August 29th, 2024 – Texas Republicans go back to the well with moves on the border, immigration, and “election integrity” 

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the Second Reading Podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is, these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm.

At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized? over the male colleagues in the room.

[00:00:33] Jim: And welcome back to the Second Reading Podcast. I’m Jim Henson, Director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Joined today by Josh Blank, Research Director of SAME Texas Politics Project.

Top of the morning, Josh.

[00:00:47] Josh: Top of the morning to you. Happy back to school time for everybody.

[00:00:50] Jim: First week back to school here at the University of Texas at Austin. Kids are back. Faculties backits, IOIFs,

[00:00:57] Josh: life on campus.

[00:00:58] Jim: Yeah, you know, I, is a lot of, you know, happens, you know, rediscover this every year. A lot of folks, A lot of

[00:01:05] Josh: people here.

Yeah.

[00:01:06] Jim: Books around city. Just got a little more crowded. So, so today, um. Um, you know, as we were talking about this week’s podcast that occurred to us, you know, the last few weeks have seen you know, the, the, the resurfacing, shall we say, have of familiar themes and familiar actions by the state’s Republican leadership, you know, in very familiar policy areas.

Um, um, I thought what we would focus on is immigration and border security on one hand, voting elections on the other. And, you know, as always, we want to, you know, look at some of the public opinion touchstones, of course, uh, but also kind of look at the, you know, the, the, the renewed prominence of these issues.

in the wider context of, you know, what’s going on in the state, national politics and, and also the wider context of the democratic responses to these issues and how they, you know, how they fit into some of the themes you’ve been talking about, um, you know, the nature of, of, And so, you know, we’re going to be talking a little bit about the history of, you know, the political agenda politics in Texas, if you will.

And, you know, this ever present question that, you know, we’ve been kicking around in different ways, but it’s kind of come up a bit in the last few weeks of, you know, the balance between, you know, what we mean when we say politics are nationalized in the state and and the nature and, and to some extent, the limits of that, I think, but it’s, you know, untangling some of that is, is, is fun and kind of interesting.

And I, and I think helpful for understanding what’s going on. So, you know, let’s jump in it. Like, so a lot of stories in the, in the last. You know, really couple of weeks, but it’s been going on for a few weeks now, I guess In terms of a kind of renewed attention to immigration and border security now look Anybody out there listening is not never far from the surface certainly been percolating in, you know, the national presidential campaign, but you know, I mean, I think a combination of a couple of things I mean, I think the conclusion of the primaries in texas and you know You In those primaries, border security played a huge role, particularly on the Republican side.

Um, With the, you know, with the conclusion of those primaries, there’s been a certain amount of a breather on this. But, also, I think probably more importantly, the situation on the ground is that the, Traffic at the border has slowed considerably, you know, to the point where, you know, it’s been so slow that Texas hasn’t been sending, but you know, hasn’t been paying for bus transportation for, I think, a couple of months now and, you know, I think there’s a virtual agreement that the traffic is down.

Um, we’re going to talk a little bit about some later and some things, some comments that Governor Abbott’s had to say about the situation, had to make, has made about the situation this week. Um, you know, I mean, there are different ways to spin that from the perspective of Texas and that, you know, You know, and the argument that’s, you know, just to cut to the chase that, you know, the state is promoting and the governor’s promoting is that, you know, because Texas has been so effective at fortifying the border and distance disincentivizing migrants that they’re now.

Finding other ways, mostly, you know, the Arizona and, you know, the other states that have border, mainly Arizona and California.

[00:04:30] Josh: And as a, and yet no mission accomplished banner up here.

[00:04:34] Jim: Right. Um, you know, I mean, and, and we’ll get to this when we talk about Abbott’s comments. I mean, you know, there’s a, there’s a balance to be made there that is an acknowledgement that traffic is down and trying to take credit, but also, uh, an expectation, which I think is reasonable that this is probably not a permanent state.

Yeah. You know, based on what we know about the history of border migration, it’s both, it’s cyclical season, you know, seasonality is part of that, but there’s a lot of things that go into this economy, et cetera. So, um,

[00:05:06] Josh: And there’s a whole

[00:05:06] Jim: policy discussion to be had about, and I think we touched on this a little bit last week, that, you know, part of this has been a management of the flow of migrants prior to their arrival at the U.

S. border. Mexico has a lot to do with that, shifts in Mexican enforcement strategy, et cetera. So let’s talk about like, so how has this been in the news? Josh, tell us a little, like, you know, what are the stories you’ve noticed? There have been a few. Pick out a few that you think draw the portrait.

[00:05:35] Josh: Well, it’s funny because, you know, so you say it that way and it’s sort of like, I mean, some ways, you know, Texas could, if they wanted to, and again, I think this would be full hearted wrong, but they could say, Hey, we did it.

You know, we’re, you know, mission accomplished, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve stemmed the flow despite the Biden administration essentially inviting people here. We’ve said no. And then the message got out. Now again, as you’re laid out, either has the problem of just being stupid. I mean, you can say it that way, but it is.

And I just said, I mean, even if you’re listening to anything, well, it’s not stupid. It matters. Like, yeah, it matters a little bit, but ultimately this is a very, you know, for most people, you know, thousand hundreds of miles, thousands of miles journey, you know, the last, Couple miles there, right? It’s a factor.

No doubt, but I could also say, you know, it’s also a factor free bus rides Maybe so, I mean you could cut that in different ways So just you know It’s just like a lot of you don’t want to take all the credit for it because then you’d also be you know Technically in some ways it’s like well then who’s responsible for the blame Are you also a lot

[00:06:26] Jim: happens prior to people arriving at the border that have nothing to do with either?

with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Greg Abbott,

[00:06:32] Josh: right? And I think, you know, just from a, just from like a sciency perspective, when the numbers do go back up again, which they eventually will, regardless of who’s in the white house, you know, did somehow that did Abbott does, is he responsible for that then?

Well, no, absolutely not. He’s not going to take responsibility for the uptick in numbers. When that happens, even if the policy remains the same here in Texas, where it gets worse, just to throw that out there. But nonetheless, and this is the point here, you know, that sort of almost means like, well, actually, we need to find new ways to reinsert ourselves back into this.

So there’s a bunch of ways has gone on. So we’ve

[00:07:00] Jim: seen some of those recently. Yeah, I mean,

[00:07:02] Josh: actually a lot. So one, uh, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sort of took point in the lawsuit against the federal government to get an injunction against. the Biden administration’s executive order that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented spouses of citizens.

And we think, or legal reticence, but we have to check and there’s other, you know, provisions to that and then specifics. Right. But ultimately, if they had

[00:07:24] Jim: no criminal records,

[00:07:25] Josh: but ultimately Paxson is taking the, you know, not surprisingly, along with Texas is taking the lead on pushing back on this policy.

This is not, you know, even recently Paxson’s first foray into this. Uh, he’s been in the news recently for taking efforts to try to dissolve an immigrants rights group, uh, in Harris County last week, which is pretty similar to an effort he made earlier this year against another immigrants rights group in El Paso.

Both of those, uh, efforts were rejected by the courts pretty, pretty quickly. Um, but it’s again, it’s a way, you know, for someone like Paxton not on the ballot this time, you know, sort of, I think, you know, riding an interesting point in his own political trajectory. Trajectory and career to sort of stay in the public spotlight on an issue that obviously they’re very comfortable with.

Right. And then we can go to the governor. Right. So, you know, a few weeks ago, governor made news, uh, by issuing an executive order that required hospitals in Texas to collect information on the immigration status of patients. This is emergency rooms. I think this is sort of the uncompensated care. So the hospitals contract those costs and, and, you know, the sort of endpoint is it’s, you know, so Texas can charge the federal government for, for the cost now.

Some people ask me about this, I think you need to talk to a healthcare economist about this. I imagine a lot of that cost is covered by the federal government in terms of uncompensated care and the way that money flows to hospitals. But nonetheless, this is sort of another chapter and sort of the governor demonstrating his ability and his alertness to finding novel ways to keep immigration and border security in the news here in Texas, right?

CenkUTUNCUM

[00:08:52] Jim: Yeah, I mean, we’ve joked about the different scenarios in here, you know, and I don’t, you know, I have no idea what, you know, what the meeting structure of the governor and staff are, but it’s hard not to feel like there’s either. You know, some advisors sitting together in a room going, okay, like, what’s the next thing we can do on this?

[00:09:08] Greg Abbott: Yeah,

[00:09:09] Jim: you know, you know, in a dynamic in which, you know, there’s. There’s a governor who’s very open to this. And I’m not saying the governor doesn’t have his own ideas on this by all accounts, you know, very detailed, detail oriented on these things. And, you know, some of these ideas have probably come right from inside his noggin, you know, but I think the organizational dynamic is very much like people are a very alert to proposing other ways of engaging on this issue that speak to the context.

[00:09:40] Josh: Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, Yeah, I mean, so there’s more we’ll come to some of the more details of this. So then, you know, earlier in the week, I mean, I think you watch this a little bit closer than I did. So maybe you talk about it, but Abbott promoted sort of Texas’s overall enforcement approach in an interview on NewsNation with Elizabeth Vargas.

Is that right?

[00:09:57] Jim: Yeah. And this is, you know, this was, I think two days ago and, you know, look, this is To put this in context, I mean, this is clearly a targeted media appearance, which is sort of, you know, what people do now. Um, but the produce segment on, uh, and this was on news nation was really very interesting in that it, you know, there was an aspect of it that served as, you know, the, the produce segment is kind of a Abbott’s greatest hits on the border in the way.

And, you know, it was very effective. And so, you know, in the interview, the governor promised more use of buoys on the Rio Grande. Uh, Following, you know, this appellate court decision recently that allowed the deployment to begin to continue, um, you know, and he made an interesting argument that, you know, had a little whiff of old school republicanism about it in the sense that, you know, part of the argument he made about the deployment of the buoys was that they were not only effective, but they were much cheaper than the wall.

And I, you know, at a time when, you know, in the last just 24 hours we’re recording Thursday late morning, you know, there’s been, you know, Republicans, you know, Republicans at the national level and at the state level actually Cornyn did this, uh, John, Senator John Cornyn had talked about this generally that, you know, they’re hitting Kamala Harris on shifting positions.

And there’ve been some stories about, you know, the implication that because Kamala Harris has. Because they’re trying to saddle Trump with sinking the compromise bill in the Senate as their way of trying to pivot on border security Which is a I think a reasonable approach But it does leave them open to the fact that you know part of the deal they made was more money To continue wall building in that appropriation.

So, you know, it’s funny to me in a way and you know, and again politics. One of the things that makes politics great, you know, Kamala Harris is getting, you know, criticized for, you know, flip flopping and saying, okay, now she’s, she’s okay with the wall. And the response now is Greg Abbott’s going, well, you know, the buoys are cheaper.

[00:12:04] Josh: Well, and I’ll add to that. And then, you know, I think Trump had an appearance at the border, uh, you know, maybe this week or last in which he was standing in front of, You know, piece of wall and basically, you know, extolling its virtues. And it turns out that was actually a wall built during the Obama administration.

And like, you know, the sort of a lot of this stuff they had was kind of rusting out over in the corner. And it makes me think, you know, Democrats are perfectly fine with walls when you just call them fences.

[00:12:26] Jim: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, you know, a matter of, you know, degree, maybe, I guess, and that is, you know, and, you know, and I think that’s a good point in that pre Trump, it’s not like Democrats had never.

So, let’s, you know, to go back to the Abbott thing, let’s, let’s play a little bit of an excerpt of, of Abbott sound that was included in that News Nation interview that, that I thought was interesting and capture some of this. So we can roll that tape now.

[00:12:54] Intro: To start doing that again, if crossing spike.

[00:12:57] Greg Abbott: We’re fully expecting to see a higher volume coming our way sometime in the coming months.

And so we stand ready and prepared, uh, to start the busing operations again if people make the mistake of coming into the state of Texas. Our goal, however, is not to have to bus anybody because we want to deter anybody from even coming into the state of Texas.

[00:13:16] Jim: Uh, okay. So, you know, what I liked about that clip, and I kind of, you know, there were a couple of clips in the interview because it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s very, it’s a very well calibrated media appearance for Abbott.

I mean, the Abbott people have to be very happy with how that turned out. Um, And that it was an edited piece, but a lot of the things, you know, we set, you know, that we used to set that up very evident in that, right. And that, you know, we’re not, you know, we’re adults, you know, we can acknowledge that the flow may very well increase and probably will.

Um, but you know, we’re ready. And, and, you know, the does provide a, you know, succinct, I’m calibrated that message is by saying, you know, the goal of the policy is to disincentivize people from coming. Now that makes what they’re doing, you know, per your comments a couple of minutes ago, you know, a little more impactful than it probably is and misses a little bit of the contradiction between the fact that, you know, and we’ve talked about this a bit on the podcast before we have to, you know, sort of rehash the whole thing, but that, you know, look, there are plenty of immigrants rights group that think that the state paying for Bussing for migrants who are probably getting here, looking to go somewhere else.

[00:14:29] Josh: Yeah.

[00:14:29] Jim: Uh,

[00:14:29] Josh: you know, fine. Yeah. It’s interesting. It strikes me is, is, is sort of, you know, in some ways kind of a really anodyne way of describing something that is not, but in both directions, I mean, that’s what’s interesting. I mean, to your point, I think that’s an interest. It’s an interesting way to think about it, which is on the one hand, you know, it overstates Texas’s ability.

To impact, you know, the decisions of people, you know, hundreds or thousands of miles away dealing with completely different circumstances. On the other hand, you know, so probably overplays there. On the other hand, you know, it kind of underplays the extent to which, you know, Texas can make itself inhospitable, you know, and this is of like, you know, it’s like, well, you know, the, the buoys with, with the, with the saw blades on them are cheaper.

[00:15:10] Jim: Right.

[00:15:10] Josh: Right. And it’s sort of, you know, and it’s like barbed wire. You can, you know, how much you may hundreds of yards of barbed wire you can buy. It’s cheap, you know, and so there’s a sense of it that’s sort of a kind of, you know, again, it sort of takes all the sort of, you know, the ugliness of, of some of it and sort of just, well, you know,

[00:15:26] Jim: yeah, we’re just trying to, yeah, we’re just incentivizing, but I think that’s why it’s a good, you know, that’s why it’s a good message.

That’s why I’m impressed with it. I’m not, I’m not commenting on the substance of the policy either way, but the message is. Pretty, you know, well,

[00:15:40] Josh: and I think it’s an, I think an important point to draw out here is also to remember that, like, it hasn’t always been this well calibrated. I mean, to the extent that, you know, you think about the use of the invasion rhetoric pretty flippantly.

And I think some of the blowback that received, especially after the mass shooting in El Paso, there is a sense, you know, in some ways that there probably is a line that, you know, uh, They don’t want to cross and we’ll get to this kind of, I think, once we get to the next piece after we finish discussing this.

But, you know, there is a real, you know, an actual reality here where, you know, Republicans are both leaning into this sort of anti immigration position while at the same time. And this is not the same thing. But again, there’s no, you know, the theme may be the overlapping Venn diagrams, but there’s a good part of the overlapping Venn diagram.

Where they’re also trying to mobilize hispanics to vote for republicans, right? And again, those are not it’s not to say that You know all that all goes in the same direction or they’re at odds with each other entirely But there is a line there that you know, you want to avoid crossing, you know You don’t want to be doing things or saying things that you know I think not only that you’ll be called racist for and we’ll get to that because that’s going to happen regardless But that make people feel like you are behaving in a racist way That’s not going to help the overall and I think

[00:16:47] Jim: in the way that you put that it’s sort of You know, it invites attention to the point that you know You’re both as actors are engaging in this debate, they’re both negotiating that line when and for how long they can kind of cross it for what, but also the discussion itself may have moved the line and the line is, the line is not fixed and the line, you know, I would argue, and we’ll look at some data in a minute has probably moved a little bit right in terms of how the political universe.

And so, you know, that speaks to the context of like what’s going on here, which is the primaries are over. Right. You know, and there’s going to be a very deliberate it, you know, effort and we’re seeing it to, to move towards efforts to put issues in the public domain in Texas that unify and mobilize Republicans.

And, you know, to, you know, what you implied, you know, that while, you know, all this talk, you know, enrages liberal Democrats, you know, There’s also a minority but non trivial share of Democrats who are, and maybe who have always been open to these enforcement based policies, and arguably in some areas have become more open to that based on what we’re seeing in public opinion data, right?

So I mean, look, as recently as June, most Republicans still thought immigration and border security were the most important problems facing the state. Um, and you know, just June of this year, 61 percent of Republicans, 9 percent of Democrats said immigration or border security were the most important problem facing the state.

And 9%,

[00:18:23] Josh: I mean, 9 percent does sound like so little compared to 61, but ultimately we’re, you know, we’re talking about a number that’s really been floating around one in 10 Democrats, which honestly puts this up there with almost any of their other top issues where, you know, really when we see about 10 percent of Democrats, that’s about the high watermark because Democrats are, have so many different issues.

[00:18:39] Jim: It’s in the tier and that, and that 9 percent is, I remember is actually. It’s lower than it was before. Down a little bit from where it was in February and April. We broke into double figures. Yeah. It was,

[00:18:48] Josh: it was, it’s regularly run as low as like three or 4% and then recently jumped up to about 14% before now, kind of settling back in year.

So Yeah, the

[00:18:56] Jim: me yeah. The, yeah. The steady state level has, has risen. Has risen to the point about the, the line moving. Right, right. You know, another point in April of this year, we found 72% of Republicans approved of the busing, the busing tactic.

[00:19:10] Josh: Mm-Hmm. .

[00:19:11] Jim: Right. Um. And to this point, 31 percent of Democrats now, in terms of thinking about this line moving and where this moves, looking back and I, you know, we need, we probably need to just put up, you know, put together a trend graphic for this to think about it.

But if you go back to August of 2022, which was, you know, kind of the fizziest point of this, I think, of the busing policy, Republican support was actually a little higher. Not, you know, night and day, but 80 percent compared to 72 a couple months ago, but democratic support was lower by nine points at 22%.

So, you know, look, it’s no, you know, it’s no wonder that, you know, the governor likes the fact that this has become particularly in the eyes of a national audience, but also they kind of his signature move. Yeah. You know, at the intersection of policy and politics. I mean, you know, this is where he gets, you know, during the, you know, during the summer, I’ve seen, I’ve seen one, I’ve seen a half dozen national stories that if they talk about the immigration thing, they mentioned the busing and they mentioned Governor Abbott.

[00:20:21] Josh: Yeah. I mean, we’ve talked a little bit about the fact that, I mean, he’s really, you know, and I, I don’t want to say, you know, single handedly is a little strong, but I’ll just say it for the sake here. And you guys can, you know, caveat it yourselves. But I mean, he’s really single handedly changed the democratic discussion around immigration and border because he’s created a situation in which, I mean, just, you know, and you can say this with all kinds of snark or not or whatever, but where, you know, seemingly quote unquote progressive mayors.

I only say that because what progressive means on immigration is kind of an open question here. Um, yeah. You know, with sanctuary, you know, sanctuary city policies or not, we’re all of a sudden forced to actually deal with a significant share of immigrants and a lot of them change their policies. Yeah,

[00:20:57] Jim: but I was just, you know, marriage with, you know, with significant progressive constituencies.

Yeah, that’s a better whether they are progressive. And that’s why I put it as we look in New York, it’s a good way to do the quotes, right? So.

[00:21:07] Josh: Well, and then and then I think, you know, to your point about calibration, you know, the effort here with hospitals, it might seem kind of, you know, random, maybe by comparison to some of these other more targeted policies.

But in April 2024, when we asked Texas voters about essentially what they were concerned about when asking them, like when we were trying to explore their concern about the number of migrants crossing the U. S. Mexico border. Go border. 80 percent of Republican voters said they were very concerned about the strain on local resources.

This was in line with their other top concerns. 81 percent said national security, security. 81 percent said the impact on crime. So literally those three things, crime, national security and the strain on local resources were all in equally high concerns for Republican voters. And I think here to talk about calibration, when you think about, you know, local resources, it’s notable that the local resources being targeted here by Abbott are those being spent in emergency rooms, usually by, you know, just poor people, right?

And not the resources being spent in public schools. And we’ve had a lot of discussions in the past about like, well, what’s the target here? And if you sort of say like, yeah, look, there’s almost no limit to sort of appetite for immigration enforcement, except there’s one. You know, incident that comes to mind and was when the Trump administration started separating minors from their parents.

Once you start to bring minors into it and you start talking about kids, you start talking about the public schools, you’re opening up a whole other can of worms and a whole other, I think, you know, space. Now, look, I’m not saying it’s out of the realm of possibility, but the fact is that, you know, you know who doesn’t have a bunch of advocates who are going to line up is going to be people who can’t, who just show up in an emergency room needing something done because they just need it done, right?

They’re going to leave and go on about their life. Well, you know

[00:22:38] Jim: who their advocates are. They’re advocates are the immigrants rights groups, the nonprofit groups that are being attacked by the attorney general.

[00:22:44] Josh: Exactly. But I would also, you know, but, but, and not very strong, you know, in the grand picture of things, whereas, you know, mobilizing, you know, again, a group that you’re already kind of fighting with in terms of teachers, students, you know, parents, you know, It’s it’s a much bigger can of worms potentially.

I’m not saying that he’s not going to do it or that it wouldn’t even play to him But I think when you look at these things you say like if you think about where texas spends money as a state,

[00:23:07] Jim: right?

[00:23:07] Josh: It’s on health care and it’s on education primarily,

[00:23:12] Jim: you know Just the free associate in public here great and we could cut this but we probably won’t you know It doesn’t put me in mind of a thomas maybe, you know a thomas swift type, you know satire article that you know that proposes vouchers for children of elite for, for undocumented migrants.

Okay. You know, two great ideas.

[00:23:36] Josh: Whose

[00:23:37] Jim: time has come. All right. So, so, you know, so I think, you know, that that’s out there and I think, you know, from there’s a lot of interesting things, I think, you know, kind of the details, but I think from 30, 000 feet. You know, one of the, one of the least surprising developments one might see in terms of, oh, you know, it’s, we’re coming up on Labor Day, you know, a little uptick in action on immigration and the border, you know, not so let’s, let’s talk about then the other narrative that’s been, you know, revived in the last couple of weeks in a more public way, you know, particularly in Texas, but also, uh, you know, as we’ll see elsewhere, as we talk about this national state thing, um, and that’s the, the, uh, You know, the, the going back to the well on the, you know, what we’ll call the quote unquote election integrity narrative, um, you know, big news this week was the attorney general’s investigation of a South Texas political consultant and that also involved a, a, a candidate in a key race in the state, a key state legislative race, you know, and, you know, there were, you know, warrants were served and, and phones and computers were confiscated.

And this is ultimately about, you know, an investigation into ballot harvesting, you know, in South Texas. Um, so. That is not the, that’s not the first thing, you know, that the attorney general has sort of launched on this, right? There’s been another story or two. Um, you know, the attorney general last week opened an investigation into, you know, quote unquote, and this is in more in urban areas, reports that organizations operating in Texas, you know, where maybe, unlawfully registering non citizens to vote.

And this was apparently triggered by social media, by a social media post by, I think, Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, wherever she is now, that migrants were, you know, registering, were getting registered to vote outside of a driver’s license facility in Fort Worth. You know, lots of gray areas here, right?

In the sense that, um, you know, the surface instigation for these things, you know, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of digging into like, why did this actually happen? What was the substance of the reports that led?

[00:26:08] Josh: Yeah. To

[00:26:09] Jim: the instigate, you know, to the initiation of these investigations.

[00:26:12] Josh: Yeah. I mean, what, what, what is the substance of the information that was provided to the judges that allowed for these subpoenas to be served?

[00:26:20] Jim: Right. And is that how that worked even? Or is this, you know, like, you know, it’s a little unclear. There’s still a lot of things we’re understanding. At least at

[00:26:27] Josh: this point, I mean, the attorney general’s office, at least from the reporting that I’ve seen has been pretty, you know, wherever the opposite of forthcoming is.

I mean, they’ve been pretty cagey about the details.

[00:26:37] Jim: Well, nobody’s been charged yet. Right. Nobody’s been charged. I shouldn’t even say, yeah, nobody’s been charged. Right. Right. And so, you know, I think we can talk about the gray areas here. I mean, Look, on one hand, some of what’s right there on the surface is right there on the surface.

I mean, you know, search warrants were served on, you know, uh, somebody who’s the head of a major Latino democratic organization on somebody who is like active candidate in a race, you know, with the election in sight.

[00:27:13] Josh: Right.

[00:27:14] Jim: Um,

[00:27:15] Josh: which is, you know, saying partisanship aside, this is something that has rankled people.

Yeah, right. That, you know, if you were to switch the party labels, switch, you know, who, you know, which parties in control of the, of the law enforcement apparatus.

[00:27:27] Jim: Yeah, we have a big national discussion going on about who’s weaponizing the, you know, who’s willing, able, and to what end to weaponize the law enforcement apparatus of the government.

[00:27:37] Josh: Right.

[00:27:37] Jim: Right. And so there’s, you know, that piece of it, which is, you know, triggering a lot of negative response. Yeah. On the other hand, it’s, you know, an open secret that there have been a lot of gray area political practices that are fairly normal, that are clustered around mobilization, things like vote harvesting.

And, you know, and the legislature passed a law in 2021, partially aimed, you know, aimed at a lot of things is a lot of voting rights advocates will say, but this was one of the issues that this was trying to tighten up. Right. And. You know, this is a long discussed issue, you know, in races in Texas and particularly in that region.

And so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s hitting a lot of notes, right. And, you know, looking at it just as a policy issue and as a historical issue, there’s a lot going on here. Whatever the gray areas or, you know, whatever, if you have a perspective where you don’t see the gray areas, whatever the gray areas or the lack thereof.

On these developments they do thinking about public opinion plug into widespread narratives That are well entrenched among both elites and voters in both parties.

[00:28:54] Josh: Yeah I mean as recently as june of this year, we asked, uh, texas voters, you know Basically how often they think ineligible voters are polling Are basically voting in Texas elections and how often eligible voters are prevented from voting and what you find is just, you know, clear partisan, very clear partisan structure.

So we say, you know, how often do ineligible voters vote in Texas elections? You know, 24 percent of Republicans, one in four say this happens frequently with another 39 percent saying it happens sometimes. In terms of the share of saying frequently, that’s four times the share of Democrats who say the same thing.

If we flip it around and we ask, well, how often are eligible voters present prevented from voting? 27 percent of Republicans, of course, say, well, that never happens compared to 8 percent of Democrats, whereas 18 percent of Democrats, nearly one in five, would say it happens frequently compared to 5 percent of Republicans.

And so it has that sort of. clear partisan structure around these expectations, but then further in terms of the broader kind of bigger picture discussion. Before you move on to that, I

[00:29:46] Jim: mean, just, you know, I mean, just another little elaboration on that point before we move on from that data. I mean, You know, from a political communication and agenda management.

[00:29:55] Josh: kind

[00:29:56] Jim: of perspective. I mean, you know, I’ve always loved these results. I mean, I think, you know, the pairing of these questions was really, you know, quite, you know, quite, it’s been quite useful in illustrating this dynamic, right? I mean, because, because it illustrates both You know, the initial policy moves by, by Republican run government, but also how predictable the response is right in the sense that it illustrates why if you’re, you know, these recent, you know, moves tap directly into the part, you know, existing partisan dispositions, at least as of now, um, you know, among Republican voters, but also why it antagonizes Democratic elites and why they look at, you know, the same data and their own data and are quick to respond in ways that they think are going to resonate with their base of voters.

You know, the problem is not, you know, the problem is not that people are voting illegally. The problem or the people that are, you know, unqualified or voting or being allowed to vote or recruited to vote, you know, it’s that, you know, you’re trying to prevent people that should be able to vote and make it harder to vote and to intimidate people, et cetera.

You know, it’s all, you know, those narratives are so entrenched after, you know, the last two decades of politics around that. And one might even argue, you know, more than two decades.

[00:31:19] Josh: Well, what’s interesting to me about that is it sort of does make Make me wonder, you know, we’ll kind of go to this when we get to towards the wrap up, but like, how much of a net benefit there is to anybody in this?

Yeah. I mean, because it does just activate, you know, these attitudes that are rampant on both sides and then honestly don’t really shift a lot. I mean, you know, this is an older question, but, you know, we sort of haven’t asked in a while because it was so static. When we say, you know, does the Texas election system discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities?

Which is essentially the claim. I mean, the, the, the attitude that especially democrat least wanna mobilize around this action, then the. What we’re going to get to next, which is, you know, so the quote unquote purge purge of voters from the voting rolls. But when we asked that question, you know, 90 percent of Republicans said, no, it doesn’t discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities.

And for Democrats, it was 76 percent said, yes, it does. That number, you know, we should probably ask it again sometime soon. But part of the reason we stopped was because no matter what happened, no matter what new law was put in place, no matter what new provisions were put in. And no matter what arguments were made by Elise about how it did or did not impact, you know, communities, especially communities of color, these attitudes just kind of sat there.

And so this is the point. I mean, in some extent, is it like this isn’t the sort of thing that that this is not the sort of action that that is meant to convince people or change attitudes simply meant to activate what is already there. But the funny thing is, is it probably activates it among Democrats to just the opposite,

[00:32:37] Jim: right?

And that’s, you know, and that’s kind of the. You know, you and I were kind of going back and forth about this in a chat or in talking in a couple days. I mean, and it’s a little hard to tell, like, you know, what the net, you know, who the net winner in that is. In other words, to the extent that this helps rally Republicans and riles up and counter rallies Democrats.

[00:33:01] Josh: Yeah, you

[00:33:01] Jim: know, I know. I just think that, you know, it’s difficult to know that,

[00:33:03] Josh: you know, I don’t think it’s not even that it’s difficult to know. I mean, yes, it is difficult, but it’s difficult to know because it’s so small.

[00:33:09] Jim: Yeah.

[00:33:09] Josh: I mean, that’s actually like the reality here is that, you know, for the people who are really riled up about this, you know, either who are really like you imagine, you know, take your voter for whom they, they, they can, they’re concerned that voter fraud is taking place all over the state.

Are you, you think they’re not going to vote? Yeah.

[00:33:23] Greg Abbott: Right. Do you

[00:33:23] Josh: think they’re not going to vote Republican in this election? I mean, for sure. Similarly, to the extent that there’s a voter out there who sees this as proof positive that the state is mobilizing, you know, basically against minority voters.

Does that make that person less likely to vote? No. And I mean, and that’s, that’s the thing here too, which is, you know, to the extent when you look at sort of the targeting of where this is going on, you know, it plays into a bigger picture here, you know, which is, you know, this is sort of this effort, you know, by Republic.

I mean, it’s strange because it’s, it’s, you know, It doesn’t sound like it, but it’s actually sort of plays right into sort of Republican efforts in Texas to be more competitive among Hispanics. And so where this, you know, subpoena was ultimately and sort of a lot of this went on was in Hidalgo County squarely, you know, the biggest county in the RGV, which has been a focus of sort of, you know, I guess, you know, political, you know, prognosticating and analysis both in the state and outside the state.

And we talked on this podcast a lot about how, like, the RGV is a really strange place to decide is like, you know, your, your test case for what Hispanics in Texas think, because it’s a very, you know, I mean, honestly, economically depressed region for a large changing a little bit around certain areas of it.

But if you look at education levels, you look at income, you look at, you know, again, even just the geography of the place. You know, there’s a lot going on there that you wouldn’t say is necessarily representative of Texas And when you look at the county essentially that this was targeted in You know, it’s basically the biggest county in the region and it’s the one that the republicans lose the most votes in Do I really think that this effort is going to lead to some widespread dramatic shift in you know, the vote distribution in the rgv?

No, certainly not above and beyond What Republicans are already doing there, which is really trying to mobilize, I think, a lot of conservative leaning and rural Hispanic voters who happen to live in in this region to Republican candidates. But at the same time, like, that’s the point, though. This whole region puts about 3 percent to the statewide vote total.

Well, right. This is a tiny, tiny sliver of the state in which the politics there are such that, you know, it’s the best battleground for Republicans in a lot of ways. You know, Hidalgo County, also part of the 15th. So that’s the 15th congressional district primarily is in there. That’s where, and that’s the one Republican seat you have a representative.

Gonzalez is right. He’s in the seat just to the east of that. And part of the county overlaps with that. And I think mostly the Democratic part of that county probably is pushing to his seat. This is where Republicans are competing. So there is a very sort of like, I think there’s a tendency to think, you know, I think especially democratically.

Oh, my God. Like, you know, this is having one. It’s not a statewide phenomena, actually. And it’s not clear to me just throwing this out there. Someone who looks at this, that, you know, enforcement efforts in Hidalgo County are going to impact the decisions of Hispanics living in Bear County, Hayes County, you know, living, you know, in Baytown or whatever.

Right. I’m not saying that there aren’t limits to that, but it kind of goes back to this whole, you know, this is about kind of like around the margins, you know, and to a large extent, you know, I just, you know, I can see as much counter mobilization coming from something like this as mobilization.

[00:36:25] Jim: Yeah, I don’t know.

I mean, I guess, I guess to go back to, you know, the exchange you were having the other day. I mean, I think where I see

something of a net gain net benefit. And, and again, I think it’s probably small, but where I do see a net benefit for Republicans here is that, yeah, I mean, you know, the actual votes moved on this particular thing and, and in that particular area and how it, you know, is pretty marginal. But if you kind of put the way that this is being talked about, and so for example, you know, when, when Governor Abbott, you know, made his announcement and made his comments earlier this week on, you know, the roles being purged.

I mean, it was couched, you know, purged quote unquote, and it was the word he used, I think, you know, um, You know, he didn’t lean too hard, actually. Surprisingly, not as hard as one might think on the number of suspected, you know, non citizens that they’ve caught registered to vote. And, of course, we know from the past that some number of those, you know, there’s just a lag.

[00:37:46] Josh: It’s a lag in the data that they use to match it. Right. And,

[00:37:48] Jim: you know, some people that have become citizens. But, you know, you, Republicans also do get a benefit from mentioning that in a way that resonates with the other issue that we’ve talked about in the under, you know, that’s what joins the attitudes.

Well,

[00:38:03] Josh: that’s what, but that’s what’s so fascinating to me is that, you know, and

[00:38:05] Jim: yeah, maybe, you know, but we also know that, you know, that you may alienate some share of Hispanics with that, but a non trivial share of Hispanics, you’re not alienating with that.

[00:38:17] Josh: Well, right. And that’s the further context here, you know, to the, again, you’re saying how, how this was brought back in the news and it was this you know, this last week.

by Abbott that, you know, essentially the voter rolls had been purged. And that again, as amazing choice of words, given calibration, everything talked about, you have about a million voter or million, let me just say a million entries. Most of the things, the vast majority, or maybe at least the plurality of those were people who were confirmed to be deceased, which is right.

You know, people die. Good for the voter rolls. You know, you don’t want those people on there. Uh, and or, you know, people who essentially have been removed for, you know, what, what count is legitimate reasons under state law, which is essentially people who have not been active voters who the state has sent contact information to, to confirm their address of the address that registered and have received nothing back over a specific time period.

So again, people who you’d say that, yeah. By law, they should be removed, you know, whether you agree with the law or not. And then, you know, data hygiene. Yeah. And then this, well, and then this tiny, tiny sliver, you know, honestly, of, of the, of this entire million people. Yes. Are people who might, who are suspected of potentially being non citizen.

Even if you round

[00:39:20] Jim: up to 7, out of, It’s about a half a million, a half a million. It’s not very much.

[00:39:25] Josh: And it’s not a, well, it’s not enough that it’s not even, you know, it’s not even enough to sway a statewide race in Texas in the last 20 years.

[00:39:31] Jim: Yeah. Not even close.

[00:39:33] Josh: And so, you know, and again, a lot of those people are probably actually either, you know, citizens or, you know, immigrants.

Or registered in error because I mean part of this also is like it’s not like the dmv is trying to sign up a bunch Of non citizens to vote either like just to throw yeah to throw that out there And so I mean that’s part of it And

[00:39:49] Jim: we should say they’re not you know, they’re not being those those as I understand it Those are people whose citizenship has not been verified.

[00:39:56] Josh: Yeah, basically could not verify their citizenship They are not

[00:39:58] Jim: identified explicitly as non citizens, right? They

[00:40:01] Josh: have they have exactly they were not able to confirm their citizenship status and so

[00:40:05] Jim: or were invited to do so and then and You But here’s the thing, but

[00:40:08] Josh: to your point too, it’s sort of like, you know, there is an aspect to it, which is also like, well, you can’t really play up the actual number too much because the actual number is so incredibly underwhelming.

[00:40:17] Jim: Right. But the point, you know, the point I’m making is that they don’t have to, right? No,

[00:40:21] Josh: they don’t have to. I mean,

[00:40:22] Jim: if you give, if you make sure you mention that.

[00:40:24] Josh: Right.

[00:40:25] Jim: It’s going to appear in every news story and you know, I don’t have systematic, but impressionistically and looking at the coverage of this, um, You know, the coverage, you know, depending on the outlet highlighted different aspects of this, right?

And certainly on, you know, more exclusive conservative media, you know, it was played differently in the end, you know, the potential for there being non citizens here, you know, gets played higher and in center to center left media, it’s all about, you know, You know, millions of names were per, you know, a million people were, were excluded, but as has been, you know, pointed out by a lot of people, you know, you were making this observation, but it’s, you know, in the better stories, you know, this is actually a pretty typical number.

[00:41:20] Josh: Yeah. This is about how many are usually, you know, removed from the voter file. And I mean, what is, you know, again, slightly unusual is, is the fanfare, right? But this is the point that is the, that is the point here is to make the mess. I mean, what’s interesting, I guess, in all of this to me in some ways is the extent to which like hiding in plain sight and the messaging is, is, is two things.

One, you know, with respect to the voter rolls and even with, you know, the, the attorney general’s efforts in Hidalgo County, it’s like, you really are looking for very, very small numbers of. Yeah. Of, of, of non document votes.

[00:41:52] Jim: And there’s, and there’s, and it’s a hard, you know, I mean, we were talking about this before.

I mean, it, you know, it’s a hard rhetorical slash communication slash agenda trap for Democrats to avoid.

[00:42:05] Josh: Right.

[00:42:05] Jim: Because you’re going to push back and then it looks like you’re pushing back.

[00:42:09] Josh: Oh, you want dead people to vote? Right. I mean, the whole thing becomes your problem in a right.

[00:42:13] Jim: And so, and it

[00:42:14] Josh: reinforces these dynamics.

There’s, oh yeah, of course the Democrats are trying to find more dead people to vote for them. And I think that’s, and

[00:42:20] Jim: that’s the answer, I think, to your question about, or, you know, your, your kind of observation that, um, you know, it’s kind of an odd thing to play up in a way, but I think that’s, that’s why it’s done.

And look, you know, the last time this was a big story kind of blew up in Republican’s face a little bit in 2020, but you know, one might argue. Did they pay much of a price for that? No, the secretary of the state at the time did because he couldn’t keep the job. But other than that

[00:42:51] Josh: But there’s, you know, the, uh, the twin observation I was going to make with this, you know, attached to the other one, which is, you know, this is all, you know, in some ways, and it may not feel this way, but this is all actually reflection of the fact that the state’s more competitive.

I mean, when you’re talking about, you know, again, something like 20, 000 votes in Hidalgo County and whether you can, like, make that more competitive or whether you can push You know, a reliably drawn Democratic congressional district into a competitive space, you know, by kind of hijinks alone, you know, in some ways, though, that’s also the fact that, you know, this is not being fought out in Williamson and Hayes County right now.

You know, this is kind of going to these far flung parts of the state where Republicans are looking to increase their margin with a group who’s just becoming an increasing share. And I think when you’re looking at the long term picture, you’re like, well, this is not probably the strategy you would pick for the long term on this, right?

You know, it’s going to work now because you have this kind of marriage of conservative, you know, probably older Hispanics in a lot of cases and conservative, older white voters, you know, and a lot of rural voters. And but these are all groups of voters who are like being, you know, Overrun in the state eventually by younger voters by people living in around the cities and that’s going to just require a You know a recalibration, but we’re not there yet.

I mean, yeah, we’re very much not there yet

[00:44:04] Jim: Oh, yeah, we’re in kind of an intermediate phase So, you know look all of this is kind of an interesting twist on this Conversation that we’ve been having in the last month or so since we came back I mean it’s come up before that but it’s kind of come back up You know and it always comes up in a in a presidential election year in Texas.

But, you know, I mean, it’s a, it’s an interesting, if we step back and look at how this discussion in Texas sort of reflects, you know, the national political environment, which, what people, you know, sometimes call the nationalization of politics in Texas, which I think is a little, a little overly done, but, you know, um, You know, I mean, it’s, it’s, there are interesting things to entangle.

I mean, you had some thoughts about the timing of this or the convention and,

[00:44:50] Josh: yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s really fun. I mean, I think, you know, starting off just, you know, the busing thing in of itself is, is a fascinating point in policy and point in time, just to say it, because I think, you know, we already said this, but, you know, to the extent that a policy originating in Texas essentially put governor Abbott and the state really honestly.

at the forefront of almost every local conflict over immigration and immigration enforcement and democratic run cities is an amazing feat that I think is, you know, it’s sort of, it sort of turns this question of nationalization of politics kind of on its head in a way, because I think, you know, there’s no doubt that Texas was leading, was leading that discussion.

I mean, or led it to where it got. And then when I look at, you know, kind of the last week or so, you say, you know, Democrats really had their, Ability last week during their convention to control their own narrative the whole week, right? They got to put out their version of events Um, but you know the combined efforts here You know sort of of sort of moving back to immigration border security and voting here in texas Really shows I think like a clear effort by texas republicans to actually retake the narrative on their own terrain Yeah, and it’s not but the funny thing about it is I mean, it’s and it’s sort of the nationalization question I see them see it the other way.

It’s not just in texas because you know, there are articles In the times in the globe in every, you know, major paper. It’s on MSNBC. It’s on Fox. It’s on Newsmax. It’s everywhere about What’s going on? You know basically in texas this week kind of around these issues You know whether that’s because ken paxton has a certain kind of catnip at this point around, you know Kind of anything he’s involved in but obviously abbott is very well practiced at this as the as the clip points out And so You know in some ways, you know, you’ve got this You I mean, in some ways, Texas is leading the response in my mind to the Democratic Convention, right?

Because the, you know, Trump has been somewhat bewildered by the change in the race, has not been as responsive as he has been. And, you know, just as sort of one more piece of this, it’s not as though he or Republicans can rely on other Republicans in Congress to kind of get over their own differences and create a counterweight to the Democratic messaging.

And so here comes Texas. And, you know, They’re doing, I mean, you know, just as like an observer watching, you know, like watching athletes perform, you’d say like, yeah, Texas has done pretty good, you know, I mean, the last week is really, you know, again, I think shifted the focus certainly here in the state, but I think even more generally the discussion back to the border, which I think, you know, Harris and the Democrats really did, you know, a very, very, you know, aggressive effort to kind of avoid it.

For, well, you know, I

[00:47:21] Jim: think, you know, you, I think I would,

[00:47:23] Josh: I don’t wanna say avoid, I mean, that’s not say Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think re reframe.

[00:47:27] Jim: Yeah. They’re really, they’re trying hard to reframe their record on that and to reframe the debate on that.

[00:47:31] Josh: Right.

[00:47:32] Jim: And, and Trump has not done a good job of defending himself on that.

Yeah. You know, you know, it’s interesting that you put it that way. I mean, I, you know, I always react a little. reflexively, negatively, which people have picked up on, I think, but

[00:47:49] Josh: I think you’re not trying to say,

[00:47:50] Jim: you know, on, you know, the idea that, you know, Well, and here Texas is leading game. I know, I know.

I don’t like either, you know, either. And I’m not saying you’re doing that. I mean No,

[00:47:59] Josh: no, I’m, no, I am doing it. I’m doing it and I don’t want, well, I

[00:48:02] Jim: don’t think, I think it’s, but I think you’re doing it based on evidence.

[00:48:04] Josh: Okay. Well thanks on evidence that I think is appreciate that, you know, is

[00:48:07] Jim: reasonable.

Right. Um, and I guess, you know, I kind of look at it a little bit sideways on that and that I, you know, I think in the short term, that’s a, it’s an interesting point that I think is. defensible that, you know, this is put tech, you know, this puts Texas back in a leadership role in that, you know, whether other people in the country are really seeing it that way, you know, part of it is the vicissitudes of reporting, you know, um, These stories are very familiar Texas stories.

[00:48:35] Josh: Yeah,

[00:48:36] Jim: and it’s a variation I mean the variation as we’ve joked in here on the podcast before used to be. Oh those crazy Texans Yeah, you know they have some daffy story about some weird thing happening in Texas And now it’s it’s pivoted a little bit to it like there’s a real comfort zone for reporters like oh, there’s you know There’s Texas leading to the right again.

Yeah, and you know Sometimes that’s right, you know, but I’m also, you know, but I’m fascinated and maybe this is just because, you know, I mean, our, you know, our structural positioning on this is just You know, how kind of circular that is sometimes in terms of, you know, I mean, there are moments when Texas is very representative of, of certain aspects of national politics in some ways where, you know, Texas got there a little bit more organically on its, you know, I mean, a lot of these politics are organic to the state.

I guess that’s what I would say. That’s, that’s what I’m trying to sort out here. And that doesn’t mean that the other argument that, yeah. And so there are moments when those, you know, those politics really align with what is going on nationally, particularly as the parties ideologically sort. I mean, I, you know,

[00:49:51] Josh: I guess, you know, what I would say to that though, is, I mean, this is where, you know, again, I, I mean, like, look, there are books written 50 years ago, there were books written 15 years ago that say that make the argument of Texas is singular leadership and whatever.

And I think, and I think both of us are too, are too well trained to like, you know, naturally accept those kinds of arguments on their face because there’s just too many contingencies. But I do think, you know, I mean, to your point, I would say, I agree, like there is an aspect of Texas, which is, which is, you know, and I, you know, this is natural to the politics here.

Right. This isn’t like. This isn’t like Greg Abbott had to look out at the national environment and say, how should I insert Texas into this to change the national discussion? Because he doesn’t have to, but I think the fact that he doesn’t have to is part of what is interesting about Texas right now, in the sense that, you know, to the extent that there is concern about, you know, how the country deals with changing demographics.

You know, you don’t need to be in Texas for that to happen, but Texas is kind of like ground zero for that in terms of the way that the population is structured. Right? You know, you don’t have to because it’s

[00:50:50] Jim: more true here than it is in most other states. You don’t have, you know, you don’t have bigger space.

You know, accepted, but, you know,

[00:50:55] Josh: well, that’s perfect. Right, and I’ll follow that. Say you don’t have to have a border with a foreign country to be concerned about immigration. It just so happens that Texas has a 1200 mile border with a foreign country. Right. You know, you don’t have to be a state that’s dealing with, you know, the, the impact of de ruralization and increasing urbanization, you know, to understand those issues.

And Texas has, you know, that in spades, right? I mean, in terms of what’s on there. Yeah. And in terms of

[00:51:17] Jim: the two issues we’re talking about today, and you don’t have to have a majority. itenment of what we used to call in, you know, different linguistic period, a majority minority state population to be thinking about those issues.

[00:51:33] Josh: Right, yeah exactly. Which I you

[00:51:36] Jim: know is kind of to me like that’s kind of what I was kind of getting at a little bit earlier that’s kind of that’s some of the binding material for these two issues.

[00:51:43] Josh: And I do think you know one of the things that makes You know, Texas in and of itself, you know, I mean, besides just being in the tank, because I guess I’m here and whatever, you know, but I think one of the things that just makes Texas so fascinating is the fact that, you know, find me another state with a profile like Texas demographically.

Uh, and also I would say geographically. That’s run by Republicans. Yeah. And so you, you know, you do end up with this sort of really interesting, you know, I think mix of both, you know, sort of policy priorities. Yeah. Uh, but also serve leadership opportunities if I’m going to call it that right.

[00:52:16] Intro: Yeah.

[00:52:17] Josh: That I think you put Texas at a very strange position right now in sort of these national discussions where, you know, I am reluctant to say this is the nationalization of Texas politics when it seems like, you know, In a national system, which, you know, both parties, but I mean, right now, especially Republicans have a really hard time even, you know, producing a messaging bill, you’re not even talking about actual legislation, just something they can pass.

The Democrats can at the

[00:52:40] Jim: national at the

[00:52:41] Josh: national. I mean, they can’t even do that. All of a sudden there is a vacuum. And I mean, you know, In Saunders Abbott, you know, but also Paxton also Patrick, you know, I mean, there’s, this is kind of a space that

[00:52:53] Jim: well, and you know, and I would say, you know, to respond to that a little bit, the interesting small piece of what you’re talking about.

But the interesting answer to your question about show me another state like that is Florida. Yeah. And, you know, that’s. Didn’t hasn’t gotten that, you know, in terms of like, we’re going to be a national leader, you know, I think that’s what Governor DeSantis thought and that really didn’t pan out.

[00:53:14] Josh: And what I’ve been thinking, I mean, more increasingly is to some extent, you know, as, as Florida, if Florida continues on the trajectory becoming less competitive, I mean, really all indications are, and this is sort of, I think one of the interesting contexts here is that Texas is becoming more competitive.

[00:53:26] Greg Abbott: Right.

[00:53:27] Josh: I mean, one of the things that sort of strikes me, and I mean, at different times, But, you know, Abbott received fewer votes in 2022 than he did in 2018, right? 2018 was a Democratic year, 2022 is a Republican year. Again, I mean, I think there’s a lot of reasons you might, you know, couch that, but the fact is, is you can’t help but look at the election results and say, yeah, the elections are getting closer.

And nonetheless, you know, if anything, the state’s moving further to the right.

[00:53:54] Jim: Well, there’s an interesting kind of, you know, that 2018, 2022 comparison is interesting because those were both, I mean,

[00:54:02] Josh: I mean the, I should say the margin, the margin decreased. Yeah, no, I’m

[00:54:05] Jim: saying, yeah. And I think that. You know, one of the interesting things about that is, you know, for one thing that does re raise the issue of like Local factors like in in that, you know, the fundamental weakness of the democratic party in this state

[00:54:19] Josh: Yeah,

[00:54:20] Jim: you know, I mean the 2018 Race for abbott was you know a race.

[00:54:26] Josh: Yeah

[00:54:27] Jim: in you know, practically practically in name only right? Right. So there’s that but also the fact that you know those Those are interesting, I don’t want to say reflections, refractions of national politics through state electoral politics, right? That’s why, you know, people, you know, people, me, why people, you know, argue so much about 2018 and how to interpret 2018 and, you know, why 2022 was a return to normal but still reflected the fact that, you know, Democrats were expecting kind of a bloodbath that year.

And the fact that it wasn’t a bloodbath that we now remember is, well, you know, it’s a pretty good Democratic year because even though they lost the House. We thought they were going to lose whatever, you know, 30 or 40 seats and they only lost a few and, you know, lost the house. So, you know, all of that gets muddled to me

[00:55:17] Josh: very

[00:55:18] Jim: quickly, but I, you know,

[00:55:20] Josh: there’s an article out in the Tribune, I think this morning, and we could talk about this like next week, but it’s sort of interesting.

I was talking about, you know, sort of democratic concerns over all reds candidacy and that he’s not, he basically has basically right on

[00:55:30] Jim: schedule.

[00:55:30] Josh: Yeah. I mean, right before

[00:55:32] Jim: Labor Day,

[00:55:33] Josh: there you go. The campaign has started. Well, and you know, a lot of the gist of the criticism was essentially, well, he’s not, you know, he’s not out there fighting like a work was, you know, he’s not like, he’s not doing that.

And, and I’m just going to say right now, and I think the article did a pretty good job, but it left something out, which is like, you know, maybe that’s a stupid strategy. You know what I mean? They touched on this a little bit, which is to say, you know, work didn’t dent. The world, the margins in rural areas at all, despite spending time out there, which is to say, maybe that time would have been better spent elsewhere.

Number one. Number two, to the extent that he’s being criticized by Democrats and Ted Cruz, mind you, for not making himself more available. I think that tells you something, which is, you know, there’s something to the strategy, which is to say, Okay. You know, ultimately in a city in which, you know, Cruz eked by last time and there’s a lot of negative sentiment towards him.

I think all red letting the race be about Cruz makes a lot of sense, you know, and he doesn’t need to be out there on everything, but, but the way I can, yeah, I mean, we can disagree on this, but I mean, like the way that I would connect these things to say is like the electrodynamics have changed a lot.

And, and to the extent that, you know, people look at O’Rourke and say, well, O’Rourke was this amazing candidate and he’s the singular thing and we need to do everything like O’Rourke. It’s like, we keep pointing this out. This was Trump’s midterm election. Democrats did well everywhere. And also, and this is the most important thing I think about, two of the most important factors in our work race, he was running against Cruz, who had, you know, independence that soured on him.

Cruz has really tried to rehabilitate himself.

[00:56:51] Jim: Yeah. And look, I mean, I, you know, ran into a Republican consultant, I won’t name not too long ago, kind of talked about, look, you know. It’s fair to look at Cruz as kind of, you know, the lower end boat getter among our statewide candidates.

[00:57:04] Josh: I think that’s right.

And then I think the other thing you add to that is, you know, with Donald Trump in the White House, you had a Democrat running in every single race in Texas. And, you know, that really benefited people at the top of the ticket in a way that I think just, you know, O’Rourke seems to just sort of, and I have nothing, no issue here, but it just seems to suck up all the credit for all this stuff.

But I think, you know, this is nonetheless, this is sort of like, and where this is all kind of interesting is just seeing everybody Adjusting a little bit or not. To this new dynamic and for Republicans right now is really leaning into what, what works, you know, and for Democrats, because nothing’s worked, you know, it’s kind of figuring out how do we, you know, again, essentially, how do we get those low propensity voters to come our way is most of it.

And this is where I think the question comes in with all of this, which is to say there is a line somewhere where Republicans go too far, you know, I say, I was saying this to you about something else, but it’s like, you know, everybody wants election integrity. And if you, you know, everybody wants. to be able to go somewhere and vote safely and want their neighbors to.

And I’d say, you know, there’s a pretty big difference if it’s like, you know, the local county sheriff’s office has some, you know, police officer stationed outside the voting precinct versus like a line of DPS troopers in Harris County.

[00:58:10] Greg Abbott: Right.

[00:58:10] Josh: Those are going to look different. They’re gonna have a different impact.

I would argue at this point that the impact is not going to be to necessarily run Democratic voters off, but actually to create more negative attention in Texas in a way that probably actually helps. Honestly, I think helps Democrats mobilize groups that they’re trying to engage.

[00:58:25] Jim: Yeah. You know,

[00:58:27] Josh: but anyway, Texas

[00:58:28] Jim: Yeah. You know, we’ll see. We’ll see. You know, I mean, we’ll see. Um, so I, you know, I, I think we can kind of wind it up in that ballpark. Um, you know, I, I, I think to tie this together a little bit, I mean, I think what, you know, what sort of interested me about this is that, you know, we can look at all of this kind of organic Mm-Hmm.

the organic state level drivers of a lot of these politics and see a lot of alignment with national politics, but how you separate those two, you know, is, is, you know, it’s pretty, you know, pretty hard, right. And pretty, you know, not, not straightforward and, and a moving target. Um, but I think that, you know, one of the ways that I.

You know, interpret, you know, is I’m thinking about it for myself for maybe it’s a little bit of, you know, it’s an oversimplification and a bastardization maybe of Occam’s razor. But, you know, sometimes it kind of is what it is. I mean, these are good issues for these, you know, these are good issues for Republicans in statewide races that they do resonate with.

what’s going on in national politics. And, you know, there are echoes there or, you know, alignments there, but, you know, they’re getting their force, I think, from

Republicans and Democrats positioning themselves, but particularly Republicans, because, you know, the policies we’re talking about reflect, you know, the Republicans clear advantage in having initiative in shaping the public agenda. And, you know, at the end of the day, they’re pretty Texas based, right? And they’re pretty, and they’re, they’re pretty keyed towards, all right, we got an election coming out.

We got, you know, we’re looking at an election with a lot of uncertainty, you know, it’s, you know, where, you know, I mean, I think as we keep saying it here, I mean, I think You know, without Biden at the top of the ticket, the Democrats, all things being equal, are going to be in better shape, probably. Now, we’ll have real data on that, hopefully soon.

We’ll begin to start assessing that, but certainly the preliminary soundings we’ve seen, the data we saw in the, you know, the U of H Texas Southern poll, I think, you know, the underlying data that we’ve seen in our polling to date about Biden’s weakness, um, You know, there’s a national kind of response in a national, you know, this is a national, you know, it’s a presidential election, so it’s a national environment.

But a lot of what we’re seeing reflects Republicans perceptions right now of what their strong points are in the state. Whether they’re right or wrong, like to your point about mobilization, counter mobilization among Democrats. But, you know, this is, you know, these are decisions being driven, you know, being affected by the national environment and maybe some people’s national ambitions, but, you know, the core of what we’re seeing, you know, has a lot of continuity with.

Longer term underlying trends in the state and state politics.

[01:01:46] Josh: Yeah. And I’ll just finish by saying, you know, it’s really easy to, to maybe dismiss some of the goings on here because you’d say, well, Texas is such a red state and it’s so re but it’s notable that, you know, the, if we look at the last decade plus of elections, the smallest Republican margin at the top of the ticket was Ted Cruz in 2018.

Then it was Donald Trump in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2016. Right. And that’s the top of the Republican ticket. So it, it’s not to say that this is a competitive race. Here in texas or any of those races are competitive per se or that, you know, either of them are likely to lose But when you’re thinking about, you know republicans strategizing around this that’s the context that you’re looking at here You know, these these guys are underperformers relative to greg abbott straight, you know, right sort of another relative to john cornyn by a lot, you know, and so You know, it is going to be interesting to see how this all plays out because it is consequential.

[01:02:36] Jim: Yeah. And however much these things may align with national politics, I still think, you know, the, the core of what people are, you know, what the attorney general who has his own set of, you know, as yet undefined, but still clearly present political ambitions in the near future, you know, whatever, you know, the governor’s going to do.

I mean, You know, there’s a, there’s a very powerful state dynamic here. Um, you know, and part of the, you know, I mean, as we were saying earlier, you know, and part of, you know, Abbott’s political acumen here is, you know, and I think recognizing the alignment between the two, but still understanding pretty clearly, I think, and having a very good handle on.

What the domestic political correlates are for him and for you know, and for The session coming up and what he wants to do. I think is as we go into the next year. So with that Thanks to josh for being here. Good conversation as always Uh, thanks again to our excellent production team in the dev studio in the college of liberal arts here at ut austin uh the data we talked about Uh and much more can be found at texaspolitics.

ut Texas dot edu. If you are listening to this or you came to this directly from a podcast platform, if you go to that website and follow through to the, to the blog site, you know, we’ll post some extras with a link to this blog. Um, you know, I’ll dig out the link to that Abbott interview. We’ll present the data that we presented here, maybe a couple of news stories, depending on, you know, how the afternoon goes, um, but do check it out.

We’ll definitely have some extras. So thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.