Yeah, we have plenty, plenty to work from.

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

I'm Caroline Cortina.

Political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm in a writing house, also a political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out with us and talking politics on a week where, like, a lot of people are kind of constitutionally unable to work.

The shutdown has limited the role of many financial or many federal workers.

Some are working without pay, and are still hoping a paycheck will come.

We'll talk all about what the shutdown means, and sort of the implications politically for it.

But the big news of the week is that we have a new combatant in the chat.

That's Wesley Hunt, a member of Congress here from Houston, who decided to jump into the crowded primary for the Republican side of the U.S.

Senate race.

Are you surprised?

Well, not really.

I mean, we were anticipating these a couple of weeks ago.

Remember, there were some polls that he released his steam release saying that he could be number two.

Yeah.

Real subtle.

Right?

Right.

In a three way race.

Also, he has done a tour across the state to increase that name recognition.

And, you know, he's just saying that keeps the conservatives outsider.

Yeah.

Member of, the coalition.

Yeah.

And best friends with Donald J. Trump, which definitely helps.

Trump, which definitely helps.

This is going to shake things up in a way that is, I think, potentially very instructive in terms of what the Republicans are up to.

But I'm not surprised.

I mean, you know, we've been telegraphing this for a while, and obviously he's not a congressional lifer.

Those people act differently than people who have career ambitions, and he definitely has that.

So you can certainly see that opportunity there.

But we're talking about a real smash mouth primary now.

Obviously it got probably ugly between Cornyn and Paxton.

Their unfavorable are insanely high.

And obviously there's a lot of discontent about who should win and why and how much money it's going to cost to either win the seat or defend the seat.

And so it's just a lot of, kind of discontinuity here.

What do you make of the kind of theory of the case here?

Why is hunt in position to win this race?

I think he sees an opportunity.

And that opportunity is, as you just said, the the negative numbers that both Cornyn and Paxton have.

Yeah.

It is a very divided Republican primary.

Cornyn represented, one way or the other, the, kind of, nouveau establishment, going, or issuing into the ride a politician that has had a, you know, centrist career, since he's starting the Senate, working on both, with the other people on the other side of the aisle, passing legislation on legislation, especially when it has to do with gun control.

And then going, his way out to side with President Trump.

And then on the other hand you have obviously AG Paxton 100% committed, 100% Trump supporter.

Some scandals that you said last week you had to help him, to do fundraising.

And then I think he sees an opportunity.

But this opportunity is going to be conditional on party support.

Yeah.

The Republican, party said like hunt, do not enter the race, please.

That's a vanity project.

Yeah.

Like, don't do it.

Yeah.

And he did.

Yeah.

Republicans have made their pick.

Array.

Right.

The National Republican Senate Committee has already spent, you know, tens of millions of dollars on John Cornyn.

They're prepared to spend even more because their fear is that if Cornyn doesn't win the primary and Paxton wins that, then they're going to have to spend a lot of money to defend the seat.

I think they have has been a lot less money of Wesley Hunt wins.

But and maybe even if Cornyn wins.

But I think that's sort of unknown right now.

There's just a lot of things that are in flux.

But there's a potential opportunity here for Democrats where if this primary gets nasty enough, there's a chance that the Democrats in a basically in a seat where it would open if Cornyn didn't win.

And it's nasty because of the primary fight.

And even if you know, Paxton wins.

If Paxton wins, then I think you're talking about a very sort of potential sort of open moment here for Democrats to move in there and say, look, you know, they're governing through chaos.

The Trump factor is.

Him, right?

You you know, here are some alternatives to that.

And plus health care.

But that's a winning strategy potentially is like your kind of formula right.

Right.

2018 2.0 yeah.

And we saw it.

You have the right Democratic candidate.

And eventually you can pull the race.

And if you are severely wounded.

Yeah.

From the primary.

Yeah.

No more money.

The Republican Party like oh we have too many holds open and DC's, remember.

President Trump is a very, very polarizing figure.

Yeah.

Either you love him or you don't.

So in this case, the 2026 midterm election is going to be very competitive.

Yeah.

You know Cornyn was mad about it.

The entry of hunt and for good reason obviously more competitive.

Yes.

That he's going to have to sort of split that vote.

Paxton sort of said welcome to the race.

But I actually think that hurts Paxton more because Paxton is going to have to make sure he solidifies the anti Cornyn vote and the kind of very conservative vote, mostly the sort of Trump conservative vote that's kind of his to lose.

And now there's a chance he could lose it because yeah here's Wesley Hunt that comes in and says I can be this alternative to this chaos happening here, the establishment.

It's not winning.

That's something that's been problematic.

And you've got Ken Paxton who's got all this ethical baggage.

I'm sort of an all you kind of an opportunist here to jump in and make this happen.

So there are, I think, some potential moments there.

But does it mean they're not trying to campaign?

Right.

Ken Paxton this week announced he's engaging in additional undercover investigations into Antifa groups.

John Cornyn has indicated he's got 10 million cash on hand after raising more than $3 million.

So the campaign continues.

What do you make of kind of the state of the race?

Like, what's the first thing that hunt is going to do to be able to kind of move the needle?

He needs money.

Money?

Yeah, a lot of money.

Yeah, a lot of money.

Well, first of all, name recognition.

Even though he has been doing toys, he, was a speaker in the Texas Youth, conference.

So on and so forth.

He still needs, a lot of money.

Yeah.

As a candidate, I think, especially given, the party in Texas and the and the primary voters.

I think he's an interesting candidate.

Right.

In terms of what he's bringing to the table, congressional experience, more or less.

But as an outsider, yeah.

Yeah.

A better and, conservative.

So on and so forth.

And he's a lot younger than oh two in there.

Oh, yes, that.

Matters because for people trying to kind of execute the strategy that implies that this old guard is not doing enough, that's the young Turks who are going to make a difference.

This is I you.

Need to be.

A visual.

Yeah.

You have to actually be that young.

Yeah.

Not like us who just say that we're.

Right where we can pull it.

Off.

We could barely.

Maybe.

I mean, occasionally, no, because I think we're very, very.

You're.

If you take into account the mean the average age in the Senate where we'll be very junior.

Okay.

Good.

No for that.

Yeah.

We're we're definitely young.

Yeah.

But for hunt.

Right.

He's got a young family.

Oh he's sort of super cute right.

And like he can make this case I think that he has this sort of, you know, approach.

And also in contrast to Ken Paxton who's had marital troubles, right?

There still is controversy about whether or not they're going to unseal the divorce records.

He can basically prevent or present this sort of third way.

And he needs it, like you say, you know, money's an issue.

He's going to have to start raising money immediately.

His like, sort of general polling is about 20%.

Right.

Most polls that have got him in the three way race have him at about 20%.

The matchups with, calling all red that were done before Talarico was in the race had hunt doing pretty well, even winning in some cases.

So he's in a pretty good spot right now, but he's going to have to improve that because his on Favorables, although much lower than Cornyn or Paxton, which is good.

Is are very low.

Like there are 45% of people don't know enough to say whether they favor or don't favor him.

And that's not a good position to be in, especially when the primaries kind of right around the corner.

Right.

This is like a sprint, right?

We're mid-October right now.

There's the government shutdown, which is soaking up all of the initiative.

And politically speaking, he's going to have to really step on the gas.

Oh, yeah.

If he's going to be able to.

Oh yeah.

To March.

Yeah.

So that's one issue.

Yeah.

Cornyn has got his coalition and there's certainly the case that he can bring those voters out.

And I think he's not that he shouldn't be as worried, frankly, because Hunt and Paxton will split that conservative.

Yeah.

And so I think that he probably is not as worried.

But there's definitely the case that there is some, you know, consternation with more and more competitors.

Yeah.

So we'll see.

I guess the kind of last question really on this is what's Donald Trump going to do?

He's close to all of them in different ways.

They've all sidle up to him in unique ways, as many do in the Republican Party.

What do you think he's going to do, Wolf?

I don't know.

Yeah.

It's he's a little unpredictable.

I think he would say charitably.

So.

Yeah.

I mean, he can go either way.

Yeah.

But I think maybe he might stayed out of the primary.

Yeah.

And then throw everything to the general election.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what you would expect, I think if any of the three wing the, the Republican primary.

Yeah, they're going to have, the support of the president, but in this one is, I don't know.

It's a, it's a tough one for Trump because you don't want to back somebody who ends up losing.

And that is difficult as a narrative.

The thing is that a messy primary can be pretty debilitating for a party.

Like you said.

I think that once this gets to the general, it'll be a whole new ballgame.

And if you're damaged from the primary, then it could have a definite issue for those sort of candidates.

Trump has been willing to clear the primary fray.

In other cases, like in, New York.

He did this in Michigan.

He did this when they had kind of a competitive Senate race.

Trump took sides and it did clear the field.

So it's possible he could still do it, maybe.

And the fact that, like hunt on the campaign website, the very first thing you see is he and Donald Trump.

Yeah, it's a pretty good indication of like how powerful Trump's, nomination, or kind of nod would be here.

So the white House didn't wave off hunt from running, which also is pretty unique.

I mean, they they, you know, could have said, no, don't do it.

We need to have this fight out as it is.

We need you in Congress so you can keep working that, they didn't do that.

So, you know, you know, I don't think this is an endorsement, clearly, but it's definitely not a a. No, don't do it.

A negative endorsement.

Yeah.

Negative endorsement.

That's good.

Yeah.

There you go.

Which, which, which can also be pretty.

Pretty useful.

Yeah.

The only other thing to note here is that this means that you've got yet another member of Congress from Texas.

That's not going to be back.

Right?

We talked to this a couple weeks ago, but you add him to the list of Michael McCaul.

And then we're going to trail who's not right back.

Only four members of the 25 Republicans currently in the House are people who've been there before Donald Trump was elected.

So it's a pretty thin cabinet full of Republicans.

And that does have implications to how the, sort of Texas is able to generate, you know, the kind of policies and you know, bring home the bacon, as it were.

So lots of that concern is interesting.

But let's talk about Harris County a little bit.

This is, a unique moment in the county because you have Judge Doggett, who's not running.

And we've talked by over the last couple of weeks about just what that political storyline looks like.

This week it was reported that she left a budget meeting early to go to a concert.

This was in the heat of the budget battle that we have been talking about, and it's been confirmed that she left in August to go to this concert, like kind of a bit of in a huff.

What do you make of this in terms of really like her legacy?

Right.

We had a discussion about this, but of course she's still in office and they're still fighting these big battles.

What does this mean for her in terms of like, the kind of legacy that she's leaving in Harris County and for her political aspirations?

Right.

Well, I mean, remember that she arrived at the county basically not expecting to win.

Yeah.

It was 2018.

You have these, blue wave, Trump time, so on and so forth.

And everyone was like kind of expecting, that she would solidified, Democrats, winning in the count.

Yeah.

Very young, very well prepared.

But perhaps, not a seasoned politician.

Yeah.

Also, the type of politics in terms of the county are very interesting, right?

Because everything you can County commissioner has his own precinct.

And there are the ultimate, rainmaker is in the precinct.

Yes, but they also control one way or the other.

Commissioners court.

Yes.

And the judge, there has not a lot of political power or power per se in commissioners courts in every single county.

Texas.

Yeah.

So in order to make your agenda move forward, you need to be a very skillful politician.

Yeah.

The thing here is that, you know, I had a majority with Democrats in Commissioners court, but still there was a lack of, I think, political maneuvering.

Yeah, that alienated, all, her potential allies.

So I would say that it's a, it's a mixed, legacy because on the other hand, you have more transparency in county government.

Obviously Covid, she navigated the the county out of Covid.

There were some, I would say, people criticizing her because, she didn't open the county once.

It was, everything was open, so on and so forth.

Right.

So I think, it's mix in that regard.

Yeah.

And then these political battles at the end of her term that, for some people may be, raising their eyebrows, but other people may see is like, she's just very passionate about these particular issues in this case, issues in terms of the budget regarding childcare.

Yeah.

And she just got frustrated.

Yeah.

No.

And everybody does.

Politicians certainly, you know, have to face opposition.

But how you do it really matters.

And I think that this dustup with the other commissioners kind of risks undercutting her legacy.

And as you said, there's a lot of wins here you could point to, but there are also some high profile losses.

And I think that becomes an issue so that the danger is both in the lasting impression of her kind of unprofessional behavior, but also the very real policy losses, right, that she wasn't able to get kind of consensus on.

Yeah, in a county that is blue enough that you could probably find that.

So that's definitely kind of problematic for her.

This comes in a week where she is asking for transparency.

After an audit showed the Harris County Flood Control District allegedly failed to implement a reform program.

In addition to reporting this week from, our friend John Lomax, as a U-h grad, go Cougs.

Who said that half of Harris County commissioners, high dollar contributors are made by individuals and firms working with the county.

So she's trying to make this corruption argument in a time where that's a useful, I think, wedge for her, because she came in saying, I'm not going to take this money.

And she's and as she did.

Yeah.

And so to her credit, she's able to raise a lot of money beyond that.

But there's still, of course, the sort of the capacity to work with other people and make that kind of as a storyline.

And I'm wondering how you think about this.

You kind of already answered this to some degree, but somebody asked me this week if they thought that she had a political future.

When she came in, the expectations were very high.

Yeah, she had national publications coming to Harris County saying, this is an amazing win.

You know, this is a really interesting kind of moment.

She's the kind of candidate that really kind of represents the future of the Democratic Party in some ways.

And now she's leaving after a couple of terms to some degree in this kind of, you know, chaotic moment.

I don't know if there is a future here.

I mean, if there is, it has to take some time, you know, to kind of percolate a little bit.

Right?

I mean I think that she's, not seeking reelection because probably she knows that she might lose.

Yeah.

So if you retire.

You think she would lose in a Democratic.

Primary?

And only in a Democratic primary.

Not in the general election.

He's going to be very competitive.

Okay.

Right.

I think so, right?

Yeah, I can see that.

Maybe, well, depends.

Right.

But do you want to leave in your own terms and then seek a path?

Yeah.

In terms of what she, you can do, and she has had, you know, eyes on national politics.

Yeah.

Eyes on, I would say a bigger arena.

I think that county politics or city politics are not well suited, given how, we operate in Texas.

Interesting.

And maybe going to the DNC or going to Washington.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And, you know, we'll time will tell, of course.

But as it is now, I think there needs to be a bit of a pause here.

And there needs to be an assessment of kind of what went well and what didn't go well.

And, you know, politics change really fast.

And so you never know what's around the corner.

Speaking of running for office and maybe not being able to run for office, let's talk about what the Texas Republican Party is doing to its own members this week.

The Texas GOP is considering censoring ten Republican lawmakers, including the speaker of the House, in a move to bar them from office.

The internal party rules that they have passed says that if you're censored by three fourths, of the, of the the county right then of that SDC members, a sort of ruling, you know, kind of, you know, hunched over the party's line.

Then you are not eligible to run and that the county commissioner or the county, chairs and the state chair can basically prevent you from being on the ballot as a Republican.

Yikes.

Are they going to go through with it?

I guess is one question.

And the other question is like, is this legally permissible?

Well, I mean, I think, I think it's it legally permissible because you can run without, you know, the backup of the Republicans, right?

Yeah.

But they're not going to win.

Probably.

No.

Well, no, but I mean, you can still run if you and I decide to run tomorrow.

Yeah.

We don't need a political party to run.

I'd vote for you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Two votes, one.

What do you vote?

You can vote for yourself.

That's 100%.

Why wouldn't I?

Yes, exactly.

That would be embarrassing.

It would be embarrassing.

Yeah.

You lose by one vote.

Yeah, but.

But the whole idea is, That is the nuclear option, right?

Ban you for running the primary.

But, like, the keys have been turned like I do is push the button like they're very, very.

Close.

They are very close.

I don't think that they won two.

Say you're the speaker of the House when he has been, passing all these very clear legislation that aligns with, I would say with the conservative priorities of, the Texas GOP.

Yeah.

So I think that would be like just creating a storm when you don't need to create a storm.

And if you don't censure the speaker, then therefore you cannot censure everybody else, or you can say, like what you did is wrong.

Please don't do it again.

Yeah.

First warning or whatever.

Yeah.

I think this is your first.

Warning, right?

They can do that.

And that's, within the the rules, right?

Right.

But I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

And what they're censoring them for is a range of different things, but basically, sort of, first of all, supporting a platform that would allow for Democrats to be like in kind of county in chair roles.

Right?

So it's like a light version of what was.

But they're still concerned about that.

But again, like these are long kind of moving periods where like they had talked about this months ago and now the legislative session has come and gone and it's like a pretty conservative session.

So like the some of the teeth has been taken out of that.

But realistically there's still a lot of dissent inside the Republican Party.

So I don't know if it's going to work or not.

But you have a lot of things that happened in between that I think mitigate this for sure.

Alex Ferret, who's a huge Republican donor, came in and said, I'm going to spend $20 million helping people who get kicked off the ballot, if that's what you pursue.

There's a legal test here that's of interest.

Jeff Leach, who is from my hometown of Dover, basically said, I'll see you in court.

And there's a good chance that, like the courts may say, that the parties don't have the capacity to tell people they can't run in a particular way, although there's a chance that they could say that parties do govern this.

And so they have control over their own membership.

Yeah, that would be a pretty remarkable kind of legal outcome, right?

It would change the way the Texas functions you.

Texas is not a very strong party state, but they are a strong party state in the sense that there are these purity tests that are put into effect.

So the legal status here is still a little kind of unclear, but it would certainly force in the future members of the legislature and really any party member to toe the line.

And if you don't, then you're in big trouble.

But the people who write these laws, people who put these kind of policies into effect, are very small group of donors.

Yeah.

And or very small group of, of activists.

And so that's really a rare, I think, kind of way to approach a party, right.

To have a very inclusive, very insular way of looking at things.

That could be troublesome for trying to figure out how to move forward.

So there's a lot of, I think, controversy on this.

And we'll see how this plays out.

But controversy abounds.

Right.

We're in the middle of a government shutdown.

How does this end?

Oh, I don't know.

Do people care that the shutdown is happening?

I mean, so far, no.

So far, no.

The markets seem to be ignorant about what's going on here, and they're.

Willfully unwilling to kind of address it.

Yeah.

It's, I think it's like, been there, done that, like, we'll see.

This thing is going to come up today.

Yeah.

But eventually it's going to start affecting people.

It's going to affect them in terms of, traveling plans is going to affect them in terms of getting to the airport.

Yeah, he's going to, you know, potentially bring some, reducing their space because you don't have people and, it has those consequences.

And eventually maybe, Social Security checks are delayed.

It cetera.

It's, you know.

Military members aren't going to get pay starting October 15th, Berwick and Port shut down because there weren't enough air traffic controllers.

That has a trickle effect and potentially problematic.

Yeah, the entire airspace, as you said.

So these are all really worrisome things.

Republicans are trying to stick to the line.

But Donald Trump, as we said specifically last week, needs to stay on message.

And he wasn't right.

Yes.

He's been talking about how, oh, he would work with the Democrats and was working with the Democrats, which wasn't true.

But their goal was to, you know, kind of at least open up that dialog.

So they're talking about talking, which is good.

But, you know, the fact that he's saying that he's also going to furlough a bunch of workers or fire a bunch of workers permanently.

It's also kind of off message here, right?

Which was supposed to be like, we want the government as it was just to push that down the road.

Republicans don't have to justify that too, which is more complicated.

The Democrats, I think, are still in better shape than Republicans right now.

I think the polling still indicates by a very small margin that they're approving, they're getting approval over this.

And you're seeing some people like Marjorie Taylor Greene say that we need to fight for these Obamacare subsidies, and it could be a real liability for Republicans.

She knows.

Yeah.

Believe it or not, she knows exactly how her constituents are going to be hurt.

Yeah.

And the fact of the matter is that you're talking about around 4 million people, that are going to be hurt, one way or the other.

Yeah.

And then, overall, 24 million people that have access to Obamacare might be hurt because you have less people to put money into the pool to bring these policies down.

Yeah.

So operate a yeah.

Healthcare system.

Yeah.

So it is not a good combination.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk last about the president's deployment of the National Guard to Chicago and to Portland.

They've both been put on hold by federal courts, at least partially in both of those cases.

You have Greg Abbott sending members of the Texas National Guard to aid the effort.

And it's an unprecedented step.

The judges have been very clear about what this all means.

And there's a potential that this group kind of spins into this military control over these big cities.

What do you think the outcome is going to be here?

Well, the outcome is that the Supreme Court has to intervene and work now because the fact of the matter has not been discussed.

And you have these temporary injunctions here, temporary injunction, they're interpreted to.

But the matter of the fact is that whether the president can or cannot do deploy the National Guard when the circumstances were the evidence is not there.

And that is the sentiment of the, of the of the judge that these, judge in Oregon, appointed by President Trump in the first term.

And now excoriated by the Trump administration, of course.

He's like, where is the evidence?

You're saying that Portland is on fire?

Yeah, I looked at the videos.

There is not on fire.

They're sipping wine and like, yeah, strolling through.

Eat and eating, the, granola bars and that kind of stuff.

Right.

Driving Subarus.

It's a. Heartland.

Guy, but the evidence is not there.

So the Trump administration making this case very, very hard for them.

Yeah.

Now, the other thing is, remember that they're pushing for executive power, right?

An executive power is something that they want.

So this is one of the other strategies that they're trying to do in order to expand it and have the Supreme Court rule and say yes or no.

Yeah.

That's the hardest thing.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah.

But that's something that we're going to be talking about next week when we come back I'm Karen Cortina and.

I'm Brad writing House.

The conversation keeps up next week.