GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, June 22, 2017

[0:00:00 Speaker 6] in the news.

[0:00:08 Speaker 2] Welcome to Week four in the News for Government 3 10 I’m Professor Shaw,

[0:00:12 Speaker 3] Professor McDaniel, and we have with us Dr Josh Blank.

[0:00:16 Speaker 2] We decided that to people just wasn’t getting dust. We had to add 1/3 of reinforcements. That’s right. Josh is actually ah, core member of the Texas Politics Project here at the University of Texas. And what your official title manager of polling and research. That’s right. So as we’re pivoting away from institutions and toward processes, which is kind of where we’re headed, we’re doing institutions, right?

[0:00:38 Speaker 3] Yeah, we’re in Susan’s this part of the

[0:00:39 Speaker 2] process. We kind of we’ve done in different ways over the course of our 10 year here, but we’re gonna move towards public opinion and voting, and we thought it be good to bring Josh in because Josh, along with Jim Henson and myself and some other people, you t r core elements to the University of Texas Government Department Texas Tribune poll on dso were just out of the field with survey. I guess it came out last week, June 11th sealed just right. And the Texas trip poll is ah is ah, survey. That’s conducted online with the help of you. Gove. We’ve been doing it since we can’t even remember with its 2007 or 2008 when we first started doing this. But it’s the most consistent, publicly available poll of the state of Texas, um, three per year occasioning there’ll be 1/4 especially in an election year. And it’s a survey of registered voters started with about 1000 registered voters in the early days and bumped it all the way up to 1200 voters per pole and fills me who were wondering out there, and we explain this in one of the modules later on. But how is it that you can ascertain opinion for an entire state of Texas 14 million registered voters by only interviewing 1000 or 1200? Well, way like to use the soup analogy, which is you don’t need to drink an entire vat of soup in order to gauge the taste, the temperature, etcetera. You simply need a representative sample, a spoonful or ladleful, and that’s kind of what we do with public opinion polling. We dip in there, and as long as we’re getting a representative sampling of the entire population. We can make judgments about how that public thinks about core issues. So we mentioned last week that Texas had, as just concluded, the Legislature concluded its regular session. There now are the in special said Special session begins July 19. So a special session call called by Governor Abbott. But Josh is is more intimately familiar with numbers coming out of the legislative session than probably anybody. And we just want to bring Josh into to enlighten us. So what? What did you see coming out of the poll with respect to the state of Texas that caught your

[0:02:45 Speaker 4] attention? Yeah. I mean, the end of session pulls a lot of fun because they just did a bunch of work at the beginning. You know, you don’t exactly know what they’re gonna do. You know, things that you think they’re definitely going to change drastically, but by the end of the session, have a pretty good picture of what they accomplished. And you get to ask Texas voters what they thought about it on. So, you know, in a couple a couple things really jump out, I guess. I mean, I think if you were paying any attention during the session. You heard a lot of talk about the bathroom bill and especially lieutenant governors, pushed to get a bill passed that would regulate transgender people’s access to bathrooms, lease in public facilities, government facilities, schools and things like that. This is actually really hard to pull on in a lot of ways, part because it’s a really new issue. And so one of the ways we did it would be in a couple different ways was just ask people how important it was. Toe legislate bathroom access is something that you know the Legislature should be spending their time on. And we asked at the beginning of the session and we asked at the end of the session and at the beginning of the session, you know, less than a majority. People thought this was important. You know that we should be doing this and the end of the session it ticked up a little bit, but the thing that was really interesting Waas that it really ticked up amongst the core groups that the lieutenant governor and the Republican majority in the Legislature who wanted this you basically very you know, the concert most conservative elements were trying to seek. So people who identify with the tea party people who, uh, you know, our fundamentalists and their religious views. Those were the people that they were reaching out, you to try to drum up support because the began the session, there wasn’t a lot of interest, but by the end of the session, there’s a lot more. So at the beginning. Tea party Republicans, people identify with the Tea party only 39% thought that this was something the Legislature to be doing by the end of the session. 70% thought this was an important issue for the Legislature to address, and you can see the way that you’ll get into this. I’m sure the way that public opinion gets led a lot by elites and this is a really clear example of that. Did

[0:04:31 Speaker 1] you

[0:04:31 Speaker 2] see any comparable movement on the left? Was it the case that Democrats reacted and also thought it was an important issue or not? Some, you know,

[0:04:39 Speaker 4] less So what part of the thing that sort of defined this issue from the from go has been? The fact that you know Republicans have been very clear on their attitudes. So when we ask, you know whether people you know transgender individuals should use the bathroom that correspond to their gender identity or or their birth gender. Republicans overwhelmingly think birth gender 70% plus Democrats have been a little bit more split. And I think this actually and reflects the national discussion, which is that there aren’t a lot of Democratic politicians going out saying This is what Democrats believe. This is what the liberal view of the issue is. And so Democrats have been a little bit more ambivalent. We say. So you know a little on each side about this. I mean, they’re definitely more liberal. There’s definitely more support for using the bathroom. The correspondent gender identity. There’s less, you know, sort of Democrats. I think it’s important we regulate this and it’s moved a little bit, but it’s still kind of. It’s still not an issue for Democrats in the way that it is. For Republicans,

[0:05:33 Speaker 2] some Republicans, it’s an example, I think, in some ways of what we call a a wedge issue. It’s not a classic wedge issue, but bear with me for sex, for definitional purposes. We talk about wedge issues and politics were generally issues that one party supporters are almost unanimous in favor of right. So in the case of um, let’s just take voter I d. Is another example of a wedge issue where Republicans almost universally think that, Yeah, it’s reasonable to ask people to present a photo identity identification piece when they’re going to vote. A lot of Democrats agree with that also, you know, 50 60%. So it was

[0:06:09 Speaker 4] higher at one point.

[0:06:10 Speaker 2] Yeah, that no, that’s right. In that sense, it is a is a wedge issue where one party’s coalition is in favor and you’re driving a wedge to the other parties coalition. That’s what we mean by a wedge issue. Some people think wedge issues, they’re terrible on their divisive. I actually have a high degree of tolerance for wedge issue, just kind of what politics are about In the state of Texas Republicans, the last couple of cycles at least have really kind of pushed these wedge issues. In fact, you could make an argument that they’ve overplayed their hand on them. In other words, whether it’s, ah, partial birth abortion, whether it’s voter i d, whether it’s the bathrooms, sanctuary cities, these air issues where Republicans were unified. Democrats are divided. But if you push them and frame them and kind of you really go to the mat on them, you condone counter mobilized people on the other side. And we’ve seen that on some issues. Bathroom, the bathroom bill is still kind of evolving, so it’s not clear.

[0:07:08 Speaker 4] Yeah, well, and that’s the thing. I think most people don’t really have fully formed opinions on this issue yet. And so that’s why I mean, in some cases, those are actually the issues where elite opinion is most important, right?

[0:07:17 Speaker 2] So and we’ll talk a lot about this. We talk about public opinion, but you know, Josh and I have both kind of knelt at the altar of John Zoller and Philip converses their political scientists, who really believe that mass opinion is in large part driven by how elites frame issues and how elites present these sorts of issues. So we’re not completely in that camp, but that’s that’s a dominant perspective in political science that mass opinion really reflects the conversation at the elite level. And so if you want to really figure out what where the action is. You look at how the state legislators and national figures were talking about this. Let’s let’s pivot to national politics. And you also have some questions that we ask Texans about about the national situation, issues, stuff like that. What? What, what pops out from that perspective?

[0:08:02 Speaker 4] I

[0:08:03 Speaker 0] mean, maybe maybe

[0:08:04 Speaker 4] two things, you know, one would be, You know, we pulled on attitudes towards the Affordable Care Act’s Obama care and also towards, uh, the American Health Care Act, I guess. The HC HC HC. Right? So that was that was the bill passed by the House earlier this year on that the Senate is now today, I guess, sort of unveiling their version off. Um, and the interesting thing was, you know, a lot of the trend that we saw nationally we also saw in taxes. That’s a lot of what we end up doing. Remind people that Texas is in this totally distinct, unique place. It is distinct and unique, but it still part of America on the absolute self in that context. And so we saw some of the same trends here we’ve seen elsewhere, which is that you attitudes towards the a c A got slightly more positive here. There’s still more negative and positive, you know, which just reflects the partisan distribution of the state and the partisan distribution of attitudes towards the A C A. But a CIA attitudes got more favorable, you know, in recent time. And that’s mostly driven by Democrats and liberals and sort of more Democrats kind of realizing that this is going toe be changed or repealed or whatever saying, You know, actually, we do like this public still overwhelmingly dislike it. Having said that, nobody likes the HC A. So what? The weather with Republicans passed in the House earlier this year and was roundly criticized and had the CBO scores that said that, you know, 20 plus 1,000,000 people will lose health insurance and people reacted to that as you’d expect them to. That’s also true in Texas. It’s not as though Republicans are sort of falling in line behind the party proposal in saying, Yeah, this is good for us where we like it. The other thing I think is interesting is we did some early polling on the Senate race here. We didn’t do it a trial ballot cause it’s really early. That’s where we would say, You know, who would you vote for in this election between Ted Cruz and Beto O. Rourke? Assuming they’re the nominees, which they most likely will be on? What we found was we did, ah, sort name identification to favor on faith. You have a favorable positive or negative opinion, basically, of these two people. And Ted Cruz is an interesting story, but I’ll talk more about better roar, which is there’s a lot of national interest in Better O. Rourke. When you look at its favorability numbers in Texas and other people have feelings. Sorts of over 70% of Texans have no idea who this guy is. Is the most important thing to understand about where this race stands

[0:10:07 Speaker 2] and he’s a congressman. It’s not.

[0:10:09 Speaker 0] He’s a

[0:10:09 Speaker 2] congressman. Don’t actually hold any statewide offices. They don’t have any. So, yeah, he’s just right, Right Democrats. So he’s a congressman, and then we have a lot of districts here, So,

[0:10:19 Speaker 4] yeah, he’s way out in El Paso. I mean, you know, he’s not even sort of in one of the bigger Texas cities, and so it’s interesting is that you can look at his numbers and compare them to Wendy Davis at the same time period when she was coming off of her big abortion filibuster. And maybe, you know, millions of people watched that filibuster. The president tweeted about it. About the same share of people knew who she was at that point in time. So you could say, actually argue that he’s actually doing kind of well, in some ways, I mean the main difference for him and that someone who kind of watches this stuff is nosing how much attention he’s getting there being any fair articles being written amount, There’s near times articles been run about better Rourke in Texas, and part of that is just people fomenting at the idea of Texas. Turning Blue is a constant thing here, but also it is the only group where Beto looks significantly different. For Wendy Davis is with self identified liberals. Where is Wendy Davis? Basically still 70% of liberals and know who she was, and maybe 20% have a positive opinion for with the Rourke. He’s about 45% of self identified Texas liberals have a positive opinion of it. I think that’s what’s driving a lot of this sort of early excitement and coverage because amongst a certain subset of Democrats, they’re very excited. But it’s a it’s a small sliver of the Texas electorate,

[0:11:29 Speaker 2] so moving forward, I mean, we’re talking about Wendy Davis is it was the Democratic nominee. Teoh run against Greg Abbott in 2014. Better work is a congressman from El Paso, and he’s the front runner and pretty much the If. If I were to declare, I would be the number two at this point. So yes, but there is. There’s always a lot of excitement. Cruz took on a lot of water, I think, over the course of his presidential campaign, Is he vulnerable?

[0:11:58 Speaker 4] No. I mean, you know, he is an extremely popular Texas politician. Before he ran for president, he ran for president. That’s necessarily complicated. You’re making your distinguishing yourself amongst other Republicans. You know, there was the fallout of how he handled the aftermath of that race, Uh, and that drove down his numbers a little bit among Republicans, but they’ve mostly recovered. His numbers look a little worse overall, but that’s because a lot of Democrats who had no idea who he Waas found out he wasn’t found out, that they probably don’t agree with him on almost every issue, right? But the fact is, the vast, vast majority you know, 80 plus percent of Republicans have a positive view of Ted Cruz. As of right now, Republicans make up a majority of the voting electorate. So you know, and you would say, there’s that On the one hand, you know, Beto and the Liberals. On the other hand, you know, I placed my bet on you know, the party that’s won every statewide race for 20 years.

[0:12:48 Speaker 2] And that, of course, is a profound difference of, you know, the movement Texas into the Republican column and it’s emergencies. Maybe the preeminent red state is very unusual. Historically, Texas was, ah, bulwark of the solid South, the Democratic South for years and years after the Civil War, and that began to change in the late sixties and into the seventies and then really changed locally at the state legislative level in the 19 nineties. Such that is, since his just mentioned, you know, we haven’t had a Democrat elected to statewide office since 1994 1994. I believe he still had book. I think

[0:13:28 Speaker 4] it’s 94. That’s what it waas think. You’re Bush.

[0:13:31 Speaker 2] Yeah, it was the last governor was Ann Richards, and then Bush came along and eso, you know, Democrats were still eyeing it. And, you know, we may be turning Texas blue, but it’s a slow process, a

[0:13:41 Speaker 3] slow process. Yeah, I think one of things that’s important note is one thing that Dr Blanke mentioning is the voting elect. Is the people Rex voting? And so everybody keeps. Argument will know. If you look at the population of Texas, you know the Democratic Party should be very successful. The problem is, is that between the population and the voting population and so many of these individuals which people saying could help the Democratic Party in Texas, they are not turning out to vote. And so it’s very important to be aware of not just who this isn’t czar, who are the voting citizens because the voting citizens are really the ones their most important on. So I think this is a next, really important point to make, and it also kind of points to maybe some problems with the Democratic Party within the state So if you look at kind of, you know what happened with with Wendy Davis’s case? If you think of you know, nobody elected to statewide office for the past 20 years, it could be a sign that the Democratic Party had a bit of disarray and that it needs Teoh reorganize itself along multiple lines. I just within the Legislature, but also amongst the electorate.

[0:14:48 Speaker 4] Yeah, I mean, the Democratic Party here is an interesting thing. I mean, you know, I certainly have no problems saying that the Democratic Party here is in disarray or is ineffective or time of the party organization, right? But the other thing is, is that you know, attitudinally, the Democrat Party in Texas is just a lot more hetero genius in the Republican Party. I mean, in the wake of Trump’s election, everybody was focusing on college educated and non college educated voters and amongst Republicans. When you look across all the issues that we pull in this poll in the previous polls and you look at college educated Republicans and non college educated Republicans, their attitudes are basically indistinguishable. But among Democrats they’re significantly different, and especially there’s two reasons for that I mean, there’s to the description of it. There’s a reason for it. If you look among Democrats, non college, mitigated Democrats or just more conservative and also Democrats attacks, they’re generally just more conservative, and Democrats nationally but also college educated Democrats are overwhelmingly female also, and so like that in of itself, within the coalition makes really difficult. But then there’s this idea of someone like, you know, the better work brings at this point. You know? How did the Democrats mobilize minority voters who are less likely to vote? Galvanized liberals who you know are definitely gonna vote, but then also appeal to non college educated Democrats who tend to be more conservative in the state. And it’s just, you know, as much as we can kind of complain, you know, people can complain about the weakness of the Democrat Party. It’s also just a hard coalition toe to mobilize. And Wendy Davis found that I mean, that’s part of you know, some of her trip difficulties,

[0:16:14 Speaker 2] a couple things just to point out before we leave this topic first, Professor McDaniel pointed out, If you look at the demographics of the state of the state of Texas were pushing close to 40% Hispanic at this point in terms of population, they were the

[0:16:26 Speaker 4] height. I think it’s 40. It is 39.

[0:16:29 Speaker 2] Yeah, very. If you look at the registered voter population, we’re talking about 27 28%. If you talk about the electorate, it’s 17 or 18% Hispanic. And so what happens and be careful of this. When you look at polls of the state of the tech of the state of Texas, if it’s a poll of adults, you’re gonna be shocked. You’re going to say, Oh my gosh, there’s support for all these liberal policies and it looks like it should be very competitive state. Well, the adult population, the parties, you know, the party structures fairly. Even when you start talking about registered voters, minority is majority minority. And then when you when you move it to registered voters, it becomes more Republican. When you look at actual voters, it becomes decidedly Republican, and we also want to raise a distinction within the racial ethnic minority groups with respect African Americans. Registration rates and voting rates are essentially on par with the proportion the population. In other words, we’re talking about, you know, of population that is now shrunk down to, I think, about 9% African American, the state of Texas.

[0:17:29 Speaker 4] Actually, it’s actually at 11

[0:17:30 Speaker 2] point about 11%. But that’s true with respect to the population, the RV or registered voter population and the likely electric. One of the things you guys, you know, with all the talk about voter suppression, which is a separate issue when it comes to turn out African American turnout is on par with whites. In fact, if you control for socioeconomic status, blacks actually out participate whites. And that’s been true for a while now. It’s not just in Obama function, Okay, Latinos. Hispanics were much less well incorporated into the party system. There are lots of, you know, Latinos who are not registered to vote and lots of register Latinos who don’t vote. And I think you know when we’re fresh from down Professor Blank talk about you know, Latinos and the Democratic Party not being able to connect as much of them. It’s true that you know, about 65 35 Latinos identify as Democrats, but their attitudes towards the party or much sort of ambivalent they’re just not that fired up. Their turnout rates are lower. And so we talk about turning Texas blue for waking, awakening this sleeping giant, which is the metaphor wheels here. But the Latino population. It’s not clear that the current constellation of issues or things they talk about is all that effective. And I think that’s one of the big questions moving forward, you know?

[0:18:43 Speaker 3] Yeah, I think one of things people pointed out when it comes to why black turnout is so high is because you condone, like, pinpoint, specific court cases things that things that nature when it comes to the Latino vote. It’s been a bit more mixed in the state, you know, they were allowed to, they weren’t allowed to do it. Uh, then also won. The key things is, what of the institutions? And that’s been one the key things that I don’t really think it’s been fully addressed, like, what are the institutions you need to do you need? You need to get in contact with in order, get these groups mobilized and out on out to vote. And so we know, um, certain institutions to get Republicans out, we know certainly especially white religious conservatives to get them out to vote. But what institutions do need to work with in order to increase Latino turnout?

[0:19:26 Speaker 2] Okay. Yeah. Let’s, uh we’re gonna come back. Teoh some polling things, but we’re gonna actually move to the national level right now and I want to queue up a An interesting thing that Chris McDaniel I saw this week Frank Lunts. Who is this Republican pollster? It is more focus groups and polling these days, but

[0:19:42 Speaker 0] I actually think

[0:19:43 Speaker 2] it is a pretty good job running these these focus groups. And he did a like 1/2 hour an hour show that aired on CBS talking to self identified Trump voters and plumbing. What their feelings are they still with Trump? Why are they still with Trump? So we got about six minutes segment that talks about this and then we’ll come back and kind of you kicked up to some of things we’ve seen in the Texas poll in national politics so we could roll that focus group from last week.

[0:20:10 Speaker 5] President Trump says the investigation into Russia’s influence in the 2016 election is not interfering with his agenda. Mr. Trump tweeted yesterday quote The Make America great again agenda is doing very well. Despite the distraction of the witch hunt, Republican strategist and CBS News contributor Frankland spoke with Trump supporters about what they think of the president’s performance. The group had 13 men and seven women, ranging in age from 20 to 63. All of them voted for Mr Trump in November. Their opinions of the president ranged from somewhat unfavorable to extremely favorable.

[0:20:46 Speaker 0] Did the Russians intervene in this election?

[0:20:48 Speaker 6] They didn’t get into the voting machines and change votes. It wouldn’t have made any difference one way or the other. Now, did they try to hack the election? We found out from the leader that woman that yes, they did, but they weren’t successful.

[0:20:59 Speaker 0] Should we be investigating this?

[0:21:01 Speaker 6] Yeah, but not for the purpose have been investigated.

[0:21:04 Speaker 0] So you think we’re done? There’s nothing more to learn.

[0:21:06 Speaker 6] Why not learn more? But don’t do it for the purpose of overturning an election, do it for the purpose of learning how we can put walls up how we can keep.

[0:21:17 Speaker 0] Isn’t that what’s happening now?

[0:21:19 Speaker 6] If the Russians affected the election, then that means they change the minds of the American people, and that’s not what happened.

[0:21:27 Speaker 0] The whole purpose of this is to have an investigation to see if their specifics do you want to shut that investigation down? Yeah,

[0:21:34 Speaker 6] because it’s a giant huge waste of time if if there’s an investigation into this whole Russian thing that it needs to be on well, they physically went into our machines, hacked her machines, this whole hacking thing, and actually change the election results. People read fake stuff on Facebook, Twitter, instagram all day. Anybody can put that up, I could put it up. You could put it up.

[0:21:58 Speaker 0] Okay, So he’s had, would now in the middle of June, I want you to give me one word or phrase to describe Donald Trump. Now that we have some idea of who he is, give me a word or phrase to describe Donald Trump.

[0:22:11 Speaker 1] I’d say honest,

[0:22:12 Speaker 6] determined, effective. True, strong, productive, tough S o. B. Very authentic.

[0:22:20 Speaker 0] How many of you in this room loved the tweeting? You think it’s really appropriate for a president to do that?

[0:22:25 Speaker 6] It could be better. Better? He needs to tone down the language a little bit, but the bottom line is it’s his way to get the message out. I would argue that Donald Trump shouldn’t tone it down this brash brain that he has what got him elected.

[0:22:39 Speaker 1] You know my things. I’m so tired of people beaten on down the trump. Donald Trump made this problem since he kept them, and that’s top of new leadership that we need.

[0:22:46 Speaker 0] And what has he accomplished?

[0:22:48 Speaker 1] What is he accomplished? He’s Dunmore in the last 100 days and President Obama done in the last eight years,

[0:22:54 Speaker 0] such as

[0:22:55 Speaker 1] such as keeping his promises.

[0:22:56 Speaker 0] I want to know what promises he kept.

[0:22:59 Speaker 1] One thing, one promise. I can say that he did keep. Is he elected a conservative to the Supreme Court? And you know what? That’s the best promises that promise that he’s kept so far

[0:23:08 Speaker 0] by this point. George W. Bush already had his tax cut done,

[0:23:12 Speaker 6] Wait, don’t know much help from Congress. He is not getting Republican Congress talks about Drain the swamp. And I think what we’re finding real quick in the 1st 100 days is the swamp is not just the Democrats. There’s more fighting among the Republicans, and there is between the Republicans and Democrats on his agenda. And if they don’t get it figured out, 2018 is gonna be ugly for the Republicans

[0:23:33 Speaker 0] who thinks he’s gonna be president for eight years. Raise your hands. Let’s say he doesn’t get health care. Let’s say he doesn’t get tax reform. Let’s say he doesn’t get the investment in infrastructure. Those air. Three key commitments that he made. Who here would consider not voting for him in that situation? Raise your hands. So you’re voting for him, no matter what, No matter what, No matter what he does. I’m Donald Trump. What would you tell me?

[0:24:01 Speaker 6] Stay focused on the big picture issues and get that legislative agenda passed through on the economy. And things will get a lot better. Stay true to the promises that you gave us. Listen to your cabinet and Democrats aren’t your enemies. Remember what got you to the office. Remember the people, the promises were results or and we have to be in this critical stage of our country.

[0:24:25 Speaker 5] Franklin says here now. Frank, good to see you. Thank you. We talked about this during the campaign. What you’re hearing now in that peace is not that much different than what we heard during the campaign’s

[0:24:33 Speaker 8] not different at all. It’s just more passionate than the divisions are just so much deeper. The trump voters. What surprised me the most about that segment is when we showed Trump pushing aside the European leaders at that meeting and they applauded him. They loved it because to them it was the White House. It was the present asserting his rightful role as leader of the free world. And I’m thinking, Oh my God, this is one of the most embarrassing moments. They don’t see it that way.

[0:25:01 Speaker 5] The push besides the handshakes, all of that. They love it,

[0:25:03 Speaker 8] They love it and they want him to keep doing it. Are

[0:25:05 Speaker 5] we talking about simply the hard core? And I mean that in the best sense of the word people who voted for him. Are we talking just about them? But also those Democrats who came to vote for Donald Trump and put him over the top in 2000

[0:25:18 Speaker 8] 16? His basis significant? It is small but significant, and it isn’t weakening those who are independent

[0:25:26 Speaker 5] enough. And is it all of what elected him?

[0:25:28 Speaker 8] No, it’s not enough. You cannot govern successfully at 38% your goal is to be a 50.1. This is the first president I know in modern history that accepts 40% as the centre place. That’s the challenge for him and getting tax reform. It’s a challenge for health. Here is a challenge for infrastructure. That said, the people who voted for him are still behind him, and you can see that emotional They’re not. Behind the Republican Party, though, there was sharp criticism of what’s happening in Congress. What are the implications for 2018? We’re gonna be showing this tonight at nine o’clock and Paul Ryan better tune in because it is the most significant condemnation of the speaker since what I heard Trump voters saying about John Boehner about two years ago. They think Congress is holding up the agenda. They think Congress is part of the swamp, and they blame the Republicans as well as the Democrats, to

[0:26:15 Speaker 5] where we’re going to show this at nine

[0:26:16 Speaker 8] at nine o’clock on CBS n Now I feel like a pitchman.

[0:26:20 Speaker 5] No, I won t o

[0:26:22 Speaker 8] 9 p.m. One hour of this. Franklin’s thanks as always, great to see.

[0:26:28 Speaker 2] Okay, there you go. That’s Frank Lantz. Focus groups talking with Trump voters. You know, Dr Blank, What do we see in Texas is we see anything like what you’re seeing there in the focus groups nationally.

[0:26:40 Speaker 4] Yeah, I think we’re seeing something pretty similar in those national numbers. I think he was a 39 55 in terms of his job. Girls that’s approved disapproved. And here in Texas, he’s it. A 43% approve, 50% disapproving again, That’s, you know that’s everybody. But the key here is a huge, huge partisan division. So 80% of Texas Republicans approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing. 90% of Texas Democrats disapprove of the job he’s doing. We see this across a range of questions we asked about about him. We know whether he’s honest, whether you know he’s got the temperament for the job. Whether he’s confidence, we ask all these questions. And generally speaking, this is the sort of the structure of opinion. There’s, you know, vast majority of Texas Republicans. I think he’s doing a fine job and kind of, you know, agree with the approach. So now the question isn’t it can turn this back to you in some ways, you know, it’s you know, how much of this is. You know, how do you take these sorts of opinions? I mean, how much of this is given of the range of I kind of what I think. But you know, I’ll student now you got got

[0:27:42 Speaker 2] Well, I think, you know, look, a lot of what we’re seeing talking about this from political science. Point of view is what we call confirmation bias. And that is, people kind of have an evaluation. They’re prone to really like people on their side of the game, and they view events, the selectively view events and then to the extent that they take in new information, they filter it through, um, sort of mental processes that make it fit with their preexisting notions of what’s going on out there. And so, you know, if I see, try, if I’m a Republican and a Trump supporter and I see Trump kind of muscling aside European leaders and getting to the front, well, that’s showing leadership. It’s it’s not being rude. It’s not being insensitive to people that we really need to make things work. He’s. And if I’m a Democrat and I don’t like Trump, I’m just a gas that no presidents ever done this and this is awful. And I think one of the things that sort of interesting in Texas is that Trump underachieved. In 2016 he won the State comfortably but comfortable in Texas 11 point margin. That’s half of what really dominant Republicans do in Texas. And so I think it’s interesting that some of the Texas data suggest that this kind of tribalism is actually reasserting itself. You know, I don’t know that Trump’s ever gonna be a figure like George W. Bush or even repairing in Texas. But you know, he’s actually moving more in that direction, despite all these controversies and scandals that have plagued the early days of the administration.

[0:29:11 Speaker 3] But I think it goes back to some supper talking about populism last week, where populism is really about dividing, you know, the pure people versus the corrupt elites, and you clearly see this coming out of the argument about Congress. Congress thes over corrupted leads on. You know, we’re the pure people. We’re not. We’re not being listened to on So the attack on Boehner of the attack on Paul Ryan is thes are that this is the leadership of the of the corrupt elite? I also think what’s what’s important here is again. If he’s not doing that well in Texas again, you should expect to lose meaning. No election probably shouldn’t expect in tow losing texts. But might this reverberate to meet something for the Republican Party in Texas? So if you think about how the the Democrats lost control of the state, it really started with national politics, where you see in the 19 thirties and forties the Democratic National of the State Party actually endorsing the Republican president. So they endorsed Eisenhower. They took stance against against Truman and Roosevelt. And so, you know, might you see this going on where you know the unpopular, the unpopularity of Trump. Actually, invigorate may create some some division within the Republican Party and may help the Democratic Party. I doubt it, but major

[0:30:28 Speaker 4] difference there, right is that you know the the action. Texas politics has always been in that sort of center right category. When that center right was part of the Democratic Party and the National party became much more liberal. That’s when they bolted right, you hear? The thing is, the Texas is removing in this more purely conservative direction kind of election cycle after election cycle, and you kind of look back and sort of, you know, replacing you know, Kay Bailey Hutchinson with a Ted Cruz replacing Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst with the Dan Patrick. I mean, there’s been a much more of a push towards really pure conservative leadership, and I think that’s sort of why a lot of ways he wasn’t Trump wasn’t a strong here as we were pulling kind of running up to the election. I mean, the the people who are the people who you expect to support him, who were a little bit reluctant where the U. S. Or the extreme conservatives people identify with the tea party. But they’ve come back, you know, fully and that Is that the tribalism piece?

[0:31:21 Speaker 2] Yeah, I want to mention one thing before we move on, and that is Ah, a couple of special elections. Ah, number of elections this last week were held to replace people who had taken positions in the Trump administration or in the Trump bureaucracy to in particular in South Carolina. Republican maintains the hold on a fairly Republican district of the one. We’re really interested, though, and was this race in Georgia? Six. Now, for those of you who are kind of new to this, their only tangentially pay attention to politics. Not many of those of you out there, but Georgia’s six is sort of famous district. It’s in suburban Atlanta, kind of the the affluent suburban Atlanta in the North part Buckhead. Simmons. Other places.

[0:31:59 Speaker 3] Move the Braves, new stadiums,

[0:32:01 Speaker 2] right? And actually kind of pushing towards. That was my son’s at Georgia Tech, and I visited some of these places as we’re kind of going to the Georgia History Museum. Stuff some money out there. Look, it looks like you know, the Masters basically right. And this is Ah, district that was formerly held by a Newt Gingrich speaker, former Speaker Gingrich in the 19 eighties and then was vacated by another Republican price, who’s now at HHS and the Health and Human Services. So it’s been, and it’s it is. Although it’s gotten mawr competitive, it’s still ah plus 10 Republican type district. But Trump did not run very strongly in the district and a gentleman named Joseph, who is about a 30 year old guy, sort of the attractive Democratic candidate almost won the initial special election with the way it works in George’s. Everybody is sort of in the race and the top Republican and Democrat advance unless you and 50% Aasif almost 1 50% in the preliminary election. But he didn’t

[0:33:01 Speaker 3] like well said it was 76 17 candidates like more than a dozen Candice Oh, yeah,

[0:33:08 Speaker 2] right. And so that meant because there was no majority winner in the first round. It goes to a runoff in the Runoff was between Karen Handel and this guy also handled the Republican awesome. The Democrat, I believe, and check me on this. I think also this is probably both round spent $23 million

[0:33:27 Speaker 4] Think the total was like 50 million and he had spent more. I mean,

[0:33:31 Speaker 5] on all my all money spent

[0:33:33 Speaker 2] the most expensive house race in American history. There

[0:33:37 Speaker 3] are multiple steps to it. That’s when the most more important things this one, it’s a one shot thing,

[0:33:43 Speaker 2] not simply candidate money, but all these. All these affiliated groups had poured money into the race, including the Republican National and the Democrat National Park Party committees and handle ends up the Republican ends up carrying the seat by about four points, slightly over performed her performance. The polls basically showed a dead heat may be trending a little towards handle at the end. But it’s another case in which, you know, with the Montana special election with South Carolina special election that you know, how do you make it? It’s on the one hand. Republicans should be winning these seats big, and they’re not. On the other hand, they’re not losing

[0:34:23 Speaker 4] your having. And your reaction is actually pretty atypical because most people come out from the other side, which is to say, Oh, you know, basically all of the liberal commentary is a big stir. People pulling their hair out and, you know, setting things on fire, saying, Oh my God, we’re not winning these seats. How is this not happening? But it’s also, you know, this whole thing is kind of, you know, there’s this on a media desire to read into these special elections as somehow telling us something really about what’s going to happen, You know, in the midterm elections or in the next presidential election cycle. And there’s nothing normal. About $50 million special election House race in superb Georgia. It’s just it’s just there’s nothing about that. And most of it is, you know, people looking for something to write about and trying to draw out some sort of broad conclusions. And all in all, the smart I mean, I think the only thing you can read that smart about this a bit to say, you know, here the races that you know Democrats won before the 2010 midterm and these special elections that came up before that one. And then they lost the house or here in the elections that Republicans want, you know, basically one in the wake, Uh, you know, basically after 2000 for and then they lost the house in 2006. And it’s not to say that that’s what’s gonna happen. The point is, just say they’re just not predictive of anything.

[0:35:35 Speaker 3] I mean, we’re getting more and more attention. So you think the Kentucky race, in which Mitch McConnell and they spent will close the $1,000,000,000 because the $1,000,000,000 were spent on this in the 2014 2014 cycle. So it’s you can call this a referendum on this is me. But I think, as you pointed out, it’s okay. You normally it’s normally a safe seat, meaning you went by more than you know by five points and more now said it’s your only winning by three points. So it’s no longer safe seat, which means that you’re may actually change your behavior once you get into Congress on I mean, there is evidence that, you know, if it’s if you that the unless you win your election via them or you put into constituency service them or you’re gonna do certain things, try to make sure people are with you. So it may change behavior and a bit so mean. Yes, your party didn’t win, but it may change the behavior. The person who was elected

[0:36:28 Speaker 2] We got just a couple minutes left. We tried it. Keep the 16 30 40 minutes, and so we want to move on to two Supreme Court cases. One is simply a case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, and that’s that’s sort of my pick for the week. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a redistricting case for the state of Wisconsin and its consequential because, as we’ve talked about or we’ll talk about some of the modules that you guys will take a look at in the next we release sort of the third set of modules. Redistricting matters. Redistricting refers to the way in which they draw the lines within a state for representation purposes. So you know which which geographic areas are put together to form District’s. And what’s happened over the course of less 50 60 years in American politics is that there are increasingly fewer competitive districts. Part of that is a function the way people live, but not all of it. A decent proportion of that is, you know, simply, the legislatures draw lines to make incumbents safe, and what they particularly want to do is maximize the party advantage, right? So in the case of Wisconsin, Republicans are in charge of the Legislature, the legislatures draw the lines. The majority party dominates that process. And after 2010 census, the Wisconsin legislature drew the lines in a way that maximize the number of Republicans they thought they could get elected um, you might say, Well, that sounds terrible. Wow, sounds terrible. But the Supreme Court has traditionally not gotten involved in these political redistricting cases. No distinguish, er, racial redistricting cases of racial Gerry Manders, where you are marginalizing a group or trying to cram members of a group into a small set of districts. That’s something the court has been willing to hear, but they have tend to view political or partisan gerrymandering as a political question. That’s something that the court doesn’t really want to touch. Now they’re gonna touch it now. They have had some cases in the past. Baker v. Carr, Bannon Myer vs Indiana, where they’ve ruled on political Gerry Manders. But this will be an interesting case. It’s it seems like the court, and the key vote here is the Kennedy vote. Kennedy is the swing vote in the court, Anthony Kennedy, and he has expressed an openness to reviewing these political Jerry Mander cases. And so you’ve got the conservatives tend to be at, but the legislatures decide. The liberals tend to be more likely to say, Hey, you know, this is wrong. You know we shouldn’t do this. It’s Kennedy seems to hold the balance, so watch him. This will be a case in the next session. You wanted to talk for us from Danwon. Talk about Supreme Court decisions and that’s just taking a case of actually decided on trademarks.

[0:39:08 Speaker 3] Yes. So this recent decision came down and metallic verses top tam and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously. So Aito again. Justice, Gorsuch said, recused himself because he did not actually hear it. The world would never stop. I wouldn’t here before. But you know, I would just photoshopped myself. We ruled 80 but they have. But you really had a Zeta decision in favor of the plaintiff. And so the case was about whether or not you could be denied a trademark because the trademark was offensive. And so we think. And so it was based on a group in Asian rock band. They call themselves the Slants. They wanted trademark the name they were told. No, you can’t trade this because this is offensive. This doesn’t mean that they can’t still go by the name, but it’s whether not the government will protect the rights to the name. So it’s really a property rights argument, and this is also important for understanding another important issue regarding kind of offensive names with the Redskins and so accorded ruled that got rid of some of the Redskins trademarks and not all of them. But some of the trademarks said this is an offensive name. The government would not protect offensive names against property rights issue now, while they did rule in favor off the group. You dig it kind of you get, you got to decisions coming out of this. And so you had one decision that was written by just the just the Lido and joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas and Justice Bryer. And then you had the other one written by Justice Kennedy with Justice Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kegan. So you kind of had the conservatives over here, the the Liberals, And so they came to kind of two different decisions, became the said No, you should allow this name to go through. But the logic for different reasons, which presents some interesting issues. Furthermore, it is also put for like, to what degree can the government control certain types of commercial speech not misleading? Yes, they can control that. But it was an offensive offensive name things like that. It’s not really clear how that’s how that’s gonna work out. And so it it has expanded freedom of speech, specifically regards to commercial speech on the idea that the government is now obligated to protect the rights of a name or trademark, even if the neighbor trademark is deemed as offensive.

[0:41:36 Speaker 2] It’s good stuff. So it’s, um you know, it’s the end of the session as we’ve talked about in the the Lecture on the Supreme Court. The court session runs from October all the way through June, and now you’re getting these decisions actually at the tail end. So stuff that they heard in October, November, December into January, you know, they kind of fold up their tents and then go on the right opinions. They take boats and write opinions, and they’re releasing these opinions right now. Gorsuch was only in the mix at the very end and probably only waited on a couple of cases.

[0:42:04 Speaker 3] But writing opinion from one of the unanimous decisions that he said get his

[0:42:08 Speaker 2] feet with, Let it let it get it bat late in the season. So all right, so that’s all we’ve got for this week. We like to thank our very special guest, Josh Blank, for helping us out with public opinion in Texas and beyond and a housekeeping matters. We need to take care. I think we’re good.

[0:42:21 Speaker 3] Don’t think we’re right,

[0:42:22 Speaker 2] all right, so come see us during office hours and we’ll see you next week.

[0:42:34 Speaker 9] Government 3 10 and The news podcast is hosted by doctors Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel and is produced by the liberal Arts TS Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin