Welcome to Party Politics.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina Where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Contrastive week, we've got, the US Senate debate, which was pretty fiery.

We've got Trump and Harris who are campaigning.

Donald Trump had, an impromptu DJ session.

Yeah.

We've got lots of things happening up and down the ballot.

We're going to talk about a bunch of stuff this week, including races to watch across the state.

But let's first dig into kind of the biggest story of the week.

And that's the debate between calling all red the representative, from Dallas area and incumbent US Senator Ted Cruz.

They had one debate for one hour, and it was like a house of fire, like an amazing like just a, you know, aggressive moment for both men.

Actually.

Cruz definitely on the attack as he's want to do.

We saw all Red who normally is very kind of reserved in these debates, really get tested and challenged.

And he definitely kind of held the line like the linebacker he is.

Right.

So tell me what you thought about this.

Winners and losers.

Well, I don't know who's the winner and who's the loser.

I think both of them were at it.

Okay.

Both of them were very aggressive.

I mean, the other it started, the debate, you know, just going after him, saying can.

Right away.

11,000 sentences when you're not here, you're in Cancun, so on and so forth.

You had 12 years.

You haven't done anything.

And then Senator Cruz replied back, he's you know, you are, have always voted with Nancy Pelosi.

I question if anyone remembers, Nancy Pelosi, right now.

So who exactly?

So she from Texas, I don't remember.

Yeah.

No, she's from California.

Oh, indeed.

Yeah.

Oh, that's even worse.

Yeah.

For Ted Cruz, that's the worst thing, right?

But you're totally right.

Like Ted Cruz spent a lot of time basically tying Harris to.

All right, Ryan, like, expressly using those words, talked a lot about Nancy Pelosi and how they're voting is lockstep.

Talked a lot about how, you know, we have to keep Texas, Texas, really elevating the stakes, especially for Republicans.

Right.

And you even I've talked about this a bunch before.

Cruz needs Republicans to come out in big numbers, and that's really the recipe for how to win in Texas.

It might not be that way forever, but it will be that way this cycle.

So do you think that Cruz made that happen with the sort of inflammatory notion of like talking about transgender athletes and sports, talking about the kind of extremism on abortion that he says already is talking about the border and more security issues.

Well, I think it's a tricky, very calculated risk, in my humble yes opinion.

Yeah.

To to elevate the stakes for only Republicans.

Exactly.

And the reason behind that is that we have, 2.5 more or less give and take new million voters if that we don't know a lot about them.

Yeah.

We don't know how much they're going to be turning out.

We don't know how much there are in enthusiastically.

going to participate in the election.

Cruz needs his base 1,000%, but also needs a little bit more.

Yeah.

Depending on the mix of who's going to go out and vote.

Yeah, that's going to determine who's going to win this election.

Yeah.

I mean, both presidential in other state but also here in the US Senate race is going to be extremely important.

So I don't know, I didn't feel that he was talking to, you know, the middle ground.

Yeah.

Or to undecided voters that again we don't know who they are.

But how you're going to throw all the red meat for a very particular part of the year of the electorate.

Yeah.

And forget about the other one.

I don't know.

It's very risky.

I had the meat sweats at the end of it.

There so much red meat.

It was like barbecue fest, right?

Right.

Like talking about Donald Trump, talking about Harrison Pelosi.

Defund the police, killing oil and gas jobs, right.

Talking about how the left is binary.

Like he threw all of that red meat.

And I think though I mean, to your point, I think it's a good strategy.

I think that's the winning strategy.

There aren't enough people in the middle who are likely to be persuaded by this to make the difference.

If you look at the polling, basically most people have already made up their minds.

There aren't a lot of people who are sort of saying that they're really not sure, and I don't know how clearly reflecting that is of people because, you know, polling is a little bit wonky, especially in a presidential election.

We've seen this last couple cycles, but for sure, it's the case that Cruz needs to communicate to Republicans.

They've long left persuasion.

That's not what this debate was about.

This debate was about mobilization.

And I think that Cruz basically did that.

And the way we know this is that he's spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump, right.

Who he's actually underperforming in Texas.

So what he needs is two things Republicans turnout, big numbers.

And for his numbers to basically be on par with Trump.

Yeah.

But again you are preaching to the choir.

Yeah.

So but.

They're the ones who are going to sing the loudest.

Correct.

Correct.

But the question is they already going to go out and vote for you.

They probably.

Didn't need this to make that.

Happen.

Yeah.

So my question is like, yeah, we're they're like, you don't have to talk to us because we already go to, you know, the liver because they had the liver in the past elections consistently and for Trump and also for Cruz.

So my question to you is, did he waste time last night debate and trying to bring other people that might be, you know, still Republicans and on the fence and whether they're all great or not and say, right, you know, just have a little bit of, yeah, I don't.

Like talking to people who are in the middle who might be persuaded.

Yeah.

I mean, I think you're right.

But like, I also think that, like, for, for Allred, that, you know, he need to kind of contain the damage because Cruz is just this all encompassing debater.

There's no question he's a better debater.

Right?

This is not a debate contest, per se.

It's about politics, about communication.

And what are the things we know from scholarship on this is that people don't always watch these debates, but they will he'll hear tell of it after.

Right?

Yeah.

And so like the discussion through headlines and through quotes and stuff are also useful in terms of kind of making that message.

And I think that already did a good job at that, basically being more quotable.

And I think those lines are going to kind of be the ones that really flow through, are the ones that Cruz provided, like keeping Texas.

Texas, like you say, definitely appeal to the base, but I'm not sure it's the sort of thing that really is going to attract, like the kind of moderate voter who, you know, is a, you know, sort of, you know, you know, working in the suburbs, sort of raising family, like thinking about kind of how they're going to vote.

I don't think that's a like necessarily a solvable issue, but they think it is.

Right.

Clearly, the way he's talking about it, they think that it is.

But if you look at the issues they talk about, right, like, how the kind of elevation of the stakes from Cruz about the kind of transgender sports issue or about the abortion issue and saying that already too extreme, talking about the border and about how this is becoming like a problem and also contributes to kind of economic problems, like there are people out there who I think look at this and say, yeah, like we've got democratic parties going too far.

All red is with them.

I'm going to vote for Cruz.

Or maybe not at all.

And which is not good for, for Cruz, but I think that the category of people who maybe sort of believe that already too extreme might be that type.

So I don't know how it's going to play out.

Right.

And the other issue is that without straight ticket voting, people aren't just going to be lockstep Republican.

Right.

Like you can go and kind of pick and choose.

I think that's what Ted Cruz is worried about.

Number one, people either go in and vote for Trump and nobody else, or they'll go in and sort of cherry pick, right?

Well, I like Trump because, you know, he's sort of outlandish and I like this sort of style.

I don't like what Biden did, but Ted Cruz aren't really like him.

And Allred, seems like a good enough person.

So like that kind of voting.

Oh yeah, I know that Trump.

But that Trump all red voting voters are kind of a unique bird but may switch the difference.

And I think that getting away with those, straight ticket voting in the last year.

Yeah.

Now he's going to come back and Biden, you Blinken.

It's going to come back to bite them.

The other thing is that if you look at the polling, Republicans are more excited to vote than Democrats.

82% of Republicans say they're excited versus 79% of Democrats.

It's a small difference, right?

But a meaningful difference when it comes to turnout, right.

We've talked about this before, but basically the turnout in these rural areas is higher than it is in the urban areas.

And if you just sort of think about geography as politics, then Republicans are getting better turnout.

So like, they don't want to be in a position where they're having to, you know, encourage people to come out in these, these counties, which, otherwise they might do.

So, it's interesting to see big moments in the debate.

What do you think was like the kind of more sort of impactful moment that might be the one that people remember?

Well, I think, you know, the one about January 6th was like very impactful.

The things that, I'll read said to Cruz were, pretty tough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He he looked mad.

Oh, he was very mad.

Make it mad.

He's a large human.

And, he played a little NFL football.

Yeah.

No, he was mad.

Rammed through, but like, I. Yeah, I definitely thought that was a pretty, pretty powerful man.

That was, pretty powerful.

Obviously, when they were discussing immigration and abortion was also very, emotional for both, parties, attending the debate .

So, yeah.

Interesting I mean, do you think these are sellable issues for people that they're watching this and they're going to say like, this is something that, you know, we're going to vote on and it's going to be the difference maker for them, that they learned something that they didn't already know from this.

No, I don't think so.

I mean, I think that most people, as you know, have a stance on immigration.

Most people have stands on abortion.

They issues become very complicated.

These issues were not discussed.

What was that?

An hour of a debate.

I mean.

It's impossible as somebody who is like a constant consumer of politics, I was happy to have an hour of this to make sure no issues that usually happen, but it did feel like it went by fast and like the 32nd, 62nd, 92nd kind of, you know, back and forth just doesn't get no really complicated features of this, which of course, again, just makes this a kind of talking contest.

But, I think that for Allred, his biggest concern is that you've got a lot of people who simply aren't voting.

If you look at the polling, basically, of the people who vote did not vote in 2022, which was a lot of Democrats, especially 51% for Allred supporters.

So he needs Nonvoters to vote.

That's really hard to do.

And the question is, did this make that happen?

I'm not sure.

He reminded people about January 6th and Ted Cruz, or he reminded people about Cancun.

He reminded people that this is a bomb thrower, not a not a diplomat.

Basically, in the Senate, people don't remember.

Right?

It's been too long.

And as you said, there's a lot of new voters who maybe aren't attentive to these issues.

Yeah.

So I don't know how much that strategy kind of move the needle when really what all red needs is just mobilization, correct.

That said, he's going to spend like millions of dollars on ads to get people to come out to vote.

Yeah.

So as you know, having watched TV in the last, you know, three weeks, there's just a ton of these ads, this is going to be a historic race.

We're talking about spending topping about 120 million.

That's going to be significant.

That's going to be probably outpacing every other state.

So, the problem, though, is that people like, are not convinced that that's going to be enough.

Ted Cruz, in particular, this week is complaining that the Republicans weren't giving him enough support.

They're getting support to places like Florida and Montana and even Arizona.

Is Ted Cruz being left behind by national Republicans?

Well, maybe.

And on the other hand, you have Allred, getting support from, you know, national Democrats.

Yeah.

So I think the Republican Party sees, Ted Cruz as a safe seat in the sense, like, you don't need help.

Yeah.

You're fine.

Just take a breath.

Don't worry.

You're going to be okay.

He seems really nervous about this.

He seems very nervous.

And probably he knows something.

I mean, the polls, as you say, they're wonky.

And some of them have, you know, him, winning by 2.53, etc., etc.. Yeah, that's very close to.

Close for you.

You don't want to be less than three weeks, starting the election in a position where you don't have a double digit advantage.

That's true.

So and I will say that the times where there has been this kind of dramatic party shift.

So in 1961, when John Tower, a Republican, takes the Senate seat and, for Democrats, it held since reconstruction in 1978, when Bill Clements wins the governorship, it's always been because the incumbent party wasn't paying attention.

So if it's going to happen, this would be kind of that set of criteria.

But I think.

This moment of history has been brought to you by Brian.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

This moment in history.

Right, right.

Yeah.

I think that that condition is there.

But again, it's going to take a lot of these factors to kind of fall into place.

And that's always the concern.

But to me is something that Ted Cruz is now asking for money from these national Republicans who complain specifically about Mitch McConnell, who's got like a $400 million war chest and hasn't given him a dime.

Well, I guess that's what happens when you call someone a liar.

Yeah, you're kind of de facto boss.

Like years ago when Cruz said that McConnell was a liar, I guess that the chickens come home to roost.

Maybe this is absolutely harmless.

Screaming very loudly, but he needs that money.

And if he doesn't get it, it could be a problem for him.

So absolutely, we'll see that play out as it is.

And we'll keep talking about this as it comes.

But one thing that happened this week that was interesting as well is at the very top of the ticket, and that's that Donald Trump turn DJ for a good portion of this rally in Pennsylvania.

He held effectively an impromptu concert.

This is the strangest thing.

You have to go and look at this.

But basically the town hall had devolved into, kind of just music like concert.

And there were some disruptions in the crowd.

Some people had medical issues which they were able to kind of quickly get through.

But former President Trump decided to kind of just end it and say, let's just listen to some music.

Yeah.

Is that the exact quote?

But it's pretty close to it.

And literally, as The Washington Post reports, for about 39 minutes, they just all listened to music and Trump kind of sways and dances a little bit.

What's going on?

I how do you take from I watch the whole thing.

Watched.

Oh yeah.

The whole thing.

You're just a huge like, like ABBA fan or Sinéad O'Connor.

He played Nothing Compares to You and he played James Brown.

It's a man's world.

Like.

Yeah, he's going to channel Pavarotti to, Right.

So I need, Shania O'Connor.

Right.

I got it, and it was.

Wait, what?

Yeah.

What is happening?

It was very odd, to say the least.

It was, Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor just applauding when you look at the images of you know, there's two young guys, in the audience, they don't know what to do.

And I think that that caught us by surprise.

It seems that, you know, former President Trump said, like, you know.

Yeah.

Why why is he.

Why more questions.

Yeah.

Well, as your two.

Points are here, more questions.

So let's play some music.

Yeah.

No you're right.

Like and I think as you say kind of this is the choir right.

Like they are the committed.

It's a cult of personality.

And he could do anything and this rally and they would love it.

And they did.

Right.

I mean, I don't know, you know, you could quantify this, but people liked it.

They stayed.

And so that's interesting to me.

But the question is to me, and the reason I bring it up is that there are concerns about the former president's mental status, the same kind of conversation we had about Joe Biden and his kind of behavior is certainly applicable to the the way that the kind of former president is acting.

In fact, Vice President Harris took a swipe at him for this.

Basically asking, is he okay?

Which is both kind and rude at the same time.

Right.

So I don't know how to sort of position this and think about this, because it's not something necessarily that's like quantifiable and our kind of ability.

But the former president is refusing to release some medical records that the vice president is doing, and she's using that as a political tool against him.

Do you think this is going to be a problem for him?

Like, are there moderate Republicans out there or leaning independents out there who look at this kind of behavior and say, this is seems strange to me, like, do we want this in our commander in chief in the Oval Office?

Oh, absolutely not.

And the same thing has to apply.

The same thing that was applied to Biden has to apply in this case.

I mean, on the one hand, you don't one, Biden, if he would have been reelected, fallen asleep on, you know, whatever meeting and you don't want, Trump if he wins in a meeting saying enough of this stuff, let's hear some music.

We're trying to brief you on the situation in Iran.

Like instead, why don't we just you know, put on some Merle Haggard.

Audio and see where we go with these, nice, relaxing music?

So, yeah, I think it's it's both are fair questions.

Yeah.

And I think that, yeah, it is something that people, you know, eventually will have to decide at the, at the voting booth.

Yeah.

As this all comes out because they're not going to be another debate that's really going to just be conceptualization through ads, and through the ground game, which is really important.

And obviously that's going to be a big factor.

And in Texas to where there's still a lot of politics to be had, we'll talk about races to watch in just a minute.

But, there's also some interesting developments that are happening with statewide elected officials.

This week, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller was subpoenaed to testify in a criminal trial to one of his, former political consultants.

This aide had been indicted on felony charges of theft and commercial bribery.

Basically, he's been accused of taking money in exchange for offering hemp licenses that are issued by the Agriculture Commissioner's office.

There's a history here of the two intermingling.

The relationship is pretty close.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that, basically, Smith had promised a business person, access to the, agricultural commissioner, Sid Miller.

Miller gave Smith's wife a position in 2016.

So there's no indication that Miller did anything wrong.

But there's certainly you know, the fact he's testifying here means that he's connected to this.

My question is, is this going to matter?

Like, do you think that this controversy is going to have a tangible effect on Republicans, but also specifically on Sid Miller?

I don't think so.

And you are the scandal expert.

So I brought it up.

So, yeah.

No, no, no, it's I know that you're asking me that question so I can pivot and say, well, you're the scandal expert.

Have a say.

Yeah, but I don't think so.

I think that, you know, Sid Miller has done, very, outrageous things in the past.

We had that.

What was that?

The Jesus, Jesus shot.

Yeah.

Which seems all the more, you know, as one ages.

Like, if he had a miracle shot.

You take it.

Oh, absolutely.

But he went to he went to, like, a rodeo on state funds, which eventually paid back.

Yeah.

Got the Jesus shot to basically cure all the maladies.

So, you know, he's he's he's he's not gonna really matter in terms of what happens.

I mean, it could matter if the investigation or even someone knows something.

And this is just one way of, you know, opening another avenue to that.

And that would be important because when you're subpoenaed to testify in their criminal trial, it's everything that you say, as people say, can and will be used against you all of a sudden.

Is that law and order episode like, yeah, which is okay too.

It's a very popular.

Show, and you have to tell the truth when you are testifying under oath.

Yeah.

So that's extremely, extremely, extremely dangerous.

That's a really good point actually.

And these ties do suggest some potential like connections that maybe they're trying to tease out.

It reminds me of the 1990s, as almost everything does, because great things happened in the 90s.

Sure.

As you remember.

I mean, even Trump is like, you know, playing on Sinead O'Connor.

So like 90s are back, my friend.

But, this happened to Jim Hightower, part of the reason he lost the race for AG commissioner and Rick Perry won was that there were these scandals inside the ag commissioner's office, and three of his aides ended up going to prison.

He wasn't involved, but the scandal kind of tainted him.

So.

But this is in a day when scandals matter.

And I think you're right that they don't matter as much anymore.

And so I think this problem is definitely something that he's going to have to grapple with.

But realistically, it's probably just a question of then kind of how good of an opponent you're going to get, right?

We know that, like you, if you're kind of scandal ridden, you're going to get a better opponent.

And so as a result, I think that probably that's going to I might hurt him a little bit, but that's in 2026.

Yeah.

Which is like an eternity away.

Right?

I can't even write the word.

Oh yeah.

That's so far.

Oh yeah.

That's a far enough.

That probably won't make a huge difference.

But, we shall see.

But let's talk about Texas and let's talk about legal issues around voting.

Obviously the state and we've talked about this a bunch of spent a lot of time revamping its voter law.

Senate Bill one.

SB one is really the kind of cornerstone of a lot of these sweeping changes this week, though.

U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez basically struck down another part of this law that did a couple of things.

One is that the requirement were, basically, for anyone to assist, a voter had to sign an oath under penalty of perjury.

And they also blocked a provision that restricted voter assistance on door to door outreach.

Now, he's chipped away at this over the course of the last couple of years, including mail ballot issues, and door to door canvasing for ballot initiatives.

So they've kind of eventually chipped away at this.

We're still litigating voting issues from 2021.

Is this going to have an effect on what happens in terms of voting in the next election?

Well, I mean, to a certain extent, because the main provisions here is that, these has chilled out voter outreach.

So given that now it's un-chilled.

Yeah.

Or unfrozen or less cold, let's put it that way.

I think un-chilled is a good.

Un-chilled.

Podcast, they used to consider a name.

Change.

Un-Chilled.

Un-Chilled.

And, I think that that allows especially these big campaigns, both for Republicans and Democrats to go all for it.

And I guess that that is going to have implications.

And the real implications here was about, you know, voting rights.

If you are a person with a disability or if you have limited English proficiency or literacy issues, etc., etc., then you can assist them.

But then you would have to find these, signed these affidavit and then that could imply releasing health information that is protected by but by law.

So bunch of other legal questions.

So I think, you know, it's good.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

And I we know that like, these changes have made material differences in terms of how people vote.

A lot of people of decided not to vote by mail, especially Republicans.

If you look at that distribution, you see a lot fewer people are going to vote by mail who are Republican than they used to.

So that's another kind of issue where you're going to see this kind of discussion about how people vote, as you know, related to the legal rights.

And SB one.

So we'll see how that plays out.

But let's talk about some races to watch because there are several, although the districts have been pretty well gerrymandered.

So we don't see a lot of competition there are couple I want we want to highlight.

And so one is, the Senate race in the Valley Senate District 27.

Tell us about that.

Well, it's very interesting because, Senator Lamantia has put a lot of money.

Like 10 million, 10 million families money.

Yep.

10 million bucks to make it competitive.

And It's a very interesting.

Race.

It's the definition and is on the one hand, when you're thinking about the ballot, when you're thinking about, you know, the border, it's very interesting to see because the city Democrat or the urban Democrat is not the same as the Democrat that you would expect in, the RGB.

Yeah.

RGB Democrats tend to be a little bit more, let's put it this way.

Conservative, not as conservative as Republicans or Democrats.

Border Democrats.

There you go.

So I think that that makes it a very interesting race in the sense of where the Democratic Party might go and also where the Republican Party might go.

Interesting.

When you look at, border Republicans, they tend to be, on the one hand, sometimes moderate, but then there's no space in between.

And then they jump to, you know, real Trump supporters, MAGA movement, build the wall in like.

Deportation.

Yeah, that's a great point.

I mean, then geography is important in this, too.

And I think you're right that this is a race that to watch because it does dictate the way Texas is changing.

It's becoming more urban.

And that's where Democrats are in the rural areas or where Republicans are.

So the counties like Nueces County, San Patricio, Kennedy counties are all rural and trending red the last couple cycles.

So that to me is going to be really interesting.

Presidential turnout, turnout is going to really help, I think, in this.

But the problem is that if Harris tanks with Latino voters, it's going to be really hard for them to proceed.

So, I think that again, you're seeing that play out here, former Representative Lucio endorsed Senator LaMantia, but his father, former Senator Lucio, it gets confusing.

Endorse the Republican opponent.

Yeah.

Adam Hinojosa again reflecting the fact that there's just a lot of ideological kind of crisscross here that may be useful.

But speaking of ideological crisscross, the last thing to talk about is that we are obviously in football season, and tailgating is a big factor here.

This week, Governor Greg Abbott and, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia are going to meet up.

It's going to be basically in advance of the UT Georgia game.

I'm sure we've got people on both sides who say it's a charge d'affaires, if you know what I'm saying.

But it's political because none other than Dade Phelan, who is the embattled speaker of the Texas House and a putative opponent of Greg Abbott, is going to be there, too.

How does this play out politically?

It's going to be very interesting.

I mean, just to see what's going to happen in that game.

And obviously Kemp vs. Abbott, in football terms, is going to be very, very interesting.

We'll see.

Hey, it's good we can all come together because let's face it.

We can all agree That we should beat Georgia.

Period.

Absolutely.

But, we're going to have those news next week.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The conversation keeps up next week.