March 22, 2023 – Donald Trump is coming to Waco

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. 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.

[00:00:24] At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be re. Over the male colleagues in the room

[00:00:33] Jim: And welcome back to the Second Reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, happy to be joined again today by Josh Blank, research Director of the Texas Politics Project.

[00:00:46] Jim: Josh been a little under the weather lately. Okay. . I’m 90%. I’m having different people. Ask. Ask. I’ve had a couple people ask me if you were okay. Sort of, well,

[00:00:55] Josh: 90% plus or minus 2.3%. Okay. ,

[00:00:59] Jim: well, I ran, yeah, I ran into one of your neighbors and he was Oh yeah. Commenting on your, your recent. Being a little under the weather, all the perfect.

[00:01:07] Jim: I hope he’s a, listen, I was less of concerned with your health maybe, but I,

[00:01:10] Josh: I’d like to know that. I wish he was a listener. I’m gonna find it out, I think. Yeah, well, you know, I’ll let him know there’s a reference to him on Right. Podcast. You need to, you need to let him know. .

[00:01:19] Jim: Um, so this week, uh, you know, there’s a lot going on.

[00:01:23] Jim: I mean, yeah. To go, you know, off script, somewhat, I mean, You know, we’re in the thick of the session. It’s a funny time. I mean, today what I want to talk about is Donald Trump coming back to Texas. He’s gonna be in Texas this weekend for a campaign rally and wake him kickoff the

[00:01:38] Josh: kickoff campaign rally. But he, well, you know, which is, well, I don’t really understand

[00:01:41] Jim: that.

[00:01:41] Jim: Yeah, me either. Put a pin in that for a second. So he, but I mean, it is, you know, we’d be remiss to not notice, you know, a lot going on in in the session. AF again, things just keep ramping up. Tons of committee hearings and we’ve gone from, There’s something going on today to, you know, that period where there’s stuff going on in multiple committees.

[00:02:03] Jim: Uh, house public ed was in late last night hearing, uh, the bill on library materials. Um, HB 900, I think 809, I think 900. And, um, . So there’s a lot going on and I, and I think when we get to the end, it’s kind of in my head to connect these things. We’ll see, we’ll see if that

[00:02:22] Josh: works. It’s that point where you start opening up multiple windows of multiple committees and seeing what’s

[00:02:27] Jim: going on.

[00:02:27] Jim: There’s just a lot. Yeah, I mean, there’s just, there’s just a ton going on. And if you’re not, you know, if you’re not really tracking it, I mean the, the, you know, the people that are using. That are much more attentively tracking it than say I am because they have clients that track. Right. You know, sometimes, in some cases multiple clients with multiple bills, uh, you’re using stuff to track right now and even that’s just like, oh God, where did this come from?

[00:02:51] Jim: Fire hose that said, um, You know, it’s telling I guess, that this is all going on and yet Donald Trump is coming to Texas this week and it’s a big deal. We can’t, we can’t

[00:03:03] Josh: really not talk about him. Right. Because, well, and

[00:03:05] Jim: that’s, you know, that’s kind of the point. That’s sort of his, you know, his cultivated asset.

[00:03:09] Jim: Um, You know, he’s gonna have a campaign rally in Waco, and the Trump event comes at a time where the president’s very much back in the news. I mean, and you know, in terms of deja vu, the platform’s different, the mechanism’s the same. You know, he did a, he put up a social media post, uh, this past Saturday, last weekend, alerting his followers to the claim that he would be arrested this week.

[00:03:33] Jim: He said Tuesday, which is we record, this was yesterday. There was no arrest. Right, which was not all that surprising, um, but that he would be arrested as a result of charges looming in New York City related to the not newsy hush payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep required about an affair they allegedly had in 2006.

[00:03:56] Jim: And we could have inserted allegedly in all of that, even though this all seems pretty well documented. Right. But that’s for a jury to. Um, and in that post, I think most tellingly, and this was where the Newsiest part, he urges followers to protest if he was arrested, to get ready to hit the streets, if you will.

[00:04:15] Jim: You know, whatever one thinks of this. And there are a lot of issues to parse we can come back to later. It really does illustrate just how central Trump can make himself so easily and. How powerful his gravity in the party is nationally. And so I, I thought we’d look at today, it’s a good time then to gather and review some of the.

[00:04:38] Jim: You know, pretty large volume of polling data that we have on Trump standing with voters in Texas and, and look a little at the local state level political context of his visit to Waco. Right. Seems to make sense. Um, alright. Let’s start with a look at the unsurprising Trump’s job approval in Texas. Three.

[00:04:55] Jim: Is presidency pretty consistently strong where it matters among

[00:05:00] Josh: Republicans? Right. I mean, it’s important to note here that you know, whatever one thinks of the former president, at no point. During his pregnancy, Republicans turn on him In Texas. Yeah, full. End of sentence, right. Uh, his approval rating among Republican Texas Republicans never dropped below 78%.

[00:05:18] Josh: And from June, 2018 through the end of his presidency in October, 2020, polling it never dropped below 86%. Uh, and so, you know, there’s a couple different ways to look at this and we can talk about, you know, opinions on him. Post presidency too. Right. But the reality here is that, you know, there’s just this idea that there’s some faction of Republicans for whom Trump is, is not, you know, a, a viable presidential candidate.

[00:05:40] Josh: Right. A, it’s like, it, it’s not visible in the data.

[00:05:43] Jim: Never, never. Trump is not a big. Grassroots movement. in Texas? No, I mean it, you know, there are some elites, you know, a few Twitter people, but even among elites, I mean, there are not very many. I mean, I, you know, Carl Rove.

[00:05:55] Josh: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. Never Trump or Libertarians who

[00:05:59] Jim: is bigger.

[00:05:59] Jim: Yeah. And, and well, yeah, I mean, I, I think, well among the, at the elite level, there’s probably at least a couple more . Never Trumpers at this point. Well,

[00:06:08] Josh: exactly right. Now, do you wanna talk about independent voters here too? Yeah,

[00:06:11] Jim: I mean, I, you know, I mean, I, I think again, We’re focused on. I mean, yeah, you and I were kind of going back and forth.

[00:06:16] Jim: We haven’t really even talked about it, but I mean, on one hand we’re focused so much on Trump’s position in the Republican universe and primary voters, but I think there is something to say about independence. I do wanna, before we move on, independence though, I do want to add something to the, the Republican numbers, and that is, , you know, we didn’t go back as far as we could have and look at where Trump’s numbers were in 2015.

[00:06:39] Jim: Mm-hmm. and early 2016. Mm-hmm. . And it is an interesting story that when, that those primaries were more competitive and there’s nothing miraculous about this. No. But I think it is part of having a complete memory of this, is that Trump didn’t get into the race and everybody. Oh, he’s our guy, right? I mean, he did well among Republicans, but he, he wasn’t in like the seventies and eighties in the trial, in the early trial ballots.

[00:07:06] Jim: No. And even in his earlier approval numbers, he wasn’t that high. I mean, , you know, he sold it. Yeah. No, I mean,

[00:07:14] Josh: he, he met the market. He met the market. I mean, the other piece of that too is that people like winners. Yeah. You know, so ultimately, I think a lot of the negative attitudes towards Trump, among Republicans heading into that 2016 race were related, of course.

[00:07:25] Josh: And the fact they thought he was gonna lose, I mean, that’s a whole, you know, very well documented section of, of history. The other thing, you know, that you, you didn’t mention in the lead up, and I’m sure we’re gonna come back to here, that’s also related to Trump this week, is. The ongoing sparring between he and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

[00:07:39] Josh: And so that’s also why I think, you know, the other piece here that we wanna look at is we wanna look at, you know, view among Republicans as, you know, Trump right. Hurdles towards the Republican primary. But also it’s interesting to look at independence, you know, for one, in a state like Texas, where there are no party primaries in terms of party registration.

[00:07:55] Josh: So anybody can vote in any primary registration, right? But also, you know, it, it, it’s hard not to. Just wanna look around the corner past the primaries for a second. Yeah, sure. So what’s the story of, you know, for Trump among independence? Right. Well, it’s a far more mixed right. We’d say, you know, overall he enjoyed net approval among independents in his first year present, which means Moore had a, had a, an approving opinion of his job performance and a disapproving, this is something I think we generally expect.

[00:08:19] Josh: It’s, you know, it’s historically called a honeymoon period. Right. You know, president comes in, they’ve won, they’re given the benefit of the doubt. . And so generally, you know, presidents in their beginning of their terms have better job numbers than as they go along and make decisions, et cetera, et cetera, right?

[00:08:34] Josh: So after that first year though, there was a lot of oscillation, uh, during the second and third years, and then it settled on net disapproval. So more independence holding and negative view of Trump than a positive or negative view of his job performance and positive starting about October, 2019, and then just continue to decline until the end of his presidency.

[00:08:48] Josh: And so that’s, and it really hasn’t recover. Since then. Right.

[00:08:54] Jim: Okay. So then well, I mean, but, but then the other thing to add to that, I think, you know, in terms of thinking about independence, , you know, tr talking about Trump is, you know, the, it’s, it’s the king of Yeah. But on the other hand, . Mm-hmm. . no matter what we, especially in terms of public opinion.

[00:09:10] Jim: Right. So, I mean, the other thing to note about that, just to, you know, is an asterisk, is that I think two things. One, and I think we did a podcast on this during the election season, you know, independence, small group. Yep. You know, between 10 and 15% ballpark. Right. You know, , you know, CR and, and cranky.

[00:09:30] Jim: Cranky. Yeah. And, and, cranky generally about politics, which is kind of why they, they’re independent. Yeah. They don’t like anybody. It’s part of the explanation for them being independence, um, but particularly cranky in the last, you know, tough few years, you know? Yeah. I mean, they don’t

[00:09:47] Josh: like anybody

[00:09:47] Jim: very much.

[00:09:48] Jim: Right. And yeah. And, and so as much as, you know, Trump’s numbers have flagged Biden’s numbers were never strong. Right. And. , you know, even worse than Trump’s by a few points in the sense that his approval rating, I think is four or five points below, or his favorability rating is four or five points below Trump, if you wanted to connect that to his job approval, kind of in the same ballpark.

[00:10:09] Jim: Yeah. So

[00:10:10] Josh: you know, it’ll be interesting because I think, you know, when Trump initially. I don’t wanna say burst onto the scene. I hate the way that sounds, but initially assume the presidency. The other thing is, I mean, you could imagine for independence who are sort of turned off by both parties. The idea of the outsider mantle and all that stuff, you know, does that really carry through when you’re running for your second term?

[00:10:28] Josh: Again, as someone who has been first, your third campaign for your second term? Yeah, I mean, the whole outsider thing’s getting a little. Little tricky there, right? Yeah.

[00:10:34] Jim: Well, and I think, yeah, I mean, yeah, and, and I think, you know, I don’t know, it’s, this is gonna be about Trump. It’s not too much of a digression, but I mean, you know, what you define what you decide.

[00:10:43] Jim: Define as an outsider. Right. And what it was that Trump, I mean, I. , you know, Trump had not run for office before, but part of his virtue was that he was tapping into something that, you know, people did respond to that outsider insider, right? I mean, that’s gonna be put to the test now in any number of ways.

[00:11:04] Jim: Not only in terms of Trump, you mentioned to Santa right? Some others. Um, so I mean, I think, you know, the, the independent thing remains interesting. But you know, it’s funny, we know, we, we, we talk and talk and talk or you know, we used to, you know, we dismissed independence. We dismissed independence. Now we talk and talk and talk about ’em.

[00:11:23] Jim: In Texas, they do behave in reasonably predictable ways when pushed in a very polarized. Atmosphere with fairly clear alternatives that does, you know, lead us to the phrase of, you know, Houston here awkwardly many times, you know, the kind of conservative substrate of the state’s political culture. Yeah, right.

[00:11:46] Jim: At the end of the day, you know, if you can be a grumpy as hell independent, if you’re gonna actually get up and go vote y. You know, the, the moment, you know, the, the, the kind of weight leans towards a Republican candidate in

[00:11:59] Josh: Texas. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, I, this is true, I think, think about the O’Rourke race.

[00:12:05] Josh: Yeah, no, it leads, I mean it leads towards the known in a lot of ways. Yeah. You know, so we can come back to that. Yeah. I knows, I want to come back to that discussion about the independence and sort of some other stuff at the end, but, So then if we look past Trump’s presidency, you know, to serve his favorability items, he’s not a longer in office.

[00:12:19] Josh: You can’t approve of the job he’s doing or disapprove and just say whether people, you know, have a positive or negative view of him. And this is, you know, one of those things that at first we weren’t necessarily looking to track, but as, as he, you know, as as a president, former president, Continued to insert himself or be inserted into sort of national news, it became kind of obvious that we needed

[00:12:39] Jim: to keep, keep.

[00:12:39] Jim: Well, I mean, I, you know, I think thinking back as soon as the January 6th riots happened and he had that central rule in, it was kind of baked in. We were gonna have, we were gonna keep checking

[00:12:47] Josh: in on him. Yeah. And see what happened. And, and, and, and, and the main thing to know is nothing happened. I mean, just to make it real simple.

[00:12:53] Josh: Yeah. I mean, there’s not really anything. Maybe a little bit, but,

[00:12:56] Jim: uh, but it’s come back well, yeah. Anyway.

[00:12:58] Josh: I don’t, you know, I mean Sure. Not where, I mean, I don’t say this at no point. , uh, in during Trump’s presidency or in the post presidency period, has anything happened that has significantly shifted the positive use of Republican voters in any notable way?

[00:13:13] Josh: Right. Um, you know, if we look at our February, you know what I mean? Let’s see. I’m just trying to pick some data. It doesn’t even really matter. I mean, honestly it doesn’t matter because it’s about the same. If we are looking at the end of his presidency where he is about 86% job approval, that’s around where he is in terms of favorability ratings among Republicans.

[00:13:28] Josh: Yeah, and it’s pretty. I mean, that sounds pretty good. And none of, and again, classified documents, no impact, right. January 6th, no impact. Yeah. And so really, you know, I mean, I think at this point, you know, and this is something we’ve talked about a bunch. I mean, there’s not very much, it seems that’s going to happen, that’s going to change the ultimate sort of universe in terms of, you know what again, Republican voters, Republican primary voters, think about Donald Trump, right?

[00:13:55] Josh: At least.

[00:13:56] Jim: Right now, and we’re, and we’re not making, and we’re not just sort of saying, well, you know, seems like the election, you know, didn’t change people’s, I mean, you were talking to everybody who loves a winner that didn’t really, you know, by denying the fact that he was actually the loser. Yeah. It’s worth, that helped him and that stuck with people.

[00:14:14] Jim: Right. In other words, most Republicans still. More than two years, you know, after January 6th and more than two years after we, the, the new president was inaugurated, most republicans in Texas still see Biden’s 2020 win as illegitimate.

[00:14:30] Josh: Yeah. About two thirds usually is basically, you know, across multiple measures that we’ve asked.

[00:14:34] Josh: And this really has not shifted. It’s not shifted among, you know, democratic views. Uh, independent. Who do you view it is legitimate? Who do view is view? The majority of independence view the election is in is, is, uh, as legitimate, but I would say a slight majority close. So yeah, it’s usually pretty close, like 54% or something in that range, but about two thirds of Republicans say the, that the election was illegitimate.

[00:14:53] Josh: What’s interesting, I mean, one sort of interesting kind of national polling caveat to put on this, just to make it clear, is that, you know, more recent polling has found that when you ask Republican, uh, voters, whether or not. Evidence to support that contention. The sheer who say that they do not have evidence has gone.

[00:15:08] Josh: Over time. So to some extent, I mean, this isn’t happening in an entire vacuum and there’s not necessarily this in. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if this is, I think this is probably a good thing, , you know, there’s not this entire alternative universe going on where there’s this, you know, evidence that has still not been presented in a court and adjudicated fairly that would make Donald Trump the president.

[00:15:27] Josh: No. I mean, there’s a fair number of Republicans who were saying, look, yeah, we don’t think there’s evidence, but there’s still something fishy here. Yeah. And ultimately that, I mean, to your point, I think that’s a really good point. Are you really a loser then? Yeah. ,

[00:15:38] Jim: certainly debatable. Right? Well, and that’s been his, you know, I mean his, and you know, look, as wild as Donald Trump can be, he’s got some message discipline in the key areas that.

[00:15:50] Jim: Pertain to his image and and the fact that, you know, he is not a loser and was not a loser in 2020. Yeah. And that it was stolen has been a pretty persistent line. I mean, I think there have been times in some of the lawyers around him have gotten him to tone that down a little bit, but it never sticks. I mean, it’s one of the conversations going on right now about Trump and this whole idea that this time he’s running a more discipline campaign.

[00:16:15] Jim: You know, fewer family members commanding the campaign, more campaign professionals. But the very fact of that, of that post last weekend suggested that it’s not completely taken well. And I mean, it’s sort of like there’s no campaign consultant in his Right. Mind was gonna go, yeah. Mr. President. Yeah. Go out there and say you’re gonna get.

[00:16:33] Jim: Arrested if you need to get arrested. Yeah. And call people to hit the streets in your favor. I don’t think. Are you sure though? I’m not positive. I mean, you know, what’s it? Uh,

[00:16:42] yeah.

[00:16:42] Josh: You don’t need . Yeah. I’m thinking what’s,

[00:16:44] Jim: it’ll, no, I know who you’re thinking. Jason Miller. Oh yeah. Jason Miller may be giving him that advice if

[00:16:48] Josh: he’s, you know, I mean, you said, you know, you said message discipline, and I think the other thing I’d add to there is, you know, he’s incredibly strategic.

[00:16:53] Josh: Yeah. And I mean, one of the. It’s, it’s interesting, you know, and I think, you know, it was one of the challenges of his last campaign was, and this is the challenge of a national campaign as opposed to a Republican primary is, you know, mobilizing your own grievances as the grievances of other people. And we’ve talked about this before and how, you know, that that can kind of be, I think, you know, it’s hard.

[00:17:14] Josh: That can be a bit of a challenge, but I think one thing that’s kind of been clear from, you know, watching this over time is that Trump. You know, probably at his strongest when he has a clear grievance and a clear enemy that he can mobilize his supporters around. Right. And when he’s like, oh, the new, you know, they’re after us.

[00:17:31] Josh: They’re after us. They’re after me. And if they’re after me, they’re after you. Right. Oh, and it’s a, and it’s a, and it’s a district attorney in New York. Yeah. You know, a Democratic district attorney. Perfect. Yes. You know, and that’s the thing. I mean, you know, mochi, you’ve been following this most of the week, you know, a lot of the coverage has been about the reaction with, you know, among Republicans to all of this.

[00:17:50] Josh: Right? And so there’s a lot of the, you know, Hey, don’t protest. We don’t need our likely 2024 nominee creating. , right. Incidents of public violence during a routine court proceeding. Right. But on the other hand, we should definitely drag those traitors and communists before Congress and have them testify about everything.

[00:18:09] Josh: Right. So, I mean, there’s a way to play this that is, you know, and in some ways what’s really interesting, it’s like, you know, I mean, you know, Trump is holding, you know, I mean it’s, he’s holding a lot of these guys hostage, , I mean, very clearly, because you can’t say he’s wrong, he shouldn’t do this or whatever.

[00:18:23] Josh: And so ultimately what it does is it is bring. The party. And I don’t wanna say the, I’m gonna say in this case, now, this is where I think, you know, the pig pie PO thing is usually like, there’s a party in the electorate. Yeah. The partying government and the partying organization party organizations here, he’s bringing the elites, the party and government closer to him because they can’t push.

[00:18:39] Josh: Yes. It’s

[00:18:39] Jim: kind of a bear hug. It’s

[00:18:41] Josh: a bear hug you and you say, okay, is it done ?

[00:18:44] Jim: Yeah. Well, and, and you know, that is one of the things that people have been looking at is that, um, uh, I think it was punch ball this morning, you know? This is happening a lot more in the house than it is in the Senate. Yeah.

[00:18:59] Jim: Which is an interesting dynamic, you know, in and of itself. Mm-hmm. in the United States right now in terms of the differences between the two chambers. Um, you know, so I think that, You know, as we look at this, you know, maybe, you know, so, so, so what? You know, what is, it tells us a bunch of different things, but, you know, let’s, let’s do the DeSantis thing now.

[00:19:20] Jim: You’d want to, you brought that earlier, I think now is the time. So, so, so what does it mean in terms of what is this telling us about Trump’s position in the political universe? So, on one hand, as you raise, you’ve got National Republicans. having to figure out what they’re gonna do about this and where they’re gonna come down on it and parse the response that enables them to not, you know, not be weighed down by the actual thing at hand right here, which is nobody other than.

[00:19:50] Jim: The creative way that DeSantis did this, I thought nobody wants to really come down and say, you know, here’s my position. Right On the whole issue of hush money to the porn star, right. He said to have had an affair with, it’s more, you know, and it lends itself to focusing, as you said, on the agents of prosecution of Trump, right?

[00:20:10] Jim: Um, but there’s also this whole other thing about the positioning for primary politics, which is clearly. , you know, I mean, it’s impossible to not feel like that’s driving at least part of Trump’s behavior other than, you know, yeah. Simple survival and avoiding prosecution and, and all of this.

[00:20:28] Josh: Well, yeah, I mean, there, I mean by, actually, I think, you know, it’s hard for me not to think it’s doing a lot to drive a lot of these other elites behavior, right?

[00:20:35] Josh: Yeah, no, it’s, and, and you can see them, you know, I mean, you can see the, the, the gnashing of teeth, I mean, in the conservation, trying to, in some ways, you know, if you’re. , you know, whatever. I mean, you know, congressman from, you know, pick a state, right? Pick, pick a, pick a random exurban

[00:20:49] Jim: district, pick a, pick a random gerrymandered written for Republican, incumbent

[00:20:54] Josh: congressional district.

[00:20:55] Josh: Yeah. But, but one that’s, you know, competitive enough. Yeah. Not terribly. Right. And you’re sitting here thinking yourself, do I need to pick a candidate right now? Right. And in some ways, I mean, you know, Trump’s not asking. I mean, look, I was gonna say, Trump’s not asking for that feely right now, and then I’d have to kind of stop say he would take it and, and I think And you didn’t think he kind of trying, he is somewhat trying and so, I mean, it’s interesting is he forces people’s hands.

[00:21:17] Josh: It does force someone like DeSantis now to say, okay, I’ve, and the interesting thing about, you know, we’re coming dead DeSantis, is the coverage of DeSantis has been, I mean, to my, you know, this is my take of it, has been a lot of, you know, DeSantis is running a presidential campaign without holding a press conference or saying he is.

[00:21:31] Josh: Right. And what’s been interesting is to allow, ironically,

[00:21:33] Jim: who’s put the most heat onto DeSantis Donald Trump. . Yeah,

[00:21:36] Josh: exactly. Does Donald Trump’s been the first person to force him to kind of, you know, come out and really Right. You know, take that a little bit more head on. Right. And so, you know, that’s pretty interesting.

[00:21:47] Josh: Having said that, what’s really interesting about DeSantis is, is how strong he is. Now, a lot of the, a lot of the very, very, very recent polling right, that comes out is saying, oh, you know, he’s, he’s only at 26%. I’m just making, you know, this is about what it is. But you know, he’s only at 26% in national polling.

[00:22:03] Josh: In trial ballots. Trial ballots. We’ll, two things. One, that’s amazing. If you’ve been polling. Like, you know, any sort of trial ballots for any period of time as a professional and especially as sort of a nonpartisan person. Yeah. You know, the fact that a, an out-of-state governor first term or second term now, right?

[00:22:21] Josh: Yeah. Could. You know, basically come out and insert himself in that and command a quarter of the electorate. I mean, remember, delegate math is complicated when it comes to this kind of stuff. What are the primary electorate? Yeah. Right. Um, you know, that’s amazing. Our numbers in Texas show, you know, Ron DeSantis is not, uh, at the level of Trump, but he’s not far off.

[00:22:38] Josh: And we’ve talked about this in the recent poll. You know, we’re talking about favorability numbers for Trump, right? DeSantis, you know, trails Trump in favorability by about five or 10 points. But it’s not because a bunch of other Republicans are saying, oh, we don’t like him. Yeah. It’s because they don’t know him as well.

[00:22:50] Josh: But we’re talking about. governor of another state.

[00:22:54] Jim: Uh, yeah. And something like, you know, three quarters had an attitude about him. A little more than that. I think 22% was the people

[00:23:00] Josh: with no opinion. Right. And I mean, and I guess all I would just say is I’m gonna, I’m gonna channel our colleague Darren Shaw here and say, you know, there’s no national primary.

[00:23:07] Josh: Yeah, so a national trial ballot that finds a quarter of, you know, Republican voters in the country think that Ron DeSantis should be their next presidential candidate. You know, it’s easy to kind of dismiss that, but, you know, a presidential campaign is a, is a long thing.

[00:23:20] Jim: Right. And, and we’ve talked about Trump’s strengths up, up to this point.

[00:23:23] Jim: I mean, the share of Republicans who said that Trump should run for office again in 2024. Mm-hmm. . You know, probably closely within the margin of error for Republican or within the margin of error for Republicans only. Mm-hmm. fell about what, five points from 61% in August of 22 to 56%. Mm-hmm. in February of 23.

[00:23:47] Jim: Right, right. The share who said and, and that those people didn’t move into the, don’t know, they moved into the, he shouldn’t run now. Right. I think December through February was not very good for Trump. Sure. , you know, but I mean, not the first time we’ve sat, we’ve said that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And in fact, as you said, the, the very recent national polling has found him as he’s launched more of an offensive.

[00:24:09] Jim: and he’s been more in the news and people are rushing to his defense. His numbers vis-a-vis DeSantis have gotten

[00:24:14] Josh: better. But the question that I think that raises for me is, is that like a durable expression of preference, or is that just the oscillation of the news cycle? Right. And I think there’s a lot of reason to believe at this point that’s a lot more about oscillation in the news cycle.

[00:24:25] Jim: Right. I mean, I guess what I, you know, I mean, and this is kind of where we, I think we, we, we sort of wind up is that, you know, it is the oscillation, but what do you. the mean point would still seem to like really favor Trump at

[00:24:39] Josh: this point. A hundred percent. Well, and let me, let me go back to the same point.

[00:24:42] Josh: Yeah. Delegate math. I mean, the reality is, is that, you know, if Trump can manage to win, let’s say, you know, 40% of the vote in most states in a field that let’s in, let’s say the field, and we should expect the field to expand and have, you know, the rest of the vote fracture, which, listen, listen, this is a situation in which, I mean, there’s a good point.

[00:25:01] Josh: I mean there’s a good point in. An analysis I read recently by Nate Cohen at the time, and I’ll Yeah. Give credit to that, which is to say, you know, if you look at where he’s sitting on average in those polls, what the real question to my mind is, is like, what’s this floor? Yeah. And the thing is, is that if you have a floor in the Republican primary of a third, you’re gonna be around for a while.

[00:25:20] Josh: If you have a floor in the Republican primary of 40%, You’re probably gonna win the nomination. Yeah. And he’s above that pretty significantly. Now again, it’s very early and I do, and I wanna say like there’s a difference between a, I mean, not have a ton of examples of former presidents. No. running, you know, again, for office.

[00:25:37] Josh: Certainly not in the era of polling. Yeah. Uh, and so I’m thinking like, I mean, I’m thinking of some back in like the early 20th century. Right? Um, and so, you know, he certainly has a name Id advantage here that’s going to be pretty hard to overcome for any other challeng. and Ron DeSantis is gonna be the test of that.

[00:25:55] Josh: I mean, and you know, I think the thing that’s interesting about Ron DeSantis, you have to admit he’s a pretty adept politician to have done what he’s done so far, so quickly now. Oh, I see. Well, I mean, I

[00:26:03] Jim: think that, you know, I, you know, look, I. You kinda can’t argue his success. I mean, the guy just won his Yeah.

[00:26:10] Jim: Gubernatorial, but reelection campaign by, but he won by, you know, what, 20 points against the Democrat and everybody was tired of, as I heard somebody characterize it recently. I can’t remember who it was, but, uh, I mean, who said it? Um, the Democrat. Okay. Yeah. The Duino Democrats, Chris. But, um, but I also think.

[00:26:31] Jim: you know, well, look, there’s a debate going on right now. Same debate happened with Trump to some degree, but it’s really happening with DeSantis right now, which is, yes, this guy’s been very successful. Mm-hmm. , you know, has it been a relatively easy glide path, and is he now gonna hit the test that. , you know, maybe, you know, he demonstrate the boundaries of his talents or, you know, force him to grow and get better.

[00:26:59] Jim: Yeah. And look, historically we’ve seen lots of successful candidates start off with a lot of, yeah. You know, their initial success on their initial rise as heralded, as proof of their political skill. Then they try to step up to a presidential campaign and either they wash out, right? Or. They grow and they get better and they adapt and they go on to succeed.

[00:27:24] Jim: And you know, I think a lot of that winds up getting lost in our memory of people. Yeah. I mean there was a period where, you know, Obama had to call everybody in and you know, in his campaign and say, Hey, we’re not, this isn’t working. Right. Right. And so you go, you know, we need to. , we need to figure this out.

[00:27:41] Jim: And a lot of successful presidents of, you know, candidates and who won the presidency have been in that. So I, I get that. Mm-hmm. . But I do think it’s, you know, it’s interesting that we are in. . One thing about DeSantis coming out early and succeeding earlier is that this is happening sooner. Yeah. Which, I mean, we’re hit, we’re hitting a critical threat.

[00:28:01] Jim: And I, whether it’s a critical threshold, but we’re hitting, we’re definitely hitting a moment. Yeah. And you know, as we record this, you know, DeSantis played another big piece. Oh man. You know, yesterday doing an interview with Pierce Anthony that PIs Morgan or Piers Morgan, you. Well, this whole Pi Morgan thing, I want to Yeah, like why, how did, I thought we were done with Piers Morgan.

[00:28:21] Jim: But anyway, I guess he went overseas and, you know, that’s fine. Retooled over retooled in his homeland, but, um, in which the Sandis is very critical, you know, is, is, is taking the path that he’s clearly gonna try to path he’s done. He did it in another shorter interview segment earlier this week where he says he plays the party line.

[00:28:41] Jim: why isn’t the New York DA solving urban crime? Right. Et cetera, et cetera. But then this kind of, yeah. But you know, I mean, I do think it, you know, that we’re even having to deal with this raises questions about the, the president’s character, which, you know, the New York Daily News, it gets into the Interneting politics and New York Daily News.

[00:29:01] Jim: Yeah. Played this on the front, you know, which, you know, the Murdoch people had to know was gonna just kill Trump. Right. And all this kind of thing. But I. But one of the interesting things I was thinking about that, and it does bring us back to Texas a little bit. Mm-hmm. before we close, is that, you know, part of DeSantis argument.

[00:29:17] Jim: It’s ironically we just having just mentioned Obama, I was thinking it is that it’s kind of like, he’s kind of like no drama TOIs. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Do, I’ve done all this stuff and you haven’t seen all this other bullshit happening. Right. , right. I’m just going there. I’m pushing forward, I’m fighting woke, I’m doing all the things you want me to do, and.

[00:29:38] Jim: no one’s asking me about my relationships with porn stars, cuz these aren’t the things that are happening. And I don’t, I’m not interested in social media and I, I don’t even know how to spell sanctimonious. Ha ha ha. He said the guy with an Ivy League degree, but,

[00:29:50] Josh: um, yeah, but, but you know, and, and the, the thing is here is that like, I think that this, I was thinking the exact same thing.

[00:29:56] Josh: The no Trump, Obama thing, right? But it’s like, plays on an idea that the data does not support, right. This is something that, again, I think, well among elite Republicans, there’s this idea that like, no, no. I mean, I think even a lot of elite, elite Republicans might say, Hey, look, you know, I agreed with Trump on a lot of the policies, on a lot of the goals, what he was trying to accomplish in the Middle East, what he was trying to accomplish with respect to trade, with respect to, you know, labor regulations, so on and so forth.

[00:30:23] Josh: I just didn’t like the way he did it. I didn’t like the way that it was so difficult to get these things accomplished because of all the extra stuff that came along with it. Yeah. And it made it so hard. Right. And that’s this very elite argument. And then we look and, but like cool. But then we look at the voters and we can say, overwhelmingly positive use this idea that there’s this, you know, sect of Republicans sitting here, especially in Texas, who have these negative use for Trump.

[00:30:44] Josh: It’s almost nobody. When we look at, you know, this, uh, question you, we asked a couple different times during, once during, you know, a couple times during the first impeachment trial, and then again after January 6th, whether Trump had ever, you know, done anything that would disqualify him from holding future office.

[00:30:58] Josh: Just very, you know, we have to rerun that question. Oh, we are , but you know, and the answer. No, I mean, I think 89, you know, probably close to 89%

[00:31:07] Jim: of Republicans. That why you have rerun it? Cause I’m fairly confident we’ll get

[00:31:09] Josh: the same. No, we’ll get the same. We’ll get the same thing I said no and. And, and I’ll just, you know, one more example of this.

[00:31:15] Josh: I remember, you know, in, in that sort of middle of Trump’s presidency, you know, when there was a lot going on after Charleston, uh, after a couple other, I think after the shithole country’s comment, right? You know, we basically ran a battery, a pretty big extensive sort of Trump approval battery. How’s he handling each of the fund relations with Congress?

[00:31:32] Josh: Because a lot of problems going on in terms of term, you work with Republicans and you know, across the board. Most Republicans said it was fine. Yeah. And most of these were controversial areas and it was sort of shocking because there’d been so much in the news about how, you know, this was early on where I think people were still coming to grips with sort of the different style and approach.

[00:31:50] Josh: And when we asked the Republican, especially Republicans, Hey, is this still good? Thumbs up. Double thumbs up. Yeah, no, the public, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think, and so this whole like, you know, there’s this desire for less drama and the policy goals, it’s like, yeah, where are you seeing that?

[00:32:03] Jim: Well, but I think that’s what, you know, that’s what I was gonna get at though.

[00:32:05] Jim: What’s interesting about that is that in the context of that public opinion thing, I mean the play by DeSantis, whether it’s successful or not, mm-hmm. points to something interesting. And that is, you know, DeSantis is currently the successful version. Of the Trump Republican Party. Mm-hmm. or the Trump stream thi, you know, stream of the Republican party in power.

[00:32:32] Jim: Yeah, yeah. Which is different, right? Because the last time that got tested, it failed. Right? Right. Because Trump lost, it failed nationally. Right. And so you’ve got DeSantis now trying to run in this new ideologically driven, but programmatically, somewhere between fuzzy and different, not even programmatically.

[00:32:54] Jim: It’s like, you know, what is, what are the ideological drivers of the Republican party right now? Mm-hmm. . And not to get too cosmic in this question. We do, we’ve touched on, you know what, you know, how is the current Republican party and its most prominent avatars defining conservatism? Mm-hmm. and DeSantis is making a play.

[00:33:17] Jim: for that based on his management and what he’s done in the state. And it’s an interesting contrast with what we’re seeing in Texas and it really does remind me of two things. So one, as we said, I think last week, we don’t have a Republican presidential candidate from Texas so far and Right. You know, I’m still betting we don’t, I’m betting at least not one that’s competi.

[00:33:41] Jim: Right.

[00:33:42] Josh: Certainly not someone leaving an off.

[00:33:44] Jim: So there’s office. Yeah. And then there’s what we’re seeing going on right now in the Texas Republican Party in the active legislating and policy part of the cycle. Mm-hmm. , which is a real struggle over how a Trump defined Republican party govern. Yeah, right.

[00:34:06] Jim: because you know, you, you think about the various things we’ve been talking about when we’ve talked about the various things we saw in the polling. There is still this churn between, you know, traditional governance concerns and the need to speak more directly to a more mobilized. Faction of the Republican party that is talking about a lot of the things that DeSantis is talking about.

[00:34:30] Jim: Woke business. Mm-hmm. , um, woke education, gender modifications, gender, you know, all you know, uh, yeah. You know, the sense of, you know, where we are, you know, in terms of various, you know, what we used to call identity politics, how that affects governance and behavior and trying to roll those back. Mm-hmm. and I think that, and so the Trump, the, it’s, it’s, it’s the thing I’ve, I’ve been kind of thinking about.

[00:34:53] Jim: I can’t quite get my head around it completely, but it’s an interesting undercurrent and I, and again, I think it is probably more right now an elite argument. Yeah. Or an elite conversation, but it is elites trying to figure out, I think, who are many, most of whom are done with Trump. how they navigate this new environment and, and I think that’s why there’s been so much attention to DeSantis from Republican elites, because maybe, maybe this is the way we don’t poke the bear in the Trump electorate.

[00:35:29] Jim: Mm-hmm. given what we’ve seen, but we kind of stabilize the institutional governance part of this,

[00:35:35] Josh: you know, you know what I mean? Hearing you talk about this, you know what it’s like to me. It’s like I, I brought up the pig pipe poten again. Mm-hmm. , you know, and it’s like, it’s almost as if, you know, The party in the Republican party in government, broadly, that party is, in a lot of ways DeSantis is party right now.

[00:35:49] Josh: I mean, he’s defining the terms. He’s really, you know, pushing the policy direction and kind of showing the way that, you know, again, I think the way to approach a lot of these issues. Right? And I mean, you know, like watching style and substance and all that kind of something he, there’s an interesting line in that.

[00:36:02] Josh: Kind of in that, in the pi uh, interview where he basically said something to the effect of like, look, I’m just trying to, like, I’m not gonna pretend there are like multiple different realities. Like this is the reality and we’re gonna move from there. Right. And so I think he’s showing a path forward, both politically and from a policy standpoint of what, but then the party in the electorate is Trump’s right?

[00:36:21] Josh: And that is, that’s a, that’s creating some tricky

[00:36:24] Jim: friction points. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s, can you tap into this? You know, it, it’s what I think Ted Cruz is. given up on, yeah. Right. In the sense is, you know, I was tapping, you know, I mean there’s this sentiment. Mm-hmm. instead of attitudes and sentiment I think is also kind of, kind of important here.

[00:36:40] Jim: Yeah. Predispositions, whatever you want to call it in terms of attitudinally, but that’s there. that Trump, you know, has had a, you know, significant demonstration effect. Yeah. That, you know, this is kind of what you need to tap into at the level of the mass space of the party to succeed. Mm-hmm. , how can you do that and govern and manage the fact that it’s Trump that activated all that and Trump’s not going

[00:37:04] Josh: away.

[00:37:05] Josh: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting that, and we’ll, we’ll end this up. I mean, I’m thinking about this idea of, you know, how do you meld sort of feeling as if you are under sie. In America because of your views, but in a state like Texas where you’ve had all the levers of government in a conservative government for, for more than two decades.

[00:37:22] Josh: Well,

[00:37:22] Jim: right. It’s the, you know, yeah. It’s the combination of the under siege, you know, mentality, meme. Right. You know, the, yeah. And. , the fact of institutional governance. Right. And look, the answer in Texas at this moment, as I read the legislature or the, the powerful answer that’s been promoted by the governor for a few year for the length of his governorship.

[00:37:46] Jim: Mm-hmm. , but is now in some ways being embraced by the legislature, though with some friction is, well, what you do is you use those levers of power to implement these goals no matter how much they’re pressing the boundaries. Of previous political norms and even laws and constitutional guarantees. And, you know, we’ve been kind of dancing around that.

[00:38:11] Jim: But I, you know, that’s kind of where I wanted to wind up today, I think, is that, you know, we’re looking at this big conversation and that’s, you know, Trump makes things, there’s so much fog of war mm-hmm. , anytime Trump is involved, and frankly, DeSantis does his own, has his own smoke machines. Right. Yeah.

[00:38:27] Jim: Fogging things up. But as we s. When you get to watch the legislative process at the state level and you’re watching it closely in action and you’re watching the same, you know, it’s not like this is devoid of conflicting personalities and agendas, right. , but right now is one of those moments, it’s like, okay, we got the levers of power.

[00:38:46] Jim: It’s a good gauge for like where the balance of power is and that’s why we’re having trouble. I think figuring out like what is actually gonna get out of the legislative session and what’s not, it’s because that question is so active and those politics are so active right now and they’re active not just in the usual, you know, people maneuvering to, you know, see who’s gonna zoom, who.

[00:39:09] Jim: but there are big underlying, you know, more tectonic things going on in the party that are being fought out before our very eyes. And I think with that, We’ll probably return to some of those questions next week. Although, who knows? We’ll see what happens in the wake. Yeah, I was gonna say, sorry. It could be wild.

[00:39:25] Jim: Yeah. For all. It could. It could be wild. Could be wild guys. . That’s good. Uh, so with that, thanks Josh for being here. That was fun. Thanks to our excellent production team in the dev studio and the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Data we talked about as always, at Texas politics.tex.edu. And we’ll have a blog post that corresponds to this.

[00:39:48] Jim: So that lays out a bunch of the data on Trump. That should be out by the time this is out, I think. I think it’s, I think it’s pretty close to ready. Go to our website at Texas politics dot u texas.edu. Hit the blog section. Go to the blog page and it’ll be prominently featured. So thank you for listening.

[00:40:06] Jim: Be well and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

[00:40:12] Outro: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.