The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 11, 2022

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ Or get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe 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 election results in the hottest races in Texas. We talk statewide campaigns, South Texas contests, and local trends. Plus, we discuss our biggest takeaways and take a quick look at results at the national level. 

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses election results in the hottest races in Texas. We talk statewide campaigns, South Texas contests, and local trends. Plus, we discuss our biggest takeaways and take a quick look at the results at the national level. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, hello, everyone. It is election week in Texas. We have so much of our team here to chat through all the results. We have Hayden, we have Kim, we have Brad,

we have Matt, all here to talk about the races that we covered this week. Holly will not be able to join, but she's joining in spirit from Harris County. So we're just going to get right into what happened in Texas and start with the statewide races. We'll work our way down to some of these district races in South Texas, just different parts of the state, And then we'll work our way down to local as well and talk through just what happened at a smaller level in Texas that affects us just as much, if not more. So Brad, we're going to start with you at governor's race, the headliner this election season, certainly with Beto O'Rourke and Governor Abbott.

Going toe to toe here, incredible fundraising, a crazy race. Give us a feeling of of the country national nationwide how it was a midterm with a democrat in the in the white house it was not that surprising of a result um but what was kind of surprising was how much governor greg abbott beat beto o'rourke by uh he won with an 11 point advantage getting into double digits a lot of the polling had him in the upper single digits and democrats hoped to make it closer than that but abbott at the top of the ticket won by 11 points it was a margin of 891 000 votes for the governor over O'Rourke. And O'Rourke only won 19 counties across the state and underperformed in every county except Kauffman. This will go out in the back mic tomorrow, so use this twice.

But some interesting facts about the breakdown of the results so early voting Abbott won by 54% and just shy of a half a million vote margin election day he won by 55% so he's pretty consistent on both of those

his highest performing county with at least 10,000 minimum registered voters was Callahan County at 90%. There were multiple others, but they were very, very small. He won it with 100 votes that had a higher percentage, but I said it at Callahan County

due to just having a bit of a floor there. O'Rourke, his highest performing county was Travis County at 72%. Not really surprising there. The most competitive county in this race was Williamson. It had a 0.62% difference and about a about a 1300 vote margin then i broke it down by population clusters so in the top five counties uh by population harris dallas tarrant um travis and uh i'm blanking on the fifth one. Among those high population centers, O'Rourke won 16.6% by margin of that with a 548,000 vote margin.

Now he ended up losing by almost 900,000 votes. And so you can see which way this is going in these other two groups. The low population, which I set at fewer than 30,000 registered voters, Abbott won with a margin of 61%, just a massive, massive victory. That's an advantage Republicans have had in rural areas just for years,

and it continues to help them preserve that uh 30-year um stretch of preventing any democrats from winning statewide races and then in the middle group abbott won with a 24.2 percent uh margin that was that amounted to 960,000 votes. So he really swept it in everything except these high population centers. But he did win Tarrant County, which is something I believe Trump lost very narrowly in 2020. And I think, Kim, correct me if I'm wrong,

but I think Beto won that as well in 18. Well, it was close in Tarrant. Abbott won it by a couple percentage points so um it's an interesting breakdown and then finally cost per vote abbott uh spent 23 about 23 dollars aurorix spent about 20 and so very close despite the wide disparity of votes gotten and the amount of money spent both ways. Abbott spent over $100 million. O'Rourke spent over $70 million. So a lot of money flowing into this race, and it went about as predicted.

Absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for your coverage of that. Hayden, we're going to head on down the ballot. What was the outcome of the lieutenant governor's race? The lieutenant governor's race, much like the governor's race, was not close. There was no blue wave or any kind of gain for Democrats in, the lieutenant governor is also the presiding officer of the Texas Senate, and he shepherds a favorable rematch. But Patrick stole the race with 54% of the vote. I say stole, he won the race with 54% of the vote. Collier received only 43%. And that's continuing Patrick's overwhelming victory from the primary. He received more than 75% of the vote in the Republican primary against his challengers.

Collier had focused this race on public education. He pointed to Patrick's use of culture war issues such as his item of legislation that he introduced to protect the Star-Spangled Banner at professional sports games, that contract with the state of Texas. He also pointed to Patrick's record on passing restrictions on abortion and contrasted all of those issues. The race concluded with Collier, or with Patrick, tempering his stance on school vouchers, indicating that he would bracket out any, he would bracket out rural school districts from school choice legislation. But none of that ended up being consequential in the end. And Collier had said that he believed that it was inevitable that Democrats would win a statewide race.

And he believed it would be this cycle. But clearly the results did not bear that out. And there is no, not necessarily any inevitable trend toward Democrats. And that was displayed in the Lieutenant Governor's contest this year. Great coverage, Hayden. I will plug real fast for those who are curious about a blue wave in Texas or what voter turnout looks like each election cycle. We had a conversation with the Texan and Derek Ryan, a Republican consultant who runs a lot of these numbers and crunches the data for Republican and Democrat turnout each

election cycle on our podcast. Very worth the listen, so make sure to go and listen to that if you're curious about how close Texas is to turning blue. Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Brad, we're coming back to you. Comptroller Glenn Hager won comfortably on Tuesday, securing what he said will be his third and final term in the position. What was his reaction? So I spoke to him on my way back from McAllen on Wednesday, and we were just talking about the race, the results. He was not surprised at how it shook out. The big surprise for him was more of by how much all of the statewides won by, each eclipsing 10%, some

higher than that. I believe Sid Miller had the highest, like 15%, but all of them won in resounding victories, as we'll talk about in the next ones after this. But that was really the only surprise he had.

He hadn't looked through all the data yet, but he said one thing he was proud of was his campaign made some headway in Fort Bend County, which has the suburb of Houston has gone more blue. That's where he lives, and his campaign focused there quite a bit. They made some headway on that one, he said. Overall, he attributed the win for him and the other statewides to Governor Abbott's campaign. As I talked to him in the

preview piece that I did, the tone is set at the top of the ticket, and these candidates know that. It's set at the top of the ticket, and it's set on the winds of national politics. In this case, the president's approval ratings and inflation, which turned out not to be as big of a boon for Republicans as they thought. But on this race, Hager lauded the governor's campaign machine. And as I said, they made it so that O'Rourke underperformed in every county except one. That pays dividends down the ballot, and he acknowledged that. He did win with a 1.1 million vote margin of victory. That's outpacing the governor. And a lot of these down ballots republicans did um and it's an interesting highlight of these voters who may not have may have been persuaded by beto to pull the trigger for him uh but then still vote for lower ballot republicans um i'm not sure what the breakdown is

between people who just decided not to vote in the governor's race versus those that did what I just described, but there's probably some of both, and that is something I'm sure the data crunchers are going to look through. And yeah, this is his final term. This will be his final term as comptroller.

He said he doesn't want to run for a third or fourth this is his third um and so that's uh kind of sets the table for his his final term and what uh what he's going to have to tackle in that in that four years thank you bradley hayden another statewide position that had a lot of attention was the attorney general race, what was the outcome there? It would probably be fair to characterize the Attorney General's race as a referendum on abortion and illegal immigration because of Garza's focus on abortion rights and Paxton's focus on his record of suing the Biden administration almost a dozen times on border security issues. Garza had criticized his stance on border security, specifically pointing to his emphasis on enforcement and going to battle with the White House over enforcement measures. In the end, Paxton

pretty well trounced Garza with 55, 56% of the vote, and Garza received only 42% of the ballots. It was interesting to me that not more voters turned out for Garza because of her emphasis on abortion rights, when that is an issue that pulled better for Democrats. And Paxton has focused more on border security, but he has also touted his defense of Texas abortion restrictions as well. Garza also had focused on his accusations of misconduct that have really plagued his political career for many years, such as the security fraud indictment from 2015 that has never gone to trial. And then the accusations of bribery and abuse of office that have been leveled against Paxton by former employees. In the end, though, it is clear that voters did not find those to be deal breakers. And Paxton has never been convicted of any crime. So that could also have contributed to letting the air out of the tires of that criticism from Garza's camp.

But Paxton had a few controversies leading up to election day, such as when he was accused of trying to dodge a subpoena. But he clearly successfully defended his candidacy and his campaign against those and was able to pull off a considerable victory over a very progressive opponent. Absolutely. a high-profile race and one worth watching. Fascinating to watch the final numbers on election day. Thank you, Hayden. Bradley, speaking of wacky and wild races, which brings me back to a piece you wrote a long time ago about the railroad commission race. Certainly worth checking out, folks, at the texan.news, all the ins and outs. But Wayneian was another of these statewide candidates who

performed well on tuesday how'd his race for railroad commissioner turn out so this is a seat not just christians but every every time a railroad commission seat is up we see a lot of these especially the environmental left really target it because they do regulate oil and gas industry and that is a priority for that group on the left. And so we saw a ton of money dumped into that in 2020, not nearly as much this time. And when Christian won, this will be his second term, they have sort of six-year terms on the commission, he won it by 15 points and and over a million votes and so it was quite comfortable um a lot more comfortable i think than his primary day which saw him get pushed into a runoff which was part of that really really weird

um illustration of this race we saw his runoff challenger Sarah Stogner endorse Luke Warford, his Democratic opponent. And we saw a number of other things happen in this race, but ultimately it was chalked and Christian won as

everyone would probably have expected. It would have been a shock if Warford had even made this close, especially with the way everything else turned out, let alone won it. But Christian said afterwards, I'm excited to serve a second term in the Railroad Commission fighting for energy independence and the jobs, economic growth, and national security that come along with it.

Then he took aim at the Biden administration and said we cannot allow Biden's radical agenda based on unproven politicized science to take root in Texas. Warford, after the results became clear, put out a statement saying, from the start of this campaign, we've made the case to Texans that we need drastic changes of the Texas Railroad Commission, and I'm proud of the work we've done to draw attention to this critical office. Winning statewide as a Democrat in Texas was always going to be an uphill battle. I thought it was interesting that he highlighted that. That's not really something that I've seen much by Democrats.

They were hoping to have a better showing, but the fact is they do have an uphill battle. This is at least a Republican-leaning state. And yeah, we'll see what candidates they throw at, Democrats throw at in two years when Kristi Craddock is up for re-election if she decides to seek that. So that was the race. Thank you, Bradley. And folks, again, make sure to go check out

all the intricacies of that entire campaign. It was quite something to behold and by far the most fascinating to watch from a, I don't know, just a drama perspective. It was very dramatic. So make sure to check it out. Matthew Stringer, we're coming to you, my friend, agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, will see a third term in office. Tell us about the outcome of this race. Mackenzie Taylor. Yes.

Agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, incumbent Republican. McKenzie Taylor, yes. for his third term in office. On election night, Miller won with 56.4% of the vote compared to Hayes' 42.6%. Miller issued a statement after the victory saying, quote, together with the legislature and all of you, we will pass compassionate use, which I believe that's referring to marijuana. Compassionate use? Sounds like it. Yeah, it sounds like a marijuana thing. Let's see.

What else? Fund our rural healthcare, ban China from buying Texas lands, and unleash our resources to meet our water and power needs for the next 100 years. end quote. Spicy there from the agriculture commissioner. We're going to stick with you real fast, Matt,

to talk about another statewide race, the only open statewide position in terms of the big offices on the ballot this year in Texas, the GLO, Journal Inc. office, how did that race end up shaping up and who won? Yes, that's right. The office became an open seat when incumbent Land Commissioner George P. Bush decided to run for Texas Attorney General back in the March primary and ultimately lost that bid to incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton. Since he decided to try that other office that made his position became available. So State Senator Don Buckingham, a Republican, ran in that primary and ultimately won and faced Democrat Jay Kleberg, who in previous years pulling in a margin of well over one million votes for the position and will become our next land commissioner in January. Fascinating stuff. Thank you, Matthew. Hayden, we're coming back to you. We're going to

pivot now to South Texas. Potentially the biggest fight of the entire electoral cycle here in Texas was just generally regionally in South Texas. Let's talk about the fiery end to the 28th congressional district race. Congressman Henry Cuellar, the Democrat representing the 28th Congressional District, has been elected to a 10th term in the U.S. House. He was first elected back in 2004 and is regarded as one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress. He won, defeating Cassie Garcia, the Republican nominee, with 57% of the ballots compared to Garcia's 43% of the ballots. But what was interesting about the end of this race, despite being one that was closely watched by national Republicans, it was one of three South Texas congressional districts

that Republicans had hoped to pick up. He concluded the race by mocking Garcia and her team at the night of the election results. Right before midnight, when the Associated Press called the race, he tweeted, quote, looks like you'll have plenty of free time to audition for Narcos in the near future. Garcia, nice try, Cassie. It may require you learning Spanish. Rosetta Stone is on standby, end quote. And that was following a fracas over her apparently not knowing Spanish, according to Cuellar, despite them trading insults in Spanish over social media. Garcia had also lobbed attacks of her own. She accused him of being associated with the Los Zetas criminal drug cartel because of a reported $1,000 campaign contribution in 2006 from the wife of a Mexican citizen who was

after the fact convicted of money laundering. Cuellar's team at the time said that he gave the cash to charity, and he called the advertisement that Garcia and National Republicans put out highlighting the donation as blatantly false. Cuellar was almost defeated in the Democratic runoff by a progressive challenger named Jessica Cisneros. And I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but she lost to Cuellar by only a few hundred votes. So he almost came close to losing his seat in the runoff, but really did not come close to losing his seat to Cassie Garcia in the general election. Thank you, Hayden. And real fast, folks, I do want to say that our reporters were all over the state of Texas on election night.

We had Kim up north in Tarrant County, Hayden in Plano at the Attorney General's Watch Party, Brad in McAllen, South Texas at the Governor's Watch Party. Matt Stringer was all over South Texas covering different races, which we'll get to in a second, and Hollywood's in Harris County, monitoring not only election watch parties, but some crazy election debacles and controversies that were going on down there on election night. Speaking of, Matt, you were one of those two reporters in South Texas, and you were on the ground specifically for Monica Dela Cruz's watch party, which became a victory party. Tell us about this. Thanks, Mackenzie. Congressional District 15, which was

one of the newly drawn districts post-redistricting, saw de la Cruz facing Democrat Michelle Vallejo for the South Texas seat, which was an open seat and it was a highly watched race. De la Cruz campaigned on a conservative platform of border security, school choice, and the economy, while Vallejo was taking a more progressive stance focused on pro-choice and other Democrat priorities. Notably, there were some pretty major Democrat names campaigning in South Texas recently for some of these candidates, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Starting off election night, De La Cruz held a strong lead from the moment the first early votes were released and ultimately finished with 52.7% of the vote compared to Vallejo's 45.6%. We had the chance to interview De La Cruz moments after her victory was announced where she told us that, quote, I think the message her victory sends to Washington is that Hispanics believe in a strong border, they believe in legal immigration,

and they want a strong economy that will support small businesses and American families. Very good. Well, Matt, thank you for covering that race. Wonderful interview that you conducted. Make sure folks go read all about it at the texan.news. Bradley, the most watched of the three south texas congressional races was in the 34th congressional district um for very fascinating reasons two incumbents kind of going at it in a district that neither of them have ever represented fully how did that race shake out yeah all three of these races got a lot of national attention but based on how i saw these things in in national coverage this one got a bit more

because of that fact that they're both incumbents and myra flores won the special election and got a ton of national acclaim for that back in june but ultimately gonzalez vicente gonzalez the democrat who uh switched districts is currently representing Texas 15, the Matt just discussed, but he's running in Texas 34 after redistricting. Uh, he won by eight points and 11,000 votes. Now this, despite the clear disadvantage in redistricting that they had in this particular district. It was, according to our ratings, D63, meaning Democrats had a 13-point advantage from what would be an even district. That's a lot of ground to make up. And Flores actually outperformed that, only losing by eight points. She outperformed that pretty well,

but still it was just too big of a hill to climb. So it seems like she'll be back. I don't know running for what, but something. And Gonzalez gets, I believe it's his fourth or fifth term in Congress. And we'll see in two years if they decide to duke it out again. How did that play into reactions to the result? So Flores said afterwards,

with all caps intermixed in this, the red wave did not happen. Republicans and independents stayed home. Do not complain about the results if you did not do your part. Republican party of Texas chair. This is an interesting twist to it. Republican party of Texas chair, Matt Rinaldi said afterwards in a long thread,

mostly about the state of Florida, but discussing this here, drawing Congressional District 34 to be a D plus 15 district was an absolute waste of Myra Flores' talent, and House leadership made a bad call in giving her the short straw in redistricting. House leadership, he's talking about Congress because typically the chambers draw their own maps and then hand it to the state legislature. So you'll have the U.S. House delegation will draw their own maps. Usually Republicans, because they're the majority,

decide what that looks like, and they hand the map to the legislature, and the legislature can tweak it some but usually they just adopt it and so that was who he was calling out specifically those in in the congressional delegation GOP that made this decision who exactly that is I don't know but it presents an interesting intra-GOP fight over the way these maps were drawn. Because the census was so delayed in 2020, the state must pass redistricting maps again. And that's because they had to do a special session to pass these maps. Both the Congress and the two state legislative maps, along with

the State Board of Education. And so because it has to be done in the first regular session after the census is released, they have to pass these again. Now they'll probably just pass what they have currently, but with this district, it's something to watch. Do they try and make it more competitive or do they just kind of say it's a wash and live with the fact that it's a D pretty strong district? So we'll see. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, tell us about the results of the Nueces County judge race. Democratic Nueces County Judge Barbara Kanellis was unseated on election day by Republican

Connie Scott, who is a former member of the Texas House. Scott was first elected to the Texas House in 2010, and then later lost her seat to State Representative Abel Herrero, who is a Democrat and still in the legislature today representing the Corpus Christi area. Nueces County voters elected Scott on election day with 56% of the vote compared to Canales, 44% of the vote. Canales will serve only one term as county judge as she was first elected in 2018, defeating a Republican challenger, solidifying New Aces County as a toss-up county that is now Republican-leaning. Scott also outperformed Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who each received 53% of the vote, while Scott received 56% of the

vote. Scott thanked her supporters in a social media post, saying, Today, I send my sincere thanks to all the voters of New Aces County for your vote and your faith in me. My heart is filled with gratitude to many faithful family, friends, neighbors and colleagues who stood with me throughout the race. My blessings are many and I humbly thank God for the opportunity to serve again in our county. End quote. Her opponent, Canales, though she was unseated, Also, she conceded the race and extended her gratitude to those who supported her. She stated that she's proud of all the achievements that we've done and, quote, always going to love this community, end quote. And that was reported by the Corpus Christi Color Times. An amusing note with this election was that her Republican opponent in 2018,

a Corpus Christi council member named Mike Pusley, commented that Canales was the, quote, wicked witch of the West, end quote, after her loss on election day. Obviously, very highly up to debate whether or not that criticism is fair. I am not as familiar with the nuances of New Aces politics, as many of them, many people following this race were. And I'm sure that he has a long history of going to bat against Canales, but he did lose to her in 2018. So I'm sure he was pleased to see another Republican, fellow Republican, defeat her this cycle. An interesting note, Nueces County is rated R51% on the Texans Texas Partisan Index. So Republicans did outperform this cycle

as their results from previous cycles. Thank you so much, Hayden. Matt, let's talk about another Texas, South Texas County. You've all the voters rebuked Democrats with a strong showing for statewide Republicans in both statewide and legislative races. Give me the details. On Election Day, every statewide and district Republican swept Uvalde County, despite widely advertised activism of some in the county supporting Democrats in gun control measures in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting. Notably, among those that won were Governor Greg Abbott, as well as a Republican challenger to Democrat Senator Roland Gutierrez, Mr. Robert Garza. Garza, however, did not win the race overall, but just specifically in that county took the majority of the vote. One Democrat was the

exception to the rule countywide in Uvalde, and that was for the race of Uvalde County Judge, where Democrat Bill Mitchell bested Republican Patrick McGrew. However, in all of the other races that we looked at, State Board of Education, Legislative, and especially all of the statewide Republicans, Republicans carried a roughly 60-40 majority across the board in the county. Wow, fascinating to watch that come down after election day. A lot of eyes were on Uvalde. So fascinating now that we actually have the results to be able to pour over those. Thank you, Matt, for breaking it down for us. We are going to pivot

to our local coverage. And Kim, you're going to lead us off with some Tarrant County news. What was surprising in Tarrant County on election night? Well, you've already mentioned a couple of county judge races. And I think it goes without saying that COVID-19 raised the awareness of many residents' understanding of the power county officials have over their lives. And so the county officials' races in Tarrant County were important. And Republicans will still have the majority on the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court in the upcoming year. Three members of the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court retired this year or chose not to run again. Republican County Judge Glenn Whitley and then two county commissioners.

And so that left a majority of the county commissioner's court retiring and being replaced. So Republican Tim O'Hare won the election for county judge by a comfortable six-point margin, defeating his opponent, Democrat Deborah Peoples. And Republican won the Northwest Quadrant Precinct 4. Manny Ramirez won that. And also the Precinct 2 was won by a Democrat, actually, Alisa Simmons. She replaces a Democrat. So the balance of power will stay the same on the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court. The county also elected a Republican district attorney in Phil Sorrells, who will replace retiring DA Sharon Wilson. Wow. Well, there you go. It's interesting after 2018, last midterm, seeing the results coming in a very different fashion this time. Can you give us some background and context about the nature of these results in Tarrant County? Sure. So Tarrant County is actually the third largest county in Texas, has over 2 million residents, and it's been known as the largest urban red county in the state, and I think possibly in the country, if I'm not mistaken. So it's been at the center of this

question you mentioned earlier, Mackenzie, about whether Texas would be red, turning purple, maybe even blue. And so the question arises, was Tarrant County still red? And I'll give you some context for that. In the prominent race in 2018 between incumbent Senator Ted Cruz and his challenger Democrat Beto O'Rourke, Tarrant County actually voted for O'Rourke by a very small margin. That was the lead race in that election, and Tarrant County voted blue in that race. Then in the 2020 presidential election, Biden actually garnered more votes than Republican President Donald Trump. And so that led people to wonder whether Tarrant County was lost to Republicans. But during this 2022 election, with the lead race being the governor's race between Governor Abbott and his challenger, Beto O'Rourke, once again. Actually, Republicans won by comfortable margins all the way down the ballot. The statewide elections were all won by Republicans in Tarrant County. They contributed to that 11-point margin of victory that Brad talked about earlier for Governor Abbott,

although he did not win by that margin in Tarrant County. He won by closer to around 4%. But unlike Dallas County and Harris County that seemed committedly blue, Tarrant County is red. And the governor's race all the way through the Texas Supreme Court justices and down through local races, state, House representatives, and county officials, Republican candidates won in Tarrant County. And worth noting, just like you were saying, Kim, that although Tarrant County did not pull the same margin for Governor Abbott that was seen on the statewide level, it's still fascinating because in order for Democrats to have any sort of competitive margin against these Republicans in these statewide races, they need to pull big numbers from these urban areas, Harris County, Tarrant County,

Travis County. The margin needs to be huge there because the rural districts, the rural areas are so deeply bred. So turnout, big margins in these urban areas are incredibly important for Democrats. And we just did not see that as much this year as in previous years. Kim, thank you so much for your coverage of that. Hayden, we're going to pivot to Collin County here, another very contentious county and a little bit more suburban, not quite as urban as Tarrant County, but regardless, a very contentious county. A lot of folks have their eyes on. Give us an overview of some of the Texas House seeds in that area. Democrats flipped one Texas House seed, and that was in Collin County and House District 70. The new House District 70 does not bear any geographical resemblance to the old district, or I guess I should say the current district, but the one that is about to be represented by a Democrat, Mihaela Plessa, is completely different. It's located in

a different part of the county. And it was one of only two toss-up districts on our partisan index. But the Democrat, Mihaela Plessa, did take over that district, did win that district by 820 or so ballots, according to the final Texas Secretary of State tally. And it wasn't immediately clear in the election if her opponent, Republican Jamie Jolly, intended to concede or request a recount, which she would likely be entitled to do under state law because of the narrow margin of victory. But then, jolly, on Wednesday afternoon, I put out a statement on social media saying, quote, at the end of the day, the results were not in our favor. I did not run to further divide a community that I love so much. I ran to see if we could build a bigger tent and bring more of us together to move Texas forward. We have some big challenges facing our state, and I pray for those elected to make wise, thoughtful decisions that are best for all Texans. Congratulations to Mahala Plessa, Representative-Elect for the Texas House. I wish you

all the best onward and upward. So Plessa setting aside the possibility of a recount seemingly and congratulating her opponent and conceding. That was the only toss-up district in North Texas, or the only even district in North Texas. And so Plessa will succeed Representative Scott Sanford. And then there were some other races in North Texas that were interesting, but mostly the re-election of incumbents. Representative Jeff Leach, Republican from Plano, was reelected with 59 percent of the vote. So not necessarily a close race or not a close race. But one of the interesting races was Frederick Frazier, who overwhelmingly defeated his Democratic opponent, despite the fact that he is currently under a criminal indictment likely over issues that occurred

during the Republican primary with Paul Shabbat. He was accused, Frazier was accused of sign stealing and impersonation of a public servant. And the criminal indictment he faces is impersonation of a public servant. So always interesting when you have a public official, much like Ken Paxton, with criminal charges, facing criminal charges, and successfully defeats an opponent in an election. Other incumbents, the only two Republicans from Dallas County, Morgan Meyer and Angie Chin Button, I should say the only two state representatives who are Republicans from Dallas County, held their seats by comfortable margins.

Meyer won with 57 percent and Button won with 55 percent. And then over in Farmers Branch, Democrat Julie Johnson defeated her Republican opponent with 58 percent of the vote. Well, there you go, Hayden. Thank you for your coverage of those races. We had very few contentious House races and that one in Tarrant County, excuse me, Collin County was one of the split districts there, the 50-50. So always interesting to watch the results of those come in. Thank you for your coverage there. Bradley, let's talk about Austin. The Austin mayor race is heading to a runoff with a surprising leader in that race. Give us the details. Yeah. So state rep Celia Israel actually placed first in this race. She overcame former state senator Kirk Watson, who had a big cash on hand advantage and a big profile name ID advantage. as the Austin mayor for a couple years at the turn of the century, and he was a state senator for many years. And so a lot of people really expected, thought that a runoff was probably likely, but expected

Watson to place first. But Celia Israel won by five points. Jennifer Verdon finished third. She's a former, she ran for city council in 2020 and narrowly lost uh she placed third with about 18 so it was roughly 40 for israel 35 uh for watson and then 18 for burden and so um that was a surprise now the two will meet in about a month for the runoff election and the winner will, we'll get to deal with the, with all the, all the issues in Austin, all the problems going on here. Um, there are many and, uh, it's been a pretty contentious personal race between the two. They're both jockeying for this position of power and trying to find the edge. But something to note, the runoff election is, the electorate in a runoff is a lot different than in a general.

I looked back at 2014, the last time there was a mayoral runoff, and 100,000 fewer people voted in the runoff and 100,000 fewer people voted in the runoff than did the general election. Let's say that crop of verdant voters goes to the polls again, even though their candidate's not on the ballot,

they will have a pretty big impact on which way this goes. You'll probably see attrition overall throughout everyone that voted for the different candidates but um it is possible that that she can swing it one way or the other i saw an email today said she will try and affect the outcome as best she can we'll see if she'll be able to in the meantime the other two have a month to make their case for why they should you know get to succeed mayor steve adler very good we'll get into more austin details on future

podcasts and the runoff will be an exciting race to watch who knew we were going to be having some fun december election coverage i really kind of thought potentially but at the same time i think some folks expected watson really to run away with it so i'm excited to watch that runoff. I love a good runoff. Real fast before we get into our biggest takeaways from election night, I want to talk about a couple of Harris County stories, just spotlight them from Holly Hansen. Folks, I'm sure a lot of you saw headlines all over about a judge ordering Harris County

polls to remain open for an extra hour after there were some incredible malfunctions and just unorganized efforts in Harris County on election day, including the shortage of paper ballots, insufficient staff, malfunctioning equipment, and missing supplies. And so finally, there was an order that came down from a judge that said, yes, these locations should be open for another hour. It was quite something. I won't get into all the details, and there's a timeline in the article. Certainly make sure and go check it out. But there was a lot of drama, and there was a temporary restraining order. The Attorney General's office intervened. It's quite the story. So make sure to go to the Texan and read all about that from Holly Hansen. And it would not be an election day without some sort of malfunction on Harris

County elections part. So fascinating to watch. Also, another race that I think a lot of folks throughout the state, it's a local race, but a lot of folks throughout the state had their eyes on was the race for Harris County Judge Helena Hidalgo versus Alex DeMille Miller. Fascinating race and one where Hidalgo survived a very contentious re-election bill bid and defeated the Republican challenger by about 15,000 votes. And a lot of folks were paying attention. Mueller raised so much money and often outraised statewide candidates for this particular spot. Crime and public safety were the cornerstones of this race for sure. And afterwards, Haldago, who basically has come under fire for all of those

things and said a lot about other Democrats in the party and said that some Democrats were reticent to support her in this race, said that if they wouldn't do an ad for me, that wouldn't have a fundraiser, wouldn't help at all when it got tough. And she goes, oh, I remember who they are. And she also chided District Attorney Kim Ogg, who's a fellow Democrat, for accusing the county of defunding law enforcement. So some Democrat on Democrat violence in Harris County. It'll be fascinating to watch all of this go down in the next few months and years now that she's actually in office and reelected. So fascinating. Make sure to go read it at the Texan. Okay, folks, let's talk about our biggest surprises from election night. Brad,

let's start with you. What surprised you the most after the returns came in? I think other than the thing I was covering specifically, the races I was covering specifically, the one that I had my eye on the most throughout the night was in SD 27. That's the seat that Eddie Lucio, the only pro-life Democrat in the state Senate, he's retiring. That's his seat. But like I said, he's retiring. And so there's two candidates that were vying for that seat, Democrat Morgan Lamontia and Republican Adam Hinojosa. And as of right now, the margin between the two is like roughly a little bit over 300 votes

in this race uh where each candidate received over 87,000 it is a razor thin margin and uh based on Daniel's ratings for the TPI, it was a D56. But Hinojosa made it a lot closer than that. It was something that Republicans could make competitive, and they clearly did. But coming up just short, it appears.

That, I think, was the most surprising to me, that it is this close. It's in recount territory, but over 300 votes is pretty difficult to sway one way or the other in something that's not a statewide race. We'll see if there's anything to come of that,

but that was as everyone thought that all these congressional races were going to be really close and tight to watch, it was actually the state senate one that was the closest among those South Texas districts. Spicy stuff. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, what about you? What surprised you? It surprised me that the reversal of Roe against Wade did not turn out more Democrats than it did.

Like I said, with the attorney general's race, Garza really emphasized abortion rights. And I thought the reversal of Roe against Wade and the Human Life Protection Act, which does not have exceptions for rape and incest, I thought that would spook more people than it apparently did. If it did, they did not turn out to vote. Or if they did turn out to vote, it was not the issue that they voted speak, were in Democrats' favor on the abortion issue and on the Trump issue. And they had definitely issued plenty of warnings to their base about the consequences of losing Texas again. And I was surprised that the election wasn't closer and that they did not perform better with the public in light of such a monumental Supreme Court precedent being reversed. And what many people view as the basic right of abortion being taken away. I'm surprised that more people didn't turn out to vote for Democrats. I think it was a question of, okay, will the midterm with a Democrat in the White House

bring out more voters? Or will it be the issue of a pro being handed down? Which would bring out more voters? How will it cancel each other out? What will it end up being at the end of the day? And we'll get into national news later. But I think that red wave that a lot of Republicans expected did not happen in the ways or as definitively as they expected. In Texas and Florida, it was very different. But regardless, it was fascinating to watch. Okay, Kim, what about you? What did you see that surprised you on election night? Well, my surprise is a little more nerdy. But shout out to Connie. I got to spend a little time with our CEO, Connie Burton, on election night. She lives in my vicinity.

And I showed this to her. We were sitting there looking at election returns as they started to come in. And I said, the largest vote getter in Tarrant County is a local criminal court judge. Oh, my gosh. It's not the governor of Texas. It's not the candidate for county judge. It was Eric Starnes who is running for a county criminal court. And he got over 10,000 more votes than Governor Abbott did in Tarrant County. And then the next in line, very close to Eric Starnes, was Elizabeth Kerr, who was running for the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth. So I was just kind of like, I don't know, maybe that's normal. But judicial candidates don't get a lot of attention. They

can't campaign in the same ways as a lot of other candidates can. They're restricted by the Judicial Code of Ethics. And so I was just surprised to see so many votes for judicial candidates. That's a fun, I like that takeaway, Kim. That's really fun. Matthew, what about you? What did you see that caught your eye? What did I see that caught my eye? Or what do you think I thought was the biggest surprise? Well, let's do biggest surprise. Biggest surprise. Well, to that, I would just have to say I remain unsurprised. It sounds familiar.

Sounds like a familiar chorus. Consistency is my thing. I love it. I would say I think I think a lot of folks expected Cassie Garcia and Mayra Flores to take home wins, those Republicans in those South Texas congressional districts. Now, I wouldn't say – I thought Cassie Garcia may have performed a little bit better. But at the same time, those districts are very heavily Democrat in a lot of ways, particularly Mayra Flores' district. And so I think that was one thing that I was watching for. I think a lot of folks thought Republicans would

perform maybe like three, four points better on a statewide level than they did on election night. But it is worth noting, folks, that Texas this cycle got more red than it had the previous cycle. So they're in no way was there not support for Republicans in ways that a midterm like this would warrant with a Democrat in the White House. But regardless, I think folks in Texas, particularly Republicans in Texas, expected there to be far more upsets for Republicans in those contentious districts. And so that would be my takeaway. Okay, let's pivot to the national level here for a second. And we very rarely talk about national politics on this

podcast, unless it pertains particularly to our federally elected officials from Texas. But was there anything on the national level of note? Now I see here you're talking about Arizona. I'll be in Arizona this weekend for my sister's wedding and I've been talking with my family about the governor's race and how close it is with Carrie Lake and I believe the Democrat candidate is the Attorney General currently for Arizona. The Secretary of State. Secretary of State. And that race is so close and it seems like people on Twitter think that it's going to go to Carrie Lake. It's kind of interesting. there's two races that have

been in my peripheral vision nationally one is that era arizona governor because it just seems like it's on the verge of flipping and it's just so close and then another one was for a congresswoman lauren bobert in in colorado hers is another one that they're taking several days to finish counting the votes and i literally just saw an update on social media right before we started the podcast where they're saying she was uh she had been behind the democrat by a couple of thousand votes and just minutes ago she was now up by 238 votes um so i i i think what the big takeaway is on a lot of these races from Bo Burt to the governor of Arizona to Senate District 27 and here in our state of Texas is that

your vote matters very much. Absolutely. It's fascinating when those races with thousands and thousands of people all of a sudden are decided by a couple hundred votes. It's unbelievable. Okay, who else wants to go? Brad, what surprised you? Or what on the national level was of note to you particularly? I think I noticed the Ohio election. It stuck out to me just because growing up there shown it's surprising to think that Ohio is more staunchly Republican

than Texas is just based on percentage matters DeWine, the governor there won by he got pulled in like 60% above that and it's just growing up my whole life, you know, I thought we had this perception that Texas was this just Republican bastion, which, you know, Republicans control everything statewide. They control both chambers of legislature. percentages of vote it's just interesting that um especially these you know urban counties that i talked about with beto and his return there they're kind of keeping the the state from becoming

um even more republican than it already is and other states are kind of outpacing that you look at florida too desantis won that by by 20 points, almost double what Abbott's margin of victory was now. Beto was a far bigger candidate than Charlie Crist, who ran against DeSantis there. these shifts as population moves, these shifts of partisanship and everything is going to change at some point, but how long that takes depends on the state. It's just interesting to watch from afar, I think. Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, I know we already talked to hayden no we didn't oh my gosh hayden i want to know i'm almost skipped you because i'm unorganized how rude of me but i

want to know your takeaways national level anything of note i should just tell you i already win and you might believe me i might i might my i'm the names on this docket I'm looking at are spinning in my head. I don't know why. I need more coffee. political landscape. And I'd love to sit down and talk to a voter from Vermont because they overwhelmingly elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate with 69% of the vote. But then for governor, they overwhelmingly reelected their Republican governor with 71% of the vote. And every county in Vermont went for Phil Scott, the Republican governor. And every county in Vermont went for Peter Welch, the US Senate candidate who's currently a member of Congress. And Vermont also used to be the most red of red states. It would always vote for a Republican for president. And then somehow it ended up being the

state that elected a socialist US senator. It's a big gun rights state, but then it also is very environmental. So Vermont is just a wild card politically. And it's very fascinating to watch Vermont on election night. Those are great. I had to put that together. That's fascinating. I'm glad I did not skip you. That was a fun thing to learn. Kim, what about you? What did you see that on a national level that you are paying close attention to? Well, I'm kind of addicted to listening to podcasts. So I listen to four or five daily podcasts every day. And they were all talking about Michigan. A lot were really talking about the governor's race in Michigan and how Dixon had a chance.

Because Whitver was so unpopular. She had the shutdowns. She was very hypocritical about her shutdowns, you know, the whole thing. And she won big time. Whitmer won. And I thought, I wonder what that is. And then I noticed that they had an abortion measure to enshrine the right to abortion in their state constitution. And I wondered about what Hayden was talking about, if that brought out more Democratic voters who might not have been enthusiastic to vote for Whitmer, but went ahead since they were there anyway

to vote for that abortion amendment and push the button for Whitmer. And if that is what caused trouble for Dixon. I don't know, just, just speculation on my part. But I love the post election speculation. Do you know if that abortion measure in Michigan passed or failed? I haven't looked. It passed. Okay. That's interesting, because Michigan was one of the states that also voted for Trump in 2016, but not 2020. So, yeah, it's kind of a swing state.

And so I thought, well, maybe they had Dixon had more of a chance, you know, but then I wondered if that abortion measure was really hurt her. Kim, I'm glad you brought up Michigan and how it turned blue. And I, of course, just talked about how Ohio is quite red. It's really setting up for the clash later this month between Michigan and Ohio State in the annual football game. So politics is mirroring sports right now. I'm not seeing the connection there, but I'm not really a sports person. I'm always glad for you to bring up football, Brad.

Thank you, Kim. I knew you would be the only one that would appreciate this. Matt, Ohio State's one of their colors is red. Michigan's is blue. The more you know. Maybe watch a football game every now and then. I do. Every Thanksgiving, that's my annual football game right there. Oh, okay.

I have no idea what's going on other than whenever they score a touchdown, but I think I'm the only person in Texas that's football illiterate. No, I think Hayden is too. Called out.

If my life depended on my knowledge of football, I would be a dead man. Well, we're glad you're not. That's what we like to hear. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening. Everyone, thank you for joining and talking about the elections and the results. We're so appreciative of y'all taking the time to join me on this podcast. And folks, thanks for listening and checking in with us each week. We will be back next week. I'm sure we'll have more election takeaways. So stay tuned for that. And thanks for reading and listening to us each and every week. We appreciate it. And we will catch you on the next episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen

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