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

I'm Jeronimo Cortina a political science professor at the University of Houston.

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

Thanks for hanging out, talking politics with us.

We're going to hope to get you prepped for this weekend's parties.

Hopefully they're spooky parties because we are in fall.

We are in Halloween season, indeed.

It's going to be pumpkin spice all the way, my friend.

Things are cooling down a little bit here, but things are heating up politically.

Yes.

Especially for the US Senate race.

Sadly, Astros were now the playoffs kind of way too quick.

Some people are still blaming Ted Cruz, right?

The Cruz curse, which we've talked about a couple times.

If he shows up, there's a good chance they're going to lose.

I hesitate to make a causal story, but, this is definitely in keeping with sort of the a kind of emergent interest in the Senate race, which is good, right?

Competitive races mean we're going to have high turnout.

And this week a lot of interesting things happened, right.

We'll talk fundraising in a second because both campaigns are raising major dollars.

But they also had interesting kind of cross Partizan promotion.

So this week, Ted Cruz got an endorsement from Kim Ogg, who is the district attorney here in Harris County.

She implies that, you know, he is worthy of our vote because she has been working with him on crime issues.

This week, also, former Tarrant County county judge, Glenn Wheatley endorsed calling all red.

Obviously, he was a Republican, but a kind of moderate Republican.

He explains that he thinks that Ted Cruz's lack of loyalty to Donald Trump, as well as lack of character when it came to, operating through the January 6th, 2021, kind of deadline, was problematic.

Do these kinds of cross Partizan promotions work?

Is it going to sway people who were in the middle, or even people who maybe you're on the fence?

Well, I think two conditions need to happen.

First, voters need to be informed, for instance, who Kim Ogg.

Is.

Right.

They need to be informed about her, you know, former or still, Partizan membership.

Okay.

If still I mean.

She she in the ad she identifies as a Democrat, okay.

And as the fair and as the, as the attorney.

So that's one.

And then they need to understand, Ted Cruz's political history in the sense of, you know, what happened with Cancun, what has happened with January 6th, what has happened, so on and so forth.

So I think that in order to have that change, they need to or voters especially those are kind of in the middle.

Yeah.

Would know if you are a, 100%, Allred supporter.

Doesn't matter.

They're not going to change.

And if you are a 100% Cruz supporter, it doesn't really matter.

Yeah.

This is going to be a race that is fought largely over independents.

And you and I know enough to know that like independents tend to be kind of slightly more likely to lean Republican.

They're more conservative.

If you look at their ideological breakdown.

But that's not to say that they won't swing and that they might not swing the election.

The numbers are pretty interesting.

The all red is winning independents 34% to Cruz is 27%.

So he's in pretty good shape.

But they're pretty close, right?

Right.

The thing is that that there are a lot of people who are undecided in this race, especially independents, a 14%, of them are undecided.

And that might mean that you could see one of these campaigns pick up some extra votes here.

We know from scholarship that independents tend to be most reactive to these kinds of ads when they're value laden, or when they talk about kind of big issues of the campaign.

So the crime issue is one, right.

The democracy issue on the other side is another.

So it may be that this sways the middle, but like at the end of the day, like we're talking about just handfuls of votes.

Yeah.

Which, you know, most of the time you are willing to kind of dismiss if you're a partizan and you're the campaign saying, we have other people we need to get out to vote.

But this is also a case where we could be talking about a few hundred thousand votes separating winner from loser.

So every vote matters in this way.

So they're fighting, clawing for this?

Yeah.

The the condition of these race is that is so close.

Yeah.

At every level.

Yeah.

That every single vote matters.

And we're going to see races down the ballot and potentially in, certain counties here in Texas where the Cruz Allred race is going to be decided by maybe, you know, a couple of hundred votes at most.

Yeah.

So that's going to be very interesting.

So I think that every single vote varies and independents, hold the key to the castle.

Wow.

There you go.

Okay.

Right.

The question is, are they going to get to wear the crown or not?

Because that's really the the puzzle.

And for these campaigns are looking for ways to mobilize their own voters.

But they also, of course, have to get people who are not committed.

Getting a not committed voter to vote is really, really hard and also very, very expensive.

So that's a big factor.

But it's not only commitment, it's how do you balance?

Yeah, you're rhetoric because you want to have, you know, the true party since going out and vote.

Yeah.

So your reaching out strategy is very different than that of reaching independents.

Yeah.

So it depends might be ticked off and say that's too much for me.

That's too either too liberal or too conservative.

Yeah.

So that's a key issue in terms of how to mobilize these voters.

And the real mobilization sort of linchpin here is money.

They are both the campaigns raising a significant amount of money.

It is an eye popping amount and really historic amount of money, even to this point in the cycle.

So this week, Colin already announced that he had a $30 million haul in this quarter, outpacing the $21 million that Cruz raised across his three accounts.

And the way that in particular, Al Red's raising money is reflecting, I think, a kind of real grassroots movement.

You've got, oh, almost 2 million individual contributions.

You've got campaign contributions from almost every single Texas county, which is hard to do since there's so many counties.

Right.

This is a big, I think, haul for him and obviously going to be useful.

As I said, this is the sort of almost a record setting amount of money.

Texas is an expensive place to run a campaign, as we've said.

But there wouldn't be money in this race if it wasn't competitive.

And that, I think, is clearly a reflection of the fact that this is going to come down to the wire.

Well, absolutely.

In addition, that the National Democratic Committee that did triple C, is going to put money from the national checkbook.

Yeah, into Texas buying that.

So, yeah, in addition to the 30 million and so far the 69 million that Allred has pulled.

Yeah.

Since that campaign began, it's going to be.

Yeah, a battle of, the mighty Dollar.

Yeah.

I hope you like seeing campaign ads, because that's what's in your future.

Every Texans game, every soap opera.

Right.

You know, every primetime show is going to have this, but it does reflect the fact that this is going to be very competitive in the issues are clearly motivating this.

So we're going to talk more about the kind of abortion issue because the Supreme Court's considering this.

We're going to talk more about money in, down ballot races.

But this is definitely a state where we're seeing a lot of attention, in addition to the fact that we're having, a lot of people come visit.

Right, a notable figure.

So we'll get into that in a second.

But first, I want to ask you about this this week, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, joined, calls, from other people locally and across the state to get Center Point CEO Jason Wells to resign.

Obviously, this is in reaction to the fact that the company more or less botched its response to Hurricane Barrel.

There were about 2.5 million people who didn't have power after at many for several days, if not weeks.

And there are 40 deaths that were associated with the hurricane.

Do you think that this is going to be an impactful, moment for center point?

Do you think you'll see a kind of transition here and or thinking about the big picture, how a sort of energy policy and you just power itself going to be a storyline for the next legislative session?

Okay.

So it's a very convoluted, question.

I that's why I asked, which requires a very convoluted answer.

Okay.

So I think there's two possibilities here.

On the one hand, the first possibility is that the business community would say, we don't like when the government meddles into who or who is not going to be our CEO.

So that could have implications.

That's, you know, a anti normal rhetoric that you would expect from the Republican Party in the sense of you do your staff, we do ours.

So that's a potential complication asking for resignation of a major company CEO.

Yeah.

Senator Point can say thanks for letting us know.

We're not going to do anything right.

We're going to note that here.

Yeah.

Let me just make a note here, put in an a post-it and then.

Yeah, yeah, leave it on the free.

We got 101 hundred.

The thing.

Exactly.

Milk.

That's option one, right?

Option two is the fact that the policy controls the distributions of, power, especially when we're thinking about all the competitive, retail areas in terms of transmission and distribution.

When you look at the Texas map, you see that there is a monopoly in very different regions.

You have Oncor, on the north part of the of the state.

You have, Texas, New Mexico power Company, obviously, on the border of Texas and New Mexico.

And then you have, AEP in South Texas and CenterPoint controlling the Houston metro area.

Yeah.

So which is why they don't have to respond.

Exactly.

But Dan Patrick is pretty powerful, not only just in terms of how he legislates, but also in the kind of, you know, the bully pulpit that he wields in this world.

So how do you think that's going to be?

But that's exactly right.

That's exactly the point.

Because CenterPoint has the monopoly of these regions.

So Lt.

Governor Patrick can invite the PUC to say you need to bring more people here.

Yeah.

And create a real competitive market.

And if that happens then CenterPoint loses a huge, huge customer base without doing anything.

Yeah.

Right.

And they would say, should I sacrifice the CEO to maintain the, you know, the monopoly.

Yeah.

Or should I just.

Right.

There were concerns, right.

Optically when the barrel came that with, you know, they had wells and interviewed him and on the background was his, like, thermostat.

The thermostat was set at 70 low, right.

Like, not conserving power.

And obviously this is just a, you know, kind of one off situation, but it does create a political problem for CenterPoint now.

So I think you're right.

And, you know, you don't want to make Dan Patrick mad, especially on this issue.

He is identified like 4 or 5 different key issues for power arrangements, for the manipulation and for the distribution of power in the next legislative session.

So he could easily flip a couple switches, get a couple piece of legislation that.

Would.

Light a fire.

Oh yeah, I think that could have meaningful impacts on this.

This is really kind of the first shot across the bow, right?

I mean, he kind of surprisingly shows up at this hearing, which normally he wouldn't do.

And the fact that he said this when he did is not coincidental.

Right?

This is definitely all planned.

So I think that we might see some big change as a result of this.

And the one thing we know about Dan Patrick is that when he gets something in his craw, he will continue to bite it until it's done.

And so I think that we're likely to see more of this.

And I think, you know, Dan Patrick, he's 100% right.

Yeah.

If we're going to have this thing, you knew that it was going to happen.

Yeah.

Communication was bad.

Preparation was bad.

Yeah.

And after, burial everything is bad.

So like the.

Hearing was not good for them.

Oh, no.

Absolutely not.

20 minutes of bashing, which is fine.

But the point here, I think, is that you also have to not only in terms of distribution and transmission, it's also the generation.

And that is something Texas is not part of the national power grid.

We're on our own.

Yeah.

So that is also a topic that needs to be addressed.

If you want to fix this issue.

There's like no failsafe.

This has to work.

And if it doesn't, then it doesn't work to ask questions about why we're not part of the national grid.

So I do think that's a great point.

Yeah.

And the question is like, then who to blame?

So Dan Patrick and the Republicans want to say, like, here's who we should blame for this.

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not true.

But like, at least it's the case that they're making like, hey, of this.

And that's going to be something that definitely we'll hear about.

But let's talk about the politics of Texas, because it is really becoming an epicenter for so many different political fights.

Right?

I mean, top of the ballot to the bottom of the ballot.

So we'll get into this as we go through the next few weeks because there's lots going on.

But at the highest level, I want to talk about the fact that we're seeing a lot of notable people, a lot of notable leaders come to Texas.

So last week, we know Greg Casar, who is a freshman member of the House from Austin, is running for the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair.

He had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, Bernie Sanders come to stump for him.

They talked a lot about health care and economic inequality issues, but guess who wasn't with them?

Collin Allred?

Obviously, the fact that you know already is a Democrat means that the big tent is going to have some people who are the left of him and to the right of him, mostly to the left of him.

And he doesn't want, I think, to be kind of part of this conversation, but not surprisingly, right within minutes of this happening, you had like, social media electrify with Colin already had, you know, paste it into a grouping of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Right.

And all the kind of left leaning Democrats nationally all read wants to carve off a moderate position for himself here, especially because Ted Cruz has been trying to say that, you know, he's too liberal.

Do you think that these kinds of things end up hurting Colin already?

Yes and no.

Yeah.

Because when you look at the electorate, you have to look at in segments.

So you have the progressive aisle, you have the conservative win, you have the middle of the road, wing of Democrats and Republicans.

So the strategy of all trade has always been be in the middle.

Yeah.

It's expensive to stay there though.

Right.

And so as we've seen as we just talked about, right.

It takes a lot of money and advertising to kind of maintain that position.

But he has the money.

He got the money.

And right, the DNC chair Jamie Harrison, is visiting in Texas, North Texas and already will be there for that, in part because like Harrison signs the checks he needs that money.

And it's hard to blame him, right?

Because again, as you say, like you need to have that money to maintain that pole position the minute you let that slip in, like you're connected to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, like you're too liberal for Texas, that's a hard position for him to be in.

So he's got to have money to maintain that.

Well.

One and the other thing I think is that Senator Cruz, he's very polarizing.

Yeah.

What either you like him or you don't like him.

Yeah.

There's no middle ground.

So the strategy of all right, I think he's trying to, you know, poke some holes.

Yeah.

In the I don't like Cruz, but I don't like liberals.

I don't like, you know, you know, more progressive kind.

Of Venn diagram.

Right.

Exactly.

Allred's, big head in the middle Exactly.

So you have that Venn diagram.

So you are trying to be as precise as possible.

And as you said, money is a big part, but also being consistent if he slips and say, well, you know, I like, Senator Sanders and Representative Cortez, I like them, I'm going to say hi.

Boom.

Yeah, you're.

Doom.

That's going to be in an ad like first thing tomorrow solely on repeat until Election Day.

Yep.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

And I think that that's why it's such a delicate dance.

Right.

But at the same time, the money matters, right?

And of course, there's a bigger picture here.

So in addition to the fact that we had these sort of liberal notables come, we also have had conservative notables come.

Speaker Mike Johnson of the US House of Representatives was visiting South Texas this week.

He came to the 15th Congressional District, which is a district that's potentially in play.

This is a district that's, held by Monica de la Cruz.

It's being challenged by, Democrat Michelle Vallejo, who is running again for the seat.

It was pretty close on 2022, which was an odd year and a good year for Republicans here in Texas.

He's here to raise money.

Obviously, they did that in pretty big numbers.

And I guess the question is this signifies what to the national story of Texas in the political sphere.

Well, there that is it's in flux.

I think that the way that we're seeing these, especially when you go into South Texas, when you see the La Cruz versus Vallejo race, I think it's very interesting because Michelle Vallejo has taken, for example, on immigration, you know, a more conservative position, a more conservative position that aligns with not what the party was two years ago.

Right.

So if it was close, then, you know, potentially is going to be close.

De la Cruz has raised a lot of money.

A lot of money raised.

Yeah.

By the way, that's also raise money, not the same base, but to make that race competitive.

So I think that the signal is Texas is in play one way or the other.

Yeah.

And if you look at the full map, right, the number of seats that are potentially toss up seats for the US House are probably in the order of like a couple dozen, right, maybe 24, 26 different seats.

Republicans have incumbents and about 15 of those, including this seat.

The Democrats are looking to try to undo that.

Obviously, they want to take back the House, but that's going to be a difficult math for them to accomplish.

So Republicans need to save this.

So yeah.

So Mike Johnson, right.

The most notable, most visible Republican in the House is going to come here to try to raise money, which they did in big numbers.

Right?

They raised multiple millions of dollars.

And that's been distribute across like the different races there.

But this is definitely going to be a pretty compelling race.

And I think you're exactly right.

Like Texas politics is so national now, but the border hasn't changed that much.

Michelle Vallejo, the Democrat running for the seat, identifies herself as a border Democrat, which is really interesting because it's a conservative version of the Democrats.

Right.

So this is a good example of that, right?

It goes on.

This is another example of that.

And I think that's completely right, because the lack of knowledge about the border dynamics, it's a completely different community in terms of politics, in terms of, you know, economic activity in terms of cross cultural, transactions with Mexico, etc., etc.

it's a completely different thing that the way that I think she's represented herself is, you know, what is should be done in terms of really catering to that particular community.

It's really interesting.

Yeah.

So we'll see how that plays out.

That race is one of the most nationally competitive ones.

And so the fact that's here in Texas is really interesting and telling, because this is a state that definitely is going to get some national attention.

But speaking of attention, let's talk about corn dogs and firearms.

Okay.

Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, really, really, really wants people to be able to carry guns.

Yes.

At the state fair of Texas.

Let me give you the background here.

The latest of this, which is really the kind of end of the story, is that the Texas Supreme Court basically denied the attorney general's request to have an emergency filing overturn the state Fair of Texas's policy that bans firearms on the fairgrounds.

The justices did this in a fairly rude way.

They were very dismissive of the attorney general's arguments.

But politically, what the attorney general asked for, basically, was that he argues the policy violates an individual's rights to be able to open carry, which is what sort of state law notes the fairgrounds has its own policy, which is limited to only people who rely.

As a nonprofit organization.

Exactly on profit.

And that's the key, because the law had been that they could make their own rules on this.

Now, the attorney general, yanked back, a prior, statement about the kind of legal out legality of this, and eventually that's kind of why the litigation is transpiring.

But basically, the long short of it is now that the state fair can set its own policy here.

But Ken Paxton has vowed to fight on.

He says that he's going to take this to the legislature and ask them for clarification and to have essentially nonprofits have to follow the same rules as every other, sort of public place.

To me, obviously, it's about the kind of conservatives of Ken Paxton, but it also is a story about the future election of Ken Paxton.

This is a try out, it seems, for running against John Cornyn in a primary in 2026.

So I hate to get to the next election before we even finish.

Thank you.

But oh that.

Is happening.

That are you were going to stop.

Yourself.

I'm not going to stop okay.

No, you're going all in on my friend.

But like think about the big picture, right?

Because what happens today is going to affect what happens tomorrow.

So to me this is a sort of, you know, potential like try out for that or for maybe a Trump administration, right?

Attorney General Ken Paxton may want to be, attorney general in the next version of.

I don't think so, but fair enough.

Okay.

Maybe you.

Don't think so.

I mean.

You think he just wants people to carry guns?

No, no, no, no.

Of course not.

I mean, I think it's an audition, but on the 26 question, I think it's extremely risky.

And, and and once again, because I think that they're deviating from that sacred line in terms of governmental intervention.

And we have had the government intervene in so much stuff, okay.

That in theory, should not be intervene.

You think they've gone too far?

I think, I mean.

Okay, let me ask you this.

Another thing has happened this week was that the attorney general is also suing TikTok.

Right?

The state law basically says that the these organizations, social media or companies have to comply with the age requirements, right?

They have to have a kind of check on this.

Paxton's allegations is basically that the company's not doing this.

This is actually in keeping with several other states, like New Mexico and Texas, who are doing something similar.

Right.

To me, the kind of online safety issue is a bread and butter issue that Republicans, including Ken Paxton, can win on.

So, yeah, he's using this.

Platform to be able to, I think, effectively prime that.

So to me, I think it is something that's sort of although it's intervention.

And I think in a way that you mentioned, I think it's also useful because people might want it.

Yes.

But it's a different intervention.

I mean, I think that, you know, one of the thing is we need to replace CEOs.

One of the things we need to infringe on nonprofit rights.

Then private corporations, private companies, at the end, it's going to be, well, now, if you want to go, you know, open carry to H-e-b, you can do that.

And, you know, there's some, supermarkets.

that say, "No!"

I mean, you can conceal fine.

You cannot open carry.

Period.

Yeah.

So why?

Because I'm a private corporation and I decide these.

Interesting.

Okay.

When you're talking about minors, that's a completely different ballgame.

And I think, as you say, yes, they do have a case there.

And I think that's a very good case in the sense of, you know, protecting minors against, you know, predators and many other potential issues.

So I think that has, a very important case and they can win it if they present in such a way, like, look, yeah, this is the right thing to do.

Yeah.

And I, I agree with Paxton on, on the, on, on, on TikTok.

And however TikTok replied that we are complying with Texas, so we don't know what you're talking about.

And the Supreme Court is going to take this case later in their term.

They just started their new term, and one of the last cases they'll hear will be on this very issue.

So we'll see how this plays out.

But let's talk about the Supreme Court, because they left this week in place a lower court decision that essentially barred a merge emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas.

This is in sort of keeping with similar kinds of cases where the Texas Supreme Court essentially struck down a lower court ruling that clarified when abortion exceptions could be made for medical emergencies.

Essentially, this is a win for Republicans.

To me.

Now they own the issue, right?

I mean, not that they didn't before, but this is really cemented sort of that role.

And I think if you watch the ads, especially Allred's ads, he really wants to go in to say, like, Ted Cruz is part of this.

In the ad, you see Paxton and you see Patrick.

So they're definitely trying to tie this together to all of these Republicans bundled.

And the Supreme Court really isn't helping here.

So.

Oh, no, definitely going to be a major factor.

Oh this is a win for Democrats all the way.

Republicans.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Oh you mean for Democrats.

Oh absolutely.

Because you think that it's a motivating issue interest.

Oh absolutely.

100%.

A policy win for Republicans but a political win for Democrats.

Absolutely.

Interesting.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah I mean I agree this is this is something that they're going to milk in every single ad.

Yeah.

Look at the Supreme Court.

He's against your rights etc., etc..

But I think it's a political win for Democrats.

And the Supreme Court just gave it to them.

Interesting.

Yeah.

No, I think you're right.

But especially because they're able to tie this to health care.

And that's something that really is sellable.

We saw that work in 18.

We saw it work in 20.

And I think it's going to work in 24.

But we'll watch the polls.

We'll watch the turnout and we start voting pretty soon.

We start voting pretty soon.

So don't forget to vote.

Registration has gone, come and gone, come and gone.

But voting starts very soon, and we'll keep you updated in the next week or so.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

Thanks for listening.

More Party Politics next week.