August 3rd, 2022 – Second Reading Podcast

Jim Henson: 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. Very happy to be joined by Josh blank research director of the Texas politics project today.

How are we Josh? Doing pretty. All right. You look like, you know, you’re staying fairly cool for a guy in long pants. 

Josh Blank: Well, it’s barely hot 

Jim Henson: today, right? yeah, it’s gonna be hotter. I don’t know. I, I feel like I’ve just given up on long pants for a while. Um, [00:01:00] You know, we’ll see how long that lasts. If you’re one of the people I have a speaking engagement for, I am wearing long pants to speaking engagements.

So I’m wearing sandal. Yeah. You are wearing sandals. I, I will, my feet are, maybe I can wear a suit in sandals to my 

Josh Blank: next time. No, I don’t think you can 

Jim Henson: do that. yeah. My feet are pretty large. You don’t, you, you know, it doesn’t get, they don’t get a lot. They don’t get lost in the cuffs or anything. It’s a lot of foot 

Josh Blank: exposure.

Jim Henson: that’s a lot of foot exposure. You know, while there are things going on and, and kind of a lot, once I stopped to think about it and started, you know, realizing what was out there, it does certainly feel like on the grand in Texas, it’s sort of the dog days of summer, you know, the relentless heat here in central Texas.

Yeah. Combined with the real realization as we were just talking before we came on that, you know, the end of the summer on the school calendar. Anyway, if not the weather is very much within. Yeah. 

Josh Blank: And I mean, I think, you know, we’ve kind of, we’ve, it’s sort of been a running joke this summer about like, you know, whether it’s been quiet or not from week to week, you know?

Yeah. In some ways it almost, it [00:02:00] feels it, uh, you know, I wanna say it almost feels quiet, but only relative to, you know, the fever pitch of, of everything else that has been going on kind of perpetually. Right. So, so it does feel a little quiet this week, but it’s not because nothing’s going on. It’s just because.

You know, it’s a very little like of, you know, sort of that’s blown, everything up is 

Jim Henson: going on. Yeah. I, I think, I think that’s fair. So, you know, we’ll get to a text, our usual Texas centric discussion for the week. But as we record this on Wednesday morning, there’s lots of discussion of. Tuesday’s primaries right.

In several states, obviously not in Texas, but in several states. I mean, I, I think probably the headline this morning is in Kansas and that was not a primary election. Um, and, and in fact, in Kansas, there weren’t any competitive primary elections in a predominantly Republican state, which is part of what’s interesting.

um, but there was a lot of anticipation over the results of a referendum that would’ve allowed the Republican-led state legislature to further restrict abortion. And there’s [00:03:00] a lot of state level history. I won’t go into that kind of led up to this, that in fact, this got on the ballot before the do’s decision, probably anticipating some, but also anticipating some things that were going on in 

Josh Blank: state politics.

Certain well, as there’s certain me too going on, I mean, a lot of other states were moving ahead, you know, sort of enacting further restrictions jobs are. In consideration of Dobbs are otherwise. Right, right. There’s certainly a, a me tooism going along among conservative states. Now 

Jim Henson: the outcome there was, was very interesting in, is sort of leading much of the news, the political news, uh, this morning, and, and last night with 98% of the vote in 59% said no to the amendment that would’ve, you know, encouraged more abortion, uh, restrictions on abortion only 41% voted.

Yes. And what this, you know, was gonna do was a, was sort. Clarifying that the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion. And remember, uh, you know, Kansas is a very Republican state, I say it’s conservative place, right? Yeah. And we, I mean, you know, we, we talk about, you know, Texas all the time, Kansas is.[00:04:00] 

Yeah, pretty red. Yeah. Very, very red, you know, and, and this was an election with pretty high turnout in the populous counties. And so, you know, I think it’s being taken. We can talk about you. Well, what do you think being taken is a leading indicator of abortion politics? I mean, I, you know, one of the takes, I think is that.

You know, this has been more of a mobilization is mm-hmm, appears to be more of a, a better mobilization issue for Democrats than Republicans that I, you know, and I think that’s not really news, but there were some people trying to say that Republican, the Republican base would be energized by this, by the do’s decision.

See it as a success, go out, do more. Yeah. You know, feel energized. You know, we talk all the time in here. It’s like our weekly, you know, reminder about, you know, overinterpretation usually we’re talking about poll results, but I don’t know. What do you think? 

Josh Blank: You know, I think I wasn’t really, I wasn’t so certain going into this that either side had like an obvious advantage in terms of mobilization for me, you know, what I think about is who’s voting for the [00:05:00] status quo and who’s voting for change.

And ultimately, I mean, I think the thing that’s kind of, and it’s easy. Forget this in, in Texas where, you know, the, the legal landscape has changed dramatically and very quickly. But the point is because, you know, the, the Kansas constitution does guarantee the right to an abortion. The reality is, is that, you know, the do’s decision didn’t change the, the landscape in Kansas, the way it’s changed the landscape in some other states.

So to my mind, there was an argument you could make that actually the people voting. Yes. The people who ended up losing might actually have more energy behind them because ultimately they would actually be voting for the change. Whereas the people, you know, again, who ended up, you know, winning, uh, no were really just looking to maintain the status quo there.

I think the fact that they so overwhelmingly maintain the status quo is I think, you know, obviously I don’t think there’s any reason Democrats should interpret that in any other way, other way than positively. But I think it also, there’s two things about this one, you know, I think the. You know, looks pretty similar to kind of where public opinion looks at least on the broad edges.

You know, I think, and I mean, certainly what it looks like in a conservative state, like [00:06:00] Texas, uh, you know, so there’s that, but I’ve, you know, was saying this to other people this morning, like, you know, ultimately the devils and the detail and the devils and the data here because really voting, you know, having a referendum on abortion access.

It’s probably gonna look a lot like public opinion. That is not the same thing as two candidates running for election of what, um, you know, where abortion is one issue. Many issues. Yeah. And so I think, you know, for Democrats, I think the question in the next coming days, and I think, you know, here in Texas, you know, we have someone who regularly kind of analyzes, you know, the, the, the turnout in these kinds of races.

It’d be interesting to see what that looks like in Kansas, cuz for Democrats, what you want, what I would wanna know, if, you know, you’re sort of trying to interpret this. Realistically here’s, you know, did you turn out people that you didn’t think you would turn out? Right. You know, the counties where this really was over the top, you know, were you seeing, you know, people who never vote in primaries, you seen people who hadn’t voted in general life.

Right. Cause ultimately what that says and, you know, and is there something about those people similar, cuz that’s where you say, is there a mobilization target for Democrats? You know, did, did they see, you know, women under the age of the [00:07:00] 30 turn out at much higher rates than they’ve seen in? I mean there’s, whatever it is.

that’s really kind of the questions I think we need to get into before we started thinking about what this is, but ultimately like everything else, it doesn’t mean that Democrats are gonna go and in every state where abortion is kind of central, they’ve got a 60 40 advantage. But what it might mean is that, you know, there’s a couple points to be shaved here and there by, you know, finding voters who might not be engaged.

And so I think that’s, that’s the takeaway, not as exciting, but it’s still certainly very. Interesting. And I don’t think it was as obvious at the outset. Exactly what 

Jim Henson: would happen there. Yeah. And, and I haven’t looked this morning, uh, some of the later, late night reports before everything had Beana were suggesting that there.

A lot of people that voted on this, but did not vote in either of the primaries. Yeah. You know, in the six figures. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. But I mean, but this which makes sense. I mean, yeah. Well, and this is where, I mean, you know, this is 

Jim Henson: where I think one of and begs the question of who they were 

Josh Blank: as you were saying. Yeah.

And I think this is where, you know, this is sort of this whole, you know, big open question, like, look not. The abortion issue is, is very much going to affect this election cycle, how it’s going to and how it’s [00:08:00] going to in different places still remains in open question. It’s gonna kind of depend on how the politics plays out.

Right. I mean, just, just ultimately. Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, had they said, yes, let’s say, I mean, how they, or had the yes. Won and then the question being was okay, what is Kansas gonna do now? Right. Well, ultimately that becomes part of the. Yeah. And that becomes part of the issue set that people are valuing the candidates on and maybe then that does make something different happen.

But that’s why I think this space is so dynamic right now. I’m just kind of, you know, I’m reluctant to read too much in anything. Yeah. 

Jim Henson: I mean, I, I think there’s, you know, the careful analysis. I mean, I, you know, I think playing a little fast and loose, what I wonder is how much people will not wait for the analysis.

And begin to act on, you know, particularly on the democratic side. Oh yeah. I mean, I think there’s gonna be a lot of, see, I told you mm-hmm this is good for us and, you know yeah. All, 

Josh Blank: no, I mean, and it is, you can’t say it’s 

Jim Henson: not be good for us as a 

Josh Blank: mobilization issue. Yeah, no, you can’t say it’s not good for Democrats, but I mean, it would be very much like Democrats this point to over interpret this and, [00:09:00] you know, right.

Turn something that you know, is probably a marginal positive for them when, when taken into consideration of everything else. Yeah. And, you know, making it into something that’s you. Maybe just neutral , you know, right. Potentially negative in some places, but we’ll see. 

Jim Henson: So, you know, in other states, you know, Arizona, Michigan, Missouri, you know, the kind of overarching national story there, you know, is, you know, the, the catnip of what does this say about Donald Trump and his influence?

Yeah. I, you know, I don’t want us to get too far in, down the rabbit hole on this. I mean, I think we have talked about it on here before. Uh, we’re still waiting to get some final results in Arizona. Um, couple of those races have been too close to call. If you’re looking at this from a Trump centric point of view, it was a mixed night.

Yeah. You know, some of his candidates, you know, several of his candidates did well. Uh, we did see, you know, a couple more candidates go down on the congressional side, uh, that were, you know, yes. Votes on his impeachment. Mm-hmm that had been targeted. [00:10:00] You know, we were talking before this, how much of this is about Trump?

How much of this is about the broader, you know, currents that Trump has surfed. Yeah. And the, you know, Current in public opinion and, and within the Republican party that Trump activated, I kind of want put a pin in some of this. I mean, there’s some of the funny anecdotal things where Trump. Yeah. You know, Trump in endorsed and Eric turns out the one he meant to endorse lost, but he was probably gonna lose anyway.

Yeah. In, uh, in Missouri. You know, the Eric Schmidt, Eric Brighton’s race. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. There’s a third Eric nomination, but I mean, you know, this is just the, I mean, for me on this whole thing, I just, you know, it’s like part of what I try to, I give I’m inviting you to all right. I’m just gonna jump in. I mean, like part of this it’s still bitch for too long.

No, I’ll be I’ll. Alright, let me turn my watch. Here we go. Okay. I mean, there’s a couple things. One, I think it would be dumped into deny that, you know, Trump’s endorsement has an impact, right? I mean, ultimately he’s the former president he’s well liked within the Republican party, you know, pretty broadly here and ultimately.

In a primary election, which generally [00:11:00] speaking, most voters are not gonna have very well formed opinion about a large number of candidates. Knowing that the former president endorses someone should have an impact. Right. We should expect that. Right. Having said that. Right. Ultimately, Trump is not making these picks in a vacuum.

And the Trump centric view of this, which is like, what does this say about Trump? I mean, ultimately, you know, you kind of, I mean, I think there’s a couple things. One it’s very easy to kind of go binary and say, well, did he win? Or did he lose? Right. But number one, he’s not picking these candidates in a vacuum.

He knows, you know, things about them. He knows what the, what the situation looks like. Ultimately, you know, I would expect Trump like any politician, who’s gonna engage in something like this. Probably to shy towards giving more endorsements on sure. Things. Yeah. Than on ones where he’s really thinks, oh, you know, anybody could win this or even worse.

This guy’s probably not gonna win, but maybe my endorsement can push, you know, him or her over. That’s not really the way Trump plays. So ultimately I think any sort of simple doesn’t have a spreadsheet. No, so one, that’s kind of, I think a little, I think it’s overdoing it, you know, just in and of itself because he’s picking [00:12:00] these, you know, these he’s strategically picking these candidates one way or another, for the most part, right?

The ones that he’s not strategically picking or not as strategically picking, you know, when you’re going up against someone who voted to impeach him, ultimately again, Democrat Republican, if you make a vote to impeach the present of your party, when most of the members in your party do not, you are putting a target on your back.

Right. 

Jim Henson: And I, and I think most of the people in that position, you know, sort. Realize that to some extent now, the other subplot that intersects with this mm-hmm is the de CS, you know, throwing money and ads behind pro-Trump candidates in primary races that they were hoping to help in order to help the democratic candidate in the general election mm-hmm

So, you know, look on one hand. We’ve seen this a lot. We’ve seen it in Texas. Yeah. Where. You know, candidates, you know, the campaign organizations in both parties, they support a candidate in the [00:13:00] primary that they think will be a weaker general election candidate come to general election, right. In order to help their candidate in that election.

But the democratic congressional campaign committee has gotten some press for doing this. And in one of the races last night, at least, uh, in, in Michigan congressional zest district three, The candidate that they, that they supported was a, a Trump candidate guy named Dobbs who beat one of these candidates that had for Meyer, I think Meyer, yeah.

That had, that had voted, um, for impeachment. There’s been a lot of discussion that under the circumstances, this is a little different than the usual strategic move that grownups in politics expect to see. I’m curious, like we haven’t talked about this and I’m, I’m very curious what you think about this.

Because I have kind of a view of it. I think I’ve settled on. Yeah. 

Josh Blank: I mean, let’s see, I think it’s, it’s stupid for Democrats to do this. I mean, to be honest, I think there’s a couple problems with this, with this approach just generally. I mean, first of all, [00:14:00] I think it’s kind of a classic overreaction from Democrats, right?

I think, you know, to some extent it’s like, you know, Democrats. This is part of this, or looking around saying, you know, there’s all these threats to democracy going on. And there’s these, you know, candidates who are proposing things that we find, you know, fundamentally very, very troubling. Right. And given the fact that, you know, they, I think Democrats feel that Republicans are so comfortable with the idea of, of.

Playing with the rules and all that kind of stuff. This is sort of feels to me like a classic demo, democratic overreaction, like, well, we need to fight fire with fire and in, so doing though, you know, I think you’re just creating a tons of promise trails now, number one, I mean, I think every Democrat who’s been part of the, the January 6th hearing just kind of said, look, this is really bad optics.

And we’re trying to sit here and say, we’re trying raise above this and say, Hey look, the elections or the elections, you know, we need to, we need to trust the results of these, but then to basically go in and do something where you’re trying to, you know, Tip the scale and an inter party primary, whether or not the other side does it doesn’t look great.

Two more things, negative partisanship, which we talk about all the time. Yeah. I mean, [00:15:00] sure. Maybe you’ve you’ve, you’ve helped nominate a candidate who, you know, you think is unelectable. But ultimately, and this is something I say to people and I’m not pointing out to anybody, but, you know, I think campaigns and, and the parties, they are so used to terrible polling that they don’t even know what it looks like.

and this is true on both sides. I mean, in terms of the sort of messages that they test yeah. And say like, oh, look what we’ve learned now. And I think, you know, the idea that. You know that, that some of these people are, are somehow disqualified. I think that might be true if you’re like a democratic strategist.

I’m not sure if that’s true, if you’re a Republican voter. And to me, that’s where I think, you know, you’re ultimately, you know, you’re Democrats are playing with fire here. I mean, they’re promoting candidates who hold fundamentally and, you know, anti-democratic views in a lot of cases or, you know, his mere existence in Congress, I think calls into question, you know, some, some ways the , you know, the quality of the institution.

But not, you know, I wouldn’t say, but for Democrats, they wouldn’t even have this opportunity, but like, I think you don’t even wanna [00:16:00] have that be a possible criticism you can face. Yeah. And I think so. I, you know, I’m pretty one sided on it. I think, you know, I think there’s better ways to spend $400,000 and to support, uh, you know, you know, what they think is an unelectable Republican.

Yeah. Maybe like, you know, on the Democrat 

Jim Henson: judgements of what is an unelectable Republican has not been very good with with one very prominent example. 

Josh Blank: Well, and exactly. And that’s the plan that’s and that’s the same, your connection to that is exactly right. I mean, the idea that like with, I 

Jim Henson: mean, remember having Trump, having paid Clinton campaign wanted to run against Donald Trump.

Josh Blank: Exactly. Let’s just exactly. 

Jim Henson: What about you? I mean, I don’t. Yeah, no, I I’ve came down the same. I mean, I, you know, I mean, you’ve done a lot of cleared the underbrush. I mean, I, you know, one, I think the risk reward proposition here is not there. Yeah. Particularly in this case. I mean, I guess when the stakes are lower, I don’t love it as a strategy because of that, because there’s too much uncertainty and there’s, you know, it’s campaign consultants, I think.

And you know, some of. Well, maybe not my [00:17:00] best friend. Yes. I have good friends in the consulting class anyway. Sure. I think it’s a way, I mean, there’s, there’s a certain dynamic. Yeah. That to me feels like a consulting. Going, Hey, it’s what my, my wife calls, you know, Hey, I got a good trick pony for you. Yeah.

You know what and trick ponies well, and you know, they’re trick ponies. They don’t race well, right. So there’s that. So I think the risk reward thing, and then, you know, the other thing that you’re saying that I get in this case in particular, I hate to use the word, but you know, it’s ethically not, right?

Yeah. I mean, I, I think it’s, and, and you’re right. It’s I mean, part of it is optics, but sometimes optics and ethics align mm-hmm and this is one of them, the optics are bad and the ethics are terrible. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. Well, and especially I say, you know, we’re talking about democracy, but we’re also sort of, you know, continually talking about.

Information flows in society and disinformation and misinformation. And, you know, I think it really does, you know, hurt the Democrat’s credibility, you know, with, let’s say talking about foreign influences and elections, when, you know, you’re basically spending [00:18:00] this money to, to essentially create, you know, a misinformation.

I mean, some ways a misinformation campaign about a candidate who, you know, is, is probably who you, at least at the very thing, you know, who. Very seriously think is unelectable 

Jim Henson: right. And you’re doing, and you’re doing it, not just BEC and, and again, in this case, they’re doing it not be not just because they think they’re unelectable, but because they think they’re wrong, right.

Wrong and, you know, not just the policy sense, but in the broader institutional ethical sense. And I think, yeah, I think it’s a loser and I, I, you know, another minor point in this, though, that is interesting in this is it’s, it’s another interesting way. And I, you know, this is tactically a good thing, but again, in the broader sense of things, it’s a terrible thing.

Yeah. It’s actually contributed to the January 6th committee’s ability to continue functioning with at least some error of bipartisanship. Yeah. Because Republicans obviously have to say it’s terrible and think it’s terrible. Yeah. But it gives Democrats a chance to say, yeah, this is, yeah. I mean, this is terrible.

And, [00:19:00] and I think you have seen evidence of a divide between, I mean, there’s some divisions among members, but in reading all the, this is completely impressionistic. But in reading that, you know, the millions of inside newsletters. People that, that we get and the people that probably listen to this, get the membership for the, you know, in, in Congress for the most part, particularly in the house where this is all this is happening the most, you know, are not down with this.

They don’t like it. Yeah, no, 

Josh Blank: well, I mean, and anybody who knows anything about like, you know, institutional politics and, and, you know, the relationships between elected officials and these bodies. Could just imagine. 

Jim Henson: Right. And, and it’s, you know, and it’s an interesting source of tension between members and the campaign arm of the party.

Josh Blank: Right. Well, and I think, you know, as I think, you know, IO tied even to the broader thing, I mean, a couple weeks ago, we’re talking about, you know, we weren’t, but I mean, people were talking about Gavin Newsom’s ad and Texas, and some other really going after Greg Abbott and, you know, regardless of the whys, he wants to run president, et cetera.

I mean, you know, there is this sort of [00:20:00] clear. Desire among Democrats to, to figure out how to go be more offensive. Right. And, and, you know, Biden’s gained a lot of CRI criticism from Democrats about not, you know, going on the offense more, whatever that means. And I’m just saying like, you know, I read a lot of stuff.

I’m not exactly sure what that means, but that’s also part of it, I think, because it’s not really for Democrats, they’re not really sure what that means at that point. You are seeing kind of these disparate kind of ran, you know, right. Not random, but you know, it’s a, you know, D. Efforts of higher and lower quality to kind of go on the offensive and right.

To be 

Jim Henson: yeah. You know, to, you know, to try, you know, I mean, and this is a good transition to try to drive the agenda and not just be reactive. Yeah, exactly. Right. Exactly. And so which does bring us, you know, and we’ll talk, you know, just for a few minutes about this and we’ll come back to it and we’re gonna talk about this obviously multiple times going forward, but there has been an interesting.

You know, a amount of attention on the Texas governor’s race yet again, from outside the state, as well as inside the state. Mm-hmm um, last couple weeks, couple of articles that have made manifest this ongoing discussion [00:21:00] about just how competitive the governor’s race is in Texas and why. And again, right.

As I was, you know, as we were talking about this, you know, we’ve talked about this a. It’s hard not to be at least a little repetitive, but I want to try to avoid that at least a little bit, but the race has gotten a bit of national attention after the last round of polling, including our last UT Texas politics project poll is finding what, you know, seems by consensus to be of a single digit race.

Yeah. Right. You know, mid single digits and again, not news, but, uh, you know, I don’t know this happened to you. I, you know, and I know you, you almost certainly got press calls on this. You know, in the last couple weeks there’s been a couple of articles that have kind of made manifest this ongoing discussion about how competitive is this race?

I mean, we’ve seen the polling, we know it’s mm-hmm we know that it’s, that it’s. Competitive. We’ve had a lot of polling, including our, our polling in the last UT, Texas politics project poll. You know, this shows us race in single digits. Mm-hmm I feel like we reached the, you know, one of those, we had one of those [00:22:00] little ticks and interests where everybody goes, oh, wow, what’s going on in that Texas race?

And does bitter O’Rourke have a chance? I think, you know, the trigger nationally for this, I think was a New York times article by Houston based correspondent. David. Good. There was also an oped a little after the Goodman article by Mark Jones of the baker Institute, uh, in the San Antonio express news, you know, both of which in different ways, unpacked the various conditions that seemed to be making this race more competitive mm-hmm , you know, and, um, you know, the elements of that, you know, we’ve laid out in here a lot and I think are.

Pretty, you know, the, the school shootings in Uvalde, the revival of, you know, the abortion politics and the wake of Dobbs and what the Texas, what, what things look like in Texas, the grid, the grid, and, you know, the grid is a weird one because. You know, we haven’t had more problems with the grid or at least catastrophic problems since fed since the storm [00:23:00] in February of 2021.

But the relentlessly hot weather has had everybody on their toes, including T issuing conservation warnings, regular 

Josh Blank: regular conservation 

Jim Henson: alerts. Now, you know, this is all pretty speculative at this. And yeah, I, I don’t want to go too far with this because, well there’s, but one of the things that’s very funny in both of those in both Mark Jones piece and David Goodman’s piece is that there’s a long explication of all these things that are making the race more competitive and is making things, you know, like drawing people’s attention and, and making people, you know, consider whether maybe just mm-hmm maybe, uh, uh, or work could pull this.

Both of those pieces go on at decent length and then about, you know, the second or third graph before the end have a. But still paragraph. Yeah. That kind of says, Hey, and just to be clear, you know, I mean, you know, Mark Jones thing was an op-ed. Yeah. So it was a little more direct in saying, you know, look [00:24:00] Abbott is still probably gonna win this race.

Yeah. Right. And, and David Goodman did a thing where he kind of, it was artfully done. It kind of pivoted by suggesting with man in the street interviews, the people were still kind of thinking about the economy. Yeah. Or not thinking about this at. Yeah, right. I mean, I think he had a guy eating and ice cream or something going, yeah.

I don’t know. Things are pretty good here. 

Josh Blank: I’m fine. I, I did interview this morning on this topic more or less. And, and, you know, it kind of ended with, you know, it’s like, well, but like, wouldn’t you still say it’s like, you know, the Republicans raced to lose and my answer’s. Of course. Yeah. Because you know what, they haven’t lost a race here in 20 years.

So ultimately even if the state is getting more competitive until a Democrat can win at the top of the ticket, it’s still all, it is a Republican. It is all the Republicans races to lose at this point, cuz there’s no indication otherwise. I mean, I think one of the interesting things about all these stories about the race is tightening and sort of the causality that people are putting to it.

It’s like, you know, The race was polling four or five points before Aldi. Right. And before the do’s decision. And so what I’m [00:25:00] thinking about more broadly is, you know, I think people, you know, it’s, it’s natural to wanna see patterns, right. We’re humans, right? Yeah. It’s natural to wanna, you know, draw trend lines through things.

We all, we all do it. Right. But there’s an aspect that I’m kind of looking at now saying, well, okay. You know, is the four to six point lead that Abbott’s maintained right now. I mean, to, to some extent there’s a question, I think that people should be asking themselves, which is, has this already incorporated all of that.

Yeah. I mean, ultimately the, you know, we had a yearlong legislative session in which we were talking about voting rights. We were talking about abortion. We were talking about critical race theory, you know, We were, we were talking about these issues, right? Abbi being up five, you know, ultimately looks like the trend line that we’ve been on, right.

Where, you know, Abbot at the top of the ball at the top of the battle going from, you know, by winning by about 20 to about 12. And then we’re seeing people winning by, you know, between two and a half and six. And now you see most of the statewide candidates at between four and six points. You know, Dan, Patrick only beat Mike Collier last time by 4.8 points.

Right? So the fact that he’s pulling at about five is like, that’s about where he was. So to some extent, you know, I think what, what these articles are. Doing it [00:26:00] entirely, but I mean, some, I wouldn’t say, you know, mark, I wouldn’t say at all is doing this. I think he’s just kind of laying out facts on the ground and I’m not.

And I wasn’t entering the New York times article as closely, but there is a sort of general sense of like this projection. It’s like, well, things have been going bad and therefore that’s why the race is tight and that that’s why the race is tight. Maybe it’s gonna get tighter. Maybe it’s gonna flip. , you know, I mean, it could get tighter and, or, and Abbott could win by two points.

Right, right. It, you know, or, you know, what we might see is what we often do, which is, you know, polling in the summer before an election tends to be a little bit more democratically skewed. It’s a broader electorate than we see in a midterm now. 

Jim Henson: Yeah. Technically speaking, you know, even though, and it will bracket actually Mark’s poll for U of H but, or mark is part of that team.

Yeah. But we’re still pulling registered voters. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. We’re still pulling registered voters. And, and if you’re 

Jim Henson: doing a likely voter screen, you know, artistic stylistic preference here, I think, although justifiable one on our part, you know, it’s a little soon to be talking about likely voters in my view.

Josh Blank: Well, and I would say also [00:27:00] further than that, I mean, I’ll just say what we don’t know at this point, we really don’t know. How mobilizing the do’s decision is gonna be right. 

Jim Henson: And that’s why the Kansas, you know, that’s why we started with the Kansas thing today. And that’s why everybody’s starting with the Kansas thing.

Right. Because it speaks to like one of the most, you know, under determined, but provocative and, and major kind of, you know, Disruptions. And by the way, you know, mark used the term exogenous shock in that article. I sent it to Ross. Yeah. Ross Ramsey. Yeah. And for those of you who been on this podcast, I think we actually joked about this when we had Ross on the podcast Uhhuh to talk about the poll a few weeks ago, you know, he just, I sent him Mark’s article and said, Hey, see the last article he uses the term exogenous shock.

And Ross is, he sent me a one line response. Just said, what’s wrong with you? People . So Lord knows. Yeah. Yeah. Big question. Uh, I don’t know, you know, I mean, to continue on your point. I mean, I think one thing that’s sort of occurring to me that I hadn’t really thought about that much or I’d thought about, but not in this way, which is that, you know, one of the things that’s interesting about looking at those top of the ballot numbers mm-hmm and all those races you were talking [00:28:00] about were last time, you know, the Patrick race was close, the Paxton race was close 2018.

We had the very close, um, uh, AUR cruise race, but that year. Abbott’s still won by 14. Yeah. Against I know against a very weak underfunded candidate. Mm-hmm but one of the things that’s interesting about this is that we’re looking at those trend lines. I mean, the story here may not, is not necessarily, you know, it’s all gone to hell for the Republicans and they’re gonna lose the governorship, but there is something to be said that, you know, it may be that governor Abbott, given the kind of conditions we’re talking about in a, you know, the things that have been going on in the ground.

Maybe getting dragged into where the rest of the 

Josh Blank: ballot was. Yeah. He’s, he’s lost his cushion. I mean, I think that’s pretty clear. I mean, there’s not a distinction between, you know, AB I mean, look, there’s a distinction within, you know, again, when you’re looking at individual evaluations, there’s certainly a, just a gap between Abbot and everybody else, but he is also just much more well known than everybody else.

Well, he’s the governor, so he’s the governor, so that’s fine. I mean, I [00:29:00] just wanna be clear about, we’re 

Jim Henson: saying, don’t tell the Lieutenant governor, I said that. 

Josh Blank: Well that I gonna bring the elector, the, the Lieutenant governor into this for a second. But I think, you know, when you’re watching campaigns, I mean, what I always think is, and I just said, you know, I don’t trust campaign polling.

Um, but I know that the, the, the people, you know, running the campaign do, and ultimately, you know, their actions reflect what they think that, you know, the. The conditions on the ground look like. And I think it’s notable that, you know, Dan Patrick has already started name checking Mike Collier in the summer, which is, you know, I think, you know, if anybody sort of follows campaigns regularly, if you’re an incumbent politician who feels pretty comfortable about your changes, you don’t mention your challenger by name ever, right?

There’s no point in doing that. He’s already, you know, name checking Mike Collier, which I think to me says, you know, that the five point races that were. Polling that we’re seeing everywhere is probably not far off what they’re seeing, what they’re seeing. Yeah. And then I would also add to that, the fact that, you know, if Abbott were sitting pretty, he wouldn’t have made such a big ad buy, you know, so far out in the fall, other than the fact that know he’s gonna be competing for airtime and he is gonna be wanting to put out a message that he’s gonna.

Be spending a bunch of money on. And so again, that’s not, and again, I think [00:30:00] that there’s part of you say like, well, you know, of course he’s gonna do that. That’s why it’s like, yeah, maybe he didn’t have to against Lupe Val. And he spent a bunch of that money on down ballot, Republican candidates. He helped Ted cruise out.

He eat a lot of other stuff. And ultimately, I mean, one of the other side effects of all this, again, I think Republicans are in a pretty safe place at the top of ballot and certainly down ballot. But to some extent, you. You can already see that Abbots looking out for himself very 

Jim Henson: clearly. Although I think it is, it is, you know, and I don’t, I don’t know the answer to this.

I, and I don’t remember impressionistic, but she didn’t remember the governor doing a pretty big ad by early last time and people kind of going, well, why is he doing that? But, you know, I mean, I think that the explanation then was that, you know, they are. Risk averse. They were not going, you know, they were not.

So we’ll 

Josh Blank: have to go back. We have to go back. Cause I was gonna say, you know, my recollection was that that was much more targeted ad by, I mean, I remember in the Lupe Val’s campaign, I mean, I remember the, one of the first kickoff events was sort of the, you know, Hispanics for Greg Abbott kind. So, I mean, they were very much looking to do something specific there.

I think, whereas this is, I mean, this ad by is very, is big and broad, although, 

Jim Henson: you know, they also, but they also tried to do that in [00:31:00] 2014. Yeah. Where they did another initial event, but then it got kind of scotched by what was going on on the Lieutenant governor’s race when Dan Patrick first ran and it was a race to the right.

Yeah. And the rhetoric on that side, kind of just, you know, obstructed that strategy, I think for the, for the Abbott 

Josh Blank: campaign. But I mean, I guess, I mean, I guess the point I would make here is, you know, I mean, just to wrap this up in some sense, you know, I think if you’re an incumbent politician and you can go to the voters and.

Look, how great everything’s going. Why would you wanna make a change then? You don’t mention the other guy. Yeah, no, I think that’s and I think, and what you’re clearly seeing, you know, that’s not, you know, that’s not the race that we’re having right now. Yeah. And I think that in and of itself is just a it’s just, and, you know, and look, that’s just a fundamentally different race.

I mean, I think, you know, you know, that that’s fundamentally something different than what we’ve seen 

Jim Henson: recently. Well, 2018 was a fundamental, you know, pretty different context for all these. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. I’m gonna lose, I mean, 2018 was its own was its own thing. But I think, you know, when people think about Texas and what’s interesting, I.[00:32:00] 

I think, you know, if you were to go back over the last few election cycles, you’d say, you know, for Republicans, these are mobilization, elections. Get, if you get your voters out, you’re gonna win the race. You don’t need to acknowledge the Democrats. And you basically just need to say, Hey, thank God. We’re not running like Washington.

Thank God Texas has run like this. Right. That argument. A lot tougher to make. And I think you are seeing, you know, an indication that, that both sides are looking that they, they probably need to do some persuading. And not 

Jim Henson: only is it tougher to make, not just than it was in 2018, it’s tougher to make than it was six months ago.

Josh Blank: Yes. well, and that’s, and that’s, and I think, and 

Jim Henson: that’s that’s, and that’s a, you know, and that’s what, and that’s, what’s, that’s one of the things that makes this very interesting and, and dynamic. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, honestly, right. You know, 

Jim Henson: right. I mean, in terms of mechanics, I mean, there’s a matter, you know, you’re talking about mobilization.

I mean, who has a mobilization advantage right now? I mean, I, I still give it to the Republicans, I think, but that’s why the abortion piece is so interesting. Now they start from a higher baseline. But if you look at the, you know, if you look at the buckets of voters, mm-hmm and you know, [00:33:00] I sort of did this on a informal mailing list with, and then felt kind of stupid because I hadn’t put enough of this contextual information in it.

But at some level it does feed into this, right. If you’re, you know, if you’re the candidates, you know, you’re Mo you know, base mobilization. Yep. Right. And so you’ve got Republicans with a well-oiled machine and a seemingly a seeming advantage there both in terms of party identification, in what we expect the electorate to be.

Yeah. Asterisk, you know, but still not a big asterisk, right? No, not a big, as you know, then you’ve got some body of persuadable partisans, which are. Polling shows is pretty small when it comes to candidate races, right? This is where, you know, the whole point about, you know, the difference between a referendum on abortion and a partisan vote for a candidate is really a big question.

Right. You know, I think in our last poll, you know, the number of partisan infections was low single digits in each party. Yeah. Kind of canceled each other out. you know, seems to be, to be trivial [00:34:00] within the margin of error probably. Right. And then you’ve got, you know, some thing of weak partisans or independence.

Yeah. Right. And if you’ve, you know, you take our estimates and independence are between 10 and 14% of our samples, more than 40% of them were not committed to either or work or Abbott in our last poll. Some, 

Josh Blank: some, and only some subset of those people 

Jim Henson: will. And then a smaller set of them will vote a, the math adds up to the, to the close race that we’re seeing.

Mm-hmm, absolutely right. And it also, you know, raises sort of a, you know, a lot. I think not clearly answerable questions about how the campaigns proceed in this environment. Mm-hmm and I think that is where you’re seeing a little bit of drag on the Abbott campaign, because I think the path for that for Democrats, ironically, is a little more clear than the path is for Republicans.

Other than hoping that you can revert to the playbook before this all before. You know. Yeah. I mean the bad 20, 22 started to unfold with you [00:35:00] all day. Well, well in your seat, I mean, I think 

Josh Blank: abortion and, you know, you know, there was articles out. I mean, we’ll get out of this soon and I I’ll just say two things.

I mean, you know, there, and that’s why we hear about immigration, the border all the time. Right. I mean, there, there articles out, you know, I think the tri did a pretty good job going into depth about the state surge juvenile justice system and how it’s, you know, as I think their word is collapsing, sounds like it’s collapsing and, you know, and sort.

Responding to this, you know, the response was, you know, well, open borders, fentanyl, and it’s like, okay. Right. Got it. But, you know, I mean, so I mean, there is there, I mean, we know what I mean. I think the playbook is very clear and I think there’s there’s advantages to it. But one thing I’ll add to your, you know, what you were saying about, you know, the mobilization piece Democrats are running the same ticket.

They ran in 2018 at the very top. You know, in some ways, right? I mean, it’s not exact, I mean, not for governor and, and Lieutenant governor. Right. But you know, one of the things that, that, you know, you can say, you know, better O’Rourke has, is he’s got lists. Yeah. He has lists of democratic voters. He has lists of people who’ve worked on his campaign for, and he’s done it before.

And even my, you know, what. Mike Collier has lists and has done it before and has done it before. And so, you know, even though I [00:36:00] definitely certainly give the 

Jim Henson: so for doing the same thing, everyone else did well, even 

Josh Blank: though, well, no, even though I still give the institutional advantage to Republicans, because again, they’ve demonstrated ability to win and they’ve and they have it, but that’s also to say, you know, this isn’t, uh, a situation where a new candidate is showing up and is kind of figuring out the roads on the road.

I mean, we’ve been saying it’s odd. In prior podcast, we’d say, ah, that O work waited so long to end the race, even though it was a normal time to get into the race, but he could have done it earlier for other reasons. But you know, the fact that like in the summer before the, you know, quote unquote official campaign, as we think begins in the fall.

Yeah. The fact that, you know, he’s on a 49, you know, day tour with, you know, 60 stops is because, you know, like he’s done this before. Yeah. And that makes a 

Jim Henson: difference. I mean, and you know, I don’t want to over, you know, and he can, and he 

can. 

Jim Henson: you know, so, and I think that’s also an interesting factor here.

Josh Blank: Yeah. And so again, I don’t think that that’s, that’s, I don’t think that’s determinative, but when you’re looking at all these factors and saying, boy, you know, do we think this is gonna be, you know, a close race? Or do we think, you know, you know, it’s gonna, we’re [00:37:00] gonna come out on election and you know, the Republicans are all gonna be pretty comfortable.

And again, we’re not even talking about Ken Paxon, we’ll just leave that alone. Right. You know, you say, yeah. You know, I think there’s a lot of reasons to think this race might be. Tighter because honestly, the issues that are probably, you know, at least some of the most mobilizing, you know, for Democrats.

And I think even for some of these independents who, you know, if, if you were gonna say, how might they break democratic? They’re the issues that Abbott does not want to talk about. Right. I mean, this 

Jim Henson: goes back to what we’ve talked about on here before about, you know, a lot campaigns is sort of, you know, fights over what is gonna be at the forefront of the agenda of the campaign discussion, right.

Which you’re trying and what, you know, what’s really doing is. Push issues in front of the voters. Yeah. As you get close to the election, and we’ve said, you know, add infinitum, you know, immigration and border security, great Republican UNFI, et cetera, et cetera. But it is really striking, given that things are, you know, when we do get reporting there, things are not great at the border.

No. And, and they’re not. In a lot of ways that you, that a Republican [00:38:00] candidate should be able to make hay of yeah. Where the Democrat in the white house. Right. But the constant drip, drip, drip of open border bad. Well, on the other, oh, the other side on bad news in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, mm-hmm has really just soaked up a lot of bandwidth, you know, atten you know, in terms of what a colleague would call the politics of attention.

Yeah. I mean, it’s really striking. I was making a list and getting ready for this, the number of things, you know, some of which you know, are not totally surprising, but still a little surprising that have come out in the aftermath of Vivaldi. It’s just, they’ve just, you know, they would never say this and I don’t blame them and I’m not, you know, casting aspersions on this, but the Abbott campaign really needs that.

Issue to recede. Yeah. And I, and the issue, and I think what is happened is that the issue is that this has not really been about guns. They’ve done a good job as we talked about on the last podcast of obscuring, right. The gun issue, at least at the state level. Yeah. In [00:39:00] terms of the, the, the legislative report, but the kind of news that’s come outta, there has not been about guns.

It’s been. Poor delivery of support to people in Uvalde. Yeah. It’s been about blame casting. It’s been about the lack of clarity on what actually happened still. Yeah. It’s been about the constant appearance of blame casting among different entities and just not been able to move beyond it. Well, and I also 

Josh Blank: say, you know, and the, in the, in the sort of shifting of attention, it doesn’t really help either.

Cause it is like, well, it’s not about guns. It’s about the fact that these schools aren’t safe. Yeah. It’s like, oh, you mean. the schools in Texas that the state government right. Is responsible for. I mean, like, it’s just, you kind of go one step down the line and you say, oh, well, that’s a little bit of a, that’s 

Jim Henson: a little difficult.

And that, and that in a way is why it, it has rebounded to the O’Rourke campaign strategy announced on the Telegraph from the very first day mm-hmm with different issue priority mm-hmm . But. [00:40:00] You know, this is a critique of the stewardship of the state. Yeah. By the party that’s been in control for 20 years and a governor running for a third term.

And it’s, you know, it, you know, you mentioned all these other issues that I think are, you know, have historically been less salient. Yeah. You know, child, you know, CPS mm-hmm youth of, you know, all of these other issues that are bubbling out there, there are traditional democratic issues that don’t get much traction right now.

All of a sudden. There’s something that’s a little more additive about it, potentially, I think. And that, and I think that is out there in the mood. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. I think that’s right. I mean, that was, you know, that’s kind of, I mean, that’s like, that’s kind of what I said three months ago. Like, you know, these things could add up and this was before, you know, we knew that the Supreme court was probably gonna come down with a decision like this.

Yeah. Regardless if they did or not, Texas still pass for abortion restrictions fact is, is there was going to be a mass shooting in Texas at some point because Texas is a big place with a lot of guns and the legislature made it easier to own guns. The thing that I think, you know, I, I also kind. Put out there sort of just, you know, watching is, you know, in terms of the drip, drip, [00:41:00] drip of, you know, you talk about, you know, sort of the, the aftermath of Uvalde, but there’s also this, you know, the drip, drip, drip about, you know, Joe Biden’s open borders.

It’s like, I just wonder if at some point, you know, that loses some of its power because the reality is the state is spending so much money. Yeah. On border security. I mean, ultimately the question might be why hasn’t this gotten any better? Yeah, right. And so ultimately, you know, you, at some point there is a sort of, you know, aspect to it, to it, which is like, well, you know, if you keep complaining about it and keep talking about it and keep pointing the finger, but at the same time, you know, you’re taking money from, you know, taking money from child protective services and you’re taking money from, you know, all these different parts of government and the price tag just keeps going up and up and up something that, you know, again, we pointed out at the end of the session, Republicans are very proud to tout, but at some point, like, you know, do you own some.

The border 

Jim Henson: crisis. I mean, and it’s, and it’s been a problem. It’s been a problem for the, for the Abbott administration, since they really started this, mm-hmm, increased spending on the border several years ago. Right. Right. In which, you know, now it [00:42:00] didn’t get much attention then. Cause it happened in the legislature and people are like, well, what are we getting for this beyond more traffic tickets in the border region?

Mm-hmm , you know, if this race stays close, I mean, I, you know, It makes me wonder if this doesn’t become, you know, the, that the, you know, the kind of moment of truth doesn’t come in the closing weeks of the campaign. Mm-hmm can Bedo O’Rourke thread, a needle that says Democrats believe in border security too.

Yeah. You have spent by that time, it’ll be probably $4 billion or whatever the, I think it’s already over 4 billion. Yeah, right? Yeah. Cuz they just added more. Or they found that they were transferring more, they’d spent more, you know, what have Texans gotten for this? And the Abbott team will be anticipating that question.

Yeah, sure. What will be the answer to that? Yeah. Cause I think, you know, as you say, you know, the answer so far has been well, what he expects us to do, you know, it’s the Biden administration’s fault at some point, you know, and I, maybe we talked about this on air now. I can’t remember. [00:43:00] Will there be. You know, some kind of messaging from the Oort campaign that says, you know, why does Greg Abbot blame Joe Biden for all his mistakes?

Yeah. 

Josh Blank: Well, and I think, you know, I think Harvey pointed out re Harvey Kronberg pointed out recently in, you know, some core report thing that he wrote a couple weeks ago, you know, there’s a lot of audio that they could use. Yeah. And that’s the thing. And the audio is piling up on some of this on both, you know, I think the border piece, but then also on this cumulative piece, right.

You know, on each of these sorts of elements. And so, you know, so. Having said all that, you know, Abbott’s probably gonna win. make just, just to come back to this, 

Jim Henson: right. Just to get to the second and the last paragraph. 

Josh Blank: Yeah. But I mean, I think, you know, but overall I think this is, this is why it’s interesting, you know, again, I’m not sure, honestly, that this isn’t already all reflected in the polling.

Yeah. To be honest. And I don’t, and I’m not. And I think also based on the way that, you know, the, the differences between the. Registered voter pool. And what turns out to be the actual electorate, uh, tends to favor, you [00:44:00] know, Republicans a little more, you know, if that’s the case, maybe, you know, Abbott ends up winning by six or seven points and is relatively comfortable.

But I think, you know, the thing that’s interesting is, you know, there, you know, it’s an uphill battle, you know, for Democrats. They’ve they’ve, they’ve got a little bit more wind in their back than I think, you know, I think we certainly anybody expected certainly than anybody expected. I agree. Yeah, 

Jim Henson: exactly.

Yeah. And, and, you know, and that is, what’s driving some of this coverage with that. I think I’m gonna flag one more thing before signing off. And that is, you know, this is almost foreshadowing, you know, we talked about John corn’s position in the podcast a lot. Uh, John Cornin, you know, basically censored censored by the Colin county Republican party this week, and yet another bad break for, for John corn, which really kind of raises issues about what is going on inside the Republican party.

We’ll put a pin in that for next week or the week after on that. I wanna thank Josh for being here. Thank our excellent crew here in the audio studio [00:45:00] in the liberal arts development studio at the university of Texas. At Austin, cuz I knocked the mic off the stand a couple of times thrashing around. So thank you guys for the extra help.

Uh, thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast. Be sure and look for data supporting material and other goodies at our website, the Texas politics project. That’s Texas politics dot U texas.edu. The second reading podcast. Is a production of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin.