Early Voting Begins | Battleground Texas

The countdown is on, and the stakes in the Lone Star State have never been higher. From top-ticket races to the latest polls, campaign ads, and candidate interviews, we're tracking every move on the road to November. This is Battleground Texas. Hello, everyone. I'm Rudy Kosky in Austin. And I'm Stephen Dowell in Dallas. This is Greg Zoff joining us today, political analyst and political science professor Matthew Wilson from SMU. Now, new numbers from the University of Houston to Hobby School shows an extremely tight U.S. Senate race. Democratic nominee James Tallarico holds a razor-thin two-point lead over the Republican nominee Ken Paxton with 48%, so 46% to 48%, 46% among likely voters. Tallarico is consolidating Democrats and carries a strong 60% of independent voters, according to this poll, Paxton maintains an 88% hold on Republicans, but 57% of likely voters view him unfavorably. Overall, both Senate candidates started their bus tours in North Texas Sunday. I talked to James Tallarico. We also heard from the Republican nominee, Ken Paxson, this afternoon. Now, some have been critical saying that your statements may have changed over the time. What would your response be to some people saying you're just saying things to appear more moderate? Well, my positions have been the same, haven't changed my position on any issue for the Senate campaign. And so I know Ken Paxton doesn't have any line of attack and so he's gonna accuse me of changing positions, but that's not true. And I at least showed up to answer questions from Texans, Ken Paxton didn't even show up. Texans deserve a senator who's gonna actually be there for the job interview. And they deserve a senator who's gonna answer their questions, who's gonna serve them. Ken Paxton only serves himself. Why is President Trump talking about this race so much in your opinion? I mean, I think they're worried that they're gonna lose the seat in Texas. There is a bipartisan backlash growing across the state to the extremism and the corruption that Ken Paxton represents. And they are worried about what happens when people come together across the partisan spectrum to stand up against that corruption. So they're gonna tell lies about me. They're already spending $200 million on attack ads to try to make me look as scary as possible. Big money is powerful, but it's nothing compared to people power. Your campaign has a lot of money too. Not as much as they do. And Ken Paxton's entire effort is being bankrolled by the richest man in the world. Elon Musk has already dumped $150 million to try to buy the Senate seat in Texas. And so we're going up against the most corrupt politician in Texas, the most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world. And so we're the underdogs until the last vote is counted. So I'm not exaggerating, I think you know it in your heart. If we lose Texas, we're gonna lose the country. And that's what we're fighting for. This is our time, our moment, to draw the line in the sand that generations of patriots drew before us. So let me finish by asking you a few questions. And this is an audience participation thing. Just to clue you in. It's not rhetorical. Do you believe that faith matters? That was very well done. So do I. Do you believe in secure elections and want to pass the Save America Act? So do I. Do you believe in protecting Texas and stopping Sharia law? Do you believe parents, not the government, should raise your children? So do I. And do you believe you and your family should keep more of what you earn? So do I. So join me in this fight. While Talarico fights for his radical agenda, we fight for faith, family, and freedom. And we fight for Texas. You're the reason Texas is going to stay the greatest state in the Union. So today, I am so grateful that you're here, that you're going to go vote at the Allen Library, and you're going to tell all your friends we're going to win this god bless you and god bless this great state of texas all right now in the race for governor incumbent republican greg abbott maintains a narrow advantage in the new hobby poll it shows abbott leading democrat challenger gina hinojosa by three points 49 to 46 percent hinojosa leads among independents by 19 points abbott dominates in the rural counties with 66 percent in support now today was not just about casting an early vote. It was also about throwing out some new accusations. Gina Hinojosa made her early vote at an East Austin polling location today, and after voting, she moved to the Travis County Courthouse, where she filed a lawsuit against Governor Greg Abbott. Now, she wants unredacted copies of emails between him and Elon Musk. Now, last year, about 1,400 pages were released, but most had sections really blacked out. After the governor's office successfully argued many of the emails consisted of information that is intimate, embarrassing, and not legitimate concerns for the public. Nobody here is accusing Greg Abbott of having a torrid love affair with Elon Musk. I don't think that's what this is about. What this is about is we have the world's only trillionaire getting massive tax breaks from this governor after giving him over $500,000 in campaign contributions. Is this going to be a Texas that is by and for the people or is this the billionaire's world and we just live here? Now Governor Abbott was also out early voting this morning here in Austin after he cast his ballot. Abbott responded to Hinojosa's accusations with his own hard pushback. Well it's another act of desperation. We see act after act after act of desperation. What Gina is trying to do more than anything else is to try to get attention for her in her campaign. And I gotta tell you why. She sees what I know, and that is this election has slipped through her hands. And she doesn't have any ability to do anything else other than to grasp at straws, to get attention. And it's just not gonna work, because Texans have figured out who she is. She was a fake candidate for most of the time during this period. All right, Governor Abbott speaking in Houston. In about 25 minutes, Hinojosa left Austin. She's doing a rally in San Antonio certainly a lot to hash out here guys and after this break on battleground we'll also throw in some other punches from the lieutenant governor's race welcome back senator Bernie Sanders is jumping into the lieutenant governor's race to support the Democrat Vicky Goodwin posting on X Goodwin understands that health care is a right not a privilege and her Texas Cares plan would expand health care to millions of Texans who have been left behind i'm proud to endorse Vicky Goodwin for Texas lieutenant governor the Democrat then thanked him saying thank you Bernie Sanders for your support of my campaign and my health care plan with a link to details about the plan rudy well the new polling in this race shows incumbent Republican Dan Patrick leading Goodwin by five points the Hobby School survey has Patrick at 47 percent to Goodwin's 42 percent with seven percent of voters still undecided Patrick has a solid support base but his 47 unfavorability rating that's pretty big overall Goodwin meanwhile is also underwater in another key category 59 likely voters say they still don't know enough about this Austin Democrat joining us again, SMU political science professor Matthew Wilson, Rudy I'll go to you first. Voters are finally casting their ballot. I got my "I voted" sticker, Matt does too. What does your gut say in this final stretch? Rudy: Well, my gut was almost a gut punch in that interview you did with James Talarico and him saying he's never he hasn't flip-flopped at all he's flip-flopped more than a circus acrobat, uh I'm not quite sure where he's going and if he thinks voters are actually believing what he now says because he's back and forth. All right, so now he does support sex change surgery for children, he does support biological men in sports, is that what I heard? Right. Sure did sound like it. All right, well getting back to your question at you know at the beginning you know we all knew that the main issue is the economy in this race and you know we also eventually knew that the top GOP candidates will eventually empty out their campaign war chests, start pushing back on the Democrats, exposing their hard-left voting records like Talarico to dispute claims that they're moderates which they're not. It's clear the late play by the top Republicans did allow the Democrats to get a lot of traction there with independents and moderates there, um Steven but it's way too early to close to call. We're going to find out where this output, uh the surge and early voting, it's going to be about middle of next week. Steven, Matthew Wilson, every poll has shown that this is a tight race. What are you seeing in this final stretch? Yeah, I think right now things, uh are looking a little better in general for the Republican candidates than they were a few weeks ago. There was a time a few weeks ago where it looked like even Governor Abbott might have been trailing. Now, of course, that's still a close race. But this most recent polling does show Abbott and the rest of the statewide ticket, other than Paxton, pulling ahead of their Democratic opponents. I think, to me, the really interesting thing down the stretch is going to be looking at those people who say, And right now, it's maybe 3% or 4% of the electorate who are telling pollsters, I'm gonna vote for James Talerico and Greg Abbott. Who are those people? And are they people that either the Hinojosa campaign could persuade to go Democratic all across the board? Or are they people that the Paxton campaign could persuade to go Republican all the way across the board? I think for Ken Paxton, the key to victory is going to be persuading some of those reluctant Republicans at the end of the day to hold their nose and vote for him according to their typical party inclinations. We'll see how much of that he's able to do. Rudy, what down ballot race are you most interested in? There's a lot of them. South Texas certainly will be interesting to watch, but I'm keeping my eye on the comptroller's race and the battle for the railroad commissioner. For me, those are the top two races on my radar for a possible blue flip election night. But I also want to see the numbers that come in for incumbent Democrat Congressman Greg Casar and Julian Castro. Their Republican challengers have hammered those two Democrats for showing more concern for undocumented immigrants than for American citizens in their own districts. Something interesting could be happening in those races. Do they lose? I'm not sure. But it could be something of a change. Stephen? Matt, 30 seconds. What down ballot races are you interested in? Yeah, definitely railroad commissioner because of Beau French's incendiary comments that put that in play. He could be a candidate that a lot of people who vote the rest of the Republican ticket get to that one and say, I don't know about him. And maybe if they don't vote for the Democrat, they have to leave it blank or they vote for the Libertarian or something like that. So I think Beau French could potentially be in some jeopardy. The other down ballot race that I'll be interested in watching would be, as Rudy said, that Casar race. If it were a better environment for Republicans nationally, I think there would be some upset potential there. I think it would be hard to unseat those Democrats, though, in an electoral climate that nationally kinda leans Democratic anyway. All right, Battleground Texas will be right back. So they've been telling us for years that an independent vote is a wasted vote. Well, a great question for our times is, how's that unwasted vote been working out for you? Yeah. Now before we go any further, I wanna let you know this is not about me right now. This is about the upcoming ballot. And I am not here today to endorse a candidate or a party. I am here endorsing two things, fairness and reality. See, I believe in a fair fight. And a fair fight is not just two fighters throwing the same punches at each other for 50 years. Fair fight is when the fighters who ought to be represented in the fight are actually in the fight. That's fair. And here's a fact. The number one political identity in America today is not Republican. It is not Democrat. It is independent. More of us than either party. So independents belong in the fight. All right, guys. Of course, that's actor Matthew McConaughey. He's in play here in Austin a whole lot. You see him on the sidelines at Longhorn Games putting out some voting advice, pitching that. There's a lot of advice being pitched lately, including a big plea to do straight line party voting. That may sound easy, but in Texas, no easy button. It was removed a few years ago, so there's no box at the top of the ballot making your vote all Democrat or all Republican. And you have to go down. Straight line voting now means going line by line. Stephen, President Trump, he's been pushing straight line voting, and he's also coming back to Texas. He is coming back to Texas. We broke that news about an hour ago. And I find this very interesting because a week before the election, the president is coming back to Texas for now a fourth time. He's going to be holding rallies in Waco and in Lubbock. And Ken Paxton will be at both rallies. This just signals to me that the president is concerned about this race, Rudy. Yeah, so are the Democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, he's heading to San Antonio Sunday to campaign with Johnny R. Garcia. He is a Democrat running for one of those redrawn congressional districts designed to help boost the chances for Republicans that may or may not happen. Matt, there's also a lot of redrawing that took place in the Metroplex. We had three congressional seats condensed to two. Two top Democrats not having to compete against each other. And essentially, Jasmine Crockett got squeezed out. So regardless of the vote count in November, can the GOP claim a victory up there? Well, had Jasmine Crockett really wanted to retain a seat in Congress, she could have. She could have easily won, I think, in one of the remaining majority African-American districts in the Metroplex. But, of course, she threw her hat in the ring for the Senate and came up just short against James Talarico. So it'll be interesting to see what her political future holds. I think the big question is that Republicans went into this redistricting hoping that they could get five additional seats out of Texas. I'm actually gonna be surprised if that happens. I don't think they're gonna get five additional seats. I think the question is, did they end up getting two or three additional seats? So I think that the redistricting is going to underperform somewhat from the Republican standpoint, in part because of the swing that it looks like is in the works of many Hispanic voters back away from the Republican Party. They had been trending Republican for the last several cycles. A lot of the polling indicates that they have some reservations about that at this juncture. And that might cost Republicans a couple of those Hispanic districts that they had hoped to win in South Texas. Hey, Stephen, I spoke with a spokesperson with the Secretary of State's office today. She told me that there have been no major problems reported statewide that she knows of. I haven't heard of any major problems here in Travis County. What about up there in the Metroplex? Everything going smooth? Yeah, no major problems, no major problems. I mean, Collin County, this is the first real big election of them switching back to paper ballots. And so there were some printer errors that happened earlier this morning that I've been told has since been resolved. And in Tarrant County, there's a fierce battle for Tarrant County Judge over there. That county could be a bellwether of what is going to happen statewide. In Tarrant County, the fight has been more about the elimination of poll locations, Rudy. All right, the voting has just started, but we'll be back in a moment with our parting shots when Battleground Texas returns. All right, welcome back to Battleground Texas. Time now for our parting shots, and I'll start first, and my shot is long shots, underdogs, and backup quarterbacks a lot of that's going on on college campuses on this monday today those three probably the top vote getters on those campuses especially here in austin on the 40 acres you know to the longhorn faithful all i have to say is whoa easy up yes arch manning is struggling but Ole Miss is coming to town i went to Ole Miss i know that history that squad nasty habit of making a bad quarterback look like a Heisman contender and Mississippi State's going to follow so you may have two really good games following you know oh you know Ole Miss might be back up so don't give up just yet Matt SMU is 23 what's your take hey hey go you know pony up go Mustangs that's that's exciting and I'll follow with another sports related one which is you know kudos to the Milwaukee Brewers for sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers and messing up everybody's talking points about Major League Baseball. Here we have a small market club that hasn't been in the World Series since the early 1980s, dethroning the mega dynasty of the Los Angeles Dodgers. That'll be an interesting talking point for the players in the upcoming negotiations who claim, hey, look, we got plenty of parity even without a salary cap. Whether that's true or not, it's going to be interesting how that both shakes up the terrain of Major League Baseball and becomes a part of the discourse in the offseason in the back and forth between the players and the owners. All right, old man Grugin's away. So it's funny, all three of us talking about sports. Y'all know I'm gonna talk about sports. And I'm not talking about my dogs losing to Auburn. I'm trying to put it behind me, guys. But I am talking about the fact that we're about to have a 24-team college football playoff all right enough i think 12 is enough 24 teams now we're going to not really care every game auburn beating georgia is not going to matter anymore if Georgia can get to the playoffs that's 24 teams four or three losses i think when this becomes for real it's gonna dilute the water of what the games should be about all right Rudy take us home you know maybe 16 maybe 16 take us out there Steven we'll see y'all tomorrow thanks for watching Battleground Texas