Ted Cruz vs. Beto O'Rourke: Texas Senate candidates clash in debate

In local matters, Texas Senate candidates Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke faced off in their second debate last night, and this was their last debate in a close race before the midterm elections on November 6th. Yeah, and boy did you see the fireworks. Just this morning, President Trump sent out this tweet that he was watching the debate. He said, quote, Ted Cruz has done so much for Texas and went on to endorse the Republican senator. Take a look now at what each candidate had to say last night. This is what you can expect over the course of this debate. Senator Cruz is not going to be honest with you. He's going to make up positions and votes that I've never held or have ever taken. He's dishonest. It's why the president called him lying, Ted, and it's why the nickname stuck, because it's true. Congressman O'Rourke not only opposes a wall, but he has said we have too many fences and walls already on the border. He wants to tear down the ones we have. And I'll note he brought up El Paso. El Paso is right across from Juarez, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Three thousand murders last year. There's a wall there. That wall is one of the tools you use to protect us. We're bringing in Scott Braddock right now because he's the editor at Quorum Report joining us from Austin, Texas. Scott, what do you think of the debate? What stood out to you? Well, here's the headline right now at Beto learns to make a fist and whether he can actually swing his fist. We're not sure yet, although already this morning, O'Rourke is up with some new ads in which it's the first ad I've seen from him where he's on the attack against Cruz as he was on the attack last night. You know, when they first debated in Dallas in the last couple of weeks, O'Rourke looked really angry as he was avoiding attacking Cruz. It seems to be the case that O'Rourke finds it very distasteful to go negative at all in this campaign. He's trying to he's trying to be more aspirational. His ads up until this point have been focused on asking voters to not think of themselves as Republicans and Democrats and instead only think of themselves as Americans and Texans and all that sort of Obama sounding sort of stuff. Worth noting that President Obama lost Texas twice by one million votes each time in the debate last night. He was really sharp in his rhetoric against Cruz and Cruz was to steal a phrase true to form. That's what O'Rourke called him in the first debate. Cruz was on the attack throughout the entire debate. But this time, O'Rourke seemed ready to fight back. It's worth noting, though, that voters are about to start voting in Texas next Monday is when early voting starts. And, you know, it went from 85 degrees on Sunday to 55 degrees by Monday. It's fall and people are now actually starting to tune in and pay attention to this race. You know, some have said that during the first debate, O'Rourke's performance was not as aggressive as it was last night. And that may have cost him sort of crucial, a crucial percentage in the polls that it was that Senator Cruz really began to pull away from O'Rourke after that debate. Do you expect that this debate will change anyone's mind? You know, it's an interesting question because in all the time I've been covering Texas politics, which is north of 15 years now, this is the first time I remember a debate statewide office being held not on a Friday night. In other words, people actually saw it on a Tuesday. And so all over the state, people are talking about this around water coolers this morning and talking about what they think about these guys. The challenge for O'Rourke, one of the challenges, and I think it's one of the challenges of a lot of Southern Democrats, is they kind of have to be because they're reaching out to a lot of Republicans to try to close the gap. As you point out, the polls don't look look as good for O'Rourke as they did during the summer. One of the challenges is he's got to be that guy who you would still like to have a beer with, you could still like him, even if you don't agree with everything. And he's only maybe now starting to get there. And as you mentioned, some of the recent polling had Beto O'Rourke behind Ted Cruz by a significant margin. It was beyond the margin of error. Based on the initial reaction to the debate last night and some of the issues and some of the ways each candidate characterized their opponent, do you get the sense that there could be a turnaround in the polls for Beto O'Rourke as Democrats are hoping? As I mentioned, the poll that's going to matter is going to be taken starting on Monday. People are actually going to go to the polls and register their votes. And so things are kind of baked in at this point. You know, when you look at some of the things that O'Rourke did not talk about last night, when he had a chance to talk about them, it tells you a lot about his sense of the electorate in Texas. He did not really engage with Cruz or the moderators about the confirmation process of Justice Kavanaugh, of course, very controversial. And the sexual assault allegations against Justice Kavanaugh didn't really go there. He also didn't talk much about abortion rights. And there was a specific question about whether Roe versus Wade ought to be overturned. This, of course, is going to be a real issue going forward because we have a reconstituted Supreme Court. And a lot of Republicans have so far held off on taking that next step of trying to ban abortion outright because it would, of course, be struck down by the courts. But that may not be the case now. And so if there is a move to try to ban abortion, you can expect a state like Texas, because we have a very conservative Republican legislature. We would probably be at the forefront of that. And only 22 percent of Texans agree with banning it outright. So it's something that O'Rourke could have talked about, could have stressed. But instead, he chose not to. And that's probably because he is still trying to reach out and hope that there are some Republicans who might vote for him. So the president's going to be heading down to Texas. He said he was going to have a rally for Ted Cruz at in the largest stadium that the biggest stadium they could find. In fact, in fact, it's a it's a small stadium, Ann Marie. And I pointed out on Twitter, people thought this was pretty funny that we have high school football stadiums in Texas that are larger than the one he'll be at. So I got to ask you, do you think the president at this point really makes a difference in Texas? We know Texas is a red state. There's this weird relationship between Ted Cruz and the president, you know, enough that Beto O'Rourke was able to dust off that nickname that the president gave him. But but but also, yeah, lying Ted. Exactly. But also the president has really sort of curtailed, I think, Ted Cruz in a way that Ted Cruz was the outsider, was the one that didn't care, care that Democrats hated him and Republicans hated him. And then came the president and sort of filled that role, I think, a little bit. So back to my initial question, which is just what sort of impact do you think the president will have on this race, if any? Well, well, I think it does have an impact. And here's why. When you look at the polls and I know there was a CBS poll that showed that Cruz was up by about six. There's some other polling that shows that he's up by about nine or 10, something like that. And that's about the margin that President Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Texas by. When you look at some of the messaging that's going on right now, it takes me back to 2014 in Texas, you know, right. Right now, President Trump at his rallies is talking about the left wing mob, the people who are so angry, including some of the folks who, you know, chased Cruz out of a restaurant in D.C. in D.C. And when you look at that phrasing and you look at that messaging, that dynamic is like what we had in 2014 after a state senator by the name of Wendy Davis, who you may remember, filibustered abortion restrictions. And it was Republican leadership in Texas at the time that called the opponents of that legislation the unruly mob. So we have sort of the same messaging that's being delivered by the president now, how that's received in Texas. Well, in 2014, Republicans beat their Democratic opponents statewide by 21 points. So that's how that went back then. OK, then, Scott Braddock, thank you so much. Thanks, Scott. Good to see.