August 8th, 2024 – Early baselines for the Harris ticket in Texas and rumblings in state politics

[00:00:00] Jim: Welcome to the Second Reading Podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:05] Music: The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. Sir, 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.

[00:00:35] 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. Happy to be joined again today by Josh Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project. Mid morning, Josh.

[00:00:48] Josh: Good morning.

[00:00:49] Jim: So we’ve been out of the studio for a few weeks, mostly because I took some time off and left the country.

I mean, there wasn’t much going on.

[00:00:57] Josh: No, it was pretty quiet. Don’t worry. I got it, boss.

[00:01:03] Jim: But we are back. And of course, there’s lots to talk about. You know, we’ve talked a little bit about how to proceed today as we catch up a little bit and kind of get back on a more regular schedule is, you know, summer wanes, at least. calendar wise, if not weather wise. So that we stop with, you know, the kind of Texas centric, big picture view of the story that’s dominating national news, and that’s the state of the presidential race.

And then we have some time we’ll circle back around for something more of a local check in. Um, uh, So, of course, let’s start with the relatively, you know, the still new Kamala Harris candidacy at the top of the Democratic ticket. So, you know, while I was gone, you gathered up some of the data, and I was looking back at that post you did while I was out, and you actually did that post before It’s true.

She was even, you know, she had been elevated, I think, before Biden resigned.

Yeah, it’s true. I think it was right after he dropped. And then I sort of put that out and there’s a line at the top of it that I thought about going in and updating basically, Hey, look, you know, we got to wait and see whether she’s, you know, coalesced everybody.

That’s what I

noticed. Yeah.

[00:02:05] Josh: Cause it was, it was literally in the one day in her period where it was kind of unclear whether that had happened is assume it had happened, but nonetheless it was being complete. And then, you know, she basically at least. nominally clinched the nomination, you know, based on what everybody had said at that point.

But nonetheless, you know, there’s worthwhile given all the data we have both on Biden, Harris and Trump and the points of comparison we make just to say, you know, how does Harris compare as a candidate based on what we know at that point in time?

[00:02:32] Jim: Right. And here’s where we flag, you know, we’re, you know, to my knowledge, there’s been no public polling released.

After Harris had become the apparent nominee

[00:02:42] Josh: right in Texas. Now, there might be some coming the next few days, you know, but there will be there. There probably will be soon enough. If not, you know, very soon. But ultimately, you know, so we’re looking at where Harris stood before this. And what you kind of find is that, you know, her numbers really weren’t You know, that bad.

I mean, there’s a lot of discussion about the idea that, you know, Harris had taken on water because of, you know, her role at the border. And, you know, I think a fair amount of kind of wishful thinking, kind of projecting kind of going on. And when you look at her numbers compared to Biden overall, you know, they’re not far off.

I mean, we look at the favorability rating among registered voters in Texas. Biden was at 53 unfavorable. Harris was at 51 unfavorable in June. Biden was at 39 favorable. She was at 35. You know, among Democrats, their unfavorables were about the same. You know, Biden was about 10 points higher than her, 81 to 71, uh, which, you know, again, for a vice president, former Senator from California in a state like Texas.

[00:03:33] Jim: Yeah, not really far off the structural fact that you know people are a lot more likely to have a view and a more strongly Held a view of the president than the vice president.

[00:03:42] Josh: Yeah

[00:03:42] Jim: in most circumstance Yeah,

[00:03:44] Josh: you know we could do a whole podcast just about kind of what’s going on in the space right now and the polling around This and so but I think you know, there’s been other people made this point We’ll just make it here right now, you know to the extent that Her numbers have sort of improved from not a bad place, but have gotten better in the last, you know, week or so, or she seems to be in a honeymoon phase or she’s on a trajectory or whatever you want to think.

And I don’t want to say any of those things because I don’t, I think it’s still a little, little early to say that, you know, I think my take from our numbers and from what I’ve seen is a lot of that was not necessarily that, like, you know, she’s appealing across the aisle. I think it’s just a bunch of Democrats who kind of didn’t really have much of an attitude about her are now saying, Oh, this is the nominee.

This is why I’m told I should like her from. various democratic allies and sources they do trust. And so you are seeing, I think, you know, a lot of movement now. I think what some people point out, which is important, which is that if you can have that much movement in a short period of time for someone, you can also have movement in other directions as well.

And so this is still very fluid. You know, I think the other thing that the polling showed was a. You know, Biden’s age was a big problem before he decided to drop. And I know that kind of sounds obvious, but you know, when we had asked essentially whether or not Biden was too old to be president in 2025, not only did a lot of voters and so a lot of Democrats said so, most Democrats.

And so that’s, that’s a problem, right? It

[00:04:53] Jim: was a problem, you know, well before the debate. Made the problem harder to ignore

[00:04:58] Josh: the debate. Didn’t make people think about something that they weren’t thinking about. It confirmed something that they were already thinking about, and that was why it was such a death.

Now, I think, right?

[00:05:07] Jim: Yeah, well, it it doomed his candidacy. I think

[00:05:11] Josh: I thought about that after I said, like, I wonder if Jim’s

[00:05:14] Jim: gonna not that we’re not that we go out of our way to be overly sensitive, but still

[00:05:18] Josh: still. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, ultimately, ultimately, You know, a lot of people were talking about the idea that, you know, Biden in some ways, his weakness at that point had been the fact that, you know, if you kind of say like, well, is he stronger than like the average Democrat or like, you know, like setting aside like your favorite candidate, but just, you know, a solid candidate, is Biden going to perform better?

And the answer is kind of, no, I mean, that’s what basically Nancy Pelosi said in the last few days. I think that was

[00:05:40] Jim: kind of what we were talking about in the podcast in the last podcast we did focused on national politics. Right. You know,

[00:05:44] Josh: and I think this polling and the polling that’s come out since has kind of confirmed that notion that whether or not Harris turns out to be a good Democratic candidate.

You know or an average democratic candidate or a bad democratic, but let’s say she’s average or good It’s clear already that that seems to be an improvement over where the democrats were Yeah,

[00:06:02] Jim: and you know, I mean I would say maybe there’s a little bit of an academic distinction between you know What makes her a good candidate structurally and what makes her a good candidate in terms of how?

What she does in her own handling of it, certainly structurally at the point in time that Biden dropped out, she was a better candidate.

[00:06:18] Josh: Yeah. And look, I mean, I always like to say, yeah. And I mean, it’s a good, I’m glad you honed in on that because I talk, sometimes we talk about candidate quality and I want to be quick when I talk about candidate quality.

It’s not some kind of like Lucy, you know, kind of. How I feel about it or anything. It’s like, can this person raise money? Can they effectively wage a campaign? I’m not saying they can win but can they compete at the level that they’re being asked to compete that whether that’s a congressional district Statewide district the presidency and the real problem and I you know, can they execute the real problem?

And I said this, you know Essentially right after the debate to a lot of people for biden was you know, the money was going to dry up One of the major features and what makes someone a viable quality candidate is the ability to, you know, again, effectuate a campaign and at that point, no one was giving Biden money and it was only a matter of time before he’s going to drop out at that point because who’s going to write, you know, a million, 10 million check to, you know, a super PAC supporting Biden when you’re basically burning it.

And now the coffers have opened up, you know, she’s obviously raising tons of money and whether that’s just actually making up for the, you know, kind of the lag. in what Biden would have been receiving. Now we’ll see. I mean, that’s going to take a couple more months, I think, to figure out. But, you know, they replaced him with what is, you know, again, from a political science standpoint, again, without a normative equality candidates.

Pete

[00:07:26] Jim: Yeah. And I think that part of, you know, part of what we’re seeing in the, uh, the positive response to, you know, the naming of Tim Walz as her vice presidential candidate is that, you know, whether this was Part of the strategy or not, nothing, you know, whatever you think about him, whatever you think about the alternatives and you know, what might have been or we know where this is going to go.

It’s not done anything to disrupt that.

[00:07:53] Josh: Yeah,

[00:07:54] Jim: right. Which in itself is a pretty good thing.

[00:07:57] Josh: I

[00:07:57] Jim: mean, you know, there’s a certain amount of people. You know, I mean, there are predictable attempts to attack him from the Republican side, which everybody should have expected, and there’ll be more of that. But by and large, there’s nothing to disrupt, you know, I don’t like to use the word the momentum, but you know, the kind of state of play that was in, you know, that that was, you know, that happened when she became the candidate, locked it down.

And has now gone on the first, you know, week or so of campaigning, right? I

[00:08:26] Josh: mean, at least so far. So, so far. And again, that’s subject to the change thing

[00:08:30] Jim: too. But I mean, you know, look, I mean, you can compare it to the JD Vance

[00:08:34] Josh: rollout

[00:08:34] Jim: and, you know, this is going to sound a little partisan, but it’s not, I mean, you know, that was not a great rollout.

No, I mean, it’s not gone that well and it’s actually been disruptive, you know, to my mind to the attempt of the Trump campaign, you know, to realign the campaign to the new reality. Yeah. You know, so far, the Walsh nomination has not done that,

[00:08:55] Josh: you know, one of the things I’ll be really interested in learning about when we kind of look back on this period and we hear more about the Biden’s decision to leave is I’m really interested in learning eventually how long that was actually in play for because it seems to me that, you know, in, you know, if you’re Biden administration.

If you’re a Democrat, I mean, I think what you would have been hoping was going on is that Biden was saying, you know, during the entirety of the Republican convention, I’m still the guy, you know, God’s gonna have to remove me, you know, all this kind of stuff and et cetera, et cetera. My assumption was that behind the scenes, you’re, you’re doing all the movement.

Now, it’s hard to do that. I mean, I think, like, I think it would have come out, but I wonder, by the time Harris was, you know, Biden was ready to step in, he was ready to endorse how many of the pieces had already been set in place in a way that really, you know, again, I think it’s, like, right now, frustrating.

Yeah. Trump and Republicans. They got, you know, they do their whole convention. They name vans. I mean, Trump, you know, does his own, you know, has his own, has hurt himself in his own ways. I mean, almost immediately says, well, who cares who I picked, you know, all this other stuff. Right. But then immediately it’s like, well, actually the guy you were talking about that whole week, he’s not running.

[00:09:59] Jim: Yeah. And yeah, I think that, you know, the, the reporting so far, yeah. You know, has suggested, I think that the preparation that you’re wondering about was What’s going on? Just not in Joe Biden’s immediate camp or certainly in Joe Biden’s the front of Joe Biden’s mind. Anyway,

[00:10:18] Josh: you know,

[00:10:18] Jim: we’ll find out more.

I mean, to me, the way I, you know, is how ready were people getting? Because I think,

[00:10:23] Josh: you

[00:10:24] Jim: know, it’s pretty likely to me that people were probably beginning to make Serious contingency plans, you know, as the debate was happening.

[00:10:35] Josh: Yeah,

[00:10:35] Jim: at the time, it just seemed like Biden was really dragging his feet. He had to be convinced.

I think when we look back on this in time, three weeks was a reasonable time for them to make that decision.

[00:10:47] Josh: Yeah.

[00:10:47] Jim: And for him, and particularly for him to make that decision. And you know, you probably wouldn’t have wanted it to be. Too quick because the kind of background contingency planning I’m suggesting wouldn’t have had time to take.

[00:11:00] Josh: Yeah. It just felt like three months to Democrats. Yeah. We were seeing him erode in the polls. We’re watching the convention and, you know, seeing Trump kind of gleefully be the front runner for the first time, you know, it was a lot for Democrats to

[00:11:11] Jim: watch. Time passes slowly when your hands are perpetually ringing, which, you know, for good reason.

I mean, I’m not,

[00:11:17] Josh: So, so where are we now? So we’re talking about Texas, but where, so, so I think, you know, we want to go to Texas. Yeah. Let’s talk about the broad state of play.

[00:11:23] Jim: And the national data has been pretty good for the, for the Harris campaign and for Democrats, you know, pretty, you know, I think there was a period in the first week or so where people were like, well, the polling’s not moving that much.

We’ll see. But I mean, as the polling accumulates, it’s looking, you know, it’s, it’s, this has been good for Democrats.

[00:11:40] Josh: Yeah. And there’s two

[00:11:41] Jim: ways about that.

[00:11:42] Josh: Yeah. And it’s been good for Democrats. It’s not

[00:11:43] Jim: just the vibe.

[00:11:44] Josh: Right. And it’s been good for Democrat. I want to contextualize. I think the way that I look at it is, is that what it’s done in a lot of ways is probably return the race to a steady state.

You know, if you want to say what defines elections, I think if Darren were here right now, our colleague, Darren Shaw, you know, he would say, you know, what’s defined elections and how close they are, you know, that ultimately the elections are incredibly close, you know, and it’s not, this isn’t, you know, rocket science, but, you know, turned by thousands of votes in a few number, you know, in a few states, you know, this is how, this is what elections look like in America right now.

Right. And that was kind of being, you know, punctured, you know, punctured a little bit in some ways with Biden’s unseen, you know, seeming unfitness for office, leading a lot of Democrats to look to alternatives, Robert F. Kennedy, other places, you know, et cetera.

[00:12:26] Jim: Yeah. Fantasy alternatives in their heads.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:29] Josh: Now we look back and we’re sitting here and, you know, it’s, you know, it’s August of an election year. And at least in all the polling that’s come out in the last few days, you see Harris with a slight lead nationally, usually among registered voters. And that’s important. I want to make that clear, you know, Right?

So once the electorate starts to get a little bit tighter, and this is going to be what the campaigns are about, it’s going to be about mobilizing different groups of voters. And this is why, you know, not, I shouldn’t even bring this up now, but I will, why, you know, LV screens at this point are a little bit weird.

And this is also why I think LV screens were really weird in June, when we didn’t even know who the candidates, you know, when it wasn’t even clear that these would be the candidates, or at least Biden would be in the race. So here we are now, we see what looks like kind of a normal, you know, Tight close American election.

It’s going to come probably still coming down to a handful of states Going to be a you know, tight, you know vote at the top in terms of the the popular vote But what does that mean? Right? I mean you said on the one hand, you know, uh, The crystal sabato’s crystal ball has moved georgia from lean republican to toss up It’s moved to hampshire and minnesota in a more democratic direction from lean democrat to likely democrat So all the handicappers are kind of making their adjustments now and kind of pricing this into the markets So that’s where we are What does that mean for Texas?

[00:13:41] Jim: I mean, I think, um, you know, as you said, there’s not a lot of public polling evidence to look at this so far other than, you know, we know where we’ve been, but since the big, you know, intervention, we don’t really know exactly, you know, where things are. But I mean, I think if you go back to what we were thinking about this race before all this happened, and I think we talked about this the last time we were podcasting and talking about the national race.

It was looking before the debate. Or, you know, immediately after like, you know, but, but even before the debate that Trump had a shot at. Slightly outperforming the trend line in presidential, in the Republican presidential victory gap in Texas and, you know, as every, if you’re listening to this, as everybody knows, you know, that that gap has been closing over time, you know, to the point that, you know, Trump defeated Biden in Texas in 2020 by about five and a half, five and three quarter points, something like that.

That was after about a nine point victory over Hillary. And then, you know, it was getting smaller and we were seeing polling that had this race in a kind of. Eight to 11 point range, probably. I think we had it at nine in our June poll and we’d kind of said, well, you know, it looks like as the race tightens, as we get closer, once we go to our LV screen, you know, it’ll probably get a little smaller than that, which seemed on the line, but a little bit above where Trump was, it sure feels like, and this is, utterly speculative at this point, you know, but it sure feels like we’re probably going to see that race, that number among registered voters tighten a bit next time we’re in the field.

[00:15:24] Josh: You

[00:15:24] Jim: know how much don’t know, but you know, I would bet it’ll tighten some, you know, which puts us on a track, you know, to get back on the trend line. As of where it is now, I mean, I think that makes sense.

[00:15:39] Josh: Yeah I mean what i’ve sort of been thinking about is, you know, if you take out everything, right? Like let’s just say we’re gonna go and say, okay Forget about the candidates forget about who’s in office, you know, forget about the state of the economy Like what does the normal vote look like or so we call that kind of what do we expect?

The distribution of the electorate to look like between republicans and democrats if everybody who you know is above a certain threshold Shows up right in a

[00:16:00] Jim: presidential in a presidential

[00:16:01] Josh: year and the idea is is like again You Maybe, you know, 10 years ago, you’d say, well, it’s probably plus 15, 18 Republican, you know, in that kind of range, you know, maybe, you know, maybe it gets into 12.

And I think the idea, and this is just say, where does it start? I’m not saying where does it, where does it end? I’m saying, but where does it start? And then the campaigns come in and we sort of see, we’re either moving a little bit tighter or a little bit bigger, you know? I think about, you know, just a different race, but I think that the governor’s race, you know, again, you know, I think about, you know, Greg Abbott against Wendy Davis ended up exploding to about 20 points, but it grew over time.

It was like, it’s, you know, sort of 12. And then as we started going to likely voters, it got bigger and bigger and bigger, right? What we’ve seen recently is, you know, this, this, so the question becomes, you know, does the number get bigger or smaller? And what’s the number in terms of what sort of the steady state?

[00:16:45] Jim: Yeah. And

[00:16:46] Josh: to my mind, in a presidential election, I think the republic, Republicans in Texas have somewhere between, let’s just say, you know, let’s say a seven point advantage. Okay. You know, I think that works with the numbers we have anyway. And I’m just throwing this out there as a possibility because, again, this is hypothetical.

[00:17:00] Jim: Well, and there’s been variants, there’s been variants in the statewide offices and off year elections. Well, this is the point, I’m taking a bit of variation in the results.

[00:17:07] Josh: And when I say this, I’m trying to take everything out, right? So we’re not considering whether Well, that’s why 7

[00:17:10] Jim: is kind of reasonable if you have

[00:17:12] Josh: And then you start throwing in these elements, right?

These things we call, you know, like sort of these contextual factors, these fundamentals of the election. Well, who is in the White House? What is the state of the economy, right? Who are the actual candidates? And then you say like, okay, so do you think that seven points is going to grow to like nine, 10, 11, 12?

Or do we think it’s going to shrink to like four, five, six, three, right? Two point two and a half? You know, who knows? But the idea was, I think, before, you know, we were looking at a, at a normal vote that was probably increasing there. Yeah. Go in that direction and now the question is

[00:17:44] Jim: increasing in the Republic in the Republican

[00:17:45] Josh: direction now The question is you know and this would be more on the trend line as we say in quotes in terms of what we’re seeing Texas or is it gonna Tighten as we get closer to the election not that it again, you know, you think well Harris is gonna win I’m not saying that But are the Democrats gonna continue to chip away at the presidential vote margin as they’ve been doing election cycle after election cycle And I think you know the Harris Entry into the race certainly makes the possibility of a tightening of that seven points towards five or four or whatever, more likely, certainly than it was a month ago.

[00:18:12] Jim: Yeah.

[00:18:13] Josh: So that’s a big fundamental change. And that has. Some real consequences.

[00:18:16] Jim: Yeah. Yeah, that was the point I was making. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s right And that’s

[00:18:19] Josh: some real consequences for Texas because obviously the person who has the closest margin In a race is up for re election in Ted Cruz, right?

Who only was able to beat O’Rourke by about two and a half when he ran in 2018? Now that was an off year election There was a republican way as these are the contextual factors that we have to consider here, right? It was

[00:18:34] Jim: a democratic wave.

[00:18:35] Josh: It was a democratic wave year that

[00:18:37] Jim: year Yeah,

[00:18:38] Josh: and so now it’s not to say that, you know, Cruz is going to be in a similar Context You know predicament given the overall context but to say that you know But that was also

[00:18:47] Jim: a midterm year and what helped what helped?

O’rourke that year And this is you know, the perpetual discussion of you know how good a candidate was o’rourke versus context, you know, which we’ve Exhausted on the podcast probably some extent but you know But, you know, but nonetheless, one of the things that helped O’Rourke was that it was a midterm election where the electorate looked a bit more like a presidential year.

[00:19:16] Josh: Right. And so, so, so, you know, Cruz had a pretty close shave last time. And I think, you know, the dynamics of the race are much better for him right now than they were in that year because of all these contextual factors. But this change certainly impacts

[00:19:28] Jim: it. And again, it’s a presidential year. So, you know, the electorate is different.

[00:19:32] Josh: Yeah, they have much less. It’s a

[00:19:33] Jim: more democratic electorate. And I think, look, I, you know, we’ve talked about this a little bit. I mean, it’s to revisit that. I mean, I briefly, I think it’s pretty clear the Cruz campaign sees that. You know, and I mean, I think there was a there was an article in one of the Texas papers and forgive me if you Wrote this to whoever wrote and wrote this and I can’t remember.

I don’t remember the piece and maybe you will

[00:19:55] Josh: Yeah

[00:19:56] Jim: that talked a little bit about there’s this kind of odd Dynamic that we haven’t seen in Texas as much in which both crews and all red are campaigning on having Been able to reach across the aisle.

[00:20:08] Josh: Well, and that has not

[00:20:09] Jim: been the cruise brand

[00:20:11] Josh: and what’s really interesting What’s really interesting about that is if If, if Cruz felt the need to moderate his image to the Texas electorate before all this happens.

[00:20:21] Jim: No, it’s been, that’s been going on for a couple of years. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, literally a couple, I mean, the first, the first articles about,

[00:20:28] Josh: you

[00:20:29] Jim: know, Ted Cruz working across the aisle, cause you know, we looked this up for something we were writing. You know, appeared in late 2022. I think they would say, cause

[00:20:36] Josh: it’s true.

[00:20:37] Jim: Yeah. You know,

[00:20:38] Josh: but the point I’m just making is, you know, to the extent that, you know, I look, you know, I’ll just, I’ll lay my cards on the table here. I mean, look. Having followed Cruz’s career. You know, basically, you know, from his first election to say, well, like, you know, this is a very different tack from the person who was elected, which is fine.

People can evolve. I’m not saying that it’s not legitimate or, or wrong with it makes a lot of

[00:20:57] Jim: sense, actually. But yeah,

[00:20:59] Josh: but to the extent that, you know, he was looking at the, looking at that close race against O’Rourke, looking at the political dynamics heading into this election, while Biden was still the nominee and still felt that he had to moderate his position further and make decisions.

That clear to voters before the race moved in a direction that was much if not favorable to them or significantly more favorable means They’re probably sweating this too.

[00:21:20] Jim: Yeah, I mean I think they did a you know A relatively clear eyed assessment of their vulnerabilities going into this cycle pretty early and you know 2018 It’d be crazy not to think that when they convened the campaign that one of the fundamental things, you know, the starting point was we had a very close call last time.

We need to figure out how to incorporate that this time around without misconstruing the differences between the environment then and the environment now. I think inevitably there’s, you know, There’s going to be a cognitive bias in that direction on his campaign team and on Cruz himself.

[00:21:56] Josh: Yeah, I think so

[00:21:57] Jim: Lot of discussion about you know degree which this helps all red How does I think the better way of asking that is how does this shift align with?

The tact that all red had been taking, which had been, as we mentioned, in comparison to Cruz, a bit more centrist, certainly as he campaigned in the primary, that was the argument that he was a more accessible candidate.

[00:22:22] Josh: Yeah. I’m wondering whether, you know, this complicates his strategy of, you know, trying to distance himself a little bit from Biden.

[00:22:29] Jim: Yeah. Well that, yeah, that’s where I was going. I mean, I think that, you know, that had clearly been the strategy was for him to resist nationalizing. His election at least nationalizing in terms of you know, the top of the ticket and I you know I’ll be you put it this way. I don’t want to give advice I will be interested to see on whether they hold the line on that or whether there is some course correction And I don’t you know, I don’t know I don’t know and part of it is that you know It’s the read thing we’ve been talking about along which is that race is so underdeveloped in the public eye, but you know, there was, you know, reporting recently.

I mean, you know, there is, there is more spending going on in those, in that race. Now, the all red campaign is spending more money. They’ve been targeting, um, you know, some of the urban markets and, and a few other places in Texas. So, I think we’re just at the beginning of the end of the phase in which that race was just sort of like, just very quiet.

Yeah, I mean, unless you were watching the inside dynamics.

[00:23:29] Josh: Yeah, you know, I don’t want to get into this. I just don’t really have anything useful or smart to say about it, but I’m really curious to see again, how the all red. Harris dynamic plays out in Texas, you know, and that doesn’t mean, you know, you’re going to see them at a bunch of events together, although that’s a question.

Well, I

[00:23:44] Jim: mean, I think that’s, you know,

[00:23:46] Josh: there’s a lot of questions there and I think it’s, it’s a lot more complicated than it was with Biden. And so we’ll see, I mean, we’re just going to have to wait and see.

[00:23:53] Jim: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, yeah, there’s just a lot of moving parts on that, but I, you know,

[00:23:58] Josh: and while I was just saying, you know, without saying anything, you know, about it, cause I just don’t have anything like, I don’t know how, you know, race plays into this, you know, I mean, her race, his race.

Uh, you know, and whether that makes this more complicated for him than it did with Biden in a certain way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I just don’t, I don’t have anything more to say on that. I just sort of,

[00:24:15] Jim: well, you know, race in terms of the percent, you know, the voter’s perception and race in terms of coalitional politics,

[00:24:21] Josh: exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:23] Jim: You know, all of these considerations, you know, we talk about the dynamics in that race, you know, probably also point out. The need for us before we go to do at least something of a meanwhile back at the ranch segment on where we usually are focused, which is, you know, usual stomping grounds in Texas politics, the state level and the state level dynamics, right?

We’re kind of internal to the state, more or less. And I had a, I think I told you, Russ Ramsey and I did kind of a team thing for the Texas Association of Community Colleges last week, right after I got back. And, you know, Russ Ramsey, co founder of the Texas Tribune, long time. hand in Texas government politics, you know, and Ross was really hitting hard the nationalization of politics in Texas, which, you know, I think makes a lot of sense and is evident in a lot of ways.

But, uh, you know, maybe cause I was a little jet lagged and maybe just to make it a little more interesting or, and to some degree, cause I thought so I kind of pushed back a little bit on that. I didn’t want to say it’s not there, but that there’s, but there’s, you know, there is some stuff that’s still bubbling up from.

The native springs here, you know, that however, you know, and then national politics and messaging and issues are much more salient than they were 25 years ago, whatever. But, you know, there are interesting things going on here. You know, we’ve been in a little bit of a lull since the conclusion of the primaries with the may runoffs, you know, not that nothing has been happening, but politics have been very inside baseball, not getting a ton of broad media attention other than, you know, from beat reporters who, you know, have to Have to report.

[00:25:59] Josh: Right.

[00:26:00] Jim: And I think that’s to be expected. I mean, you know, it was a long sequence in the last 18 months of, you know, the very contentious 2023 session, which was extended with special sessions, the Paxton impeachment

[00:26:17] Josh: and the

[00:26:18] Jim: primary elections, which were also extended into the runoffs. And so I think it kind of makes a little sense that once that was all over, that people kind of, Took a breather you left the country.

Oh, yeah country You know and you know just for perspective. I mean I was thinking about it, you know a year ago

[00:26:38] Josh: Mm

[00:26:38] Jim: hmm as we record this on August 8th We were in that real pregnant period between the extended special sessions The Paxton impeachment and the trial in the Senate

[00:26:55] Josh: right

[00:26:56] Jim: now. I mean, I actually did a, you know, new search this day, you know, and got, you know, a list of stories back from Google that were all about the maneuvering over the gag order on pack, you know, things like this.

So, you know, you know, I don’t know exactly how to think about that. You know, as an old person, you think about time a lot, but I mean, you know, That both seems like yesterday and seems like a hundred years ago.

[00:27:18] Josh: Yeah. I mean, well, no, and it’s funny when you say it like that and you can, you link it to the election.

It’s funny to think that like, is it that’s, that’s still relevant, right? Yeah. I think so. I mean like it was, it was like yesterday, but also a million years ago. Well,

[00:27:33] Jim: and, and the funny thing about that, and I guess, you know, this is a way to, you know, think a little bit about what’s going on in the ground now.

You know, I don’t think the problem The public salience of that is kind of gone, but the underlying interior repercussions of the coalitional re shifting that happened during the session and during the Paxton impeachment I think is some of the big, one of the big things going on right now. We’ll come back to that.

[00:27:58] Josh: I want to add to that. No, no, I just want to do the only thing I want to add is like, you know, I think also This is probably, you know, the voucher politics. I mean, the extent that like, you know, there’s all this sort of, you know, the, the, the idea that voucher, we talked about this before, you know, vouchers are such a primary issue.

So we expected it to get quiet after the election. Right. But ultimately everything that happened in that is still roiling around in this process. Well, let’s just go to that. I mean,

[00:28:18] Jim: look, you know, there’s intro party conflict going on that, you know. that in many, you know, the, the, the voucher fight, you know, and how you unpack this, you know, between the influence of ideology and the influence of several million dollars injected into the political system, a topic unto itself,

[00:28:37] Josh: right?

[00:28:39] Jim: But one of the things that’s come out of that is, you know, I mean, obviously that The conflict over vouchers and how people lined up on that the money that came in where the big three one continues Yeah, you know to really ripple through what’s going on in the in the political community in austin and in particularly in republican circles around the state and You know, I mean one of the most interesting things to me about that is, you know, the current State of relationship among the big three, you know, between among Governor, Governor Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Patrick speak, Speaker Phelan, and I, I’ve been thinking about this for, you know, the geeks out there is, you know, like, you know, it’s the, it’s the perpetual three body problem of Texas politics at the instability of those relationships that are so central to what’s going on in the state political system and in state politics, and yet the inherent instability that has been Those characterize those relationships for, you know, I think it’s fair to say for most of the state’s history because it’s an institutional setup.

And, you know, the playing out of the voucher issue during the session, and then the Abbott and Patrick intervention in house primaries, the success, the relative success of pressuring Phelan, you know, it wasn’t completely successful because they didn’t, you know, Depose him from his house seat, but now, you know, the speaker’s race is, you know, there’s a speaker’s race.

However, you want to handicap that,

[00:30:05] Josh: um, and it is going to, you know, regardless of what happens, or it is going to impact how the house functions, right? And multiple, multiple dimensions. And

[00:30:11] Jim: so, you know, but in terms of the big three, you know, we are, we are at a temporary equilibrium point, which is, you know, inherent to this thing that these equilibrium points tend to be temporary, but right now, Abbott and Patrick are much more in alignment.

Then at Any other time in their parallel 10 years in office, it’s in a, and it’s a good comparison. They go, both got elected to these positions in the same year, you know, and that is, you know, a pretty big shift from the first couple of terms that they were in office where, you know, insiders would tell you all the time, not necessarily for attribution, but very plausibly that, you know, nobody, you know, no decision was being made without Avin and Patrick Considering the political positioning of the other.

And we’ve, you know, we’d have to, I don’t, I don’t think you have to make that case very strongly. Do you think

[00:31:03] Josh: the main dimension of this alignment is vouchers? Or do you think there’s more to it than that?

[00:31:07] Jim: Well, I think vouchers is the catalyst. Okay. But right. And

[00:31:11] Josh: you know, how much more is there to that?

Cause I always think, yeah, there’s a line I remember back in from somewhere, somebody else many years ago, a different place, but you know, we don’t have to agree on everything to work together on anything. And it’s like, if this, if we want to work together on the same thing, we can be, we can be temporary allies.

Yeah. And I, you know, I think back to Abbott with the house on property taxes at one point, you know, it’s kind of like, you know, these are, these are shifting alliances depending on, you know,

[00:31:33] Jim: yeah. And, and, and, but I think it is a trick, you know, it’s a testament to what all the attention resources and, and headspace, frankly, that vouchers came to occupy.

In the minds of Republican elites and in particular Patrick and, and Abbott, and then for it to be fair feeling on the, kind of the other side of that, you know, that it’s, it’s a catalyst that’s, you know, having some stain power right now. Um, but to your point, look, I mean the other, you know, the dominant public story, the only, you know, I frankly, the only real big story with legs and I’m not saying it’s the only important thing going on has been the ripple effects at the Capitol.

After Hurricane Beryl, and and the deaths that took place. You know, in the longstanding and extensive power outages in Houston and Southeast Texas. I mean that struck a nerve that is one of the things that’s likely you know, that potentially destabilizes this current alignment because the governor in the lieutenant governor in policy wise and probably alignment of interest wise, Have not been on the same page on consistently.

[00:32:45] Josh: Yeah. You know I did a I was doing sort of a background interview for, you know, news story and I was talking about the impact of, you know, demographic change and population growth in Texas on elections and I said, you know, and then the short of that is, yeah, I mean, it affects things, but very slowly, long term, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, the real exposure for Republicans in this state is not the fact that, you know, a bunch of people are moving here from San Francisco with liberal views. It’s the fact that people are concerned about the grid. You know, it’s the fact that there’s a lot of boil water notices going on in the state.

It’s the fact that if you live in West Texas, there seems to be unceasing earthquakes seemingly, you know, related to fracking. We just had this Huge wildfire that seems to be caused by under regulated oil and gas electrical lines, per reporting that, you know, is out there, you know, right?

[00:33:31] Jim: Expect an alternate explanation.

I, that’s why I said, hey, I’m just saying this is what I’ve read, not

[00:33:36] Josh: looking for any trouble here. I’m just telling you what I hear. And so there is something to this, you know, we, we look, you know, and the grid is something that we’ve said before. It really, you know, it affects people in a really visceral way that something like, and I, and I don’t want to, you know, You know, I want to be careful here.

You know, a lot of people are not going to receive an abortion anywhere, Texas or otherwise, but but that’s a big, big issue for Democrats. But if the power goes out, everybody feels it. And there’s no Where else to put the blame than with republicans who own this they own state government This is why I think you know, there’s been a lot of stuff You know talking about housing affordability and whether that’s a role for government or not to play There is a question of our elected leaders responding to the needs of the states And that’s something that everybody always says and all that But when we look at polling, we found, you know, in terms of the grid in particular, right, you know, in December of 23, and this is before barrel, only 10 percent of voters were extremely confident that the legislature had increased the reliability of electric grid with their efforts.

And that was only up from 6 percent in June of that year, right? So it only increased a little bit to nobody. You know, this June, 84 percent of voters said they expect there is going to, they’re going to be asked to conserve power. 63 percent expected temporary rolling blackouts. 51 percent expected a widespread failure of the grid.

So again, before. Any of this and we asked, you know a year ago as they were kind of going through this, you know Do you expect the legislature? Are you confident the legislature is going to fix it for you? The you know, reliably the great 63 percent of voters said they you know, essentially expected this to lead to higher prices So essentially what they’re saying is is that you know They’re all this attention all this effort this very visceral political subject And what do I expect I expect to be asked to conserve power that my power is probably going to go out Not that you’ve increased the reliability if anything the main effect i’m going to pay more

[00:35:16] Jim: Yeah,

[00:35:16] Josh: and the problem is is like It’s most of those

[00:35:18] Jim: things

[00:35:19] Josh: looking pretty true.

Well, let’s

[00:35:20] Jim: say, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. I was just thinking it’s interestingly similar in terms of the diet, you know, the, the interaction between people’s attitudes and what happens in the environment,

[00:35:31] Josh: you

[00:35:31] Jim: know, it’s not unlike the Biden thing, right? Where, you know, people were already thinking, you know, this guy, he’s too old probably.

And then you have this incident happen, the debate, and people go, yeah, see, he’s too old. And so with this, you know, every time something like the hurricane or even, you know, the smaller level fire, Freezes that we saw, you know, in recent years, or the, the, every time somebody, the very reasonably or cut says, Hey, you know, it’s probably a good day to conserve energy, right?

It’s gonna be real hot. You know, if you could conserve energy, all of those things reinforce all of those attitudes you’re talking about. And at the more empirical policy level, to the extent that people are paying attention to this, and most people are not. But in terms of the ability of, you know, governing stakeholders to actually somehow find a way out of this dynamic, it’s just not looking good.

You know, the scheduled interim hearings in both the Senate and in Business and Commerce and in the House and State Affairs, I think, last week, um, You know, that were initially focused on the interim charges to follow up on the implementation of all this legislation that the public doesn’t have any faith in,

[00:36:46] Josh: you

[00:36:46] Jim: know, were quickly taken over by the discussion and invited testimony related to the hurricane barrels effects, what worked and what wouldn’t, and that set off, to be frank about it, you know, What looked to me, and to I think a lot of others, like a massive kind of CYA effort among legislators who passed this legislation that, you know, many legislators and observers are saying was gamed by some of the big power companies, in particular CenterPoint.

[00:37:19] Josh: And you’ve followed this really closely. Was that something that people were concerned about?

[00:37:24] Jim: Yeah, I mean, you know,

[00:37:26] Josh: You know, I recall in particular the house being very concerned. Yeah, no, yeah, no, no

[00:37:31] Jim: And you know and well look and there was to delve further into the weeds, but that also, you know makes the larger point about for this to be disruptive to the governing party.

You know, it was not just in the house. I mean, look, the, the chair of business and commerce was basically removed and replaced in the previous session because he was on a different page than the leadership, than the governor and to some extent, and the Lieutenant governor and Lieutenant governor busted him.

And. Um, you know, that was raised, you know, that, that fact emerged, albeit a little bit indirectly in these hearings. And so, uh, that issue, I mean, and it’s just, so I, you know, is this moving politics at the state level in this moment in a big way? Um, no. You know, not in any immediate way, but, you know, I think it, it, it points to, you know, one of the big underlying dynamics in that, you know, and to be fair, I mean, one could say reasonably, if you were say a Republican, you know, consultant, you might say, yeah, you guys been finding those attitudes since 2021, right after the storm.

[00:38:49] Josh: Mm hmm.

[00:38:51] Jim: Better work. Tried. Tried to make the argument that you were making a minute ago that, look, you know, these guys have stewardship, they have to own it and they’re dropping the ball and he’s still lost by a pretty wide margin. So it’s, It’s not been activated, but it’s out there lurking as this kind of latent irritant in the system, I think.

And, you know, it does kind of broach, you know, the question then of, and, you know, we’ll close it out pretty soon. But, you know, once we get past the election, Session comes, you know, people are already starting, you know, clearly, and, you know, the professionals are getting have been getting ready and are getting ready, you know, but it does raise the question.

I think, you know, a good speculative question for us to end on, which is, you know, For those in, you know, in our kind of slot who are watching and thinking like, you know, once the election happens, the next big thing is the 2025 session.

[00:39:49] Josh: Yeah.

[00:39:50] Jim: The various decisions, what’s the agenda going to look like, etc.

And how does that inform to look even further down the line, even more speculatively, the 2026 statewide elections, which are, you know, bound to, you know, are promising to be pretty interesting. And so there’s this whole issue of, okay, if we go back to where we started, You know, what are the implications for different scenarios in the presidential outcome for politics in Texas, in Texas for the session and for the, and for the electoral cycle that will de facto begin the day after the presidential election is decided?

[00:40:28] Josh: And I mean, like, and these are things I’m sure we’ll talk more about, you know, as we move on. But I mean, I think, you know, whether you, whether you’re thinking about, you know, Democrats looking to run in 2026. You know, and if they’re just solely focused on winning, you know, Trump in the White House would make that easier, you know, uh, another

[00:40:43] Jim: 2018 would look good for them.

Yeah. And

[00:40:45] Josh: if you’re Republicans, whether you’re looking for 2026 or you’re looking at the 2025 legislative session, you know, the specter of a Democrat in the White House and the, and the, the ability that gives to focus a huge share of the agenda on immigration, the border, you know, Anything contrary to the federal government really creates a lot of breathing room in some ways, you know I mean, I think you know what I take away from the two points You know where we started at least in the policy section and where we ended and you know What you were saying is, you know, it’s interesting I mean the the the shakeout from the primaries and where we sit right now on vouchers has created a you know Temporary equilibrium between the governor and lieutenant governor where they share this interest in getting this policy across the finish line at the same time Something that they can’t control The weather, you know, and the effectiveness of the grid and the response of, you know, multiple entities across the state in some ways to sort of respond to these things is just sitting there ready to essentially, you know, reactivate or activate new conflicts among them about how to deal with these things.

But what I would think is interesting politics is, you know, what are the issues you choose to take on and what are the issues that are thrust upon you? And with the vouchers, the idea is, you know, this is something that they’re, they’re clearly choosing to take on. It’s a choice. There’s a choice.

[00:41:57] Music: So pro choice, yes,

[00:41:59] Josh: that’s what we’ll say, but then it’s the things that you don’t get to choose.

Those are the things that really, you know, can mess up, you know, political plans and like, this is just sitting there. I mean, I’m saying, you know, you know, my thing is, you know, right now, yes, all this stuff has changed. Do I think? You know, a Democrat, you know, is Texas going to turn blue in 2024? No, I don’t think so.

I think it’s a stupid question. We’ve talked about that. Do I think it’s gonna be more competitive? It could be. It might be about equally as competitive. It has been which is more competitive than it’s been in the past. If you said me, what if we have a widespread, you know, grid failure come October? Well, I don’t know, then I have to say I would throw my hands and we have to say, but that becomes a problem, you know, and I mean, and that’s the thing I think that’s sort of sitting out there, you know, you’re just kind of like, you know, and it’s not something that’s really honestly, it’s not something solvable in the current political dynamic, you know,

[00:42:45] Jim: and we’re, you know, and look, I mean, I think part of, you know, I guess part of what I’m thinking on that is, look, if you have A Democrat in the White House in January 2025, you know, it’s much easier and Greg Abbott has already laid the groundwork for this to say, well, I guess we’ve got to keep it up, you know, by putting the screws on the border.

[00:43:05] Josh: Yep.

[00:43:06] Jim: And that, and that enables you to. put, you know, in the absence of any other disasters, you know, to continue working on the grid stuff, but in a much less public way, in a way that’s, you know, less salient and draws less attention.

[00:43:20] Josh: Yeah, exactly. And it’s just so simple. I mean, you think, you know, for most Republican voters in the state, if you say, Hey, look, I got these two articles you can read about, they’re both of the legislature.

First, it’s like, I’m leaving, but let’s say, no, please, I’ll pay you, which is probably what you’d have to do. Which one do you want to read? You want to read about what they’re doing on the border? Do you want to read about what they’re doing on the grid? Yeah, they’re going to, I’m curious what they’re doing on the border.

Like we don’t need to get into the details of what, what’s,

[00:43:42] Jim: well, you might start the grid article, but you know, it’s an, you know, it’s an, it’s an, well, it’s an inherently complicated issue that nobody has succeeded entirely. in boiling down to an easily communicable message that elides all the policy complexity in the way that has been done for a while with the border.

[00:44:04] Josh: Yeah. And then you think the one effort was fix the damn grid by Collier, which honestly didn’t work and it wasn’t a

[00:44:09] Jim: bad, you know, but I mean, I think the other messages out there, but that some Republicans in particular, Lieutenant Governor Patrick have gotten in front of is. You know, who’s paying, you know, who’s footing the cost for all this?

[00:44:23] Josh: Yeah, and

[00:44:23] Jim: that’s a good democratic issue

[00:44:25] Josh: Yeah,

[00:44:26] Jim: but actually, you know again to his political credit lieutenant governor has been in front of that argument For quite some time from almost day one.

[00:44:34] Josh: Yeah. Yeah, and

[00:44:35] Jim: so

[00:44:36] Josh: I don’t know what the solution is, but I like

[00:44:38] Jim: yeah Well that’s but see but that’s the trick right because that’s the nature of the border discussion, you know, we’re spending six More than six billion dollars depending on how you want to count the money some would say more in the current biennium You know, to do something that’s not really addressing the sources of migration,

[00:44:56] Josh: right?

[00:44:57] Jim: And to the extent that migration has decreased, ironically, it has to do with exterior countries like Mexico and some other countries, you know, throttling the flow of migrants not to be dehumanizing, but that’s what they’re doing on their side, which has something to do with us policy, but not in a visible way.

[00:45:18] Josh: Yeah,

[00:45:19] Jim: but you know, we’re not hearing that discussion at all. And if anything, we’re hearing the opposite of that discussion in the national campaign with everybody saying, well, Kamala Harris, what did she do? She went to, you know, she traveled to Central America and she went all these other places but never went to the border.

You know, that’s, Not a very sophisticated policy analysis but that train has left the station

[00:45:41] Josh: well

[00:45:41] Jim: the train is you know because the you know, the enforcement frame has been fixed among republicans right now,

[00:45:47] Josh: yeah, I think What really drives that home for me is the thing about the fact that okay, you know, these numbers have gone down let’s say they stay there let’s say for you know for the very

[00:45:56] Jim: won’t but yeah, let’s just

[00:45:57] Josh: let’s pretend they do you know, 20 25 comes around do the You know is the the first budget draft come out and they say hey, we can decrease How much we’re spending at the border now.

The answer is absolutely not. Because it’s not about that.

[00:46:09] Jim: Yeah. Unless there’s a Republican in the White House, to go back to our original frame of this discussion and where, you know, how, you know, the pre, you know, the president, the outcome of the presidential campaign is going to have implications for, for what the, for, you know, for what the, the tone of the legislature, it’s not going to define it, but it’s, you know, it’s going to affect the policy and the political environment.

Even

[00:46:32] Josh: there, I’d say maybe.

[00:46:34] Jim: You know.

[00:46:34] Josh: You know, in terms of, you know, if, if Trump is elected, do you see, you know, a ramp down in Texas? Well, I

[00:46:39] Jim: still don’t think that they’ll say, yeah, let, you know, I mean, no, one’s going to be the first person to sit, you know, step up and say, we’re going to spend less. What I would argue, what I would expect is that you’ll see probably not a big movement to decrease the funding since there’ll be no physical pressure to do so, but probably some quiet reallocation of money.

Yeah. Inside, inside that part of the budget, but you know, that’s talking about getting into the weeds. Um, with that, thanks for coming in, Josh. Thanks for being here. Uh, thanks again for holding the fort while I was gone so effectively. That was fun. Uh, with that, thanks again. Thanks again also to our excellent production team in the dev studio here in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin, uh, making plans for another year, academic year of podcasts.

And we are happy to have them, uh, on our, on our side here and helping out. Couldn’t do it without ’em. Um, for, you know, the data that we talked about, remember you can go to Texas politics, do u texas.edu and find all the data we’ve talked about and more. So most of all, thank you for listening and we will 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.