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

I'm Jeronimo Cortina And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We're professor of political science here at the University of Houston.

And we're co-hosts of this great show where we're landing this plane one way or the other, my friend.

We are, of course, the very end.

Of.

Like, where's the pilot?

Right.

No doubt we are close to the very end of the cycle and I could not be more happy.

I'm sure, like everyone else, that we're, like maxed out on politics, right?

To start the '28 cycle right on Wednesday, the fourth.

Within minutes of this ending, we'll, we'll go for it.

But there's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about.

And the fact that Texas is in play, along with a bunch of other states, means that there's a lot to say.

So let's get right into it, because we have, Jeronimo another visit, yet another visit from the president of the United States.

Indeed.

Donald Trump will be here in Texas.

He'll be in San Antonio, a rally featuring Ken Paxton and, and candidates in these South Texas races, including Carlos De La Cruz, who's the brother of Monica De La Cruz, who's running the 35th.

This is the president's fourth campaign stop in six weeks.

What does that mean for Texas politics or for sort of the geometry of the politics nationwide?

I don't know, I think.

He just likes the brisket, right.

Well, probably.

I mean, San Antonio has very good restaurant.

Some good stuff there.

Oh.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

He's gonna stroll along the Riverwalk, Oh, for sure.

you know, Margarita in hand.

Right.

And they just cleaned it, right, a couple months ago?

I hope so.

For his visit, probably, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, probably.

I mean, I think it's a double edged sword.

Yeah.

So on the one hand, it can, you know, rally debate.

Yeah.

But also, on the other hand, people are going to be mad.

This is not a red city.

No.

San Antonio is pretty blue.

But, it definitely is going to be a blowback.

Right.

How much do you think?

He's campaigning with Ken Paxton.

Like we said, he's campaigning basically collectively for the South Texas district, which the Republicans put a lot of effort in.

Yep.

we've talked about this a bunch to basically gerrymander them and make them more Republican.

Yes.

They definitely did that on paper, but they still got to win these at the ballot box.

So you think this is going to backlash?

I mean, I think I don't think that especially when you're thinking about South Texas, the approval of President Trump among Latino voters is pretty pretty pretty low.

It went the opposite direction they wanted.

Oh absolutely.

Like [pew], on the one hand.

Then on the other hand is the context.

The economy is not doing anything right.

And if you want to see, trucks, go to South Texas.

Yeah.

And then go and pay $6 a gallon for diesel and almost four bucks a gallon for regular gas.

Yeah.

That's insane.

Driving all over that region.

San Antonio is a place where there's just lots of traffic.

So people are sitting around.

And it's also very sensitive to these economic swings.

And so it's not doing well.

And I guess the question is, is like what the president's message is going to be?

I don't know.

Is it going to be just to kind of get out the vote like, you know, talk about the Republican brand or is it more dynamic than that?

But but it's it's like, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about this.

And the question that I have is, here comes a president, and the president is telling you, we're doing fantastic, right?

We're doing super great.

Like, yeah, like it's etc.

and then you're driving, right?

Or you're just like, oh, I'm listening to the news and suddenly I have to go to the gas and say, oh yeah, we're doing super great.

And then you see your the little thingy on the, on the gas pump needs, you know, $259 and you're like half a tank.

So it's.

It doesn't match reality for people.

And so I don't know.

Yeah.

That's I think a real liability for the president in these races.

Now this is a different question.

But obviously the gerrymandering effect is going to have long term consequences.

Oops.

Yes.

But the middle term consequences here will be that the Republicans are not going to pick up these races in the ways that they thought they were.

Right.

They're lucky to get two of the five they targeted.

I think one of them might be the 35th district, which is an open district.

This is the one that is connected to where President Trump is going to be at the Freeman Coliseum, where, I've seen several shows there.

It's actually kind of fun, old school place to see a show.

And this is a district that President Trump carried by ten points.

So it should be a winnable district but is actually in play.

I think anything that's within ten points probably means it's going to be competitive this cycle.

So the president probably needs to be there to pump up Republican support.

But it's not guaranteed.

Right.

And like you said, I mean, the shift away from the Republican Party for Latinos has been immense.

Like, if you look at the polling that the that New York Times did, you basically see a 31% drop in the 28th district, 24% drop of support among Latinos in 35th district and in this district is a 16 point drop, the 35th district.

So just a cratering of support, and that has real implications.

The question is why?

What's going on here?

Why is it the case that the Latino vote, which was fairly strong for Trump in '24, is no longer as strong?

It's very simple.

I mean, so we have this, change starting in 2022 and then, a complete support to President Trump, quote un-quote to on president support, because when George W Bush won the presidency, he got like 45% of the Latino vote.

And this time was around, you know, high 30s, low 40s.

Right.

So that's one issue.

So all the people that were saying, well, this is a political realignment.

No, it is not a political realignment.

Its political realignments take time.

And you have to measure it over multiple cycles.

And one cycle is not a realignment.

But anyways, so President Trump campaign very simple right.

We have said many times here and it's very simple.

It's gas is going to be so cheap that you're gonna even put it in your cereal and everything is going to be $1 a gallon.

You'd going to be turning in your electric cars and you're going to be buying gas cars again.

Exactly like burn those electric cars.

And by gas cars, right?

Then the supermarket prices.

Remember we have the the eggs stuff eggs are still the same price.

Yeah.

Now we have beef become very expensive.

You cannot buy the Cocoa Puffs anymore without all that wonderful flavor.

That.

Exactly.

Brings you joy every morning.

Makes you, like, feel like a kid again, right?

Yeah.

So when you confront that every single day.

These are bread and butter issues.

Yeah.

It's not talking about, you know, if your stock portfolio went up or down or if the mix of high risk yield, whatever.

I don't even know what that means.

You lost me.

Yeah.

But.

I can't buy bacon.

Like.

Exactly.

What's the does that mean for me?

That is the issue.

Right.

Yeah.

That is the issue.

I think so.

And this kind of particular cycle, you're seeing this become a problem in the South Texas region and even in urban areas in Houston, where you're seeing a lot of the, you know, kind of rejection of what the Republicans are offering.

Ken Paxton has an usually kind of weak personal profile.

Donald Trump's approval is declining, even in Texas, not so much among Republicans, but among Republicans.

And Democrats have recovered the Latino vote.

Right.

If we're talking about a 60/40 split for Democrats, that's a winnable range for them, right?

If that 40 number goes above 40, then it's problematic for Democrats and good for Republicans.

But as it is now, we're basically at about a, you know, 60/40 split, which returns to where things were before the '24 cycle.

So here in Texas.

Yeah, here in Texas.

Yeah.

And the other thing is has to be turnout, right?

You have to assume that that 40% is going to turn out, or that 60% is going to turn out in such a way that has that impact.

Yeah.

No, in South Texas will be the kind of bellwether for how well the Republicans are able to do among the community.

But here's the thing.

They're not spending a lot of money in these areas.

So that like, if you look at the numbers, although at the top level, Republicans are spending $100 million in nine districts, these are the districts they targeted with redistricting, and one of them is a 35th.

So, not surprisingly, President Trump's coming to check on his investments.

Right.

And to get some brisket, but also the way that the money has been spent hasn't been spent on Spanish language ads, which is a mixed bag in terms of success.

But a lot of the scholarship on this does suggest that that is a way to communicate to people in these areas.

And so if you look at the numbers here, basically you're seeing about 2% of the like multiple hundred millions of dollars that the Paxton campaign has spent on Spanish language ads.

It's a lot higher for Talarico and for the Democrats.

And so that's one issue is like, do you really fight for that vote?

The other is that you're seeing Republicans bail out.

Greg Abbott won't be there.

Dan Patrick won't be there.

They've been pretty stalwart supporters of the president.

What do you make of the fact that they're just not going to show up at these rallies?

Well, I think it has to do with the fact that the president has, reminded everyone it's, suppose that we are, that I am on the ballot, that you're voting for me.

Yeah.

So it's like.

Yeah, they're like, yeah, have something else to do that day.

Like, yeah, I don't know.

Like get a file off their fridge or something, right?

Yeah.

I mean, and Paxton.

He has no escape, right?

Paxton has.

He needs it, right?

It.

And he needs to do it.

Whether it works or it doesn't.

There is no other way.

Because Governor Abbott is not going to go and rally for him.

At least we haven't seen that.

And obviously the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, is not going to do that.

Either way, he's off in rural Texas on his bus.

Wait, what?

Who?

Oh, yeah.

I'm busy.

Sorry, I don't have office hours right now.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, I try to catch me next week.

Yeah.

And every single time, every single day.

There is a negative news article.

Ken Paxton took 270 something trips outside the state.

Yeah.

We're going to talk about that in a second.

And the kind of ad battles that have come up and the fact that they keep leaking stuff about what he says privately, none of this is going well for them.

So we'll talk about that in a second.

But I want to talk Trump still, because I want to pivot to something that is becoming emergent.

It's not an election issue per se, but people are talking about it in that way, because there's a good chance that you've got two justices who are north of 70 years old who may retire somewhat soon.

There's pressure from Republicans to have Sam Alito and to have Clarence Thomas resign from the bench and have their replacement put into effect sooner than later, maybe in the interim, maybe after the cycle is done, depending on how things shake out.

But Republicans want to keep those seats, so that's one thing.

But complicating all of this is that you've got the president saying that he regrets nominating several of the members of the court that he did.

That's Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Bryant and Brett Kavanaugh, in part because he says they vote against me.

And so I am unhappy about how things came about.

Now, obviously, he didn't read like, you know, our government textbook, which says that this is something that's supposed to be a shared relationship.

And as a separate branch of government, they're supposed to have their own purview.

But what do you make of this in terms of the politics of like, the cycle, right.

I mean, it's one thing to sort of call out Supreme Court justices.

This happens on occasion from presidents, but this is obviously a really important moment in a cycle where there are some serious concerns about what's going to come for the Supreme Court in terms of nominations.

We're starting the new cycle in this month, in October.

So they're going to decide, okay, what are we going to work on?

It's not like all that.

We can dump the stuff that no, it's like.

What do I want to work on this week?

Yeah.

And then pick up the cases and that kind of stuff.

So that has very important implications because a lot of stuff that President Trump has pushed, yes, is going to end up at the Supreme Court.

That's a great point.

It hasn't been, you know, 100% in line with what the Trump administration wants.

Yeah, I mean, he has had some wins, of course.

Yeah.

At least temporarily, because most of these, wins are issues are just temporary.

You know, whatever the Supreme Court does.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

These stays and things like that some of these, the will have real long lasting implications to the politics of this country and to President Trump's agenda.

So, it's a good pivot to talking about the next year for the Court, right?

Because Sam Alito, who people like mentioned, talked about maybe as retiring, he said, I'm not going to retire this year.

I'm going to keep for this whole cycle.

So at least as of now, we're still going to see folks stick it out and we'll see what happens after the midterms, because then lots of things can change, right?

Like the politics could completely upend this universe.

But let's talk about what the Supreme Court has decided this week, as part of their long conference, will be on their agenda for this year.

They expect to hear about 60 cases.

That's more or less average, maybe a little bit lower.

They've picked a bunch of different kinds of cases that span many different kinds of issues, including large reoccurring national questions like gun bans, immigration authority, religious liberty issues.

At the same time, it passed on a bunch of things, too, like opportunities to kind of push various other constitutional doctrines further, especially involving the presidency, felons' guns rights, student free speech, political speech.

So they pass in a few things that they could have jumped into.

But I wanted just to highlight a couple of these that I thought were interesting.

First is on climate change.

It's a question of whether or not state law allows for those entities, especially local entities, to sue oil companies over climate change related damages.

So this is happening out of California.

Basically, local governments want to sue oil companies and say you're ruining our environment and so you should be held liable.

There's an assault weapons ban case, out of Chicago.

Actually, this is a potentially one of the most explosive Second Amendment cases.

For a while, the Court will consider whether the state and local bans on semi-automatic rifles like AK or AR-15's violate the Constitution.

There's also some religious issues on the docket too.

The religious schools and LGBTQ+ to nondiscrimination issues.

Catholic schools in Colorado, again, Colorado, are arguing that they can't be excluded from public funded sources or preschool programs because their religious admission programs essentially exclude certain people, like LGBTQ+ families.

Colorado argues that participating schools must comply with their nondiscrimination rules.

So some pretty heavy stuff, First Amendment stuff, Second Amendment stuff.

So lots of interesting things on the ballot.

What do you make of what the Court's approach is here?

Who knows.

It's, in all these cases there is there are precedents, right?

Yeah.

You mentioned the issue that municipalities can sue companies It's the same, I guess, case when we had people suing tobacco companies.

Right.

It's the same, I guess, dynamic, more or less.

I'm not a legal scholar in any shape or form.

It's similar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In some shape.

Yeah.

Have you seen some episodes of, like, you know, Boston Legal?

Right.

So you're you're good.

Right.

That and and, what is it Suits.

So I mean more or less.

Legal-ish.

Yeah.

That's good.

Yeah.

So anyways so that's some precedents right.

But the interesting part here also in terms of religious freedom, in terms of these bans of semi-automatic weapons, the interesting thing here is that when we look at the decisions of the Court in the past, they have had and they have gone very well back on time.

1800s, whatever it is, say.

Well, yeah, but the issue here is that the framers was not their intention.

Right.

And it's you know, we come back once again in terms of how do we need to interpret the Constitution.

If it's a living document one way or the other, just giving you the general guidelines of how we need to govern ourselves or if it's, you know, done and sealed and signed and that's it, a document that we need to be having the same priorities that, the framers are.

Back in the day.

Yeah.

And there are all kinds of questions that weren't part of what they considered as the kind of storyline of the politics of those moments, like immigration issues.

And these are actually two very big cases involving Donald Trump's policies, both on immigration.

The first is third country deportations.

The Court will consider the Trump administration's practice of deporting migrants to countries where they have no ties to, and whether that's something that's like legal.

And then there's the mandatory detention also case, it asks whether the government can detain certain immigrants without bond hearings and essentially people living here in the United States for years.

The question is whether or not the government can do that.

So this is another kind of issue with respect to what the president's capacity is, on immigration policy.

So we'll see the Courts try to sort of figure that out.

You know, there is this kind of theory in political scientist says that the courts are kind of arm of government.

Right.

So majority government generally finds its way to finding rules and allocating rules and then interpreting rules that benefit the majority party.

We'll see if that happens here.

Right.

There's been some pushback on immigration cases because of procedural issues.

But when it comes to the practice of the presidency and executive power, the Court's been pretty willing to let presidents do what they want.

So there's a lot of kind of cross-cutting interest here that we'll see if the courts can shake it out.

But that's why they pay them the big bucks and they give them jobs for life and robes.

Right.

And the robes.

Yeah, we have some of those things.

To and they can go to work with the robe.

With every day.

Right.

We're just talking about wearing your PhD robes around.

Right?

I feel like we should just do that right.

With a scepter or something.

Like, as a way to show that, like, you know, I have.

A PhD.

Do you have the hat or whatever.

It's called?

I don't have any of that stuff.

I got a baseball cap, maybe.

No.

No, that doesn't count.

Not going to work.

No.

Doesn't have the same degree of.

Nope.

Authority right.

Let's talk about Donald Trump still, because it's something that is coming up that's unavoidable, it seems.

Is daylight savings time, right.

We're in the dark basically in the mornings.

And it's kind of depressing.

Right?

Well, there are some in Congress who want to change that time.

What time are you waking up, man?

Well, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, the sun doesn't come up till, you know, 7:30, 8:00 and I'm up by 6:00am.

Yeah, I mean I wake up at 11:30am.

Rest.

Rest.

Yeah, yeah.

I already text you like, a thousand times by 11:30, so, like.

Yeah, I try to wake you up, but if you got up earlier, then you would know that there is still pretty dark these mornings.

Yeah.

So swimming round I was swimming in the dark.

Yeah.

Oh okay.

It's kind of depressing, right.

But some some members of Congress want to change it, right.

They want to basically to sort of undo this.

And the president is very gung ho for changing this.

The kind of catch here is that the president is so involved in this, and he's so mad at some members of Congress that he's publicly giving people their cell phone number.

So Tom Cotton, who's a senator from Arkansas, had his phone number put on blast by the president.

And not surprisingly, people have responded by sending like, Venmo money request to him, like, so, it's kind of a underhanded tactic from the White House.

Some people, like Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana, basically say that the president, as he says, quote, here exists loudly and can turn on you pretty quickly.

So he turned on Tom cotton pretty quickly.

Is this going to change the nature of this or what?

I don't think he's going to budge, because Senator Cotton said that Arkansas families, they don't want to send the children to school in pitch darkness.

So, I mean, I think he's he's not going to change.

It has its complications.

I mean, beyond the president, say, for golfers and the PGA tour, that is obviously of extreme importance.

It's important.

Yeah.

Importance.

But you know, farmers also, there are some implications right there.

But I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean.

Yeah, it's interesting that this has become like such a political issue.

Right.

It's very personal for the president.

And that's what's funny to see these things kind of matriculate to like the national agenda, like the things that he sort of cares about.

But it's worry about these things.

Yeah.

Well, I actually want to talk about an issue that also is related in the sense that it's really a question of like if you're meeting voters where they are and there's worries that that that's not happening in Texas.

Here's the example this week, Comptroller Don Huffines is launching a review of.

The yeah, he's running for comptroller and is also the comptroller.

Yeah.

He was appointed by the governor in a temporary way.

So yeah, it'll eventually either be comptroller or not, but probably will depending on exact details.

But he's reviewed a launched a review of costs and the health effects of adding fluoride to public drinking water.

This has been a long kind of objection from some wings of the Republican Party to say that this shouldn't be done.

It is costing money.

So that's why he is comptroller is able to deal with this.

There's also the this week announced that he is essentially reviewing four school districts, which Governor Abbott months ago said he would have done after the election.

So Barbers Hill, El Paso, Prosper and Austin ISD are all going to get audited.

Basically.

Two things to note here.

Number one, Sarah Eckhardt, who's running for the comptroller against Don Huffines as a Democrat, says that the comptroller is using this moment to push a political agenda so that one should respond to that.

The other is the question of whether you think that, like, Huffines is like, got the memo when it came to like, pivoting to election year issues.

Right.

Abbott's done this.

Patrick has done this.

Even Ken Paxton to some degree has done this.

But Don Huffines is committed to the course like talking about fluoride and water instead of affordable issues.

So what do you think?

Will he be the impact of this?

Do these objections have any legs in terms of like the comptroller's office becoming an ideological agent?

I mean, it might.

And for years the comptroller's the office has become completely apolitical.

Right.

It's it's a numbers agency.

Like we have $2, you can spend $2.

And that's I mean, it's over.

Obviously complex.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But but it's one of these issues.

I mean, you have the Department of State and Health Services to say like, no, community water fluoridation has its benefits.

It's safe.

It's effective.

What you're talking about, about fluoride in the water is is well above the numbers that we recommend.

And, you know, it has some of the care, especially when we think about dental care, some implications that could cause billions of dollars eventually.

And for people without dental insurance.

It's a preventive issue.

Yeah, it could be devastating.

And then the issue of of I'd say Texas public school districts, I mean, I guess giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Right.

And just be a well-intentioned, professor, I would say, well, yes, of course we want to see our dollars being spent the right way.

You know.

But it's like, Yeah.

Well, we've talked about before, I think that the Republicans, especially Greg Abbott, are vulnerable on the election issue.

So to then put more pressure on these school districts before the election, like weeks before, is probably an unforced error.

So, you know, he could have waited and essentially made that case later.

But I think, you know, he's running on a very conservative agenda and he is likely to win.

Right.

Whereas at the top of the ticket there's probably a little bit less likelihood.

So I suspect everyone's kind of gritting your teeth over this, but it's certainly nationalizing the comptroller's race in a way that we are not used to seeing.

And it brings the ideological dimension into the office.

That also has been something that's pretty new.

So we're going to see that office transition, just like we've seen basically every other office in Texas politics transition.

Let's shift and talk for the last couple of minutes about the state of the race and the competitive races for Senate and Governor.

This week, Ken Paxton has announced a major ad buy.

One of them features his daughter, which is not a bad ad.

The other features his wife, Angela Paxton, saying not his name, but rather just vote for Republicans.

This actually got spread all across the country.

So people were saying, who is this Angela Paxton?

And why is she talking about voting for the Republican ticket?

She's some degree complicit in what he's been up to, right?

She's had legislative scrutiny for trying to give him, additional, powers, as well as basically a law that would limit the prosecution of future kinds of crimes that he was also, just, by the way, accused of.

He helped her.

She helped him evade processors in 2022.

So she's to some degree culpable for this.

He has suggested that he doesn't have any control over this.

In leaked audio, he also suggested in leaked audio that he thinks Trump's to blame.

What's going on?

Well, not very good.

Yeah.

I mean, the fact of the matter.

They're off message all over.

Oh, yeah.

Given the context of the election, given the very public divorce that they have had or that they are having on biblical grounds, Angela Paxton coming out and say, like, just vote for the team.

Right?

It's not about individuals.

It's about the team.

Without naming anyone individual or anything like that.

Yeah, it's it's problematic.

It's problematic because once again, they're focusing on issues that are not the issues that voters really want to talk about.

It's not moving the needle much.

Right?

I mean, you know, he spent a lot of time in other places.

There's like millions of dollars.

And so there's just a lot of money being spent.

Greg Abbott's burning through hundreds of millions of dollars.

It hasn't moved the needle much.

So.

I know.

It's going to be a photo finish.

I think it's going to be a photo finish, but that we're going to be keeping an eye in our next programs.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The conversation keeps up next week.