November 2nd, 2022 – Second Reading Podcast

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm at what. Must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[00:00:34] Jim Henson: And welcome back to the second Reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, Director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, back with Joshua Blank, Research director of the Texas Politics Project. Welcome back, Jo. Thanks for having me back. Uh, you know, I, I just sit there and there’s a pause there as I introduce myself.

[00:00:54] Jim Henson: It’s almost sad to remember who I was. I, it feels like that. I think that’s kind of where we’re at a little bit. [00:01:00] And where we’re at is in the last week running up to election day election. Uh, early voting in person is going on all over Texas. Uh, we’re watching that and, and much, much more. So, uh, given that this is our last podcast, unless we do an emergency podcast, Next emergency?

Yes. Um, before the elect, before election. So I, you know, I thought maybe what we could do was talk a little bit about what we’re watching, what people might watch, uh, have people email us and tell us what they are watching if we, you know, we’re inevitably not gonna hit everything one might watch, so it would be interested in hearing from folks what, you know, what, what you’re watching.

So, you know, I mean, I, I, I think the, the main kind of daily, uh, uh, occurrence, Uh, right now for people watching this is kind of watching early voting because, you know, so much of what the [00:02:00] campaigns have said has hinged on their turnout efforts. You know, obviously structurally, uh, right. For. the Better O’Rourke campaign, not to get buy into the general myth of turnout, having talked about that Professor Shaw a couple weeks ago.

But nonetheless, I mean, turnout is, is clearly critical for the O’Rourke campaign. To the extent that the Abbott campaign, uh, anticipates the O’Rourke campaign trying to drum up turnout, then you can expect that the Abbott campaign is also going to make a lot of efforts on turn. Um, you know, I think a couple weeks ago, and this is a, a, you know, terrible scholarly practice.

I, I think it was on either, in, either in an interview on the radio or on Twitter. The Abbott campaign was projecting that they thought there’d be something like 10 million people turning out, right? Uh, I, it is looking like much less than that this time. Much, much less than that. And that’s been kind of, I think, the unfolding story [00:03:00] as we’ve watched early voting, that early voting.

You know, I don’t wanna say, or anemic, but, um, you know, looking kind of average.

[00:03:09] Josh Blank: Yeah. I think average is the word we would use to describe it, but the question is, you know, average how, and I think one of the things that, you know, I’ve been saying a lot, we’ve been kind of talking about a lot is, you know, if you looked at the last two election cycles in Texas, we’ve seen really high turnout for Texas now relative to the rest of the country.

[00:03:23] Josh Blank: We’re still at the bottom of the pack, but we’ve seen this surge turnout. And so I think to some extent, you know, it’s, there’s a little bit of. You know, disappointment is to some extent, I think in sort of among those people who are like watching this stuff closely cuz you’re thinking, oh this is, you know, it sort of almost seems like to make the election interesting, like, you know, we’re probably gonna need to see more turnout.

[00:03:43] Josh Blank: Whereas as we kind of see this decrease in turnout, our expectation is based on kind of the underlying data that we’re gonna see. Like what we would call normal election, maybe, you know, 2014 levels of kind of turnout, rates of turnout sort of thing. Um, and you. [00:04:00] I mean, that’s sort of not surprising in some ways, right?

[00:04:02] Josh Blank: I mean, in the sense that, you know, the last two election cycles have been, you know, really, really high unusual high intensity, Yeah. High levels of engagement and especially, you know, high levels of engagement from a lot of democratic voters who aren’t necessarily, you know, as consistent in their voting patterns as Republicans.

[00:04:20] Jim Henson: Yeah. And I, you know, and we did a post at the website that the listeners can go find that’s in the blog section. That combines the early tracking num, the, the early voting numbers in our daily tracking of it, although we have one of those freestanding, but also with like a list of things to consider.

[00:04:38] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. as you look back and, and try to gauge where we are in relation to 2018 and 2020 and to read and as you read, uh, coverage of this. I mean, you know, and one of the things in that is that it’s very, in that post is that, You know, a lot of things have changed even in, you know, sitting aside turnout rates.

[00:04:57] Jim Henson: Right. A lot of things have changed just in [00:05:00] how that data are reported. Right. And in the context of, uh, of new voting loss. Right. Uh, the big voting bill that was, that was passed into law, that changed a lot of the process and is, and, you know, Plausibly seems to be having an impact. And I’m not saying that we blame low turnout on that, but certainly the patterns in in male voting and a couple other things.

[00:05:25] Jim Henson: Are tied in part to that and in part to just, you know, major changes in context in 2018 and

[00:05:30] Josh Blank: 2020. Yeah, but I think one thing that hasn’t changed, and one of the reasons that we are focused on early voting is that, you know, as a, as a proportion of the total vote, the early vote has increasingly become the primary way that Texans cast their ballots right now.

[00:05:44] Josh Blank: We saw that trend picking up from 2014 to 2016 to 2018 in 2020. That was the dominant mode of voting during the. Because, you know, people wanted to vote early. The counties wanted people to vote early. There was extended early voting periods. So, you know, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a little bit of a snap back in in [00:06:00] 2022.

[00:06:00] Josh Blank: I mean, I’ve been saying, you know, sort of outside of this question, you know, the idea that we’re gonna see lower than a sort of 2018 level turn out, lower than 2022, turn out as obvious in terms of the total number of votes. It seems at this point, like the only thing that’s gonna push us up, you know, into a, these sort of higher level numbers, 8 million to 10 million people is probably gonna be huge election day turnout.

[00:06:20] Josh Blank: Which again would be kind of atypical and really against the trend line here in Texas. So really you do start to have to kind of be focused on where, where is the vote happening, who’s showing up? And you know, all of that kind of points to, to bad signs for Democrats, right?

[00:06:34] Jim Henson: Because we’re, you know, I mean we are substantially down and by in both absolute numbers and share the elector.

[00:06:42] Jim Henson: Right. You know, despite, you know, people having made a lot going into this of, you know, an increase in registration, that didn’t seem to me to be unusually

[00:06:49] Josh Blank: high. Well, and the other thing is, you know, the, the most recent analysis, you know, I think out this morning or yesterday afternoon from Derek Ryan who’s looking at the voter file and looking at, you know, the nature of.

[00:06:58] Josh Blank: Of the participants [00:07:00] thus far found that if he looks at the new register and he does great work, and if you don’t look at that, you should really sign up for his email because it’s worth it. But, you know, he was pointing out that if you look at the new registrants, basically sort of the, the, you know, sort of people who’ve registered since 2020, uh, even there, the proportion of those who participated in a rebel Republican primary outpaces the share of those who participate in a Democrat primary.

[00:07:21] Josh Blank: So even when you look inside that data, it’s not looking like a big registration advantage for Democrat, which even Democrats, which even here wouldn’t even be. You look at the numbers, it wouldn’t even be enough really to make a big dent in the gap that Republicans usually can generate, or it would, it

[00:07:35] Jim Henson: would have to be, you know?

[00:07:35] Jim Henson: Yeah. Well, it’d have

[00:07:36] Josh Blank: to be, Yeah. I mean, very large. Yeah. Well I think even if they had all of the new registrants, it might not be large

[00:07:40] Jim Henson: enough and, And I think, you know, and again, I think we have to caveat this with the fact that, you know, in terms of looking at these early voting numbers and then thinking about election day, you know, there a lot has changed.

[00:07:54] Jim Henson: Obviously the pandemic. , you know, the rules, which some people may or may not be aware of [00:08:00] or may or may not be, uh, impacting habits, but also the discussion of mailin voting. Yeah. In since 2020. In 2020 and since then. Seems to have really driven, you know, had had an impact on mail and voting, particularly looking at the partisan patterns that, that again, Derek Ryan and, and others have been talking about.

[00:08:21] Jim Henson: Yeah, I

[00:08:21] Josh Blank: mean, you know, the, you know, this is something people pointed out during, uh, the debate, over the specific provisions around mail and voting. I. You know, if you’ve been around for a while, you know, historically male and voting has been used more by the Republican party than the Democratic party here because of the nature of the male in voting law in Texas and the different demographics of the parties.

[00:08:40] Josh Blank: Right? Yeah. So the easiest way to get access to a male in ballot is to be over the age of 65, right? Well, we’re talking about over 65 voters in Texas. You’re talking about a pretty Republican group, right? Right. And so, but ultimately, you know, all of the, the questions around mail and ballots, all the new provisions, you know, I would say the, the pretty bumpy rollout of it during the primaries, [00:09:00] it’s not surprising that, you know, you probably see a significant share of Texans, I’d say Republicans and Democrats saying, you know, maybe I should just cast about in person this

[00:09:07] Jim Henson: time.

[00:09:08] Jim Henson: Right. And definitely I, as I recalled Derek’s earlier reports, You had seen a shift in the, in the partisan balance of mm-hmm. Of mail in voting. The overall total was down again, expectedly, but the, the partisan proportion had shifted and the, a lot fewer Republicans. Right. Uh, using mailin voting, which sort of, you know, basically underlines this argument.

[00:09:32] Jim Henson: But if you, So if, if we look at the surly voting in terms of thinking about what it’s telling us, You know, the biggest, most obvious sign that is this is not good for Democrats is that, you know, as you were saying earlier, we know that generally Republicans historically have preferred to vote on election day.

[00:09:49] Jim Henson: Yeah. Um, and the proportion as of, I think through Halloween, through Monday mm-hmm. , um, so this would be the, the, the [00:10:00] report that I think Derek sent out last night. Yeah. You know, people with, uh, with some level of Republican voting, uh, primary voting history and no democratic primary votes at all. 42% of, of turnout so far.

[00:10:15] Jim Henson: Democratic share similarly constituted between one and four, a history of voting in the last between one and four Democratic primaries with no Republican primary voting record, 29. Yep. And that’s been a Republic advantage from the beginning. There were a couple days, I think in the middle where it looked like it was closing a little bit.

[00:10:36] Jim Henson: Right. And then it opened up again after the weekend. So, um,

[00:10:40] Josh Blank: and I’ll say, you know, I don’t recall, and I have to look back, but my recollection was in, in the closer cycle in 2018, you know, those numbers were not, that gap was not as big.

[00:10:49] Jim Henson: It was not, it was not, and I don’t, I don’t have it right in front of me, but Derek had put that in, I think in the, in the preface to his report.

[00:10:56] Jim Henson: And it was not so. So as we watch early voting, you know, [00:11:00] again, I would say if we’re looking for leading indicators, the combination of low turnout in what we’re seeing in the partisan balance, near as we can tell now, that’s not right. It’s not determinative, it’s not everybody you know, and it’s not determinative, it’s, you know, that’s basically a little more than 70% of the vote so far are either Republican or PRI or, or democratic primary voters.

[00:11:23] Jim Henson: We’ll see, but between the proportions and the low level of turnout, there’s no way you can look at this as a Democrat and think this is a good sign. No,

[00:11:34] Josh Blank: I mean, and especially given the fact that, you know, I mean, you can look at their own, their own. Statements on this. I mean, I think, you know, to the extent that, uh, the O’Rourke campaign has been reacting to kind of, you know, bad polling news in the weeks leading up to the election, the response has been we’ve built the biggest turnout operation, you know, in the history of the, you know, the galaxy or whatever people say right in the state.

[00:11:54] Josh Blank: That the world, the galaxy, and I mean obviously some of that is just campaign rhetoric and whatever. We take that as it is. But [00:12:00] also, I mean, it, it indicates the fact that, you know, the campaign in large part is built on the idea of turning. Low propensity democratic leaning voters. And so far, there’s nothing in this early data that would indicate that that effort is, is, is bearing a lot of fruit.

[00:12:15] Josh Blank: Right.

[00:12:16] Jim Henson: Unless they are, you know, aiming at election day turnout. But I’ve seen no indication of, well, and again,

[00:12:20] Josh Blank: and like, and that would be, and

[00:12:21] Jim Henson: that would be a bad, that would be very poor strategy given what we know about. Well again, yeah. You know, the changes in the electoral law that have reduced the number of, of polling places in some very democratic areas.

[00:12:34] Jim Henson: You know, the regulation of hours, et cetera. It would not be a wise strategy to do then. I doubt that they have, but I, I wanna give them the, it’s a logical possibility, benefit

[00:12:44] Josh Blank: of the doubt. You know, it’s almost like it’s, we would, we’d almost say it’s Ira, it would be irrational,

[00:12:48] Jim Henson: right? So, you know, at least in the economic sense right now, uh, another could cove indicator that people have looked at.

[00:12:55] Jim Henson: And I think, you know, this doesn’t tell us a lot and, and there’s not a [00:13:00] ton of news here, but you know, the. The eight day reports came out, uh, campaigns had to file ’em yesterday, November 1st they came. So people are parsing them today. Uh, Jeff Blalock, a Texas election source, had done a lot of first round compiling on this, and I’m sure others have, I’m sure, I’m sure Speed Tech did or it’s Tribune.

[00:13:20] Jim Henson: Um, You know, in, in, in this period, O’Rourke, you know, continued to out raise Abbott. And this year that’s been one of the storylines and certainly a storyline promoted very much by Democrats and by anybody with an interest in portraying this race as, as competitive, um, by about one point, uh, you know, 1.7 million.

[00:13:43] Jim Henson: So, you know, O’Rourke raised 10 and a half. Abbott raised 8.8, Uh, Outspent Abbott by about three and a half million, give or take. Um, you know, one of the interesting things that, that Blalock pointed out is that [00:14:00] both candidates have been raising money and spending it. Yep. Right. Um, you know, O’Rourke, you know, out of all this, you know, enormous amount of money that he raised for this campaign in the calendar year, and he raised, you know, almost $68 million.

[00:14:17] Jim Henson: Uh, O’Rourke has about four and a quarter million dollars on hand. Abbott has a little less than four on hand, which that’s the thing. You’re like, Whoa. So, you know, I mean, yeah. That’s, that’s something now, I mean, I think, you know, It’d be interesting to see how much of, you know, how how much of that, of the Abbott money has gone to some of these legislative efforts.

[00:14:38] Jim Henson: Although I think in the year when he’s on the ballot, probably not as much as we’ve seen in the past. And we’re gonna put a pin in that for later. Um, but I think we also have to remember that if you step back a little bit further, and again, Blalock makes this point, it’s a very good. Um, you know, over the two year period, Abbott still raised [00:15:00] about 25 million more than, uh, than O’Rourke did.

[00:15:05] Jim Henson: And you know, since the beginning of 2019, after the last race, Abbott has raised, you know, more than 140 million. Right. And, you know, I. Sort of make a point of this in the, you know, the, the Texas politics course that produced online, you know, that Abbot’s ability to fundraise to fundraise is really unbeliev historic.

[00:15:25] Jim Henson: Yeah, no, it’s, and, and unmatched. And so, you know, we’ve said on the podcast, and you know, and I’ve said to, to reporters and then to groups in a lot of ways, you know, it feels as if, you know, Abbott’s ability to raise money is to some degree, for all practical purposes kind of. Right. Yeah. I mean, not literally infinite, but it’s, it’s, it’s impossible to, for me to imagine that Greg Abbott wakes up in a, in a campaign for a statewide office, certainly for the governorship, Right.

[00:15:53] Jim Henson: And goes, Uh, oh, no. How am I gonna raise money? Yeah. And, you know, it just doesn’t happen. Right?

[00:15:59] Josh Blank: No, and I mean, and [00:16:00] the truth is, is, you know, I think in, in many ways, you know, they’ve learned from previous election cycles that they’re not going to. Leave a bunch of assets on the table. Yeah. You know, for, for the fact that, you know, if anything doesn’t go to plan, then you get the blame if you’ve got $10 million in your bank account.

[00:16:16] Josh Blank: Right. And, and

[00:16:17] Jim Henson: we’ve talked about this in here before, that I think, you know, the, you know, one of the overall lessons and we, you know, maybe this is the time to talk about this, you know, well, you’ve already kind of raised the 20 18, 20 20. I can’t help it. But the dynamic, Well, no, no, it’s, it’s, Well, and it’s, I mean, I think in this context, the point is, You know, one of the things that seems to occur to me is.

[00:16:41] Jim Henson: You know, as we sort out how singular was 2018. Right. You know, we’ve talked a ton about the dynamic between 20 18, 20 19, session 20, 20, 21 session. Right. But electorally, I think if you look at the arc from, you know, 20 18, 20 20, [00:17:00] 2022. It’s that the Republican party and the consultant class. Mm. Certainly wri, you know, writ large, have learned a lesson about complacency.

[00:17:09] Jim Henson: Yeah. And that was kind of the 2018 lesson. Yeah. It got implemented in 2020. It went their way. And I think that lesson is still very front and center. And of course, look, I mentioned the consultant. You know, if you’re the consultant, that’s that, get a piece of the spending. Mm-hmm. , not that any, this would be anybody’s main motivation.

[00:17:30] Jim Henson: Of course not all things being equal. If you know your client has money in the bank, you’re gonna urge them to spend it. And I think elected officials and candidates have probably, you know, internalized this lesson from 2018 and 2020 that’s being reinforced by consultants.

[00:17:45] Josh Blank: Yeah, and I mean, something that kind of strikes me as we talk about it is, you know, it is, The thing that kind of stands out if you’ve been following this for a while, is the fact that like, you know, you’d say Abbott only has, you know, a little under 4 million in his account.

[00:17:57] Josh Blank: And part of that is because if you’ve been following this for so long, I mean the story is [00:18:00] always how much money Abbott has in his account, right? He’s got, you know, he’s got 20 something million, he’s got 30 million, he’s got 40 million. And I think one of the interesting things about that is, you know, from a traditional kind of political science standpoint is, you know, you’d say as an incumbent with a humongous war chest, as we call it, that should scare off challengers.

[00:18:16] Josh Blank: It should share, scare off other politic. The thing is, is that, I mean, you combine the two points or, or these two, one point or the other, which is, you know, one, he can probably go back and raise that money again, which is, you know, astronomical and amazing. Just from an outside perspective, but the other side of it also is like, it didn’t scare off anybody.

[00:18:33] Josh Blank: Right? He had a, he had a primary, he had, you know, people spending money against him. Yeah. It was significant. He has a significant challenger who’s also raised a ton of money. So the idea that AB can just sit there with 20 or $30 million and that in and of itself can do some of the work. Right. Is probably, That game is probably over.

[00:18:49] Josh Blank: Yeah. And so given that it becomes, Okay, well why are you raising this money? Well, you’re raising this money to, to campaign. And so we’re seeing that now, I think, and it’s a little bit of, of a shift, you know, just in the environment. [00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Jim Henson: Well, and that’s, you know, You know, that brings us to maybe one final bit of this before we move on, or, you know, thinking about, you know, what we’re looking at.

[00:19:08] Jim Henson: You know, obviously everybody’s reading tea leaves now. Yeah. You know, so, you know, in terms of this, it’s kind of, uh, Right. Oh, there’s, you know, this is one example of that. Oh, you know, Governor Abbott’s spending all of his money. It must mean, you know, does that mean that they’re worried? Are they, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t know the answer to that.

[00:19:26] Jim Henson: I don’t, I, I think the broader argument we’re talking about is more plausible based on what we’re seeing than Right. You know, they feel some imminent, you know, threat, you know, uh, uh, out there. But, you know, there’s all these other things that we’re watching. There’s a big national conversation going on about this, about what, you know, what the.

[00:19:45] Jim Henson: You know how the campaigns are handling messaging and mm-hmm. , you know, what is now the cliche of the closing arguments. Right, Right. They are, um, you know, big story in the New York Times yesterday about, you know, the early start of, of kind of [00:20:00] criticism and discussion of whether, you know, Democrats should be shifting gears as some, and, and, and looking at evidence that some are in the past week, you.

[00:20:09] Jim Henson: Continuing a pivot that I think we’ve seen for a while away from the tighter focus on, you know, abortion democracy, um, you know, the, the, you know, the Republican party being out of the mainstream and a little bit more towards an economic argument and trying to. You know? Yeah. Reposition in the face of what is an obviously disadvantaged environment for them.

[00:20:36] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. given inflation. Right. And so, you know, I, it, it did make me think of what’s going on in Texas and, you know, we were looking at some ads this morning. Right. You know, what is being called, you know, The, the O’Rourke campaigns kind of closing ad where he’s just facing the camera and there’s an interesting, like, you know, there’s a funny rhetorical [00:21:00] trick we see in campaigns before where.

[00:21:02] Jim Henson: You know, he starts by saying, Look, I don’t think Greg Abbott is purposefully, and then he lists all these terrible things, but the truth of the matter is they haven’t done anything to fix it. And then they, you know, they, they use, you know, text on the bottom of the screen to kind of marque, you know, major points.

[00:21:19] Jim Henson: And the economy doesn’t really play a big role in that. Yeah. And it goes to the, you know, but you know, and I, you know, we were talking about this earlier offline, and I think, look, on one hand, Again, Monday morning. Monday morning quarterbacking. It’s very easy to say, Well, why didn’t they talk about that more?

[00:21:37] Jim Henson: I think that’s one thing you can do nationally for Democrats, yeah, it’s a little harder in Texas, but it’s even a little unfair with the Democrats to some degree nationally, maybe in the Senate races, but in, you know, local house races, legislative races, even gubernatorial races. You know, balancing what local conditions look like with this overwhelmingly kind of [00:22:00] powerful national, very easy argument for Republicans to make.

[00:22:05] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. , that you’re noticing higher prices, you’re noticing your wages aren’t keeping up and who’s running the show. Right. O’Rourke is one, you know, has wanted to make that argument in Texas. Um, with a variation on things that are, you know, he thinks will mobilize his voters. And I guess, you know, ultimately, you know, might make this a referendum on Abbott, which would be the ca the classic strategy.

[00:22:31] Jim Henson: I, you know, but it’s, it’s been a hard hill to climb and I, I thought I was struck by anything in looking at the final O’Rourke ad. It is the, how similar it was to how we opened the campaign absent, you know, with the addition of the, the development of Dobbs and the abortion decision, which came later. But you know, the stewardship argument has pretty much been the argument from beginning to end.

[00:22:57] Josh Blank: Yeah, and I mean, I think the thing about that is, I mean, you [00:23:00] know, but I think the issue is, you know, the stewardship argument has been the argument, but then the question becomes how do you, you get to making that stewardship evaluation and, and the, and the problem seems to be, you know, my mind at least with, with the approach is, you know, I’ve kind of said this a couple different ways, a couple different times, but, but the democrats, you know, sort of challenge slash whatever with, with Abbott and their issues said is, you know, is it.

[00:23:21] Josh Blank: Does Abbott go down from death by a thousand cuts, or is it, you know, a bunch of blows, but none of them are fatal. And ultimately it kind of looks like the latter. I mean, you look there, you’re kind of stacking these different issues up that you know, I mean, truthfully activate, you know, a lot of your voters who are already gonna turn out and vote for you, but also, you know, counter mobilize, you know, a significant share of voters on the other side.

[00:23:42] Josh Blank: I mean, even on these issues where Democrats are in the majority, in their issue position, in the broader electorate, we’re still talking about, you know, 55% on their side. And then you start to cut that down. You know, you take out all the Democrats, you take out all the people who don’t vote, and you’re talking about like a couple points in terms of people who may not even [00:24:00] be mobilized enough by abortion on its own or on its own to turn out.

[00:24:05] Josh Blank: And so, you know, it kind of just seems like it’s a heavy lift. And I think that’s part of the question here, I think for Democrats. Cause even, even, you know, in between those two points where they’re sort of focused on, you know, sort of the abortion guns, Climate democracy sort of issue cluster said there was a discussion going on at the very end of the summer that sort of pointed out that like, you know, Democrats were so tone.

[00:24:26] Josh Blank: Uh, sort of in the transition point from summer to fall because they were focused on the, the divide and legislative achievements around infrastructure and there’s something, they’re putting all these infrastructure ads out. It turns out well, you know, if people are paying more for gas and paying more for groceries and you’re touting some like road that’s gonna be built in 10 years, cuz that’s how long it takes.

[00:24:45] Josh Blank: It’s like you’re missing the boat. And so there was a shift even in between this to, Well, let’s talk about, let’s talk about Medicare. Yeah. Right. Well, and I

[00:24:52] Jim Henson: think, think one of the, let’s talk about social security. Yeah. And I think one of the arguments that, you know, the, the, you know, whatever the [00:25:00] backbiters or you know, the critics are, are saying now is that, you know, from the beginning, and there should have been a way, not just in terms of the more recent, you know, legislation they passed, but the infrastructure bill, and even going back to Covid Relief.

[00:25:15] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, And there’s an obvious trap there, right? Yeah. Which I think we talked about last week, which is you’re walking into Oh yeah. And that’s what caused inflation. Right. Um, but I think that’s, you know, you can’t, you have to just come up, you know, you have to deal with that. Right? Right. Um, not that it’s easy, but you have to do that.

[00:25:32] Jim Henson: And you have to, you know, if only to, to make. Republicans work harder for that. I mean, I think one of the things is you can’t ignore that problem in way,

[00:25:42] Josh Blank: and that’s, Well, that’s, But see, that’s exact, I mean, that’s exactly it. I mean that’s, that’s, that’s the rub. Right. You know, I think the Democrats have not made Republicans work hard on the issues that are, especially in Texas, that are mobilizing or animating, let’s just say.

[00:25:58] Josh Blank: A very large share of the [00:26:00] electorate and a lot of those are, are Republicans are never gonna vote for Democrats. That’s fine. But they’re also a large number of independents. Yeah. Large number of Hispanics, large number of suburban voters. Who, you know, if you basically, who are looking at those issues, who are looking at those issues and that, you know, ultimately if the democrat, if it’s hard for even, you know, I think democratic voters to say, what is the democratic economic message in Texas?

[00:26:20] Josh Blank: Or what is the democratic message in Texas on immigration in the border? If democratic voters don’t even know what that is, you, you basically see seated the field. You know, at that point you’re not making it very hard on Republicans. And so,

[00:26:35] Jim Henson: Yeah, and, and you know, I mean, again, it’s easy for us to sit here in a studio on campus, very extreme going, Hey, But I mean, you know, but there is a.

[00:26:43] Jim Henson: You know, I mean, there’s available polling. We’ve done it. I can’t imagine they haven’t done it that says, you know, gr Greg Abbott says he’s cut your property taxes. You know that that 125 or $150 that Texans got five years ago is now worth even less. And it wasn’t worth that much then. Yeah. And [00:27:00] they told us, So why are they bragging about that?

[00:27:02] Jim Henson: So, but that said, I mean, uh, you know, as we step back, I think watching the tactics in these final days, and from what I’ve. Um, you know, parallel to these kind of closing arguments. Yeah. There’s just a slew of negative ads. I mean, there was, Yeah. Well it’s nationally that’s going on. Um, you’re seeing, you know, the negative ads in Texas are, are pretty brutal.

[00:27:26] Jim Henson: Um,

[00:27:26] Josh Blank: I’ve seen a lot of campaign finance violations going on right now as things kind of get near the

[00:27:30] Jim Henson: end. Right. And, and, you know, You know, the Abbott campaign is running, or, or they’re parallel, but I think it’s actually the Abbott campaign. The ones I’ve seen are running, you know, pretty strong negative ads against O’Rourke.

[00:27:44] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. , Um, and they’re not, uh, I mean, I’ve been looking at this, you know, kind of reviewing some of this stuff. So this stuff is fresh in my brain, but they’re, you know, and they’re not just deeply personal attack ads. I mean, they are policy attack ads. Yeah. I mean, there’s [00:28:00] personal elements in them, obviously, that they’re playing on.

[00:28:02] Jim Henson: Right. Um, but they are, you know, and so they are the kind of ads that are likely to help with Republican turnout. Yeah, I think so. Um, so, alright, so let’s go for the last, take a few minutes. Just like, what are, we watch election day and election night. We were talking earlier, you’re kind of watching county returns, which a lot of people are.

[00:28:19] Jim Henson: That’s kind of the Yeah. You know, first level, you know, pro

[00:28:21] Josh Blank: tip, right? Yeah. And I mean, part of it is that, you know, you have to un, you know, what we’re trying to do here for, for dorks like us, we’re trying to, you know, understand, you know, in the context. You know, the, the specific, uh, circumstances of this given election, how to look at trends and kind of county level turnout and election results, you know, from a broader lens.

[00:28:42] Josh Blank: And so we’re interested in what happens in Harris County, which is a county where Democrats have been picking up a lot of votes, but remains, you know, relatively competitive. Tarrant County is another big county, biggest Republican county in the state, uh, but has been trending blue, but also, I mean all the kind of local Pollocks there are actually pushing in the opposite direction again.

[00:28:58] Josh Blank: So we’ll be looking at Tarrant [00:29:00] County. You know, Fort Bend is one of the most diverse counties and the states we’re very interested in what happens there. We’re in central Texas and so we’re obviously naturally interested in central Texas, but I think in particular more so than Travis County. Although the democratic margins are really interesting.

[00:29:12] Josh Blank: You’re really interested in fast, fast, fast growing Hayes and Williamson Counties to the north and. Then obviously, you know, like everyone else we’re interested in, in what goes on down in the rgv, the Rio Grande Valley, you. I’m mostly interested in turnout because as we said, probably ad nausea on here.

[00:29:28] Josh Blank: Very, very small contribution to the overall statewide electorate, but it’ll be interesting to see what the margins look like down there, given all the Republicans and, and a lot of

[00:29:35] Jim Henson: money, you know, particularly Republican money pouring into those. And you know, the argument that the Democrats have abandoned them, Cetera, Someone will be the national

[00:29:42] Josh Blank: Democrats.

[00:29:43] Josh Blank: I’ll tell you this, What what’ll be interest, I’ll be curious about it in sort of the few days after election, is when the P people come out with the dollar per vote, analy. Yeah. To see like what, what was the dollar per vote in the rrgb Right. Is gonna be pretty interesting. And then I think we’re also watching, you know, a number of, of specific races too.

[00:29:58] Josh Blank: Right.

[00:29:58] Jim Henson: Right. Now I, I, I wanna go back [00:30:00] to the county numbers a little bit. Just, you know, I mean, and again, to, to tie a couple of these points together. Um, you know, one of the biggest stories in 2018 in, in Texas was the democratic sweep. Yeah. In Harris County, which put county judge, uh, Lynn Algo in, in her seat to that, her that.

[00:30:18] Jim Henson: Um, that is a hotly contested race right now. Yeah. She’s had a very rough ride in that, in that job. Yeah. Particularly in the last couple of years, you know, and again, looking at the county levels that. Um, that, that Derek Ryan put out, uh, you know, Democratic and Republican early vote. Looking at those, those primary voters is basically about even, Yep.

[00:30:41] Jim Henson: You know, 36.6% for Republicans, 36% demo are democratic voters. You know, that is not, that, again, not good news in a Democratic stronghold. For O’Rourke, or I would say for any of those candidates. Um, you know, and then the other one that, that I think [00:31:00] Derek pointed out in his, in the email to his report that I think was, was very interesting.

[00:31:05] Jim Henson: Um, and you just mentioned Tarrant, you know, one of the big stories also in Texas has been Fort Worth, Tarren County becoming much more democratic, uh, Republican hegemony there being, you know, strongly challenged by Democrats right now. Uh, the Republican primary, you know, the vote, his, you know, the share that is Republican primary voters, uh, is about 12 points higher than the share that is Democratic primary.

[00:31:36] Josh Blank: I’m really, you know, I think when we come back and look, what, what went up? What went on up around, you know, Dallas, Dallas, Fort Worth, Right area. It’s gonna be really interesting to see whether, you know, we think there might have been an impact from all kind of the school board action that’s been going on up there.

[00:31:50] Josh Blank: Right? Because that’s been really used to mobilize Republican voters into the process. It’s like, it will see. Right. We’ll see. You know, it’s one of those, I don’t wanna say, is it working? I don’t know. But that’s one of the [00:32:00] things I think, you know, if we’re thinking about what has shifted in addition to this, all of the national environment and everything else, they’ll be curious to see what the turnout and the dropoff looks like and some of those kinds

[00:32:07] Jim Henson: of things.

[00:32:08] Jim Henson: And, and you know, you were talking about, uh, you know, specific racism. I mean, and, but you know, we’re talking about, and we were talking about the Dallas area a little bit. You know two of the races that people have been watching, there were races that have been close in the last couple cycles, right? So 1 0 8, the incumbent is more, and they’re both Republican seats 1 0 8, the Morgan Meyer seat one 12 Angie Chen button.

[00:32:31] Jim Henson: These were both like races that were decided in the hundreds of, of. Yeah, there, there were of votes in the, you know, by a few hundred votes. I think the chin button race is like a couple

[00:32:40] Josh Blank: hundred. Yeah. This, and, and even in redistricting, both seats are redistricted to be under plus one Republican. Yeah. And part of it’s, I mean, I would say, you know, just, there’s only so much you can

[00:32:49] Jim Henson: do up there.

[00:32:49] Josh Blank: Well, other thing, I mean, the Dallas area probably saw some of the most, uh, Creative redistricting. Right. In a lot of ways. So that’s the other kind of piece, just generally kind of see what goes on up, [00:33:00] up in Dallas, you know, as it relates to kind of how that was all redistricted and what happens. But those are two very obviously, close potential seats.

[00:33:05] Josh Blank: Right. That’s one of those things too, where you’re kind of looking at those seats, not because I necessarily think that either of those candidates are gonna lose, but if it looks like if the Vos start coming. And you see those two looking comfortable, right? That’s a, that’s gonna tell you something about other races.

[00:33:20] Josh Blank: Probably you wouldn’t expect a lot of democratic pickups if, you know they don’t already have a cushion and that they’re losing in these kind of closer

[00:33:27] Jim Henson: seats, right? I mean, these are races where, you know, I mean, even when the early vote comes in or when the, you know, they count the mail-in ballots and that’s the first thing they kinda roll.

[00:33:37] Jim Henson: You know, that’s not gonna be tell, you know, that’s not gonna be determinative, but it’s gonna be an interesting thing to look at. You know, of course the, you know, in the Senate, you know, the only real raise, the Luci, the, the seat vacated by, uh, Euc Lucio the elder, right? Um, you know, between, you know, Morgan Lamont and in Adam and Aosa.

[00:33:57] Jim Henson: You know, that’s a 3.6 Democratic seat, but I, [00:34:00] you know, people have a real eye on that. Yep. I mean, that should be given the position of, and, you know, the, the prominence. The Lo Tia family in Democratic politics in that district, in that region. Um, but I, you know, all indications are that race is close. Yeah.

[00:34:17] Jim Henson: And that there is a little bit of democratic grumbling and pushback of course gives me that about almost everything. Well, I

[00:34:23] Josh Blank: think, I mean, the other thing is, you know, when you’re looking at these districts like that SD 27 and then, you know, there’s another sort of, we’re looking at HD 74, Eddie Morales.

[00:34:30] Josh Blank: Right. Uh, is a plus 4.8 Democratic. These are the C He said, Look, these are these. These are quote unquote Democratic seats. But if this is a Republican election year, you know, is four point is a 4.8 cushion from the 2020 vote enough. Right. And that’s kind of, again, one of these things we’ll be looking at.

[00:34:48] Jim Henson: Right? Yeah. And, and I, and I think that, you know, money wise, you know, I, I didn’t, you know, I haven’t seen, I haven’t looked in the latest report. Um, Lamont Tia had an advantage in that, but not as much as I would’ve thought, at least the last time I saw. [00:35:00] But we’ll see what the most recent reports, you know, a couple others, you know, slightly more sleepers.

[00:35:04] Jim Henson: Yeah. Although I think they’ve kind of moved on to the radar in the last few weeks as I talk to people and, and kind of get a sense of these things a little bit. Uh, HD one 18, which is that very interesting. It’s always, it’s, it’s perpetually interesting District, South Bear County. Mm-hmm. , Although it also, you know, it’s not.

[00:35:22] Jim Henson: The bulk of the geographies in South Bear, but it’s an, it’s one of those districts that’s drawn around the outskirts of urban San Antonio then comes up around on the north end with a, you know, a skinny kind of hooked finger. Yeah. That gets that kind of more rural. Area kind of outside you on the outskirts of San Antonio and then between, you know, basically, you know, sort of, it picks up a little bit of, I think, shirts in that area up

[00:35:48] Josh Blank: there.

[00:35:49] Josh Blank: Exactly how you’d imagine a perfect representative system. Right.

[00:35:51] Jim Henson: You know, I mean, it’s a good, it’s a good gerrymandering, you know, example and that district has been drawn that way for a while. That wasn’t drawn, you know, I was thinking that maybe they had really altered [00:36:00] that district and they changed it.

[00:36:02] Jim Henson: They cut out some of the South San Antonio more urban districts and added a little more of those. Yeah. Non-urban, suburban exurban areas on the north, and that’s where the incumbent is John Luhan. But he’s an incumbent. He’s been, this is twice, he’s been an incumbent but then had to run in lo in to keep the seat after winning it in a special election.

[00:36:22] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm. He’s the incumbent, he’s faced by Frank Ramirez, who he’s, he ran against in the special election. And you know, this is a narrow Biden district, you know, I think it’s like, you know, 50.6, you know, about 48. Um, but this is one of those things, exactly what you’re talking about, that if we start seeing, you know, a big Republican tide, Yeah, a lot and, and a lot of money has been poured into this race, but this is one of those for those, Listen, it’s a very interesting district.

[00:36:54] Jim Henson: I mean, I love the history of this district. Luhan wins in a, in a special election after Leo Pacheco [00:37:00] resigns in, in 2021. Lou Hunt had won a special, uh, election in 2016, then lost it to Pacheco in the general. . Um, and the way that it’s redrawn does shave 11 points off of the previous district advantage. If you look at the, Yeah.

[00:37:16] Jim Henson: Trump, if you look at the Trump, uh, uh, Biden District, so that’s a, that’s gonna be a very interesting one to watch is a. Bellwether’s too strong a word, but it’s, you know, it’s a pretty good plug of the watermelon, you know? There we go. There. That’s perfect. Um, I, I was gonna talk about where I learned that saying, and I’m not gonna , um, hd, but it’s an unlikely source, but nobody would know.

[00:37:38] Jim Henson: It was, uh, and then, and then there’s HD 70, which is in Southwest Collin County. Uh, another one that I think on the surface, this is a plus live, uh, 11 district, but this is the former Sanford Sea. Uh, Scott Sanford resigned his seat. Um, Or he retires. I guess he’s just not running for reelection is what it is.

[00:37:59] Jim Henson: [00:38:00] Um, and there’s a Republican that I think has been getting a lot of love from the leadership, particularly the speakers, uh, Speaker of the house’s campaign efforts, Jamie Jolly, and she’s been making a real run at that seat opposed by Malia plus the Democrat. Um, um, you know, and I think what happened is this was a plus 17 district, right?

[00:38:21] Jim Henson: And this, this is a good. You know, this is a good teaching moment. Yeah. Where, you know, when you, you’re in a tight area and you’re trying to redraw districts and, and, uh, uh, advantage your incumbents. When somebody resigns from a Republican district, it’s kind of available for carving. Oh yeah. And so, you know, this went from a plus 17 Trump to a plus 11 Biden.

[00:38:44] Jim Henson: All the

[00:38:45] Josh Blank: adjacent Republican district representatives said,

[00:38:47] Jim Henson: Oh yeah. Can have some of that. I have a piece of that. And, and that, you know, and that is one of these, you know, one of the seats that would be on this list and that we’d have a lot more interest in. Right. Which is the Leach district, um, which we now have le very close.

[00:38:59] Jim Henson: But that, [00:39:00] that district is now much. Much, much more Republican and provides much more of a buffer for Chairman Leach. But nonetheless it’s an op. I, I think, you know, Republicans still see this as an open seat, so why not some, you know, they field a good candidate, let’s put some money into it, roll the dice, see what

[00:39:16] Josh Blank: happens.

[00:39:17] Josh Blank: And then they’ve been active in, you know, very active in Collin County for a long time.

[00:39:20] Jim Henson: Exactly. So why not? So, and then of course we’re watching Austin, right? I mean, as you said, I think you mentioned that, that, you know, where we’ve got a marriage race that’s, You know, interesting to Texas legislative people.

[00:39:30] Jim Henson: We’ve got two

[00:39:31] Josh Blank: legisla. It’s just, it’s probably interesting to do a fair number of people who listen to this podcast. Yeah.

[00:39:34] Jim Henson: Right. You know, where you’ve got a former state senator and former mayor, uh, uh, former Dean of Hobby School. Um, Uh, Kirk Watson, um, running against, uh, Celia Israel. Celia Israel, uh, former state legislator pretty much resigned to, to run this race.

[00:39:53] Jim Henson: Um, you know, of course people in Austin, you know, in the way that we’re austinites. , [00:40:00] you know, likely to see this as, you know, very representative of the different factions inside the Democratic party and, and culturally in Austin. I think one can go a little too far with that, but there’s something to that.

[00:40:11] Jim Henson: So that race getting a lot of, getting a lot of, uh, a lot of attention. And then we’ve got, you know, some city council races that are happening after the redistrict team that you single-handedly did. Oh,

[00:40:23] Josh Blank: single-handedly is a strong word. I had. I was just one member on a very illustrious commission who people did a lot more work than me for.

[00:40:29] Josh Blank: You were a good soldier. I tried, but uh, yeah, no, we have five of, uh, the 10 council members are up for, for election or, or up for reelection or election. Most of them are open actually. Uh, yeah.

[00:40:40] Jim Henson: So that’ll be, And a lot And multiple candidates in a lot of those, Yeah,

[00:40:43] Josh Blank: multiple candidates. It’s gonna be a lot of runoffs.

[00:40:45] Josh Blank: I mean, it’s gonna be, it’s just gonna be interesting to see what happens, given. I just think, you know, in the city, like all the cities in Texas facing, you know, serious housing, transportation, right? Cost of living issues. So it’s obviously interesting races. You know, you already mentioned the Harris County Judge race will be following, you know, pretty closely to see [00:41:00] what goes on there.

[00:41:01] Josh Blank: And then obviously, you know, we’re following the congressional races that most people are following. You know, we’re watching, you know, CD 28. Wanna see whether Henry Cue is gonna hold off. Cassie Garcia, it’s a plus seven Democratic district as drawn, but Quare is. You know, both seen his advantage in that district decline over time, uh, in terms of the actual vote.

[00:41:19] Josh Blank: And then obviously this has been a pretty tough election cycle for him.

[00:41:21] Jim Henson: And, and, and, and, you know, she’s, you know, his opponent in this race is not lacking in funds. No. I mean, this is unknown.

[00:41:27] Josh Blank: Fundraising then has been pretty well, I mean, there was this little thing where people said, Well, you know, if Quare ends up getting the nomination of the Democrats, the Republicans are, you know, easy on ’em.

[00:41:33] Josh Blank: And I just said again, No, that’s not right. And obviously it was. So CD 34, you know, we’re looking at again, you know, Gonzales should be safe and district construct to be plus 15 Democratic. But you know, people are paying a lot of attention to this. This is the district that Chante Gonzales jumped from CD 15 to go run in, uh, to safer Democratic district.

[00:41:54] Josh Blank: But I mean, there’s, I mean, talk about negative ads. Yeah. A lot of, of nasty stuff [00:42:00] going

[00:42:00] Jim Henson: on. And you know, one of those situations where he’s, you know, he’s running against, you know, An incumbent who won a special election. Yep. Uh, and, and somebody who has, you know, gotten a lot of media attention and is a good candidate.

[00:42:11] Jim Henson: Yeah. Yeah. She’s a, she’s a, she, her Flores is, you know, has, is doing some work here.

[00:42:15] Josh Blank: I would be shocked if we don’t see her again, whether or not she holds onto that seat the way that she’s been running, kind of that campaign and kind of stepping into that role here

[00:42:23] Jim Henson: in Texas. Yeah. I mean, you know, of all these districts in a lot of ways, I mean, you know, the Qua art district is inherently interesting because of Henry Quasar’s.

[00:42:32] Jim Henson: Unique position in the party in Texas. Yeah. Et cetera. And you know, old hand in Texas politics, uh, 34 I think, you know, is one of those things where if you start seeing that district really clo close or the Republican Yeah. Winning that race and is returns come in. Yeah. You know, the Neil Young songs look out and there’s a white boat coming up the river.

[00:42:54] Jim Henson: Right. Cause it’s, it’s gonna get ugly. I think if, if we see that there. And then the

[00:42:58] Josh Blank: closest is CD 15.

[00:42:59] Jim Henson: [00:43:00] Right. And that’s, uh, you know, also a race where, you know, a lot of money has been poured into that. It’s, uh, redistricted from a 1.9 Democratic district to a 2.0 Republican. So not a. You know, you know, not a shoe in by any, but this is, you know, this is the, I think this is the one of the districts where the Democrat, the National Democratic pulled out party pulled out, which is not talk about reading tea leaves.

[00:43:25] Jim Henson: Yeah. It’s, you know, not a great sign for what people were seeing in the fundamentals there. And you know, again, I think it’s fair to think about that. Rippling through, you know, the other open seat in 34. Yeah. You know, I, I, I think one last thing I’ll mention before we get out and we’ve run long, but so it goes, is, is the election ran long my friend.

[00:43:45] Jim Henson: Yeah. So what are we supposed, this has been going on for a long time. What are we supposed to do? You know, one of the interesting things, and again, This is the be in the bonnet from last week, but to some continuation that bee’s still buzzing. One of the things that was very [00:44:00] interesting that, that, uh, again, Jeff Blalock, uh, pulled out of the numbers in his early summary in Texas election source was how much or how, how much the amount being spent on house races that is State House races has decreased.

[00:44:17] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, in 2020 House Republican candidates at this point had raised a little over 27 million, uh, and had spent, you know, almost 12 in their, you know, in their final eight day report this year, you know, way less raised 10.8 and spent 4.2, so you know about a 60 and 64%, you know, respective decrease for the two parties.

[00:44:45] Jim Henson: Um, you know, and for the res Republican spending Yeah. For the, for the final spending, you know, overall, you know, money raised and spent way down also, um, more in the neighborhood [00:45:00] of 80%, uh, the Reation committee did a good job this year and we were ,

[00:45:05] Josh Blank: right. I just wanna say you just to be. So, so, so spending, so both money raised and spending among Republicans is down about 60%, give or take, Right between 2020 and 2022.

[00:45:15] Josh Blank: And among Democrats, it’s down almost. Oh, there you do. Yeah. Percent. Uh, and again, those declines are being great for saying, you know, Republicans only raised 10.8 this year and spend 4.2 Democrats this year, only raised 2.9 and spent 2.5. Right. Thanks for cleaning that up. So just, just to be clear. Yeah, exactly.

[00:45:31] Josh Blank: So to your point, you say like, did redistricting. It looks like it’s certainly,

[00:45:36] Jim Henson: and one of, you know, one of the things that we had, you know, we’ve settle along was that, you know, this was not just a ambitious redistricting year for Republicans. I mean, it was less ambitious than it was last round, but it really protected incumbents and I think Democrats and Republicans, Democrats and Republicans.

[00:45:52] Jim Henson: Right. And, and this is a real indication of that, and. So you take that, you take last week’s B in the bonnet that, [00:46:00] you know, a third. This is, you know, part of this is that, you know, a third of a third of the seats are off the table.

[00:46:05] Josh Blank: Right? So you could say we should see a 30% decline just right, right off the bat.

[00:46:09] Josh Blank: Maybe .

[00:46:10] Jim Henson: Exactly. That’s a good way of putting something. We had a 30% decline if we had just thought about the seats off the table. That’s not quite right because Yeah, because the receipts off the table, there were a lot seats off the table last night. But nonetheless, math, you know, we’ve seen an, you know, main point end.

[00:46:23] Jim Henson: Whatever happens in this election year at the state level in legislative races, we’ve seen an unbelievable decrease in political competition. Mm-hmm. And I just, you know, that is just not a, a sign of good health, I would say on that, thanks to Josh for being here. Thanks to our elect, our excellent production team and the Deb Studio, uh, in the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin.

[00:46:46] Jim Henson: Remember, you can find all the data that we referenced today much, much more at the Texas politics website, Texas politics dot u texas.edu. So thank you for listening again, and we’ll be back soon with another [00:47:00] second reading podcast after the election.

[00:47:05] Outro: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.