<Music> Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

I'm Brandon Rottinghaus political science professor.

Just like Jeronimo, at the University of Houston.

This is our last show before the election.

Yikes.

A lot going on.

Obviously, everyone's talking about politics.

We want to make sure you've got some nuggets to be able to share and talk about with your neighbors and friends who are having Halloween parties, who are going to have election parties.

There's a lot that is at stake in this election, obviously.

Let's start kind of generally speaking, at the top and look at turnout, especially Texas.

We are in the middle of early voting, right.

We're recording midweek in the second week of early voting so things can change.

But obviously we got a sense of kind of where the vote is to me.

Early voting has got a bit of a Republican flavor.

The numbers aren't great from these big urban areas.

It's like the Grand Canyon.

It's high but flat, right?

Compared to 2020, the numbers aren't outpacing where they were.

That's not surprising.

2020 was a big year, but it's still the case that Democrats need that boost from the urban triangle.

Sure.

And also the fact that these urban centers have, incorporated more people, in terms of population, it has grown.

And so your denominator has grown again.

So in terms of real, actual votes, yeah.

It's up.

Not what you would be expecting if you want to be comfortable.

We still have a couple of days.

We still have election day, and that's where we're going to see the real battle royale really explode.

That's a great point.

Actually.

Democrats are really now looking at Election Day.

It's funny because a lot of scholarship suggests that minimizing election Day by having early voting actually minimizes the chance you're going to have more turnout.

And so not having Election Day as that big motivator in some ways actually minimizes turnout.

Overall, a lot of our colleagues study this very issue, but in this case, we're probably going to see about three fourths of Texas early vote.

That means Election Day won't have as many, but it's still critical for them.

Oh, absolutely.

They're going to probably have to make up some ground.

And it, of course will be a high turnout election.

It's it's a presidential that's not that's not a question, but really it's a question about who's turning out.

There are two factors I wanted to mention that make it a challenge for the Democrats.

And that is, number one, the gender gap in the 2020 cycle.

You had a much more favorable split in terms of gender for Democrats.

You had about 55% female turnout.

The early voting numbers here are more like about 51%.

So it's a small difference, but it's going to be a small difference in this election.

The other is the young vote.

You see a higher percentage of older voters at this.

Correct.

Now of course, again can change once Election Day comes.

But you see a lot more older voters than younger voters.

Democrats are hoping for those younger voters to come out because that's a natural part of their constituency.

But that's the name of the game.

It's all about turnout.

Absolutely.

And that's especially the issue with younger voters, is that over the years has grown, but it has grown at a glacial pace.

And that is, yes, indeed a very important problem.

And it's, remarkable because not only has or could have important implications, but also has implications for our democratic system.

Yeah.

Democracy is a game where everyone, should participate.

And the fact that some groups are abdicating that right is extremely worrying in the sense of you need to participate, get whether you vote for one side or the other.

Yeah.

What the final end game is turnout.

And that's a good measure of a healthy democratic system.

Yeah.

In 2022, like fully 9.5 million Texans didn't vote when they could.

Yeah.

And that number cannot be repeated.

Obviously that's a midterm.

So we don't want to see that again.

But that's the real fear for Democrats.

And the numbers are good.

Like I don't want to say that that's not what's happening.

But let's shift gears and talk big picture about what the Trump campaign and Harris campaign are doing.

Let's first talk about Donald Trump's closing arguments.

He kind of had two.

One was like PG, maybe PG 13, and the other was rated R. Yeah.

Watching the Texans game this last weekend, we saw like the big bold two minute Trump ad which are extremely expensive to run.

Yeah, it was well done.

And it hit really the themes that he wanted right.

Talking about immigration, talking about the economy, really demonstrating that like things were better under Donald Trump and will be better again under Donald Trump.

The cleanest argument I think we've seen.

So everyone cheered.

And then they went to New York, Madison Square Garden for a seven hour rally.

Yeah, that was ranging in the quality, quantity and, frankly, taste.

Yeah.

Where a lot of things happened.

We won't tick them all off.

But basically the rage fest included lots of discussion about massive deportation programs, discussions about immigrant invasion.

One rage comedian called the Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.

A former presidential congressional candidate who is friends with Donald Trump called Harris the Antichrist.

So you know the greatest hits?

Yeah.

Their greatest.

Hits.

So, like I said, kind of a tale of two closings.

What do you think is going to be the thing people remember or did none of it matter?

Well, I think we're in a position right now where if you're going to vote for Trump, you're going to vote for Trump.

Yeah.

Whatever he says or does doesn't matter.

He doesn't really.

That was my take too, especially on the Puerto Rico stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, you had we hear it in, in NPR, in Allentown, they had, Republican broadly.

President Trump was there and, you know, Republicans were saying, and Puerto Ricans were saying, yeah, he's human.

So if you're going to vote for Trump, you're going to vote for Trump, whatever he says.

So the mayor of Keller here in Texas was a Puerto Rican descent and said it doesn't bother me.

And so maybe it won't.

I mean, about 4% of people in Pennsylvania or Puerto Rican descent, no effect.

They are.

Oh.

There's going to be effect.

Okay.

Because if you're going to vote for Trump, there's no effect.

If you're not going to vote for Trump, either because you're independent, you're undecided or you're a Democrat.

Yeah, that is going to have an impact.

Yeah.

So the big question is which impact is going to be stronger.

So I'm kind of neutralizing the effect on Republican voters because that's no effect.

Right.

But on independents, undecideds and Democrats that can have a negative effect and positive effect for Democrats.

Yeah.

And the whole goal of the rally was to talk about which is odd at this late game.

Right, because it's really about mobilization.

But they had a new policy objective.

They were going to give tax cuts to home health care, which are an increasingly important part of the way that we deliver health.

Yeah, yeah.

This country and that got drowned out right.

Mean that's like paragraph ten after all of the other things, like Stephen Miller said about America being for only America.

And so there's this kind of constant churn of just chaos that I think that Republicans are either used to or in some cases, like.

But the issue here for me is that there's two different types of potential nonvoters.

One is that you might go and vote for Trump or Harris, right.

You're going to vote no matter what.

And then they're people who aren't sure they're going to vote.

And a motivation from a candidate might actually be the exact thing that they see.

And they think okay this is really for me right.

I don't know that you're seeing that as much from Trump.

Right.

The fact that you've got this kind of rage, grievance based politics means that those people really aren't going to be inspired to go vote.

They have to really be mad about something.

And maybe they are, but there's nothing really here that he indicated in the last sort of closing moment, which was sort of this is why you should vote for me other than just, you know, I'm not Harris or I'm not Biden.

Well, I think that's absolutely 100% right for once.

Yeah.

Thank you.

But it only took what how long?

We've been doing this.

Yeah.

It's just the election spirit.

Yeah.

Okay.

The feeling of unity.

So I think the Trump strategy is to get 100% sure that your base is going to go out.

But yeah, that's like super important.

Which is a question mark.

Right?

It's a question mark.

Young men won't vote.

Yes.

They've got to have them.

Yes.

But that's number one.

And I think that the next step in terms of non-voting is undecided, independent etc., etc..

They're just flipping a coin.

Yeah.

And see maybe we don't need them all.

You just need a couple of them, a couple of percentages here and there and not here and there in seven states.

Yeah.

And the rest you don't care about it.

So it's flip a coin but have your base have that very well solidified.

Then flip a coin and yeah let's see what happens.

Yeah I mean it makes total sense right?

I mean the scholarship on nasty politics in this kind of divisive language suggests that you see people who are outside of the system using it to try to say that they're going to disrupt the status quo.

So Trump has been an expert at this.

And despite the fact that he's being outspent on, you know, on every ad, right on every state is irrelevant because all eyes are on him.

You just can't look away.

And that's a big reason why he's able to kind of continue to be successful at this.

Let's shift ground and talk about the Harris campaign.

She delivered her closing arguments at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, with the White House as a backdrop.

American flags.

Yeah, I'm visualizing her in the office, I think is a useful strategy because it gave the campaign a sense that if there are people who are still not convinced that a woman can be president, or that a black woman can be president in particular, then this may be the kind of closing argument that they need.

But you tell me what you think.

Do you think this is like the this is an effective strategy from a symbolic point of view?

I think symbolically it helps.

The imagery was very powerful in the sense of very presidential, let's put it that way.

Yeah.

And images are summarized in a thousand words.

There you go.

Yeah.

Did you make that up?

That's good.

I'm gonna note that down here.

Yeah.

Perfect.

But then I think the the speech is a speech that, in my opinion, at this very late stage, needs to be a little bit more punchier.

Yeah.

And punchier in the sense of more aggressive.

Inserting a little bit.

Yes.

Hope.

Yes, of course that's important.

But a little bit of fear.

Interest.

Well, in order to counterbalance what, the Trump campaign is doing, the Trump campaign is using fear.

He's using migrants.

He's using the economy, is using, everything in their tool box to entice these fears.

If you don't vote for me, there's going to be chaos.

And the way that the Harris campaign is doing is he's doing it in in a way that is similar, but he's not clear enough.

Interesting.

They're using very, fancy words, let's put it that way.

Yeah.

In such a way that it's like, no.

It's not blunt enough.

Exactly.

That's a great point, actually.

And there is internal debate in the Harris camp about how to pursue this closing argument.

Right.

And there were people who thought that they should do exactly what you're claiming, which is to say we should hit Trump as hard as we can.

Yes.

And they have been for the past month or so.

Right.

And then this is kind of the last transition point.

She refers to it as sort of the transition and or difference between Donald Trump's, you know, enemies list and her to do list.

So it's a way, I think, for her to kind of magnify two things.

Number one, that like Trump is unfit for office, and number two, that, you know, she's going to be really in your camp, she's going to be in your favor.

So maybe that's the difference.

Maybe that's the kind of compromise.

But I have a feeling that you're right, that people want to see that kind of last minute, like, what are we really doing here?

And maybe it makes her closing argument look naive compared to his.

Right.

Yeah.

He says there's an invasion in the country going to hell.

And like, this is a terrible time.

Absolutely.

I mean, everyone's suffering.

And then she says, well, let's just look at my to do list, right?

Which is all about you, some of which will help, but not all of which will solve, like whatever problems he's talking about.

And he's probably exaggerating these, but it's still the case that people may be feel the kind of stakes are much higher than what she's allowing.

Right.

I just putting in simple terms, right.

When you think about, for example, price, gas, the price of gas, the price of gas has been decreasing inflation.

We're going to be, in the next, report about two, 2.1, 2.2%, the target of the fed.

So market's up and.

I wonder how many they're telling you about inflation.

Yeah.

How much are you paying at the gas pump.

Yeah a simple question a simple very simple very blunt without institutions are risk of collapsing on our values of democratic representative principles of these up.

Wow.

Wait.

Why?

Yeah.

Now I'm scared.

Hey, what are you talking about?

Right?

I don't even know what what what you're saying.

Yeah, it's a great point.

No, and I think I think you're right.

And, you know, she's got a lot of money to back that.

Oh, yeah, $100 billion they've spent, in broadcast ads in the closing weeks.

Yeah, that's a tremendous push.

And you have to think it's going to make some material difference.

Although people are probably a little bit, you know, kind of like, like done with ads.

The same was were done with text based text message.

Like, we'd love for this to be finished.

But yeah, obviously we're going to have to kind of slog through this for a little bit longer.

But I do think that's the issue for for them and honestly for her, she's got to get that coalition to come out.

And that's the that's the most challenging thing.

Barack Obama makes a similar point that you make, right?

He takes the strawman argument that says, people say that Trump helped me during the pandemic.

He gave us a check, write the stimulus check.

You know, Obama says, well, so did Biden.

But also, you know, we didn't take credit for it, right?

We just kind of the thing that we do to take care of our people.

But, there are still people who think that way.

And Obama's trying to kind of cut that difference.

So he's been a really effective surrogate.

But I have a question for you in terms of surrogates, and that is, where is Joe Biden?

Right.

He's still president, right?

Absolutely.

100%.

Is he not an effective surrogate?

Is he just a kind of, you know, appendage that you want to forget about?

What do you mean?

He's.

I don't think that the president is an effective surrogate.

The moment that you bring.

He has done some especially introductions, for Vice President Harris.

Here and there.

But I think that the Democrats, he's the right strategy, just keeping doing his job and, letting him his, his presidency and of story, the moment that you bring Joe Biden to the public, the Trump campaign are going to be thank you and are just going to go riding to it.

And they're very, very good.

And the fact that Joe Biden, we've seen in in all these polls.

Yeah.

When Joe Biden step aside, the Democrats increase their numbers.

Yeah.

If you bring it out is not a good, it's not a good strategy at this stage of the campaign cycle.

Feels like you're going backwards.

Yeah.

I mean, and, you know, Biden's approval ratings are like sub 40, like in the high 30s, which is not great.

Yeah, but obviously two that's not a kind of effective use of a public sense.

But as a Democrat he could be very useful.

Now, remember, he's from Scranton.

He's from Pennsylvania.

This is a sort of connection that he's got.

There are also stories that, you know, kind of democratic.

Catholics aren't as connected to the party or because they don't have that kind of same relationship.

So, you know, there's a kind of working class vibe that, to be honest, the Democrats have really either neglected or forgotten about.

That could be very important in a lot of these blue wall states that that she needs to win, but maybe even Texas.

Maybe Morris, back door, operative than facing the public, facing the camera.

A little of this, right?

Yeah.

Kind of smaller rallies and just events and things.

Yeah.

And I think talking to the right people, you know, in Scranton or Pennsylvania, I think that that it can have a, more significant impact.

Yeah, than going to these big rally.

And he's not he's not a great rally speaker.

I don't think so.

One on one, he's good.

Yeah.

You know, in contrast to, say, Elon Musk giving you $1 million to sign a play.

Jumping into the stage and that, you know, Red bull energy all over the place.

Yeah.

It's right.

Yeah.

But Biden can do that in a smaller feature.

I think it can really work.

Yeah.

But this week he did make a bit of a gaffe, as Biden is prone to do, he suggested in referencing this short comedian that talked about Puerto Rico, that he saw that kind of a problem about this was that, you know, that the only was garbage about this was the kind of supporters of Trump and Biden clarified by saying he wasn't talking about their supporters writ large.

Rather, these supporters who were making these terrible comments.

But still.

Yeah, you're right.

It's a kind of Hillary Clinton basket of deplorables.

Yeah, yeah.

Weird way to, you know, kind of slap with a back of your hand.

All these people who otherwise, you know, would potentially, in those situations, be Democratic supporters.

Right.

The erosion of the working class vote for Democrats has been steady but significant.

And that's a problem for them.

Absolutely not.

Coalition.

Absolutely.

Well, let's talk Texas.

The US Senate race is the most expensive in Texas history.

More than $166 million is being raised by Cruz.

And Allred that's an insane amount of money for any cycle, but least of all one where you're spending also billions on the presidential race.

Okay.

Give me your best closing argument here for Collin.

All right.

It's, 3, 3.4, 3.5 difference.

Anything could happen.

Anything can happen.

But once again, turnout in big urban areas.

Yeah.

So I think Albert needs to really throw all, all the meat to the, plate.

Yep.

Just throw everything.

Yeah.

Like Don than even think about it.

Just.

Oh, yeah.

Get the bucket, throw it and see what sticks and what sticks.

Great.

What doesn't stick?

Yeah.

Doesn't really matter.

Move on to the next town.

Yeah, exactly.

And really, pump turnout.

Right.

Really pump turnout in these key areas are going to be the Texas triangle.

And just focus focus focus in those areas.

Yeah.

And eventually hope that turnout is going to pick up for him.

And it could happen.

Right.

It could happen in the sense of having a split ballot.

Yeah.

People voting for Trump and important for Alfred or the other way around.

I'm surprised they haven't made that more an expressed kind of argument.

Right.

That say that you can vote for Trump.

And for me yeah.

That's a world that makes sense in this way because Ted Cruz is, you sort of uniquely unpopular.

I think you're right.

We haven't seen that much, but that kind of negates your ability to kind of have a strong argument that Democrats are, you know, really effective, at being Democrats.

Right.

But I do think that all Red has to pursue that coalition, right?

He's got to get the coalition of black and Latino, especially men on his side.

That is a challenge.

And it's been a problem for the party because the numbers have been drifting in a bad way for them.

So they've got to get those numbers back.

I think they will.

But as a long term trend, it could be problematic for them.

I mean, yes and no.

Because the gender.

Class part, the party, you agree with me?

That's the part I like.

I never agree with you.

You're always wrong about that.

The turnout gap is important.

Yeah.

And women, especially when you're thinking about, the Latino community, when are more likely to go out and vote.

So if men are not turning out to vote, it's okay.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

At the end is those numbers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they take that split.

Exactly.

Even despite the fact that they're not among the exact coalition.

Right.

And the same thing happens with African Americans.

So if you're losing them.

Sure.

The question is if you're losing them and then they're turning out to vote for Cruz, then you have a problem, right?

Which I'm not sure they will.

Right, is probably a nonvoting situation.

So that's my that's my guess.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about Cruz, because obviously he's got a big task ahead of him, too.

He's been complaining about not enough money being spent that, on his race.

His friend sort of came to his aid, Mitch McConnell spending a lot of money, especially on issues about transgender politics.

Do you think it's going to work?

We're going to find out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Very good.

I need answers.

I don't I mean, it's kind of, up in the air.

Yeah, maybe a little too late on the one hand.

And also trans transgender issues.

It's a very delicate, political issue.

It's very polarizing.

Number one, it's the time to handle it during an election year where it's everyone's very sensitive to all of these issues.

So it's very polarizing.

And it has much more deep implications, especially for families of, transgender kids and so on.

Then they put in to transgenders participating in sports.

That's also a complicated issue.

I think there's perhaps more consensus on that.

But then you revert back to the real substance of the issue.

And the real substance of the issue.

I think that, Cruz has not handled it well.

Right.

You may.

Not have to the right, because it's just a motivator for the base.

Right.

That plus the GOP in Texas is sending out mailers that suggested calling all red backs reparations for slavery.

He says this is not true.

They say the CDC or the Congressional Black Caucus is advancing these notions.

So again, it's a kind of extremism that they're trying to label on Collin Allred.

I don't think it's really working.

I mean, he's been really disciplined about his.

Oh, absolutely.

And I think he's got enough money that he can basically spend his way to making the case that he is a moderate.

Yeah.

And I think you're right that like for Cruz, it's a base turnout election.

He's got to get rural voters in particular.

So like this works for that.

Right.

That's what he needs.

Yeah we'll see how that plays out.

But that's going to be a marquee race.

But that's not the only one here on him.

Oh lots of things happening.

Oh yeah.

Down ballot.

Let's talk about Fort Bend County.

We've talked about this before.

But Taral Patel is the Democratic nominee for Fort Bend Precinct number three in the County Commissioners court.

He previously worked as a chief of staff for KP George.

He was arrested this summer after authorities said that he used fake social media accounts to post racist comments under his own page.

He's facing four felony counts.

He's facing a handful of misdemeanor counts, but he's still running for office.

Yeah.

Is this going to be a liability for him if you drive around Fort Bend County, as I know you do, because you live out there like you see his ad, his signs.

Yeah.

And then you see right next to it, like mugshot of him.

Right.

So people are out there reminding the, the voters about this, but I don't know if it'll matter.

I don't know either.

Yeah.

It's going to be, something that we're going to find out, of course, but it's, a very interesting, phenomena because you have had Democrats at the county level saying, like, you should step away, a couple of months ago, obviously right now it's too late.

Yeah, but that's going to be important.

And if he wins.

He's pretty telling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's it's almost like what?

Like how.

Yeah.

It's all about just partizan rigidity.

Right.

Exactly.

There's a good chance that it could still work.

But let's talk about partizanship beyond that.

The last few minutes here.

Let's talk about the Texas House.

The Republicans hold an 86 to 63 vote margin.

Greg Abbott thinks that the Republicans can flip about three Trey printing as Fisher, who's the Democratic caucus chair, says they can flip seven.

I think the numbers more like maybe two for the Democrats.

But what do you think?

Which districts are they think?

The ones that are most vulnerable to flip?

Well, there's a couple there.

You have 118 in in San Antonio is very interesting spending.

Millions of dollars on that.

Millions.

And John Lujan is the incumbent.

John Lujan, his incumbent.

And all that.

The end of the matter is regarding school vouchers.

And you have, very interesting, raising in the sense of how this is going to turn out.

Carranza the contender, he's just advocating for funding public schools.

And.

Yeah, and that became a race about abortion very quickly, too, right?

Lujan said he would basically make his daughter if she was hypothetically raped.

The to carry the baby to term.

That didn't sit well with Carranza and well, as you kind of Democratic voters, it's also a question about whether working class voters are still going to be in the Democrats coalition.

I want to talk about North Texas because there are some races in the Dallas County and in Collin County where I'm from, that definitely are in play.

Morgan Meyer is in a tough fight Angie Chen Button is in a tough fight against Avery Bishop, who is the former Miss Texas.

They're spending a lot of money on that race.

And whether Democrats come out in, that would be very telling.

Democrats hold the seat in House district 70, in Collin County.

Melissa is the incumbent, and that's going to be a telling story about whether or not the state's changing fast enough that it's going to have some coalition differences and some demographic changes that will benefit Democrats.

And on that note.

Wow, so much, so much going on.

We could do this forever.

We're going to we're going to find out what happens.

But remember, we have to be patient on election night.

We have to be patient with the results.

Not everything is going to be, as we are used to it on election night.

We may or may not know who is the winner is going to take time.

So and that doesn't mean that anything nefarious is happening.

It's just going to take time.

Let's be patient.

Yeah.

On that note, I'm Jeronimo Cortina and I'm Bra Rottinghaus out the conversation And the election keeps up next week.

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