the 30 days. Now it's critical 30 days, right? Close to the election. So in House District 52, Caroline Harris, Davila, that's one that sticks out. Mayor Lease has written on that race.

It's notable because of all the population growth that they've gotten there. A lot of it's from people moving from Travis County to get out of either the city of Austin or Travis County itself to avoid the higher cost of living, the increased taxes, things like that. So that's one Republicans seem to be quite nervous about. Texans for Lawsuit Reform gave her, I think, like $700,000 in this report. A lot of money. Then in Houston, Harris County, you have Lacey Hull, state rep. I think she got elected in 2020, if I recall correctly.

She's been there seeking her third term. She raised over a million dollars, got a lot of money from, I think, Greg Abbott was in there, maybe TLR as well, I think. The Speaker gave her some money. So clearly there's some nervousness there. I think she's going to be fine just because of the makeup of the district. But it's possible. And clearly, you know, they know more than we do.

They're seeing their internal polling in a need for spending. Her opponent has not raised much of anything. So there is a contrast there. But the other one is Markle Hood in House District 121. None of these races are like HG 118 where everyone knows it's going to be tight. That's with John Lujan and Christian Carranza, which we'll get to in a sec. But these are all kind of sneakily getting attention. And what's showing that is all this money raised.

So those are some races to watch. Can Republicans shore up their bases there and win the district with kind of what they're expected to, which is a 10-point win or so. We'll see. Next one is Dems. They are coalescing behind Carranza more than anybody else. They see an opportunity to take out John Lujan,

and it's definitely possible. That one, I think it's going to be the tightest finish that we see. Maybe SD27, but this one, definitely. So, lots of money. Carranza was actually the only Democratic challenger who out-raised her Republican incumbent opponent in this report. I think $1.6 million from her to Lujan's $1.4 million. So, very expensive house race. One to watch, no doubt.

Then I guess the last thing I'll mention is Elon Musk donated another, was it $1 million? $2 million to the Judicial Fairness Pack, which is the TLR group that is trying to elect Republicans at these appeals court levels. So he's increasing his foray into Texas politics. So ever since moving here,

moving not only himself, but his businesses here. So you can check that out more on the website. There'll be a lot more observations on fundraising to have in the coming days as they're filing their cash on hand reports. So watch my Twitter for that. Marylise, coming to you. We've talked earlier about you attending Kamala Harris' rally in Houston.

You mentioned what it was like, but tell us about the messaging that they focused on. What was their closing message for voters? Yes. So they focused definitely on one policy, which was abortion. And you could kind of tell this walking into the stadium because they had these big blue signs up that with white letters that said, trust women and vote for reproductive freedom. So it definitely signaled that that would be the event's focus. The speaker lineup, there were numerous speakers. The speaker lineup kicked off with a speech from actor Jessica Alba. And she was one of the individuals that mentioned some other

policies. She mentioned Harris's plan to expand the startup tax deduction for small businesses. She mentioned Harris's new way forward policy agenda. But then primarily Alba spoke about abortion. She said that as a woman, I know we need a leader like Kamala Harris, who is dedicated to protecting reproductive freedom. So she kicked off the event with that, and it was followed by a tribute video to the late Amber Thurman. I think everybody's probably heard her name now. She's been in the headlines a lot. She's a woman from Georgia who passed away after complications related to chemical abortion. And then following this video, there was a team of about 20 or 25 Texas-based obstetrician gynecologists, and they were wearing the white coats. They took the stage, and they described the effect of Roe v. Wade's reversal

on their work as abortion providers in Texas. There was one doctor in particular. He works at Texas Children's Fetal Center, Dr. Richard Todd Ivey. He said that today in Texas, because of Donald Trump, I could be thrown in prison for life for providing reproductive health care. So that was the legal repercussions was really the focus of his speech. And then after that, after the doctors exited the stage, there was a video displaying activist Hadley Duvall. And then after that, after the doctors exited the stage, there was a video displaying activist Hadley Duvall. And she was describing how she had an abortion after being abused earlier on in her life. And she was describing how she couldn't imagine if she had not had that abortion, if she had not had that option to abort. Then there was a short performance by legendary guitarist Willie Nelson.

He didn't talk about anything policy related. He just played some songs. And then Texan Amanda Zerowski. So she's a woman from Texas, was joined by her husband, Josh, on stage to describe how Roe v. Wade, in her words, nearly killed her after a pregnancy complication. And Amanda is one of the five women who sued the state of Texas back in March 2023, and the basis of the lawsuit was that Texas's pro-life laws had put her life at risk and other women's lives at risk. Then there was the very much anticipated appearance from Colin Allred. He took the stage during Amanda's speech, and he focused on his experiences in Congress and

cruised his record as a senator for Texas. But then he mostly kind of shifted into the topic of abortion, and that was what the rest of his speech was really about. He called it a fundamental freedom for Texas women. And then after Colin Allred, there was a woman from Texas, another woman named Andrea Cummings. And she claimed in her speech that her water had broke too early. She was denied an abortion, which led to a life-threatening infection. So another story from a woman describing her experience desiring an abortion in Texas recently. Then there was the mother of singer and songwriter Beyonce. So Tina Knowles, Beyonce's mother spoke and her speech was primarily about abortion as well. On sensing a theme. Yes. Yeah, there's a

theme here. So she also spoke about abortion. And then she welcomed her daughter, Beyonce, and the singer Kelly Rowland on the stage to discuss. They also discussed abortion. They spoke about how reproductive freedom is a woman's God-given right, which is Beyonce's words um and then following their speech they introduced Kamala Harris to the stage um which interestingly um was met by a lot of boos and I'm assuming this is just an assumption but because Beyonce just gave a short speech and I think a lot of people were probably expecting a performance um so that wasn't not one song, right? Yeah, no, they did play some of her music at the beginning, but nothing live. And so she introduced Harris onto the stage and Harris spoke almost entirely

about abortion. That was her whole speech. And she reiterated kind of a common talking line for her. And when speaking with the press, when speaking at rallies, that you don't have to abandon your faith or deeply held beliefs to know that the government shouldn't be telling you what to do with your body. So a heavy, heavy focus on abortion at this rally. That was just the overriding theme. So that was, it was interesting that they, that this was, it looked like their closing pitch to Houston voters, that this is is this was the issue that they wanted to really express to houston voters that um should be on their mind when voting i have so many thoughts i'll keep them to myself but uh did you notice any protesting of the rally that was going on outside? Because something I noticed when I was watching

the speech Kamala Harris gave at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., there was a large group of pro-Palestine, anti-Kamala Harris protesters there. Was there anything similar that was going on in Houston when you were at the rally? You know, I didn't run across them, but I had received an email that there would be a protest. So I guess it wasn't big enough to for me to notice because it was kind of it was near the entrance of the stadium. Saw a lot of people and didn't see any protests, but I did see that they had planned that. although I will say I got kind of an expedited entry into the stadium because being media so I might have missed it

that's possible well thank you Mary Elise uh I'm sure that was quite an experience going to what you thought was a Beyonce concert that didn't turn out to be. Yeah. I also went to a rally this week, and I was at Cruz's rally in Brenham yesterday on Wednesday. I won't go into too much detail about what was said. You can see it on my Twitter if you want to see the formulation of messaging that Cruz was using. He had Senator Tom Cotton there with him. You know, but the, what my takeaway from that was Cruz knows he needs rural Texas to show up, to put him over the edge.

And he needed that in 2018. He needs it this year. He is trying to really motivate rural Texas to get to the polls. And when he asked them who all had already voted, almost everyone in the room put their hands up. Now, obviously, this is a Cruz rally, right? So these are, by and large, rabid Cruz supporters, right? I mean, they're dyed in the wool, will do anything for Ted Cruz voters. So it's kind of expected for them to be excited to vote, right? But the sheer fact that they had, I think, tells you a lot. Well, are rural voters in Texas, is there a partisan divide there?

Is it more likely they're Republican or vote Republican? Oh, yes, yes. Okay. It's just they're low propensity voters. They don't normally go to the polls? No, there's just fewer of them. Okay. Right?

Well, on the aggregate, there's a lot of them across the whole state. But in any particular place, you know, they're far outweighed by the blue cities. The suburban and urban. Yes. Okay. So I think he said, we were in Washington County, he said that, told me that they, Cruz won it by 75, 175% of the vote there, I think, in 18. He's hoping to increase that to 80, 85%. Jury's out on if that'll happen.

But like I mentioned with the early vote returns, it shows Republicans are turning out in droves, and the data indicates that a lot of them, a huge number of them, are rural voters. That's a good sign for Republicans, because that is what is keeping the tide of the blue cities at bay on a statewide level. That's what wins Republicans every statewide election. It's rural Texas. And they seem very motivated, at least in this one instance, right?

But they seem very motivated to get out to the polls and vote for Cruz. And he really needs it. He really needs it. The only other takeaway I have from that rally has nothing to do with Cruz, and he really needs it. He really needs it. The only other takeaway I have from that rally has nothing to do with Cruz, but Senator Lois Kulkors, who is from Brenham, she introed them, and she had that crowd, about, I'd say 200, 300 people eating out of her hand. Really? They were hanging on to every word.

I'd never seen the senator on the campaign trail. I'd seen her many, many times in committee, on the floor. But she was very skilled. Interesting. And, you know, if you have that kind of campaign skills, watch out for higher office. So, you know, that's a person to watch. Mackenzie and I did our Smoke-Filled Room podcast way back when

on who we thought would run for statewides once the dam breaks at the top. I don't know if we mentioned Cole Corse in much detail, but after that, you know, she's way up there for me in terms of who I think. It was that good? It was that good, huh? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, it was really good. It was very impressive. Interesting. A very impressive sight to see. So, Cameron, on to another campaign. You wrote about HG80, which is an expected Republican flip as far as these things go it is a Democratic held seat Tracy King is retiring yep and it is the only are leaning partisan why partisan makeup wise seat held by a Democrat yeah well

it's our 51 according to our person narrow but it is it's very narrow but it's a like you said republicans are wanting to flip this uh tracy king who previously held a seat he's retiring he was rated as one of the least liberal house democrats during the 2023 legislative session and the two candidates um Democratic candidate Cecilia Castellano and Republican nominee Don McLaughlin. McLaughlin, he was a former mayor of Uvalde, and he kind of burst onto the national stage for some of his comments regarding Beto O'Rourke. So he's a known name there. He's been elected to higher office and, you know, Governor Greg Abbott's done his endorsement behind him. And Cassiano, she's talked with a number of different outlets about her platform. She

called it a platform for progress. So this is a purple district previously held by a very moderate democrat republicans hoping to flip it democrats hoping to hang on to it did you uh i zoned out for a bit did you mention quayar uh backing mclaugh... Okay. A fascinating wrinkle of this is that Castellanos' Democratic primary opponent in runoff, second place finisher in the runoff, Rosie Cuellar, who is the sister of Henry Cuellar, congressman, she filmed a video, TV ad spot endorsing McLaughlin and opposing Castellano. So we've seen a couple, one in particular, incumbent Republicans endorsing against the Republican

who unseated them, beat them in the primary. Right. Steve Allison in HD 121, yeah, with LaHood. Well, now this is the reverse. This is Cuellar back in the Republican. So very, very interesting there. Another house race, quickly, Cameron, HD 112. That's been a big spending house race so far.

Big spending. Well, because it's rated R53. And so, again, another purple district here. This one stretching across portions of Dallas County and the northern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Incumbent Representative Angie Chen Button is taking on the Democrat Avery Bishop. And Angie Chen Button, she's gone through a few battles uh over the course of her electoral career and this is another tough matchup for her um because Avery Bishop is a very well-known name uh here in Texas a former Miss Texas she's been um very very forthcoming in her progressive views on a number of issues. She's

been profiled by a number of big outlets, including the Washington Post, who wrote an entire piece about her. And yeah, there's a lot of money coming into this. As of the latest campaign finance reporting period Avery Bishop has raised over $417,000 compared to the more than 1.6 million Button has raised and Button has more than $577,000 cash on hand to spend on these last few days of the campaign and Bishop has just 126,000. So lots of money and another tight race, flippable race possibly, but a Republican incumbent. It's going to be hard for Democrats to flip this one, but something for listeners to keep their eye on. Yeah, it's a very difficult seat to take from Andrew Chen Button. It'd be a lot easier for Democrats to take it whenever Button retires. No idea when that will be, but, yeah, something to watch there.

So moving on, Mary Elise has a good piece up about special interest illegal immigrants related to DPS findings. Go check that out. Give it a read. Mary Elise, since we've got to speed this along, I'm going to move on to your next piece. Texas is suing a doctor for prescribing illegal gender modification drugs to minors. Give us the details. Yes. So yesterday, this is breaking news. Texas filed a lawsuit against an El Paso-based doctor for allegedly prescribing these gender-modifying hormone therapies to children as young as 12 years old. The lawsuit alleges that Dr. Hector M. Granados of Pediatric Endocrinology Associates in El Paso has been, quote,

providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children for the purpose of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity or sex is inconsistent with their biological sex. Dr. Granato's allegedly misled pharmacies, insurance providers, potentially patients, as well through falsified medical records, prescriptions, and billing records. The lawsuit alleges that this was to conceal that his treatments and prescriptions and billing records, and the lawsuit alleges that this was to conceal that his treatments and prescriptions were intended for the purposes of transitioning a child's biological sex. And this is prohibited by Texas law after Senate Bill 14 was passed in 2023, and then the

Supreme Court of Texas upheld it as constitutional in June. A few weeks ago, we covered a very similar case when Texas filed a lawsuit against a Dallas-based doctor for allegedly also providing these illegal gender modifying hormone therapies to minors. So Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that state law forbids prescribing these interventions to minors because they have irreversible and damaging effects. He said pretty strongly any physician found doing so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. So both of these cases will be interesting to watch and see how they develop. Thank you, Mary Elise. All right, moving on to Twittery. Let's start with you, Cameron. Just going back to election talk for a moment. Lots of memes coming out and lots of people giving their final analysis of what the Trump journey has been, what it's meant for them.

I thought someone here on Twitter gave, they only have 8,000 followers, but I thought it was interesting. They said, it's endearing to me that Trump's campaign is basically what a six-year-old might do if given the chance. Ride in a garbage truck, ride on a jet, see how McDonald's works, stay up late, just kind of stand there listening to music, meet Joe Rogan. Pure optimism. listening to music meet joe rogan pure optimism so i thought that was a pretty fun look at the final days of the trump campaign um yeah just just something fun and light that was pretty funny and accurate yeah marylise what you got yeah well speaking of joe rogan um so donald trump went on joe rogan's podcast and i think it was about three hours long. And then there was talk that Kamala Harris would and Joe Rogan said that she had declined to do it in Austin and only would offer an hour if he came to her.

But he denied that. I thought that was interesting. I thought that was interesting because I probably most people would I turn down an interview with the vice president but I guess he figured that in order to be fair to both candidates and needed to be a similar setup similar scenario as Donald Trump's interview so I I think it's shows the the emerging podcasts sphere and just the amount of pool that alternative media sources now have and the amount of power they have on directing the public consciousness on on issues because if this was just five six seven eight years ago you know podcasters would be dying to talk to a presidential candidate or the vice president, you know, but now Joe Rogan can say, I'm not coming to you. You got to come to me. And that's a good point. Yeah. You know, and Joe Rogan's podcast, number one in multiple countries

across multiple different categories and the amount of pull that it has with its audience, you know, its audience isn't a right-leaning audience. It really is a moderate demographic. And so we had Donald Trump go on Joe Rogan. J.D. Vance has recorded an episode with him. And the Republican candidates really leaning into the podcast sphere, Kamala Harris going on Call Her Daddy, going on Shannon Sharp's podcast. No, I don't know how much reach those have, but not as much as Joe Bogan. For sure. I'll end with a bit of tea leave reading.

Rob Pyers puts out a lot of notices about FEC data, ad buys, things like that. Pretty useful. He tweeted out that Chuck Schumer's win Senate PAC is up with what's likely its last major push, dropping 37.9 million in nine states. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Montana, Arizona, Maryland, and Texas. The lowest amount in any of those is in Texas 1.5, 1.6 million. That means one of two things. Either Schumer's kind of giving up on the chance of Allred defeating Cruz, certainly compared to these other races, like Ohio is the top spending one in this buy. Or it means the airways are so clogged up with ads already,

that's certainly possible because Allred has raised a massive amount of money and has been up on TV constantly. So it's one of those two things. Either Chuck Schumer knows which way this is going and it's not his way, so he's not going to waste more money than he has to to kind of signal that they're still involved in the race, or it's just a logistical thing and there's no airtime left that's possible too so uh i don't know which one it is but i thought that was

kind of a reading between the lines interesting sort of tidbit yeah yeah so all right we are at one hour and five almost five, so we will close there. A reminder to keep your eye out about the live stream we're going to do, post-election live stream next week. And follow us all on Twitter. We'll be posting live updates throughout election night about the results. And tweeting from location, various locations across the state. So as always, thank you all for listening. And we will talk to you next week.

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