September 21st, 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 point must a female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be recogniz. 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. Very happy to be joined again by Josh blank research director of the Texas politics project. Welcome back. Josh hope. Hope your weekend was if tiring, relaxing. Josh was at a big rock festival.

[00:00:52] Jim Henson: Yeah, exactly. A music festival.

[00:00:54] Josh Blank: Yeah. As a music F I’d say, you know, not relaxing. It was rejuvenating, but tiring. There you go. Rejuvenating. Yeah.

[00:01:01] Jim Henson: There you go. Um, a, an age appropriate response.

[00:01:06] Josh Blank: yeah. Um, there’s a lot of age appropriateness to the whole thing.

[00:01:09] Jim Henson: So, uh, so last week on the podcast, we were joined by our colleague and collaborator, Darren Shaw, uh, professor in the government department at UT Austin to, and we talked about the, the poll that we conducted, uh, from August 26th through September 6th, we bit the bullet in a way and, and focused mainly on.

[00:01:31] Jim Henson: The trial ballots with election matchups, a and related, directly related topics in the poll. And, and what the results seem to suggest about that moment of time in the electoral environment, uh, in the 2022 election in Texas, particularly of course the matchup. Between Greg Abbott and Beto O’Rourke for the governorship.

[00:01:51] Jim Henson: Now we wound up talking a bit about the issues that were important to voters and the election environment, uh, uh, and a little more broadly to the, the partisan universe in Texas. Uh, but I thought it might be helpful to look at the issue environment in its own right today. Um, you know, in a way this is kind of a frame switch.

[00:02:10] Jim Henson: I mean, it, it’s funny as you unpack this, we’re. Wind up kind of looking at the same thing, you know, looking at the election, which is just Omni president in Texas right now. But we do it through the, through the lens of these issue attitudes rather than kind of vice versa, which is a little bit of how the issues came up last week.

[00:02:27] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:02:27] Josh Blank: I’d say, you know, in this election, maybe more so in previous ones. I mean, it does, I don’t know, just thinking about this as work. Tee this up, but it does feel like the issues are a little bit more, seem a little bit more fronted center, at least in the discussion of trying to understand what’s gonna on.

[00:02:39] Josh Blank: I think abortion and Dobbs has certainly raised the abortion issue, sort of a big, you know, kind of frame through which people view the election. And, and so, I mean, I think, you know, more so than in past elections where we would say, well, you know, let’s just, let’s look at the partisan universe. And that kind of is gonna explain most of where we’re gonna get in Texas now, you know, kinda looking at the issues and what is, and is not moving people.

[00:02:56] Josh Blank: Is actually a little bit more, you know, of value than it’s been. Yeah. In some ways, you

[00:02:59] Jim Henson: know, the exogenous shock factor, right. Once you have some unpredictable things happen, you know, and I think that is part of what’s going on here. Yeah. You know, yet some big things happen and that, you know, raises the question of how, if and how much.

[00:03:14] Jim Henson: And if not, why not the issue environment changes of what’s going on in the election? So you raise abortion. So the way that, you know, I thought we’d do this is, you know, we can, let’s start with the issue that is most commonly thought of as, as having the potential to change the election landscape and certainly change the public.

[00:03:30] Jim Henson: I mean, there’s no way to deny that it changed the public discussion of the election. Right. Uh, and that would be abortion. And as you say, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, You know, and it, you know, it’s drawn attention for reasons that we’ve talked about a lot on the podcast. Mm-hmm and they’re out there, you know, in the mediae in great quantity that, you know, when you come right down to it, it seems central to the democratic and in Texas, the O’Rourke mobilization strategy.

[00:03:58] Jim Henson: and central to democratic efforts, you know, maybe more broadly. And certainly if you know, the ad messages and, and the spending right. Are any indication, but as we look at these attitudes that we’ve kind of observed that for the most part. attitudes haven’t changed that much. I mean, maybe the salient, I mean, not even maybe the salient of abortion has changed.

[00:04:21] Jim Henson: Sure. Because of this condition. But if you look at our last poll from late August or early September, and, and we saw some glimmers of why it was reasonable to think this

right.

[00:04:33] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, what we see is, is that, you know, we see the issue of abortion raising kind of in the overall most important problem, you know, but, but, but marginally, right, right.

[00:04:43] Josh Blank: You know, we see a, a few point shifts, I would say in a, probably a more, uh, I wanna say, I would say, I guess, liberal direction, but maybe a more, you know, direction in favor of more access across a couple questions. But when I say, you know, a few points, like that’s really what we mean. We’re talking about a few points here.

[00:04:58] Josh Blank: A few points there. We’re not talking about a sea change in attitudes. And I think this kind of falls back to, to sort of, you know, two related observations, right? Number one, you know, people know what they think about abortion. This is not a new issue in politics. And for the most we’ve said this before most abortion attitudes are, are reinforcing.

[00:05:12] Josh Blank: It’s not as though people have a lot of usually often conflicts that they’re doing now. I think, I think the reality is that. Dobbs has probably created the situation where there could be more conflicts in the future, but I don’t think we’re there yet in terms of, you know, people’s sort attitudes about well, and

[00:05:24] Jim Henson: we saw that in issue in the kind of, what do you, you know, the more forward looking beyond, you know, beyond the election issue battery that we asked in terms of what, when we asked people, what do you think the follow up should be

[00:05:36] Josh Blank: here?

[00:05:36] Josh Blank: Right. And we found that generally people were saying, you know, again on balance, and this is not a huge thing. We’re not talking like, you know, we’re not talking 70, 30, 90, we’re talking. You know, 55, 35, we’re seeing people say, well, yeah, I think we should probably expand access. And 55 35, we’re saying, yeah, we probably shouldn’t have further enforcement mechanisms, but that’s.

[00:05:54] Josh Blank: Overwhelming. And I think the other sort of piece to say is because I think most people know what they think about abortion going into this. And I think some of that will be challenged as time goes on and more situations come up that people have to incorporate into their views. But the other thing that I’m kind of increasingly thinking about is, you know, and this is probably kind of obvious, but a lot of things are kind of obvious.

[00:06:11] Josh Blank: Um, you know, this was probably baked into people’s vote decisions to begin with for the most part. So for most people who. You know, let’s say overwhelmingly pro-life and, and, you know, the abortion issue is a main issue for them. Right. They were not gonna get, and they have highly restrictive views. Yeah.

[00:06:25] Josh Blank: They were not gonna vote for be O’Rourke. They were gonna turn out for Greg Abbott. Likewise. You know, for those people who have been like fighting for, you know, greater abortion access in Texas for, you know, years, if not decades and warning

[00:06:35] Jim Henson: that something bad was probably coming.

[00:06:37] Josh Blank: Ultimately, you know, they’re not gonna not turn out.

[00:06:40] Josh Blank: And so I think what we’re seeing on the abortion issue is a much more Mo at least currently it looks like a much more of a, a modest. Effect, you know, I mean, it’s possible that something unexpected could happen around this, but it doesn’t look like it, it looks like this has been kind of baked in the pro-life, you know, sort of forces have, are kind of where they’ve been.

[00:06:57] Josh Blank: The pro-choice forces are gonna where they’ve been. It doesn’t really look like, you know, this expand. I mean, one of the things we asked about, you know, in the poll was, you know, the issues relative importance to their 2022 VO choice and abortion was the third highest issue. It was 12% of voters, but even on that issue, we said, well, who would do a better job?

[00:07:13] Josh Blank: I mean O’Rourke is 42 Abbots 38. Right. So even among, you know, let’s say the, the, you know, the 12% of voters said, this is the issue. It was almost an even split. And so, you know, yes, it helps Democrats and yes, if the election were like a Kansas vote just about abortion, we’re talking just about abortion policy in Texas.

[00:07:30] Josh Blank: Sure. But that’s not what the election

[00:07:32] Jim Henson: is. Well, and this is also, I think one of those issues, uh, that, you know, and we see this with a lot of issues that are. You know, perpetually in perpetually salient, if not always, necessarily right at the top of the, of mine for voters, which is, you know, because people have fairly well formed opinions and because they’re doing so in a very, in a very partisan context, mm-hmm, the, a little bit of.

[00:08:05] Jim Henson: Um, I don’t wanna use the wrong word here cause I don’t wanna overstate, but there is a little bit of a disjuncture between what you get when you ask people about the issue at a kind of general level mm-hmm like whether you, you know, in this poll where we ask, you know, do you agree or disagree with overturning Roe V Wade?

[00:08:21] Jim Henson: Or are you pro-life or pro-choice right, but then the more nuanced views. Yeah. When you ask people about the details mm-hmm . The responses on the details as we saw in the, you know, the kind of our, our, you know, reasonably innovative approach where we ask people about, you know, what they think should be allowable at what point in a pregnancy, in terms of mm-hmm , you know, the rationales for terminating a PR for a pregnancy.

[00:08:48] Jim Henson: You know, it, it can be hard to kind of parse that out and I’ve had, you know, reporters and other folks ask, you know, why is it that when you ask about overturning Roe V Wade it’s exa in this poll, it was exactly evenly split 44, 44. But when we really dig in only, you know, less than 10% overall say that, oh, I think it’s about that.

[00:09:11] Jim Henson: Abortion shouldn’t be, or sh should still be available in cases of rape incest threat to the life of the mother. And it underlines, I think how the, the general level that this gets engaged at some level to comparative advantage by candidates and parties in an election, you know, can kind of obscure that, you know, in a lot of ways, people, you know, there are in plenty of times when we don’t give the public enough credit.

[00:09:33] Jim Henson: Yeah. And something like people have fairly. Views of

[00:09:37] Josh Blank: this. Well, that’s funny. I mean, I agree with you almost up to the last part, I guess, and I’m a little, well, when you ask him about the details. Yeah, no, no, no. I agree. No, and I, I totally agree that, but I think the issue is, is that, you know, political campaigns and public policy in the, in the public domain is not fought over the details.

[00:09:52] Josh Blank: Right. And that’s where I think the Democrats problem, one of the, one of the areas where the Democrats have a problem with this issue is ultimately yeah. I mean, again, if we were having an election just about abortion access, I think Democrats. Be a pretty good position, right? If we were really having a debate about, you know, the details of the policy that the legislature might embark on, that you just raised as those two points, right?

[00:10:12] Josh Blank: Whether we talk about what they’re gonna do next, or even we look at these exceptions, uh, or the timeframe we would say, oh, you know, they really need to actually like find some space to expand access cuz that’s where the public is. But that’s not really what we talk about in politics. We say, are you pro-life, are you pro-choice, you know, are you, were you for overturning Roe V Wade because, or are you against it and you in there on that kind of broad level, because there is so much nuance under it, you do end up finding, you know, the, the, I would say, I wouldn’t go this far, but almost as far, you know, the issue kind of NES itself.

[00:10:39] Josh Blank: I mean, that’s why, when you look at this and say, you know, this is, you know, the public opinion landscape on abortion is, is very clear in terms of, you know, where people are. And it’s very different from where public policy is. However, 42% of voters think that O’Rourke would do a better job on abortion.

[00:10:54] Josh Blank: 38% think AB would. Right. So that, you know, just,

[00:10:57] Jim Henson: you take out, take that well, and that, and that’s why, you know, either the know from the Abbott campaign perspective, either they don’t wanna talk about it. Right. Or they wanna talk about it in terms that push people back into these, into their camps, more

[00:11:08] Josh Blank: simplified camps.

[00:11:09] Josh Blank: Yeah. But ultimately, even if they didn’t, the point is, is that, you know, would, would a four point gain, you know, for O’Rourke let’s say, would that be enough to win an. probably not. I mean, you know, again, that’s not that math is not exactly. That’s just what, well, there’s another, yeah. I mean, there’s other stuff going on there, but this is just to make a point that, you know, uh, ultimately, you know, even if you know, the, uh, the issue of abortion is raised in the sills of voters and it becomes, you know, a determining issue for more, more voters that it normally would, it’s still a significant minority voters.

[00:11:37] Josh Blank: The split among those voters is almost one to one, right? It’s like 1.1 to 0.9 or something. Right. And then ultimately, you know, that in and of itself is like probably not enough, even if it were more salient. Right. So,

[00:11:51] Jim Henson: you know, and, and I think we, I wanna leave it on the table so we wanna move on. But I mean, at some point, you know, prior to the election and we’ll be doing another poll before the election, you know, we have to engage this.

[00:12:02] Jim Henson: Okay. That’s in terms of preferences voting, like, what is this doing about mobilization? And that’s sure a data, you know, that’s well, and, and, you know, the attraction of new voters into the electorate, which is kind of out there. Big, big, open questions. So big open question. And, and we, it’s still a little early.

[00:12:17] Jim Henson: I, I think even though people are talking about it a lot, still a little early to make some judgments in terms of what we know data wise in terms of voter registrations, whole other can of worms. Right. But the other issue then that, that, that has really been. You know, thought of is potentially changing the issue environment, um, is the issue of gun violence.

[00:12:41] Jim Henson: You know, nobody likes to use this term anymore, gun control, et cetera. Um, but I think, you know, just at the, uh, to make this move a little more quickly, You know, again, there were good reasons to think this was not a good issue for Republicans because it was so closely tied to the shooting at Rob element, the, the murders at Rob elementary, the factors in that.

[00:13:04] Jim Henson: But I think one of the things that this poll was really effective at underlining was why that may have turned out to not be quite the liability in this area for. The Abbott campaign and for Republicans that, you know, even, you know, we, I think might have. Could be at one point, um, you know, I mean, and I, and the way I’m thinking about that, and I, you know, we haven’t really even talked about this.

[00:13:29] Jim Henson: I don’t think that directly, but, you know, it seems to me that what we’re seeing in this poll, particularly with the question that we asked about what people thought was really kind of, we didn’t phrase it this way, but, you know, to paraphrase the, kind of the most aggravating circumstance, right? The factor in, in the severity of the shooting in, in Uvalde, Is that the shake out of this has been that it’s just not been, you know, it’s, it’s not focused on gun violence per se, necessarily in the minds of a lot of voters, for reasons that we could are easy to unpack.

[00:14:03] Jim Henson: But, you know, in one, you know, to the extent that the, I, the simple idea going in was there’s been a mass shooting. It’s terrible. It was handled poorly. We’re gonna have a conversation about guns that is. Been the way that this has played out. Yeah. And it’s,

[00:14:18] Josh Blank: and the thing is, I mean, we’ve talked about this in time and we don’t have to belabor it, but I mean, the thing about, you know, a particular mass shooting, as opposed to the, you know, the discussion of sort of gun violence more broadly is that, you know, what, what I’ve sort of noticed over time.

[00:14:30] Josh Blank: And my observation on this is that, you know, what ends up happening is that the particulars of any mass shooting event are going to be, you know, selectively, poured over to reinforce the views of. Partisans. Right. And we always talk about the

[00:14:42] Jim Henson: sta at both the elite at both the elite and the

[00:14:44] Josh Blank: voter and the voter level, both the elite and the voter level.

[00:14:47] Josh Blank: And we talk, we always talk about, you know, the stale response after mass shootings and stuff, but what the sta response does is, you know, It turns, you know, the decades of Democrats, it turns their attention to the weapon used by the shooter, the ease with which the shooter was able to acquire this weapon in the case of the UAL situation, you know, the effect that the weapon had in holding police at bay, right.

[00:15:05] Josh Blank: From doing what they were supposed to do. Right, right. Which

[00:15:07] Jim Henson: we wrote about and talked, you know, and have talked about in here all podcast. I think we dedicated a podcast to it

[00:15:13] Josh Blank: practically. And I mean, there’s something about this that kind of works, you know, in some ways it works perfectly what we’ve found here, which is to the extent that most people are, you.

[00:15:19] Josh Blank: That every, to the extent that everyone blames the, the slow law enforcement response, ultimately, you know, that allows you, if you, if you want to, to say, okay, you know, this wouldn’t have been so bad, had everybody just done their job. Right. And,

[00:15:32] Jim Henson: and, and we talked about this, I mean, just to make sure people remembered, like, and we asked directly about this and got a response that really underlined just how strongly that was the case.

[00:15:40] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Josh Blank: Right. So set, you know, we asked, you know, basically how much did each of the following factors contribute to the severity of the mass student, all the elementary, you know, there’s more detail. You know, the police, the delay by the police in responding to the shooter, uh, 76% of Texas voters said that contributed a lot.

[00:15:54] Josh Blank: That include 80% of Democrats, 81% of, uh, independents, 74% of Republicans, 80% of, you know, Hispanics. Think about other groups in the electorates, 77% of those in the suburb. We talk about the weapon. Used by the shooter. It’s 46% of people said a lot. Now it’s 74% of Democrats. It’s only 22% of Republicans.

[00:16:11] Josh Blank: Half of Republicans said the weapon used by the shooter either had not very much of an impact or no impact. Nearly a third of Republicans said the weapon had no impact at all. Right. And this is the thing. And you know, and just so you know, we’ve asked this before, you know, you know, there’s a question we’ve asked multiple times if more people had guns, do you think the us would be more safe or less safe?

[00:16:27] Josh Blank: Nearly two thirds of Republicans say more safe. You know, nearly, probably three quarters of Democrats say less safe, but this is the thing. If you know, this is the thing about, you know, with the focus on a particular mass shooting, as opposed to gun violence more generally, is that you say like, if the good guys with the gun had done what they, guns had done, what they were supposed to do, or had there been more good guys with guns, willing to do what they were supposed to do.

[00:16:46] Josh Blank: This wouldn’t have been so severe. And that reinforces the viewpoint, which says it’s not about the

[00:16:50] Jim Henson: guns, you know? And I, I just, you. , you know, can’t help, but say, you know, this really underlines the analysis that we put. In the aftermath of the release of the house committee report. Mm-hmm in which, you know, we, you know, I, I won’t put you in the, in the pot too much on this, but in which, you know, I, you know, I’ve very strongly suggested and in several for that, you know, this really underlined, uh, the partisan limitations of that report.

[00:17:22] Jim Henson: Yeah. And this really underlies, you know, a political logic to that. could be a total coincidence, but I doubt it. Yeah. Um, okay. So, you know, in that sense, so I think in both of these areas, then we see what the, the poll under the poll results. Underline. You know, the limitations of the ability of either of these issues to really be asserted and maintain themselves, given these patterns in public opinion.

[00:17:47] Jim Henson: Now there’s another side to that, which is so what are the countervailing forces issue wise? And so, you know, we wanna talk a couple about, about a few of those issues as quickly as we can. So one thing, you know, the economy and the, the general mood of the state now, , you know, in many ways for months now, probably for, you know, at least a about a year or

[00:18:09] Josh Blank: so, if not a year, almost let’s say for most of this year, certainly most of 20, 22 at least, um,

[00:18:15] Jim Henson: you know, attitudes about the general track of the state about the economy national and even the state economy.

[00:18:20] Jim Henson: Although, and you talked about this, I think really productively in the last podcast, the gap as the Darren, the gap between state and, and mm-hmm national readings, I guess it was Darren who really leaned on that at the end. You know, are still negative, you know, and, and to be clear, they’re still, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re not good, but these trends, you know, have cooled, you know, have, are not as just hotly negative now as they were, but are still pretty negative.

[00:18:49] Josh Blank: Yeah, right. I mean, you know, the, the share saying of the national economy is better than a year ago, increased from 14% in June to 20% in August. Uh, you know, the share saying of the national economy is worse compared to a year ago, declined 13 points from 73% to 60%. So that’s a big shift. I mean, like right.

[00:19:05] Josh Blank: In terms of, you know, we watch these, I mean, because we do six polls a year, you know, we’re currently doing that. We do see these sort of micro changes and this isn’t a micro change. I mean, this isn’t like, yeah, we’ve been watching over three poles and it’s inching down. I mean, 13 points is a

[00:19:15] Jim Henson: pretty big shift.

[00:19:16] Jim Henson: Yeah. No noticeable shifts outside the margin of error in a short

period

[00:19:19] Josh Blank: of time. Right. But at the same time, you know, like while the, the negative attitudes towards the state were less intense than the negative attitudes toward the national economy, it’s also the case that, you know, the, the, the changes are a little bit less too.

[00:19:31] Josh Blank: Right? So the share’s saying that the state economy’s improving over last year increased four points from 13% in June to 17%. Uh, the share’s saying that the Texas economy is, is worse, dropped from 58% to 44%. So that’s a pretty good, that’s a pretty good drop, pretty good drop. Um, and so, you know, and, but at the same time, you know, we’ve asked this question in April about rising prices about inflation.

[00:19:52] Josh Blank: We asked it in April, we asked it again, and there’s no change in the fact that right, the vast Texans, almost 90% say they’ve noticed price increases. And the majority of those who’ve noticed price increases say it’s had a major impact on their, their finances. Most of the rest say it’s had a minor impact and almost no one says it’s had no impact.

[00:20:07] Josh Blank: So there’s this pur. So this is the thing about the economy. If you notice the economy, every time you go to fill your tank or go to the grocery store or go out to. , it becomes a pretty major issue and, and,

[00:20:17] Jim Henson: you know, to, you know, get the, the mechanics there and, you know, it’s a fertile cognitive sort of state, you know, right.

[00:20:23] Jim Henson: It’s a fertile state of mind to be seeing commercials saying Joe Biden is wrecking the economy, the Texas economy, you know, let’s keep the Texas economy separate from that. Right. Right.

[00:20:32] Josh Blank: So, and that, and the gap you’re pointing out and that we’re pointing out. I mean, it works to that effect. I think, you know, had had the, had, you know, we talked about this previously, How do views of the Texas economy continu to, to go in the negative direction at some point, you’d say, well, yeah, but like, who’s the incumbent, right?

[00:20:49] Josh Blank: But given the fact that, you know, everything’s improved a little bit and the fact that this gap has remained, it does allow you say, Hey, look at least Texas, isn’t the rest of the country at at least we’re not that, which is, which is a pretty, you know, I mean, which is a pretty, you sort of, you already.

[00:21:00] Josh Blank: Raise this issue of the familiar right. Pretty familiar argument here in Texas. Right. Right.

[00:21:05] Jim Henson: You know, and then the other thing about the economy is that it’s remained reasonably salient. And again, that gap between the view of the national economy, the national scene and the national political environment.

[00:21:15] Jim Henson: Right. You know, in a, in a, in a reasonably nationalized election and, you know, uh, what’s going on in the state, uh, the economy and prices show up in the most important problem facing the nation. Right, right. Um, you know, it’s about. You know, it’s, it’s a pretty good chunk of that 18%, I think, in the national MIP.

[00:21:35] Jim Henson: And it’s the top result. If you, with another 20 10% saying so 18% say prices. Yeah. 10% say the economy at the state level. When we ask what’s the most important problem facing the state on one hand economy and prices are not trivial. You put those together. They’re about 15% of the total, but those MIPS point us towards, you know, a transition to the next topic of, in terms of.

[00:21:57] Jim Henson: What’s familiar in this data and, and the reassertion of the familiar in the political environment. You know, the number one response is still immigration and border security, uh, at 30%, uh, of the total, more than 50% as I recall of Republicans. Yep. And so, you know, Uh, this came up a little bit in the LA last week, but as we’re saying, you know, you raise immigration and border security and it seems like we’re stuck in, you know, the eternal return mm-hmm

[00:22:23] Jim Henson: Can we ever do a podcast where we don’t talk about immigration and border security? Well, apparently not, but the combination of the poll results, we’ve gotten a look at the headlines in Texas and in the country mm-hmm over the last couple of weeks suggests that while we were talking about other issues and.

[00:22:41] Jim Henson: You know, news coverage, the media was talking about other issues in the summer, immigration and border security were still there. Mm-hmm they were remaining central. Um, you know, we bannered in, in various ways in the, in the wake of the poll, the embrace of Abbott’s busing policy, the policy of busing migrants, the democratic cities, for lack of a more complicated formulation.

[00:23:03] Jim Henson: Um, You know, very popular among Republicans, but also gets a non-trivial share among other partisans. So 52% supported it overall, wildly popular among Republicans. No other way to describe it. Yeah. Um, you, you almost can’t be too hyperbolic about that. 80% of Republicans support the policy. I think something in the range of 60% support it strongly mm-hmm , but telling.

[00:23:28] Jim Henson: About a fifth of re of Democrats support the policy 22% and very popular among, among independents about not even about half cleanly, half 50% of in of independence said they supported the policy only 26% opposed it. So, you know, in the context of what we’ve always known about immigration and border security, you know, I mean, I think people.

[00:23:54] Jim Henson: You know, with some degree of legitimacy from, you know, I mean, it’s a, you know, I think it’s not unreasonable to have said during the summer. Wow. The governor seems to be talking very little about the shooting, you know, much less about the shootings in Uvalde and hiss public statements and his media than about immigration and border security and operation lone star.

[00:24:13] Jim Henson: But. You know, they knew of what they spoke when it comes to their partisans and the general political environment in the state.

[00:24:20] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the thing I’ll add to this real quick is, you know, another question we asked on the poll was about Texas spending on border security. We asked this relatively frequently, we’ve been doing it sort of since, just before the big upticks and spending a couple sessions ago and again, in the most previous session.

[00:24:33] Josh Blank: And then even more so since the, you know, start of operation lone star, and what’s really remarkable about this in some ways is that, you know, these attitudes haven’t changed. So the fact that it’s costing, you know, An exorbitant amount of money, you know, per person to bus people, you know, Northern cities kind of irrelevant the fact that, you know, uh, the spending that the state is, you know, uh, doing on border security has, you know, what.

[00:24:55] Josh Blank: Quadrupled right over the last, you know, five or six years, it has not changed people’s views of this. And this is not to say like, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, some people listen to us like, well, yeah, but if people knew it’s like maybe, but honestly, you know, I, I think that, I think this is part of, you know, the problem that Democrats face with this issue.

[00:25:12] Josh Blank: Is it just as much as, you know, Greg abot doesn’t really want to talk about, you know, what the state’s next step is on abortion? The Democrats don’t really have a response. Yeah. You know, basically saying that you need, you know, and I just say like saying that you need to treat this more like a human humanitarian crisis and a security crisis is fine, but ultimately, you know, it doesn’t tell you what you’re actually gonna do with the large numbers of people who are arriving on the Texas border.

[00:25:34] Josh Blank: And yeah. You know, say all you want. I mean, like Abbott has done a pretty successful job of raising this issue and

[00:25:40] Jim Henson: marketing this particular tactic and, you know, and, and I think, you know, and I would have to admit, I mean, I think I. Probably quite put this together from the beginning of this policy, but there’s a real trap here for Democrats and it it’s come up in a couple of different media instances in the last week or so.

[00:25:59] Jim Henson: One was Congressman Henry cues appearance on, uh, face the nation Sunday morning in which, you know, given, uh, Congressman cues, political positioning as. Among the most, you know, concern, you know, on, on the right end, right. Of the, of the democratic party, the very right. That one. Yeah. You know, not to anyway.

[00:26:18] Jim Henson: Um, and you know, there was a good piece in, uh, the Texas Tribune yesterday and I, for my apologies to the author, cause I can’t remember exactly who wrote it now. Um, but about El Paso providing. Bus service Uhhuh to the migrants that are, you know, arriving in great numbers in El Paso. And you know, some of them are having to, you know, live on the streets, right?

[00:26:44] Jim Henson: Shelters are overwhelmed and, you know, Greg Abbott is not the first person to provide bus rides. The. But in El Paso, clearly there’s a lot more scaffolding around social service, scaffolding, and organization and process, and a different seeming intent around the bus, transportation that’s being provided and that’s, and that’s happening.

[00:27:07] Jim Henson: And, and that’s one of the things that, that qua talked about, or Congressman qua talked about on, in, in the national media hit, which was look, you know, in Laredo, you know, we’re having to send you. I don’t remember the exact number. It was in the twenties last week we spent 20 something buses left from Laredo.

[00:27:23] Jim Henson: So there that’s one of the things that I think is Ty Democrats. Similar to the abortion thing. Yes. It, it introduces a degree of nuance. That’s just not gonna work. If the D if Democrats jump on this too

[00:27:36] Josh Blank: hard. Well, and this is the thing I think, you know, this is where we say, you know, this, I I’m glad you rub the abortion thing.

[00:27:40] Josh Blank: I think this is, I was saying the exact same thing. You know, this is where, you know, top level kind of reaction to a policy versus the reaction to sort of, the nuance are not the same thing. When you’re talking about campaigns. And you’re talking about voting, you’re talking about politics. I mean, ultimately I said this, I think last week is.

[00:27:55] Josh Blank: You could imagine, uh, a significant share of people reacting to, you know, the bustling without thinking about the intent or the details of the coordination and the scaffold, right. And all these other sort of details that we’re talking about and say, oh, that’s a humanitarian thing. I mean, there’s something, I mean, when I was thinking, you know, what, what would the democratic counter messaging to this and be like, I guess it would be the Greg Abbott is providing a magnet to immigrants to come to Texas, cuz he is gonna bus him somewhere.

[00:28:18] Josh Blank: Right, but that’s not, that’s crazy. And he is

[00:28:20] Jim Henson: not doing and well, and, and he is doing a poor job of providing the scaffolding that’s ne you know, well, yeah, maybe, you know, I mean, well, I

[00:28:28] Josh Blank: mean, look, I’m just, I’m just, I’m joking a little bit, but you could borrow the whole, you know, where, what do you get outta this policy?

[00:28:32] Josh Blank: Well, I mean, again, if I’m thinking, well, aren’t, you just attracting more people from central and south America to come to Texas, to get their bus ride to where they actually want to go. I mean, if I was gonna choose where to enter Texas or Arizona right now, and claim asylum, yeah, there’s an argument to be made Texas as a better

[00:28:47] Jim Henson: place.

[00:28:47] Jim Henson: Actually, I know Ducey was doing the, was doing the busing thing for a while. He followed Abbott in June that’s and I’ve lost track of, I mean, Ducey, I mean, but that kind of speaks to the broader point or Ducey, not running for reelection. Right. Abbott and DeSantis are with both DeSantis, more than Abbott sort of, you know, expected to have some degree of presidential ambition.

[00:29:06] Jim Henson: So the context is different. Right. Um, you know, so, uh, Broad point though, the discussion during the, the summer. I mean, there was a sense in which people were kind of. You know, and I certainly was one of the beyond. So this, you know, there’s a certain sense of waiting for the inevitable border crisis mm-hmm to happen.

[00:29:27] Jim Henson: That would then help the governor shift the public discussion. Well, he obviously helped himself in, in many ways of doing that. Yeah. Or, you know, moved it along in, in a, in a very, you know, smart, tactical way from in strict political terms. And. Well, I think,

[00:29:42] Josh Blank: and I think the lesson for the national, I mean, the one thing that’s interesting being on the ground here, and then kind of watching the national coverage of this is that the national coverage is really focused on, you know, sort of the intention, the outcome, you know, all these sorts of things.

[00:29:53] Josh Blank: I think, you know, that makes sense. I’m not criticism. Right. But what I think is sort of missed in all this is that like, you know, from a purely political context within the state of Texas, This seems to be a pretty good political

[00:30:04] Jim Henson: move. Right. And, and the truth of the matter is if it’s a pretty good political move here with the Republicans, you know, good chance it’s playing reasonably well with the Republicans nationally.

[00:30:12] Jim Henson: Yeah, I would think so. Um, you know, I, you know, I, I think cuz it’s adjacent to this, let’s also in some ways hit something a little bit similar on this too. And that’s public safety. Okay. Now we don’t have a ton about public safety in this poll, although we’ve done a bit of polling on people’s perceptions of, of crime and public safety in, in the last year, couple of years, you know, in, in a sense, this is almost feels a little bit like.

[00:30:39] Jim Henson: You know, kind of the leftover residual issue that Republicans are still playing on from 2020. And that Democrats are still trying to save the appearances on. This is one of those things where, you know, the national environment not helping them. There’s a bill, you know, there’s a kind of police funding bill for local police departments locked up in Congress right now.

[00:31:00] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm as. Conflict between the left and the far left and the democratic party, but you know, the public safety numbers do suggest why this is still, you know, a good part of the Republican, you know, the Republican toolkit in terms of campaigning.

[00:31:15] Josh Blank: Yeah. And I mean, to me, it’s not even that they’re necessarily, you know, I don’t think they’re necessarily playing on attitudes about public safety per se.

[00:31:21] Josh Blank: I mean, cuz what we find is, you know, like attitudes towards crime are just basically a reflection of how much people are talking about crime. We ask often about, you know, sort of the way people feel in terms of their own personal safety and the places where they live. And we find generally that people feel pretty safe.

[00:31:33] Josh Blank: In fact, you know, the Republicans who, you know, the Republican voters who express the most concern about these issues tend to actually express that they’re the most safe right. Of

[00:31:40] Jim Henson: any I’m very concerned. Although I feel, I feel surprised I’m not threatened. Crime’s

[00:31:44] Josh Blank: problem and look, and I, and I look, I think there’s a distinction between, you know, personal safety and, and public safety and, and those kinds of things.

[00:31:50] Josh Blank: Uh, you know, but ultimately this is an issue where, you know, I. I think Republicans, I mean, Democrats first painted themselves into a corner and Republicans are happy to continue that because it’s not that it’s a major issue. I mean, we ask at the salience battery, you know, this was at the bottom of the, I think eight or nine issues that we asked about in terms of, you know, importance to vote choice.

[00:32:08] Josh Blank: Only 2% of people said it was the most public safety was the most important issue in their 2022 vote. Abbott letter worked by eight points a month in among that overall on that issue, 46 38, but it’s still something that’s kind of out there. 60% of people said it was very important to them. Right. So it was still kind of on the higher end on, on those issues because it is, um, but you know, the thing about it is, is that it really just puts Democrats in a hard position.

[00:32:31] Josh Blank: Cuz what are they supposed to say either? They say no, like O’Rourke has said no, I, I don’t wanna to fund the police. I mean, there’s sort of a, you know, how many

[00:32:37] Jim Henson: times do I have to say it’s . You know exactly. This is a position, most democratic, a lot of democratic candidates

[00:32:44] Josh Blank: are in, but ultimately that’s not, but that’s not what you wanna be spending your time talking about and your resources to defend, you know, to defend something that you don’t wanna.

[00:32:51] Josh Blank: I go back and talk about abortion some more. Yeah, exactly. You wanna talk about abortion? So I think, you know, from that, from that perspective, it’s, it really does paint, you know, it creates a problem for Democrats, but also, I mean, I think what I really think about this is about, you know, a targeted thing to my mind.

[00:33:04] Josh Blank: I mean, I think it’s notable that Abbott opened up the campaign on labor day weekend with an. Talking about our work, wanting to fund the police. And to me, you know, this speaks to sort of, you know, suburban anxiety, to some extent, you know, it’s

[00:33:15] Jim Henson: funny. I was just sitting there trying to decide whether I should, you know.

[00:33:17] Jim Henson: Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this, this is one of those instances, I think you’re right in which the whole kind of suburban, urban dynamic really plays into this about, you know, people living in, you know, relatively safe suburbs mm-hmm , but still being, you know, activated by perceptions of crime in the city that.

[00:33:37] Jim Henson: You know, close to, but not, you know, part

[00:33:39] Josh Blank: of, and it’s probably run by Democrats in Texas. Exactly. So, so it has, you know, it plays well with the right people in the right way. You know, I think it reinforces sort of the, you know, the immigration message cuz you’re tough on crime. You’re tough on all crime, that kind of thing.

[00:33:52] Josh Blank: And so. You know, setting aside some of the many, many details there, you know, this is one of those things. This isn’t about like an issue that’s driving election. It’s about an issue that’s, you know, about improving margins slightly in the right places.

[00:34:04] Jim Henson: Right. So, you know, let’s, um, let’s conclude with just a quick nod towards education and you know, that, that sense of, you know, this is an analysis.

[00:34:16] Jim Henson: I think that, you know, you’ve thought a lot about. You know, and I’m gonna say this, and then you can okay. Qualify. Okay. There’s a certain dog that doesn’t bark. Yeah. Nature about education is an issue in terms of attitudes, in terms of its salience, in terms of the way it plays out in the election. I mean, there’s been a consistent stream of efforts really on, on, uh, I wanna say sort of both ends of the political spectrum among people that do focus on education issues.

[00:34:44] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm you sort of ever to elevate the issue. Of education in various ways. but you know, it just doesn’t show up in the polling all that much. I mean, the attitudes, the difference in attitudes somewhat do. Yeah. But the Sal of it just never really quite rises to the level that one might think, given the, you know, I mean, however you want to think about it, given the attention it gets in the political process at times.

[00:35:09] Jim Henson: You know, given, you know, what one might say from a pointy headed perspective, the fundamental importance of education in a number of ways, right?

[00:35:17] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, setting aside the fact that education is extremely important, right? For our economy, for like our criminal justice, for all kinds of things, for society, for society writ large.

[00:35:27] Josh Blank: Right. But the issue is, is that, you know, I think something that we forget about here, a lot of times when we think about education, cause I mean, I was hearing you talking about, I was thinking to myself, you know, it’s. There’s a reason that this, this makes sense, but it also doesn’t make sense. And ultimately, the thing is, is that, you know, most people don’t have kids in school full stop.

[00:35:44] Josh Blank: Right. Right. So when you’re talking about a group of people, you know, just a random, you know, randomly selected group of people, you know, odds are somewhere, you know, no more than a third are probably gonna be like really invested in somewhat in the public education in the public education. Brought me even less at any given point in time.

[00:36:00] Josh Blank: Right. So you’re talking about a sh share of the electorate now that share of the elector. tends to be, I mean, I say this is an issue that gets very, very salient and then it’s not salient anymore. Right? I mean, once your kids are outta school or once, you know, your grandkids are outta school or whatever the issue is, some people are still interested in the issue.

[00:36:16] Josh Blank: Despite the fact they don’t have a direct connection with it, but really, you know, when you’re thinking about the politics around education, you are really seeing people trying to activate people who are connected to the process. And while it’s very, very S for those people, It’s just not for most. And so when we ask people in the poll in an open ended question, you know, what’s the most important issue facing, you know, K through 12 public education in Texas, given all these discussions about, you know, curriculum about race curriculum, about gender politicization, you know, transgender sports library books, right.

[00:36:41] Josh Blank: Et cetera, et cetera. What do people say? Well, first of all, the plurality of voters, 41% didn’t offer us anything. They could have said anything they wanted. They offered us nothing. Yeah. Now, should that be a surprise? And I think based on what I. If, you know, if you think about this, no, I mean, it’s not really a surprise.

[00:36:59] Josh Blank: Cause most people are not really as engaged in the education issue. The people who are, are very engaged. So I think that’s kind of, you know, the first thing that comes up. So again, this is not an issue that I think is like one of those, like this is gonna drive the election. You all, you know, all of a sudden if people, you know, people like there’s no universe or alternative election where people decide.

[00:37:16] Josh Blank: you know, banning books from public libraries. That’s what this election’s gonna be decided about. Like, mm-hmm right. That’s, that’s something else. Or we’re talking about, you know, what sports teams, transgender student athletes, that is not what the election is gonna be about, but, and we’ve said this before, but what it does do is it does muddy the water amongst the people who do really care about education.

[00:37:32] Josh Blank: Right? Cause if we’re not talking about education, You know, in these sort of way that we’ve been talking about cultural issues, we’re talking about funding. We’re either talking about, you know, the property tax issue is the way that relates to funding. We’re talking about the funding of the schools. We’re talking about teacher pay, we’re talking about teacher retention and truth is that’s kind of what Democrats are still focused on, but they’re focused on all those things, which is what Democrat’s problem always is.

[00:37:50] Josh Blank: Right. They’re focused on about six different things. You know, the number one thing of course is. Basically teacher pay shortages retention. The number two thing is basically politicization mostly by people on the right. Uh, number three is funding 8% then safety.

[00:38:05] Jim Henson: Then quality gotta clarify. You said politicization mostly by people on the right.

[00:38:09] Jim Henson: Is that the concern is about conservative the politicization by those people or the concern is among those people concern among the right? No,

[00:38:17] Josh Blank: the concern is the politicization by. Okay. I just wanted sure by is clear to, you know, conservative and let’s say Republican leaning elites usually. Right. Gotcha.

[00:38:27] Josh Blank: For Republicans a quarter, you know, which is again, we getting work close to a quarter with Democrats, basically express concern about CU. right, right. Um, and that

[00:38:37] Jim Henson: is like the, the, which one of the democratic lens is publicization by the

[00:38:40] Josh Blank: right. . Exactly. But, but the issue is, is if we’re talking about, you know, curriculum concerns about, you know, how race is talked about how gender is talked about, ultimately, you know, if nothing else, this issue kind of become the, you know, education is a broad topic we talk about broadly versus specifically probably become somewhat of a draw amongst the subset of voters for whom this is a really important issue.

[00:39:00] Josh Blank: Right. And it’s a small subset. And so therefore, you know, again, this isn’t, to me, this is another one of those things where I think, you know, Republicans have been very successful with this. I think there’s a lot of exposure out there. I mean, to the extent that, you know, you start taking over school boards.

[00:39:12] Josh Blank: Yeah. There’s, there’s definitely exposure. But having said that, you know, even if the election, all of a sudden were to become an election about education, I think Republicans based on these polling. Would feel relatively comfortable with

[00:39:23] Jim Henson: that? Yeah. I mean, we talked back in the spring about the, in a sense, the attempt to assert a certain degree of issue ownership over this.

[00:39:30] Jim Henson: And that’s a sign that they, you know, they got some traction

[00:39:32] Josh Blank: on that. Yeah. I think they’ve got intraction on it, but the broader point here is this isn’t like a, an issue that’s gonna drive drive the election. If anything, it’s gonna, you know, it’s gonna affect margins and key areas. Suburban areas likely is a big target here.

[00:39:45] Josh Blank: Right. And again, this is makes a lot of sense. You know, if you think of the same political dynamics we talked about, about public safety and the effect between urban and suburban areas, those same issues are coming up on educational issues, where you’ve got sort of, you know, I think probably the greatest mix of opinion in terms of sort of the big, uh, let’s say cultural, social debates in public education are probably taking place in suburbs that have a, you know, right.

[00:40:06] Josh Blank: A kind of a mix of ideologies in terms of the

[00:40:08] Jim Henson: classrooms. Right. Although, you know, yeah. The places where those fights have been most successful for, you know, activists on the right have been in the kind of farther out suburbs where they have. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, and again, we have to get into the distinction between those though, but though, you know, the districts, if you go look at the districts where they’ve really succeeded in either pushing these issues or taking over school boards have been mostly in those.

[00:40:34] Jim Henson: Kind of farther out areas where they have a little more leverage. I think,

[00:40:38] Josh Blank: yeah. I mean, I think I, you know, this is, this comes down to like, you know, this comes down to a question of like sort of political geography. I mean, the places that have been the most focused on have been the counties sort of around Fort worth and sort of in the Dallas Fort sort outside of the urban center of Dallas Fort worth.

[00:40:51] Josh Blank: But I think part of the issue, I would just, I would just throw out as sort of, you know, I don’t know is that I know that in a lot of cases, The, uh, impetus for the initial push there, whether it was needed or not was the fact that those districts had in one way or another flirted, like a little too much with the wrong ideas or, you know, had been, you know, trying to respond to.

[00:41:08] Josh Blank: Yeah,

[00:41:08] Jim Henson: yeah, yeah. But, but I, but I think, you know, yeah, geographically, I think, you know, when we’re talking about, you know, look the poster. For for better for worse, the poster child for this has been clear lake, you know? Yeah. So at, at any rate, um, so it wind up. I mean, I, I, you know, we ended last week, you know, my sort of sleeper thing at the end of the, of the last podcast was same sex marriage.

[00:41:28] Jim Henson: I was actually not gonna raise it again, but I mean, I think it kind of comes up in this, in that yeah. You know, there’s, there are things that are latent out there that are kind of that I, that I think actually probably have more consequence in the more rarefied environment of legislative politics, Uhhuh than in election politics.

[00:41:51] Jim Henson: But as we’re talking about in the election, motivation, enthusiasm in the election, you know, the, the ability to mobilize partisans. You know, the kind of issues that are like being put in the, in the immigrant, in the, in the education frame, you know, you mentioned the li you know, the matter of libraries and curriculum, you know, are also reflected in these numbers on gay marriage that we got, where, you know, as we said, last week, when we asked.

[00:42:21] Jim Henson: Texans in the last poll, whether same sex marriage should still should be legal. You know, we still found that 50% of, of Republicans thought it should, it should not still be legal mm-hmm . And that there was no change from 2017 and in a podcast where the theme has been probably continuity rather than change.

[00:42:42] Jim Henson: that speaks to a, a degree of continuity in the, the cultural forces that are animating all of those, you know, uh, uh, uh, you know, the Republican party in particular. Yeah. And, and, and are still sort of out there powerfully shaping internal politics in, in the party, which really manifests themselves more directly, I think, in the legislature.

[00:43:06] Jim Henson: Um, but it is. Out there in the ether. When we start talking about where the energy is gonna be in terms of mobilization,

[00:43:14] Josh Blank: you know, I like ending on this same sex marriage number and the fact that like it hasn’t changed at all. And the fact that, you know, this podcast, this, this edition of the podcast and sort of looking at the issue environment in the election really main thing is, you know, we’re sort of taking in all these, these, these inputs that are of the moment, and we’re putting them through this, you know, this lens of trying to look at, you know, kind of how the electorate views them.

[00:43:34] Josh Blank: And we’re kind of coming out to there on the other side saying, boy, a lot of this feels really familiar. Yeah. And I think, you know, I, you know, and again, sometimes, you know, it’s unfortunate, you know, the, the sort of the no change thing is kind of like, oh, well, what’s even the point, but that is kind of the point I think, is that, you know, it’s hard not to kind of look at all this and say, you know, a lot’s happened in the last five or six years for sure.

[00:43:55] Josh Blank: Right. A lot has happened politically a lot has happened culturally. Uh, you know, just, I could go on and on about that. But, you know, the underlying attitudes is that have kind of been the main sort of motivating force. You know, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve stayed in place to a large extent. And I think, you know, that’s something that people sort of, you know, I think a lot of the time, you know, it’s kinda like, UALS a good example.

[00:44:16] Josh Blank: A lot of people say, well, you’ve already happened now, is everybody gonna change? We say, well, you know, we actually have no Indi. We have no evidence that after a mass shooting, we see big shifts in attitudes. Right. We saw no evidence that after Dobbs, you know, there’s a big shift in abortion attitudes.

[00:44:28] Josh Blank: Right. Um, you know, The winter storm came and passed. Nobody really expressed confidence had a very hot summer.

[00:44:36] Jim Henson: So what no, no

[00:44:37] Josh Blank: real crisis. Well, you know, right. Yeah. But I mean, but I think, but I think the point is that, you know, I think there’s a bit of a, you know, an extent to which, because of the, all the novel stimuli that we’re getting, we underrate, you know, sort of the, the influence and the, and the importance of sort of, you know, just what are the kind, the fundamental underlying attitudes and the sort of the, the structure and the

[00:44:58] Jim Henson: distribution within

[00:44:59] Josh Blank: the partisan and the, yeah.

[00:45:00] Josh Blank: The distribution within the partisan and the structure and the constraint that, that puts on elections that you start with. Right. And I said this to you a couple weeks ago, you know, I think all this stuff might have already, you know, all these things that may have kind of accrued to the democratic benefit, potentially.

[00:45:12] Josh Blank: I think most of that stuff was baked in. I kind of mentioned that as a possibility a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Or a couple episodes ago or whatever, I don’t even know maybe a month ago, but the more I look at this data where I think, yeah, I think that’s probably right. And then ultimately you’re looking at a competitive system where these things might shift, you know, margins a couple points either way, but they’re not changing the underlying dynamics here.

[00:45:31] Josh Blank: Right. And

[00:45:32] Jim Henson: there’s a, you know, I mean, I, you know, there’s. There’s an interesting meta discussion to be had about this about, well, actually you could either look at it from the cognitive start. You could start from the individual cognition, or you could talk about the media, right. You know, discursive environment in which, you know, you know, there.

[00:45:53] Jim Henson: You know, there there’s a tendency to want to emphasize the potential for change, like in the media environment, because it’s more interesting novel stimuli right. And different. And then at the cognitive level, there’s, you know, things like that. And, and I think that. You know, it is a, you know, it is kind of a, I mean, look, as you said, it’s a very active environment out there.

[00:46:11] Jim Henson: So I mean, you know, it’d be crazy not to consider the possibility of a shift. Yeah. But I guess the bottom line is we’re just not seeing a lot of evidence of that. And to hit a point that we sort of passed by here, you know, is at the, for future discussion. Then it really does, you know, suggest questions about, you know, mobilization potential.

[00:46:34] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm, , what’s going on. What’s going on out there with what the electorate is gonna look like. And, you know, we’ll, we’ll come back to that probably pretty soon. We’ll certainly come back to that when we run our next poll, when we, and we put together a likely voter screen. Yeah. Right. On that, Josh, thanks for being here.

[00:46:50] Jim Henson: Good discussion. Uh, thanks to all of you for listening. Thanks to our production team in the audio studio in the liberal arts development studio at UT Austin. Um, remember you can find all the data we’ve referenced today. Much, much more at the Texas politics project website, Texas politics dot U texas.edu.

[00:47:11] Jim Henson: Uh, we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

[00:47:19] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin.