Battleground Texas: Key Races Heat Up for Midterms

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. I'm Stephen Dahl in Dallas. And I'm Greg Grugan in Houston. and joining us today is political analyst and Rice University Baker Institute fellow Mark Jones. One of the things that Mark does best is analyze the numbers, so let's look at some more new ones. This week's CBS News YouGov survey has the Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Tallarico as a complete toss-up down the final stretch. Tallarico 51%, Paxton 49%. CBS found that Paxton remains buoyed by the overall Republican lean of the state and those who want to support President Donald Trump's allies. Tallarico is drawing strong support among Latino voters and those who say they have been negatively impacted by the cost of living. Both Senate candidates were making multiple stops in speeches today. Paxton was in Conroe a couple of hours ago delivering a now familiar-sounding stump speech, While Tallarico is in Texarkana right now, in his speeches this week, he's taking aim at Elon Musk. Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas. We just found out that the richest man in the world is bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and stop this movement that we've built in our state. In all likelihood, if you've seen an attack ad on your TV, that was Elon. If you've gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon. If you've received a text message saying scary things about me, that was Elon too. Our movement is funded by 1.3 million individuals who have donated to this campaign. Tell me if you like this. It means a landmark $25,000 deduction for out-of-pocket medical expenses for everyone in your family. You shouldn't go bankrupt just because you have medical bills. Second, it means you can own a home with a historic $50,000 down payment deduction for your first home or your second home, while helping people to buy homes. And Steve, this may be my favorite, a healthy living deduction for gym memberships, nutrition programs, youth sports, and yes, even physician prescribed GLP-1s. Of course, no one here is using those. But if you were, it also means doubling the child tax credit. Because parents know better what to do with their money than Washington. Former Republican Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is breaking party ranks in the highly competitive Senate race. Phelan, who previously led the impeachment effort against A.G. Paxton, was on CNN's Out Front with Aaron Burnett to discuss his choice. I'm a Republican, lifelong Republican, but just because I wear the same jersey as Ken Paxton does not obligate me to vote for Ken Paxton. If he does not align with my moral and integrity baseline as a candidate for office in the state of Texas, then I'm not inclined to vote for him. I mean, I will skip that race, and I think there are a lot of Texans who feel like I feel to skip that race. That's what happens when you nominate individuals who are not, in my personal opinion, share the values of a lot of Republican voters. And it's not just me, there's a segment of Republicans and independents and swing voters who I think they will either skip this race or consider voting Democrat for the first time since 1994. All right, in the governor's race, Republican Greg Abbott is still holding an edge. The CBS News poll finding Abbott is currently leading his Democrat challenger, State Representative Gina Hinojosa, among likely voters. Now, the Senate race is an overflowing, volatile mess of political goo, right? Well, with the CBS poll finding that Abbott may benefit from that goo and some tickets splitting at the ballot box. According to the survey, seven percent of voters who are backing Tallarico for the Senate say they plan to cross party lines and vote for Governor Abbott's re-election bid. It's also clear that Texans know Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton very well but the down ballot races are filled with some blank slates the new U of H poll finds 71 percent of likely voters don't know enough about democrat attorney general nathan uh general nominee nathan johnson to form an opinion have say that say have say the same about republican Mays Middleton it is a similar story in races for land commissioner and ag commissioner where over 70 percent of voters saying they don't know either candidate as a result of all that we've got a major block of uncertainty at the bottom of the ballot steven we touched on this a little earlier a pessimistic electorate may be driving texas's historically close midterms in a new u of h poll 55 percent of likely voters say that texas is heading in the wrong direction while 59% say that's the same about the country President Trump is also facing an uphill climb with Texans. 54% of voters view him unfavorably compared to 46% who view the president favorable. And among Tallarico voters in the Senate race, more than two-thirds say that their vote is explicitly to oppose Trump. All right, more Battleground Texas coming up after this break. Ken Paxton says I don't have his experience, and he's right. I've never been indicted for fraud. I've never been reported to the FBI for bribery. I've never been impeached by my own party, and I've never given a sweetheart deal to a pedophile. I have a different kind of experience. I've worked with both parties to cap the cost of insulin and pass the largest property tax cut in Texas history. I'm Ken Paxton, and I approve this message. Oil, beef, a way of life. But radical James Tallarico wants to set it ablaze. You can't call yourself a Christian and destroy God's creation with greenhouse gases. It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption. Tallarico's war on Texas energy and beef will kill jobs and raise prices on groceries and gas. Okay, fellas, I had lunch with one of my closest friends Monday, a lifelong pragmatic conservative who doesn't like Paxton's serial immorality and corrupt acts, but says given the choice, he's voting for the AG and thinks a plurality of Texans will do the same. It's the kind of stretch run one way or the other decision that's being made all over this historically red state. Mark, we know Paxton is losing by deep double digits in Harris, Dallas, Travis, Bexar, and even Fort Bend counties, while also trailing in the RGV. That is a lot to overcome. Is it still doable? All right. Without question, it's still doable. Paxton's behind. It's the fourth quarter. Tallarico has the ball with a few minutes left. But anything can happen, as Arch Manning has shown us. You can still lose in those situations. But we're in a situation now where Paxton does need to limit the damage in the big urban counties like Harris County, Houston, Dallas County, Tarrant County, and especially Bexar County and Travis County, and boost his support in the suburbs and mobilize rural voters to turn out in large numbers. One of the ways is going at those Republicans, about one in 10 of whom right now say they're not going to vote for Paxton, and trying to convince them to look past the people involved, James Tallarico and Ken Paxton, and simply think in terms of party and how that person would vote when they're in the U.S. Senate. Because the more Texas voters think about Republican control of the Senate and Democratic control of the Senate, the more likely they are to vote Republican. But the more they think about James Tallarico, the person, and Ken Paxton, the person, the more likely they are to vote Democratic. That is those on the fence. Stephen, the Republican firewall in Texas has long been the heavily populated suburban counties. Places like Collin and Denton County, do you sense they will be there this cycle for Ken Paxton in the big way he really needs them? Denton County, I believe, will come through for Ken Paxton. Collin County is Ken Paxton's home county. They've known him the most. He was in that county representing that house district when he burst onto the scene of Texas politics. The question is how many in his home county will leave it blank. I don't think as many will vote for Tallarico, but as you heard in that last interview, some may just leave it blank. And what I'm looking at is Tarrant County. That's a bellwether county, and yeah, it's gone blue before, but the question is, will some of these blue counties run up the score, not just make it a win for Tallarico, but run up the score to offset those other counties, Greg? Okay, Rudy, it's been suggested that some in the non-MAGA wing of the Texas GOP quietly see a defeat of Ken Paxton as the first necessary step toward redirecting the party back to Reagan Republicanism. In a race this close, could those folks skipping the Senate race on the ballot or even crossing over prove pivotal? You know, Greg, that is a long game move to send that kind of message. But the positions by old school Republicans like Phelan and Cornyn could have long term consequences. Remember, the Democrats have already made their game plan very clear. Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, packing the Supreme Court with liberal judges, open border amnesty for all those who rushed in on that open border. As for Tallarico, he told me in one of the very first interviews that I did with him as a candidate that he wants to impeach Trump. and we've also been told that their lawfare enemy list is quite long so the best plan i think for the GOP is just to stick together hold their nose come back in six years with a better primary challenger right maybe sooner if Paxton gets into more legal trouble Greg all right quickly Mark what in your latest tranche of numbers do you find most instructive I think what's most interesting are these Republican voters that is the moderates that are about one-seventh of the Republican electorate, who right now are leaning almost as much to not voting for Ken Paxton as voting for him, and with some of them even voting for Talarico, they're at the end of the day probably going to be the group that decides the outcome of this election. The more of them who stick to their guns right now and continue to vote sort of 50% Talarico, 25%, I mean 50% Paxton, 25% Talarico, and 25% blank, if that continues, Talarico may very well win. If on the other hand they shift and fewer of them vote for Talarico and more of them vote for Paxton then he might be able to pull it out all right it's the second day of early voting and the ballot casting is fast and furious we've got intriguing intel to share on the other side of this break welcome back to Battleground Texas Texans turned out in droves for the first day of early voting yesterday with preliminary data showing hundreds of thousands of ballots already cast across the state. Harris County led the state and shattered its own early voting midterm record with more than 104,000 ballots cast. Dallas County also saw a massive in-person turnout with more than 73,000 voters. Travis County seeing more than 41,000 in-person voters. Montgomery and Fort Bend counties also reported strong early in-person participation. Early voting runs through October 30th yes Steven no question Monday's number was big and today here in Central Texas we've been monitoring long wait times at many of our local polling locations more than 50 minutes at some spots right here in Travis County so the campaign rallies they they worked right party true believers coming out the question for me Mark is this one or two day surge sustainable you know the best midterm turnout was 53 percent in 2018, could this be a midterm that could get even close to, should I even say this? The top presidential year turnout of 2020, 66.7 percent. What do you think? Well, it's not going to reach presidential level years, we have to be really cautious interpreting early vote numbers. Uh, what you have is what's clear from polling is a group of Democratic voters who are chomping at the bit to vote, uh, they pretty vehemently oppose Donald Trump, they want to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot and they couldn't wait to get out and vote this cycle. What tends to happen though is that we're seeing probably a cannibalization of later early voting from these first couple of days and that we'll see it begin to taper off as we get towards the end of this week and early next week before picking up towards the end of the early voting period. So one thing is to see, do they keep up this rate? I don't think so, but if they do then that would suggest we may be approaching record turnout with one caveat though because we can also see a cannibalization of all voting in the early vote where simply fewer people end up voting on election day, we saw that in the primary period where so much of the vote occurred early that on election day it was a real drop off from what people might have been expecting and we didn't see the ultra record turnout that we were expecting especially on the Democratic side, so really we have to wait until the end of early voting to know if this is a truly record year and even then we'll have a pause because we won't know how many voters simply have voted early rather than on election day. Greg, he gave us the secret word: cannibalization. I love that he said it twice, and now Greg, if this is a true metrocentric blue splash have you heard any rumblings that the Republicans are already doing a quick pivot to the suburbs and small towns, uh, Rudy, as I said before, for years the suburbs have been the Texas Republican firewall which when combined with their decades of utter dominance in rural Texas assured kind of continued GOP hegemony, is there a difference this cycle? I think there is, and it lies in the depth of Republican support in the suburbs which has receded to shallow status in a Texas where more blue leaning folks have migrated outward from inner cities for access to better schools public safety and affordable home ownership whether that gradual influx is enough to weaken the firewall substantially is a question we won't be able to fully answer for another 14 days. Rudy? All right, so if this is more than a blue splash and it's start of a big wave, timing of Trump's return to Texas next week, this time next week, it could be critical for the GOP candidates. Stephen, messaging big, is it going to moderates or independents on the fence? What's your take? I think it's going to the base. I think both parties are dug in now and yeah if they get some people to come over to their side great and especially for the Talarico side they want people to come over to their side but i think it's all about turning out the base guys all right guys good discussion all right we're going to be back with our parting shots when Battleground Texas returns welcome back to the battleground we're closing out with our parting shots minus the misfire by the Hinojosa campaign they tried to reignite a scandal yesterday by filing a mean lawsuit against Greg Abbott the attempted reboot of a previous fight over emails with Elon Musk the big boogeyman of the campaign clearly missing its mark the Hinojosa lawsuit misidentified the governor as the attorney general clearly a clerical error but guys certainly a bad look for a campaign that wants to replace the current management steven i'm going to talk about early voting first i'd like to say on the outset i'm happy that voters are coming to the polls. It looks like in big numbers, but I'm going to take a page from something Mark Jones said earlier in the show. Let's tap down on the speculation of what this means. Just go to the polls, just vote. We'll figure out the results two Tuesdays from now. I'm happy that turnout is high, but let's stop speculating about what that exactly means. Mark. I'll also, I guess, tag team with Rudy. It's not Gina Hinojosa's day or week. She has an ad where she complains or criticizes Governor Abbott that property taxes have increased under his watch, which is somewhat disingenuous or ironic given that Abbott actually has reduced the amount of property taxes that Texans have paid across the board via reducing school property taxes and increasing the homestead exemption, whereas Hinojosa has consistently voted for higher property taxes or at least hasn't opposed reducing them. Okay, guys, breaking news here in Houston, where the sitting county treasurer seeking reelection is stained by three criminal arrests, including two for drunk driving. Turns out that office holder, Carla Wyatt, who was recently cited for causing a four-car collision and fleeing the scene, had no active auto insurance, leaving her victims holding the financial bag. All right, that's all the time we have. You can see more of our interviews and segments by going to our YouTube pages. And keep the conversation going. Hit us up on social media. And unlike Stephen, we're not going to tap it down, folks. We're diving headfirst into the early voting. We're going to crunch a lot more numbers tomorrow. I promise you, we'll see you back on the battleground tomorrow.