October 13th, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] 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.

[0:00:24 Speaker 1] At what point must a female senator raised her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the

[0:00:30 Speaker 0] room on Welcome Back to the second reading podcast. I am Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. And I am happy to be joined today again by my chum and colleague Josh Blank, who is research director of the Texas Politics Project here in the very same institution. How are we doing in the midst of poll? Were a lot Josh

[0:00:55 Speaker 1] doing pretty well. I’m glad to be back on the podcast. It’s been a little It’s been a minute.

[0:00:59 Speaker 0] It’s been a minute. I feel

[0:01:01 Speaker 1] like maybe I did. Maybe I did last week and the week before. It just shows where we are right now. Three weeks after the election. I don’t know what happened last week. I don’t know what’s happening next week. Just just just floating along, I guess.

[0:01:11 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s the between the election, the poll rollout being generally busy and the pandemic who knows where we are at any given time. So as I mentioned that, we are in the midst of rolling out the October version of the University of Texas Texas Tribune Poll Onda we thought we’d start talking today about some of those results. It will probably occupy us for a couple of weeks. Um, you know, last Friday we release the trial ballots for our statewide Texas poll, which, uh, mainly focused on the presidential in the Senate race. And then yesterday, which would have been Monday. As we record this, we released ah, bunch of interesting items on Texas Texans views of the conduct of the election that were, you know, early voting starts today, and so the election is is underway at long lasts to some degree. So we thought we’d talk about those those early results and whatever else we wander into, uh, rich people to go to the Texas Tribune and see the continuing roll out we have one more day. We, uh tomorrow on Wednesday, we will release results that focus on race and policing and the general mood of this state. And this is really interesting results in that. But for today, I think we’ll recap and and kind of dig down a little bit into what we got on the trial ballots and what Texans said about elections and the mood about elections out there. So what What struck you about the trial ballots, Josh?

[0:02:51 Speaker 1] Well, I mean, I think you know, first, just to just to paint a broad picture, I would just say, you know, overall among likely voters. And and that’s that’s where we are now, at the point in the election when we can’t just assume that, you know, thematic tubes of all registered voters were going to reflect the actual electorate on election Day. So we wanna really focus our our insights here on those voters who seem most likely to participate. And and overall, we found that in Texas at this point we see Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by five points among likely voters, 50 to 45. We see a slightly larger lead for Senator John Cornyn against his challenger, MJ Hager. I think he is It is it 52. 42. Is that what it right for?

[0:03:34 Speaker 0] Oh, yeah. 42. That’s right. Yeah. 50 to 42. That’s

[0:03:36 Speaker 1] right. 48 point lead over MJ Hager. And you know, Well, I think you’re just broadly contextually. You may look at this and think, Oh, I thought, you know, Democrats were gonna be real competitive in Texas this year. And ultimately, you know, this is a reflection of increased competitiveness. Just to be to sort of begin with the first insight here, which is that, you know, I would say, you know, having done this now and you and I’ve been working on this stuff for for 10 years, You know, we sort of assume previously that, you know, you basically put any republican up against any Democrat statewide in Texas. You kind of start with a 10 point lead for the Republican, and it’s not really like that anymore, right?

[0:04:11 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, you know, and and even 10 points is a relatively recent development. I mean, I think we could

[0:04:18 Speaker 1] Well, that’s my floor.

[0:04:20 Speaker 0] Yeah, exactly. Well, And and And there and and Republicans are not, are not reaching that in polling this time. And I think you know the historical perspective courses that if you go back to 2012, which is relatively, you know, a little ways ago. But no, not that long ago. Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama in Texas by 14 points, and then in 2014, Greg Abbott wins the governorship by 20 points over Wendy Davis. Now back in the news, UM, 2016 Donald Trump wins by eight and three quarter and then in 28 3 quarter points. And then when we get Thio 2018, things get a little more complicated. On one hand, Greg Abbott wins re election by 14 points. Not quite the 20 point gap that you know he enjoyed in in 2014. But Ted Cruz only wins by two and three quarters. And then you have the other statewide officials at various points in between that two and three quarter and and eight and three quarter point so or 14 points. I guess, um, that if we use Abbott is the high water mark for 2018 and so things are definitely changing and you know I think you’re right. There’s a certain amount of, you know, you know, I think there’s a certain amount of snooze factor in some ways that some people implicitly expressed when they saw that we had a five point race. But that’s, you know, in the at the presidential level. But that’s really something.

[0:05:54 Speaker 1] Yeah, and I think it’s really something because I think, you know, because if you’re sitting here is someone who really does follow this stuff closely, like we do, you know, And just imagine, you know, the impact of the changes that you’re talking about on the types of conversations we have with people where, you know, if you were to go and talk to us six years ago and say, you know, hey, what do you think this generic Republican, the top of the ticket is gonna beat this Democrat by? You know, we would say, you know, somewhere between eight and 15 points. And now, based on what we’ve seen recently, you know, in the last couple election cycles, but also the polling, I think we’re increasingly thinking well, you know, it’s probably somewhere between better Orcs 2.5 point loss to Cruz and Donald Trump’s nine point victory over Hillary Clinton. And the Democrats are somewhere in that range of, you know, they’re within probably 2.5 to 9 points of off the Republican candidate, sort of Maura’s a starting point than unnecessarily as an ending point. And I think that, in and of itself is making you know these races more interesting and more competitive and shows sort of a difference in the state in particular. I think the And I think, you know, I like the way you set that up, actually, sort of, You know, there’s something about being upholstered. You produce some results and then inevitably, no matter what the results are, someone says, Well, yeah, that’s obvious. We’re we’re like, Yeah, of course, Good for you.

[0:07:11 Speaker 0] Well, and and at some level, what I think people missing that is, you know, in a certain way my reaction to that is, you know, well, good,

[0:07:19 Speaker 1] right? Absolutely. I don’t mind that either, but you know, But I think that’s why you know there’s some value in the time Siri’s that we have because you know, as someone again, when you’re if you’re anyone who’s interested in looking at data. You know, one of the first questions you have to ask yourself, You know, once you have some good data is well compared to what, right? You get some information, it tells us. And he said, Well, this is what is this right? And that’s kind of what we’re trying to do here. Just talking about it first. We just say, you know, let’s set expectations properly. But also one of the nice things about the time Syriza’s we can go and make these comparisons. So, you know, we way do a trial ballot every election around October. So ultimately we could go back and make comparison points. And I think the thing that sort of most notable and you know, I don’t know if it’s durable I mean, that sort of a question for another podcast. But I think the most sort of durable seeming change for this election is the shift in attitudes among independent voters towards the Republican Party. Uh, yeah.

[0:08:13 Speaker 0] I mean, you know, because before we move on to that, I mean, just if you look at the if you look at this trend data, I mean trend data among Republican identify IRS in things like Donald Trump’s job approval. You know various aspects of the of how we sort of gauge where partisans are there, largely unchanged over the length and breadth of the of the Trump presidency. But Independence is, it turns out, are not looking like that right

[0:08:39 Speaker 1] now. And, you know, thanks for bringing it up because it’s important. It’s important point because it would be easy enough to sort of say, without again, a deeper look at the data will. Surely some Republicans are, you know, are walking away from Donald Trump. That seems to be kind of a popular, you know, thought or talking point or assumption. And the truth is, there’s really no evidence of that. And if anything, actually, Donald Trump looked stronger among Republicans right now than he did in 2016. Uh, in that election. One of the questions we asked on the October poll when Trump was running against Clinton was, you know, for all the Trump supporters, you said, Is your vote more of a vote for Trump or against Clinton? And then we asked, called the Clinton voters or your your vote vote for Clinton or against Trump and back in 2016 Onley. 40% of Trump voters said their vote was for Trump. 53% said it was against Clinton. Jump ahead to 2019, and it’s 81% say for Trump, 19% say against Biden. And again, take that along with job approval numbers, favorability numbers. I mean, just any sort of item in the poll. And there’s really no indication that Trump is suffering among Republicans. Actually, if anything, you know that’s really you know, he’s relying on Republicans to be where he is, but historically, I mean, I think what’s produced, you know, slightly larger margins, especially for Republicans, is that, you know, we’ve had independent voters in Texas. These are voters who don’t identify with either the Democratic or Republican Party. Even when pushed to sort of say, you know, do you lean towards one of the parties and they just say now and this makes up about 10% of electorate? And generally, you know, if the margins Air Republicans winning by at least 10, 15, 20 points, well, then it doesn’t necessarily matter what independents think, but historically they’ve lean conservative. They tended to favor the Republican candidates, Uh, in most elections. What was interesting was when we pulled in 2018 better. A. Rourke was pulling better than Ted Cruz among independents, and I think that was a large part of Beto. Smaller margin, relative to or tighter margin with Cruz relative to the other Democrats running state wise. But he was the only one because Independence again. If you looked at the governor’s about trial ballot, if you looked at who they said they were voting for, um, in the congressional race, the Democratic or Republican candidate, those independents were still pulling for the Republican candidate. What’s interesting about this poll and this cycle is that Republicans, uh, on every race we polled so for president, for Senate, for congressional trial, ballot in for Texas House are expressing a preference for the Democratic candidates. And I’m pretty sure you know that this is, you know, like most things about this election cycle related to Donald Trump, right?

[0:11:08 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, I think if you look at Trump’s approval ratings over, you know, the last year there’s been a pretty clear trend. Independence have been have moved around. Is there want to do? And I’m gonna want to say a couple things. I think we should say a couple things just about independence per se before we get out of this topic. But you know, Donald Trump has been underwater. That is his disappear. Job approval numbers, his negative job approval or disapproval have been higher than his approval numbers for the last year, and they widened out to their whitest to the widest gap in this October poll that we just released so that 53% disapproved of the job. Trump is doing his president. Only 31% approved and critically, 15%. I didn’t have an opinion. Now that’s characteristic of independence, you know, on average, looking at at these job approval numbers, independence tend to be, you know, twice as likely to not have a view of the president as partisans. And you know, that’s definitional thio Independence. Um, but it’s definitely has something to do with Trump. I agree with that. I mean, if you look at that job approval number and interestingly, if you look at the favorability ratings among independents towards Joe Biden, it’s not as if independence woke up one day and they’re on fire for Joe Biden. His favorability ratings among independents are are not great. I mean, he’s a, you know, 38% favorable and 46% unfavorable, which is not setting the world on fire when you just asked independence in isolation about whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view of Joe Biden, but they’re unfavorable views. You know of Donald Trump are much higher. And if you look at the presidential try about trial, ballot independence were 37 Trump pence, 45 Biden Harris, about 11% sprinkled along the third party candidates and 7% saying that they wanted someone else. So you know, Biden is enjoying an 8% you know, advantage over Trump on the trial ballot, and you know that 45% is, you know, 10 or so or you know, eight or so points higher than than Biden’s favorability ratings. So you know there’s some support for for Biden at their among independents, but it’s not. It’s not a groundswell of of, you know, parades for Joe Biden among independents,

[0:13:45 Speaker 1] right, but does represent a massive change. I mean, you mentioned that number, you know, among independents. Biden was leading Trump 45 to 37 in our October 2016 poll, Donald Trump was leading Hillary Clinton among independents, 47% to 19.

[0:13:59 Speaker 0] Let me ask you something that people have, a reporter asked me. Actually, it was Mark Barabak who was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago because we were. He’s working on a big Texas story, I think, and e

[0:14:12 Speaker 1] like to imagine that Californians there is interested in Texas. This Texas seem to be in California.

[0:14:17 Speaker 0] Uh, yeah, it’s an interesting question, but the question I would have that mark ass and, you know, and I’m still kind of mulling it. How do you parse out the embrace of Trump with, you know, how much of that was just, you know, negative affect towards Hillary Clinton, which is one of the big you know, you talked about you talked about the you know, the you know, borderline meme of rip. You know, Republicans abandoning Trump in Texas, for which there’s no evidence there’s a little more evidence for the fact that that Hillary Clinton’s negatives were high. But I’m wondering how you sort that out. I mean, there’s not there’s not a very good empirical answer to that. I don’t think, but well,

[0:14:57 Speaker 1] I mean, actually funny. You know, I was thinking something kind of parallel to that is you were talking. I mean, I mean what I think first and foremost after the 2016 election, it was hard not to come away with sort of. The realization that, you know Hillary Clinton is is an individual politician is a force unto herself, you know, in American politics, both positive and negative. And I think you know the context of that election in particular. You know, after two terms of a Democratic president and the idea of someone in Hillary Clinton running for president for whom, you know, a large share of, you know, people, Republicans especially, but also independence and even, you know, some Democrats held a negative view over based on, you know, get her many, many years in public office, amongst other considerations about how they feel about her. Just be fair. You know, I think that it was pretty easy to say, Hey, let’s just take a chance on this guy is kind of, you know, would be sort of my my impression of it at that point in time, you know, and that’s not really where we are now. I think Independence Air probably more open to the change argument. You know, ultimately their independence for a reason. If they really liked everything that, you know, the Democrats were doing in office, you know, maybe they’d be Democrats, and vice versa. And so I think that’s, you know, I think that’s a part of it. Um, for sure. I mean, Hillary Clinton made a big, big impact, but ultimately, you know, the other side of this is the E. Yeah. The context matters so much right again to Democratic terms in office and then Hillary Clinton coming in. You know what I say to reporters Off is, you know, set Donald Trump aside for a second as hard as that is, and ask yourself, you know, what party would expect to win the presidential election and expect to have a good year in their congressional elections if you know they’re overseeing a failed response to a pandemic. You know, economy that, you know, is is in the tank to some extent, Um, and, you know, a crisis, a self made crisis every week. I mean, ultimately, if you’re a partisan. You can overlook this or you can You can justify it or you can filter that information, you know, in either direction as an independent. You know, you’re just kind of sitting there saying, Boy, this isn’t really great. And so ultimately, whether you like Joe Biden or not, he may just look like a better alternative, which is ultimately, I think, part of what the Biden campaign is predicated on.

[0:17:09 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, I think there’s this whole inherently there’s always a part of, ah, of, um, incumbent president running for a second his or her second term. That is always going to be the referendum piece. And I think, given the conditions you describe, the Biden campaign wants us to be entirely a referendum, you know, to the extent possible. You know, I wanna I wanna kind of tease out one of the things that you got out there, and that is, you know, as we look at the Texas that is getting more competitive, and we look not just at the presidential election and for that matter, the Senate election, which we should get to before we get out, is you know, the other thing We’re looking at our this whole range of congressional and and state representative seats that we’ve been talking about, which, in a lot of ways is really not to downplay the presidential election. But the in the level of what’s going on in this state and in this state political class and the people that were here working on the ground in this state, the state, you know, the competitive races in the state House of Representatives and in Congress are really ground zero for the election. There was, uh, campaign finance data at the state level released by the Ethics Commission last week showed a handful of races. Were the candidates together, had spent more than a million dollars on a House race, which is, Ah, lot of money for a State House race. Um, and a whole you know, another, you know, large bucket of races where you were getting spending and you know, the 67 $800,000 range, which means that some of those races before this is over, we’ll also go into the Million Dollar Club as we look at those that you know, the number of those races that were decided by five points or less. I think it’s something like 14 races and in 2018 that are these races. You look at these congressional races where there’s several of those races that are being funded to the tune of, you know, many millions of dollars by outside groups and say, You know, a lot of this really hangs on independence or may well hang on Independence, obviously, in addition to the campaigns and mobilizing their partisans. Yeah, you know, it’s stunning to think about that, but the point being that. But we’re hanging this on a very unpredictable and essentially flighty group. And by flighty I’m not insulting anybody who is an independent. But compared to partisans, they’re much less. They’re much less predictable. They are less attentive. They are, as a rule, less interested in less knowledgeable about politics. And yet they are really in the catbird seat, and we’re gonna have a determinative role this time.

[0:19:56 Speaker 1] You know, it’s funny, you know, the way you describe that, I would say it was almost negative, but you know, But I mean but the whole arc of that is interesting, right? Because you’re bringing up, you know, again, these congressional races thes statehouse races. And, you know, I’ve been talking, you know, a lot, especially about the tone of the races in Central Texas in particular, because that’s where we are way. See it more. And I mean, you know what you know, an interesting consequence of that were, you know, talking about this before is you know, I think you know the most memorable sort of Abbott ad from the last cycle for me, I think was, you know, one of these sort of, you know, fire and brimstone. Fear based sort of immigration appeals, right? And it’s sort of related a little bit to law and order, but that was the one that sort of stuck out to me on. But it also something that again reflects public opinion within the Republican base, where the most important issue has been and continues to be, immigration and border security. It’s one of the few sort of issues that Republicans can kind of go to and know that it’s gonna unite, You know, their party. And what’s interesting is, you know, you’re not at least in the broadcast space, you’re not seeing those kinds of ads right now. You’re not seeing ads that air sort of, you know, really geared towards the base. Really. And even if anything, like the primary electorate base of either the Republican or the Democratic Party, you are seeing a lot more ads that are really about. I would just say they’re more genteel in tone, right, and it seemed to be targeted more towards these independent voters. Now, is that a good thing? I mean, I think generally, if we talk about more issues than the issues that you know animated Republican or Democratic primary, that’s probably a good thing for everybody, even if it is, you know, based on a questionable set of voters.

[0:21:31 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there’s something that’s on one hand new to the recent history of Texas politics and that, you know, we we talk all the time and it’s it’s oversimplified. But it Zagat the virtue of being reasonably accurate that, you know, there’s always kind of a mixture of persuasion and mobilization in these elections, and for the most part, given the fundamentals that we talked about a little bit ago in terms of the Republican advantages, we’re talking mobilization elections where Republicans were trying to mobilize their base voters with the kind of appeals you’re talking about. It you can, in a sense, narrow cast to those base voters. And there’s always a little bit of feel good, you know, additions and and positive ads. Particular Republican incumbents statewide, you know, in the period leading up to 2018, where you could take a lot of credit for the economy and the good times in Texas and take credit for things seeming relatively stable. Um, and if you were a Democrat, it was, you know, the constant refrain was where you know, we’ve got to mobilize our base. We gotta figure out how toe appeal to Democrats and get all the non voting Democrats out, and then we’ll be competitive again. And that is all going on right now. But it’s also going on, you know, with this other layer of newfound attention. Ah, larger share of attention and resource is going toe. What are being deemed? You know what are always, you know, persuadable voters, those that are not not wedded to the Republican Party, but that come how that can somehow be persuaded and what persuades them are in some ways, more conventional ads. I mean,

[0:23:14 Speaker 1] more conventional issues. It is about the economy, you

[0:23:18 Speaker 0] know? Or, you know, things we’ve done. You know, I’ve done this for, you know, you know, for, you know, on an issue area. You know, I’m thinking about the Corning campaign. How you know? I mean, there, You know, the most recent ad is, um, attack ad on Hagar That then, you know, moves into a contrast space by talking about, you know, some of the presumably agreeable things that Cornyn claims to have been involved in. How you know, some health care measures, violence against women, police

[0:23:48 Speaker 1] reform. I you know, ideas. I mean, you know, but, I mean, I think you know, and again, I think the polling speaks directly to this, which is, you know, among likely voters in our Senate and presidential trial ballots. John Cornyn and Donald Trump are both at 50% which sounds, you know, pretty good. It’s a good place to be. I’d like to be 50% if I was in J Heger or Joe Biden, except that when you go into the internals of that and look at the partisan identification within the likely voters 50% of the likely voters identified as Republicans. Now, not all Republicans are voting for Trump, and not all non Republicans are voting against Trump and Cornyn. But ultimately, you know, neither candidate is out polling their base, which I think is a problem in, which is why we’re seeing, you know, again, I think you know, ads and approaches that air. Sort of unusual for Texas Republicans, at least in the last 10 years.

[0:24:40 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think, you know, and I think another final piece of that is that that 50% number is really telling, you know, that the point about you know, them being right at the Republican share of the sample. Um, you know, part of what’s difficult is that, you know, we talked about a few minutes ago about the notion of this election being a referendum. You know, we we asked people what was on their mind when they voted, and we gave them the an open ended question that we then kind of sorted into different categories and nothing predominate. ID in that issue. Battery Right on. It kind of underlines the fact that at the end of the day. This is a new election that’s being defined by Donald Trump and that that poses some some dilemmas for Republicans.

[0:25:26 Speaker 1] Yeah, especially if you’re one of these, you know, congressional or state House Republicans who has already whose district was already competitive in the last cycle. Because it usually is, you know, a large swath of, you know, sort of rural area. That has then also, you know, it takes a toe into one of the major Metro’s. But on its way out goes through these suburbs. We’re ultimately again. You know, Donald Trump is not doing as well as he was against Hillary Clinton. And really, you know, this is the sort of what they’re what they’re fighting against,

[0:25:55 Speaker 0] you know, And those districts have changed.

[0:25:58 Speaker 1] Yeah, those districts have changed over the 10 years, you know, in pretty dramatic ways.

[0:26:02 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think that, you know, there’s I mean, there’s kind of a subtle point there. Is that you know, I mean Donald Trump, you know, it’s you know, the Texas Republican Party is Trump Country. Is we? We wrote earlier this week. Um, you know, So if you’re a candidate running against the Republican what you’re trying to do is shave off, you know, a very, very pretty small but not zero level, you know, group of Republican voters who have soured on Trump. And again, you know, Trump’s numbers are still in the high eighties early nineties among those voters, so there’s not very many, but the back of the envelope math is if you can add a percent or two to your column of those disaffected voters. And again, it’s not a sign of widespread disaffection. But it’s a piece of the solution. Mobilizes many Democratic voters as you possibly can and then enjoy You know, another advantage. You know, another three or 4%. Uh, that comes in the total from this thin slice of independence or better, you know, that adds up to an ability to close a gap of 5 to 7 or eight points. That’s right. And you know, in that sense, then, if you’re a Republican and you’re seeing that, what’s you know, what’s getting your opponent sort of over the line is defections, you know, even a few defections from Trump and the fact that Trump is turned off, you know, is turning off. You know, a bigger share of independence than are normally turned off of Republicans. In a general election, you know, you’re gonna be trying different things like, uh, you know, peaceful images of you in the ballpark Or, you know, at a being of a food bank or, you know, some other image that, you know, maybe a little bit of at odds with what the Republican brand has been for most of the last few cycles.

[0:28:01 Speaker 1] Yeah, and one of the thing to say about this is just, you know, one of the other sort of thoughts out there is that maybe there’ll be a lot of ticket splitting where, you know, maybe Joe Biden gets a vote, but John Cornyn gets a vote from that same voter or that Republican voter again votes, you know, votes for Biden, but then votes Republican the rest of the ticket on again. I mean, just a planet like look, that may end up being a very small share of the electorate. When I say a very small share, we’re talking about, you know, under under 2% because ultimately number one, the problem with that argument is that assumes that, you know, there are Republicans who have a problem with Donald Trump. And and ultimately, the polling doesn’t really show a very, uh, large share or even significant share of Republicans with negative attitudes towards the president or who are considering voting for somebody else. And then on top of that, you know, we could go and look through the data and say, Are there a bunch of people who you know, say they’re voting for Trump? But you know who say they’re voting for bided but then voting for corn in and they’re not. And same thing. We could look at the trial balance and see that. Do we see, you know, again, Biden voters who are voting again for Republican candidates down ballot or Trump voters were voting for Democratic candidates down about which doesn’t really follow. You follow any line of argument, but it’s just just the counter ultimate. There’s not a lot of evidence of that, either. And so this really is getting to the point where it does come down toe the margins amongst, you know, sort of some various subgroups and really, you know, can you do a little bit better with African Americans than you normally Dio, Or can you do a little bit less bad with independence? Or can you do a little bit better with college educated women? Or, you know, and just get named the group? And that’s that’s kind of where we’re at at this election.

[0:29:33 Speaker 0] Or can you peel up or can you, you know, through negative campaigning, can you reduce the vote of some of these groups you know, for a particular candidate based on, you know, some some large expenditure of money on something that you know, comes up and and helps you at the last minute? It’s funny what we’re seeing in the corn and in the in the in the corner and Hagar race. Right now, we’ll see if

[0:29:55 Speaker 1] it works. It’s funny because this is basically just called campaigning. But in Texas, this is not how it’s been. Let me just toe be clear.

[0:30:03 Speaker 0] Yeah, I mean, you know, you and I have had, you know, conversations with Republican consultants who have commented on the fact that there’s some if not many of them that have not had to run competitive races competitive general election races before they know how to run a competitive primary race But a general election race is a whole other story, and I think that’s that’s what we’re seeing right now again, particularly in these competitive suburban and exurban races. So So with that, we were gonna talk about dynamics of the election system. But that will wait till next week. So thank you for listening. To be sure to check the Texas Tribune for the last day of pull roll out and we will have data sets literally thousands of graphics based on this poll on the Texas Politics Project website. Probably by the time you hear this, that’s Texas politics dot utexas dot e d u So for Josh Blank and also are excellent technical crew helped us solve problems today in the liberal arts development studio at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, thanks and from everybody, thanks to you for listening and have a good week. Second reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.