Texas midterm latest, Fort Bend Co official indicted, tax relief, and more | What's Your Point?

of early voting in Texas ahead of the midterm. Could it signal a political landscape shift from red to blue after three decades of GOP dominance? In the marquee race for U.S. Senate, pundits and pollsters alike offer a single word description. Toss-up. Nine days out, who has the midterm edge? Paxton or Tallarico? And criminal charges, shady mailers, and truly surprise endorsements. The penultimate week before decision time in Texas had them all. I'm Greg Grugan, and welcome to Watch Your Point, where our panelists call it like they see it. Let's greet them. Starting us off, Stephen David, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Houston Mayor John Whitmire. Next up, Ben Struzan, well-known conservative commentator with the Amigos on KSEV Radio. In the three-spot, longtime super neighborhood leader, Tamara Bell batting cleanup this morning writer and public policy advisor Charles Blaine and closing us out Bill King businessman columnist and fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute let's begin toss up a dead freaking heat after all this sound and fury after the hundreds of millions expended on messaging negative positive and otherwise after all the fear-mongering and punditry. The final Fox News poll on the Lone Star State's cage fight for U.S. Senate came in at Ken Paxton, 49, James Tallarico, 49. With nine days remaining until the actual midterm and early voting underway in ferocious fashion, Democrat Tallarico has taken aim at a shadow opponent, the world's richest man. Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas. We just found out that he is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and stop our movement here in Texas. Meantime, Paxton was hammering away at Tallarico's hyper-progressive past, a pattern he insists has been tamped down purely for the purpose of getting elected. James Tallarico does have a plan for your money. It just doesn't include you. He is a radical who has never met a tax increase he didn't love. All right, panel, the stretch runs stumping by both candidates, coinciding with a pretty gigantic first-week turnout of early voters. Pray tell, what does it portend, Bill King? So if you look at the early vote, it looks like Republicans and Democrats are voting at about the same level. There's some issues about how you count that, but they're roughly the same. going into election day in 24 the republicans were 10 points up on democrats so if you look at that as being even right now and we know that independents are breaking towards democratic candidates generally speaking the early vote does not look good for Republicans, all right Steven David, after leaving City Hall, has all this free time on his hand so he's been crunching the numbers too. What are you seeing, Steven? so what we're seeing is we are seeing really high amounts of turnout for Democrats. So Bill's right, when you look at it as a percentage, Democrats and Republicans are turning out at about 50 and a half percent. In Harris County, though, there are just more Democrats, about four to one to be specific. But the important thing is that there are 137,000 voters that don't have a primary history in the state of Texas. And of those, about 69%, two thirds are turning out in record fashion with no primary history and so those are all wild card voters, those are people that you can't predict what they're going too, you can't say if they're going to go left or right and to be more specific when you go back and you analyze further beyond how they voted this year in the primary it becomes spottier and spottier and spottier, and so what that tells me is that everyone's enthusiastic, people are coming out because they care and they're passionate all right, there's only been one person on our panel who's been at the polls every single day Mara Bell down at West Gray, what are you seeing anecdotally? The uh, what I, what is really enthused me, and I mean this, I'm talking 25 and under, and they come in packs, they don't come by themselves, you know they can't live without talking to somebody with the thing in their hand, so when they come to vote they come in groups and I mean, and they're, they're taking everything from everybody and they're all smiles and grins and you tell them you know it's an hour wait okay they're happy and everything and those 55 and over you tell them that the line is oh i'm getting the hell out of here i'm gonna go somewhere else but seeing the young people engaged and i i can pretty much guess the way that they're voting but what has gotten me is the amount of voters that are coming out west gray did over 3,000 in one day and on that particular day it was not just the young people mermaid man and barnacle boy was coming he's only one get it they were there as well i am not kidding in their walkers that on their canes they were they were there and so the voting enthusiasm is across cultures across parties and across generations firewall suburban red counties as well as a 70-30 split somewhere there in the rural Texas. Ben, can it happen? Well, I was looking at the five-day totals and I saw the Democrat turnout was up 7% relative to 2022. Republican turnout down 10% relative to 2022. If those trends continue, Republicans, we are going to get our clock cleaned so it's really up to what happens over the next eight eight or nine days left uh including today whether or not republicans statewide this is statewide harris county's lost i mean it's totally blue there's no republican that's going to win harris county based on these numbers uh but statewide it depends on what happens over the eight or next eight or nine days there's still four five hundred thousand three and four are republican votes that have not voted yet. Typically, the most enthusiastic side votes first. So I think the Republican turnout will increase over the next eight or nine days when everybody realizes what's happening, what's at stake. All right, Charles Blaine leads the B block still to come. Serial property tax hike by Harris County commissioners. Do Houston area voters really have no interest in punishing those who are punishing them? But up next, just nine days left in the most expensive Senate race in American history. What, if anything, can be said to shift critical votes? I'm not against wealth. What I'm against is greed. I'm against the fact that these billionaires can buy politicians like Ken Paxton, and then those puppet politicians turn around and rig the rules of the game for those billionaires, and they cut their taxes while they raise taxes on us. How are your billionaire donors different from Paxton's billionaire donors? Well, I think anyone who donates to my campaign, including people with wealth, know that I'm going to pass tax cuts for middle class people, and I'm going to make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. James Tallarico taking tough questions from my Fox 26 colleague, Lena DeFlorias. Some think Ken Paxton has declined to do with any major Fox station in Texas. That said, Paxton has taken his stretch run pitch on the road with the same messaging we've been hearing for months. He wants to transition our kids. He wants to transition Texas off of oil and gas, how about we transition him and his crazy ideas right out of Texas? Okay, panel, back to our core question. Will a plurality of Texans buy what Paxton's selling? Does he have a shot, Charles? Yeah, I still think he does. I mean, listen, I think what we're seeing now is Republicans haven't shown up yet. I think this is somewhat an outcome of what we see overall the years of talking about voter fraud. You have a lot of Republicans that I've heard from who say, well, I'm not going to go vote early so that the Democrats know how many votes to steal. These are thoughts that folks have, and so they're waiting until the end. Similarly, though, I think if Democrats were as enthusiastic as we claim, we would see them turning out in much higher numbers. For their first time to be able to pull a race in 30 years, why are they only polling or showing up the same amount as Republicans 50-50? But also, for James' point about being rigged, this is the same guy who, after redistricting, moved into a predominantly black district and then stole that seat because he wanted to stay in the legislature against black candidates who could have also represented that district. So he shouldn't really be talking about a rigged system. All right, Steve and David, Harris County, Dallas County, Bexar County, Travis County, El Paso County, the RGV, Fort Bend County, that seems like a lot to overcome for Paxton. Is it in the cards? I wouldn't say that it's in the cards, but it's definitely within the margin of error. You know, after spending $500 million in ads in the state of Texas between the two of them, they've moved the needle on Tallarico two points. He went from plus three to plus one and a half, plus one. The issue with this is that they're spending colossal amounts of money in a state that should have always been red. It's been red for the past 30 years. And so I think what we're seeing is a mix of two different things. One is frustration, general frustration. You're never gonna find a lower approval rating than if you look at Congress, how people feel about Congress. But two, Ken Paxton is a historically bad candidate. He's sort of low energy whenever he's speaking to crowds. But more importantly, he's got a lot of corruption, a lot of baggage that comes with him. And if you want to look at the way that the general's turning out, look at the primary fight between him and Senator Cornyn. It was ugly. It got really ugly really quick. And it's because he's bringing so much baggage to the table. Bill, you're channeling a huzzah to what Stephen David said, unless I've read your previous comments incorrectly. No, you know, there's another whole scandal came out this week about him, about he and Senator Paxton investing in this blind trust that's run by a felon, a criminal that went to jail for fraud. And I disagree with what Charles said about, yeah, maybe there's 12 nuts out there that are not voting because they're waiting for Election Day. But the big problem is when you look at Republican leaners, they're only supporting Paxton at between 50 and 60%. They're supporting Abbott over 80%. There's a big chunk of Republicans, especially old Cornyn people, that are just saying, I'm not going to vote for this guy. Now, I think a lot of them are staying home. I think a lot of them, I think they're going to be surprised if a lot of them go in the poll and either voting for Tallarico or skipping the race altogether. Quickly. I agree with Bill, and people said that to me out there. They said, I'm still voting Republican. Not all Republicans. They made a point to say it, but not all Republicans. Okay, we're coming to Ben, because we're not done talking about the Senate race, okay? Up next, Greg Abbott's quest for a fourth term as Texas governor, still very much in question. Can he close the door on his hard-charging Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa? As governor, within an hour of taking the oath of office, I will declare a high-cost emergency in the state of Texas and issue an emergency executive order to, number one, suspend the gas and diesel tax. Number two, freeze electricity rates. I will also issue an emergency proclamation for the legislature to pass a $1,500 refund to Texas families and property tax relief by ending corporate welfare. 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 going to work because Texans have figured out who she is. The latest Fox poll has incumbent Governor Greg Abbott up five points in what is clearly the most daunting challenge of his long political career. All right, Ben, I trust your acumen. You think Abbott pulls this off? Yeah, I do. But I'm assuming that that 10% deficit closes in the next eight days. Because if it doesn't, there's not any statewide leader in the state of Texas is going to survive this. And we'd be looking at a 94-style election flipping the other way. I do think the gap's going to close. I think Abbott holds. And Paxton's got his challenges, and I'm not going to go into them. You all are correct. But the overriding, overarching issue is that President Trump has failed to convince the American voter and the Texan voter that the high energy prices and the high prices that everyone is paying is worth it in order to prevent a group of homicidal maniacs from building nuclear weapons. That's the bottom line. And he took the wrong political tactic. He drove himself into this political cul-de-sac about gas prices up, gas prices down. will come down next week, blah, blah, blah. We all know it's Trump speak. It was never going to happen. Bottom line is still the same. You didn't start and convince the American voter that what they're paying for is worth it. That's to me the bottom line. That's why if Paxton loses and he's on a track to lose right now, that'll be the overarching reason, despite the fact he's a crappy candidate. Charles, I was on Battleground Texas and I said, look, if there were a star chamber of republicans who could make a pre-election settlement they'd take okay we'll give you the senate race give us control of the legislature we retain that the governor's mansion lieutenant governor's slot and uh you know we'll give you that seat on the railroad commission let's call it a day and regroup you think they'd take that deal well i think it we i don't i don't think the governor's too concerned i mean i think he's concerned like i said last week with this being kind of the most formidable challenger he's had. And I think because of the climate that we're in, that has also given her a boost. But I don't think he's that concerned about actually losing. The Railroad Commission race is so far down the ballot that I don't think anyone is really that concerned about Beau French anymore. And at the legislature, yes, there's a possibility and a likelihood that Republicans might lose some seats. But even if you look at the close districts like 133 and 138, they're still doing better than what people had expected them to do prior to the start of early voting. And so I think Republicans are going to do better than maybe expected, better than we're expecting now, not better than I think we would have hoped months ago. But I do think that Republicans are going to turn out when you get closer to election day. Tomorrow, if you ask me to list five Texas House Democrats who were the most progressive, Gina Hinojosa would have made that list every time, along with James Talarico. And yet here she is within striking distance of the governor. Exactly. And it's not because of her character or nothing about her. It ain't got a damn thing to do with Talarico. What people don't realize is in Texas, the rural makes up most of Texas. Those people lost their contracts because they can't sell USID So they can't sell their rice, they can't sell their flour to the foreign countries like they used to. Then they couldn't sell their beef and their chickens because the tariffs was too damn high. Now they can't even fill up the damn machine to do the crops because diesel's so damn high. So they lost that. Then you go back and you put out vouchers and so you're clearing their school systems which most of the people in the small towns, the school is the biggest employer. Grandma is the cook, daddy is the bus driver. You didn't take away that. Then you finna take away the subsidies to the health care so the rural hospitals go down. Hell, this is suicide. Y'all killed y'all own damn self. This ain't got nothing to do with the Democrats. This got to do with them. And don't get into the data centers where now they're paying way more than they ever thought they'd pay because you're giving away electricity in the water. That's why your ass underwater. All right. We're going to talk more about this coming up. Still to come. Could 2026 provide the perfect storm for long-suffering Texas Democrats? That's Keen Perspective just ahead on voter fatigue with Republican rule in the Lone Star State. When it comes to truly understanding Texas politics and the often stealthy forces that drive it, few, if any, can match the institutional knowledge, high-quality sourcing, and journalistic perception of Quorum Report editor Scott Braddock. Nine days out from the midterm, I asked him if Texas is on the cusp of the perfect political storm Democrats have been craving. This might not just be a wave election. It could be a realignment election. You remember what happened in 1994. When I say it's not necessarily partisan, what I mean is this. It means that people are in the mood to find out about the devil they don't know because they think the devil they do know isn't doing any good. And we have, for the first time in a long time, Democrats looking at a shot at winning a statewide race around here, and not just because they're running pretty good races, but also because Republicans, in a big sense, are imploding. Panel Braddock pointing out that for the first time since winning the governorship in 2014, Greg Abbott is offering fellow Republicans very little in the way of down-ballot coattails. You know, Bill, Braddock said a couple of things there that's not inconsistent with what you have said here. Well, I do not think this is a realignment election. When you look at the polling, the Democratic Party still is 20, 25 points unfavorable in Texas. by the way just like the Republican party is 20 or 25 points unfavorable this is not we love what the Democrats are doing this is like we're really just worn out with what the Republicans are doing the stupid sharia law and chinese buying land and all the transgender nonsense when people are facing high prices the kids can't afford to buy houses and they're saying why are you talking about these issues that don't affect me that's where the republicans have got off track but the Democrats are not offering anything. We're going to give away $1,500 free to every Texan. Who does that sound like? I don't know. I think this could be a clean sweep. I don't eliminate the possibility in this election. But the Democrats will do exactly what they always do, which is they'll go do a bunch of stupid stuff that'll make everybody mad in the next election. And we're going to go back maybe to what we see on the national level, which is, which is the worst of the two evils I have to choose from in every election. All right, Steve and David, talk about or give me your thoughts on the concept of Republican fatigue. Yeah, I think that there absolutely is Republican fatigue. What you'll see, though, out of the election, if you're trying to look at what is potentially going to happen, I'm not going to go so far as to say it's going to be a clean sweep for Democrats in the state of Texas because it's a little too early to call. But in 2022, 67% of the total vote came out of early voting. In 24, it was 75%. Well, this election is looking more like a presidential year than it is a midterm year. And so I think that by the end of next week, exactly what you were saying earlier, by the end of next week, we're going to be able to see where everyone is sitting. And Republicans have to turn out if they really want to win. Greg Abbott had $100 million in his war chest. And I don't think six months ago you would have been able to convince him that he would have had to spend it on himself. All right, Charles, we're looking at a potential reset post-midterm. Republicans lose the House, at least. A battle between continuing along the MAGA path or a return to Reagan Republicanism. Are you hearing those conversations yet? It rumbles of them, but nothing too significant. I mean, I think the idea is that are we going to, like Bill said, continue to focus on these host of issues that I wouldn't even consider MAGA issues, just issues that have kind of gotten the party off track, Or are we gonna focus on the issues that people are actually caring about and talking about like affordability and in school choice is obviously gonna be a big one as we see a big adjustment in school funding and things like that this coming legislative session. But I don't think it's gonna be a big decision between kind of what ideology the broader party is gonna adopt. It's just gonna be in terms of what direction we're gonna go in terms of the day to day issues that we focus on. And I think we might start taking some lead from our local candidates and our local officials who are actually focused on those issues rather than the other ones who are focused on everything else under the sun. Ben, your picture is next to the definition of Reagan Republican. Yeah. So is that conversation going to start happening? I think so. And I think Trump will be a lame duck and people will start treating him as such. He will still have tremendous influence in Republican primaries, but not as much as before. J.D. Vance will pick up the reins and try to continue that. And then you'll have other candidates because we have a younger, deeper bench that will emerge and have their own version of they'll call themselves MAGA, but it'll be closer to Reagan than it is MAGA. A lot of great candidates out there. So I think that it'll be the two years going forward will look a lot different politically than the two years that we just had. When we come back, the affordability crunch and onerous tax hikes by Harris County Democrats. Why aren't local voters making the connection. Question, what major Texas community has endured back-to-back-to-back double-digit tax hikes and then inexplicably re-elected the incumbents responsible for digging more deeply into their wallets year after year? Well, while we won't know for sure until November 3rd, it's looking highly likely the answer is Harris County. And to absolutely no one's surprise, the ongoing local abuse of taxation has become a key issue in state legislative contests. The fact that commissioner's court increased our property taxes, not just now, the largest increase ever. They did it a couple of years ago. And we already have an annual increase in their revenues just from appraisal increases and new development and new properties coming online. So they have a steady increase in revenue. The fact that now we've seen two big increases, 41 percent overall in a time when we have this affordability crisis right we have this um this time where you know wages just haven't caught up hopefully a lot of this is temporary hopefully after the Iran war we get back into check a little bit more but it's real and it's real today and what does Harris County do they say we're going to take more from you guys because we know best I think that's insulting panel west Houston Republican Mono Diala calling out Democrats on Harris County Commissioner's Court and forecasting heavy pushback when the legislature reconvenes most likely with a slimmer Republican majority intact and yet a Republican majority Bill uh the disconnect between getting just hammered on property taxes and still offering their votes to Democrats well I think two things one you said that we keep re-electing them after they've done that they've actually done this in this last term so nobody's been re-elected after voting for all these property taxes. Now, the polling sure looks like Garcia and Brownis, who were largely responsible for the tax increase, are leading in both of their precincts. We'll see whether that comes out or not. I will tell you, when you look at their social media, especially Brownis, it's just savaged. Every time she puts something up, people complaining about the property tax increase. That's obviously not a statistical sample. But the other thing is, the tax bill won't go out until after the election. They very carefully schedule that. So even though they're going to have this big tax increase, they're not going to see it till after they voted. Stephen David. Well, I'm going to disagree a little bit with this. I don't think that social media votes respectfully, but I do think the important thing is that voters, when they go to cast their vote, they're not monolithically thinking about their taxes. I think they're also balancing out what services are they receiving. And this is not a plug for Commissioner Brownis, but if you look at what she's touting online or touting in the public field, she's built 50 miles of sidewalks inside Precinct 4. That's meaningful to people. And so I do think that people are having a little bit of a conversation with themselves. Yes, my tax bill's higher, but also I have better services or more services that are available to me. Yeah, she's going to add 70 positions to her precinct. That's almost, what, one employee per mile of sidewalking. Go ahead. Tomorrow you go to the super neighborhood meetings all the time. Is there a disconnect here? Or do they just hate Trump more than they dislike having their clock cleaned on property taxes? They hate the ideology of republicanism. While I'm out there and the people are standing there, vote straight democrat. I was like, you need to move down. Because I'm not voting straight. Oh, you're not? Nope, move down because I'm going to make you look bad and I'm going to hurt your feelings. Let's take your ass home. And the same thing, there's some people out there saying vote straight Republican. Listen, you need to look at what is happening to you. There is no way in hell they can justify taking this much money out your pocket and you think it's good. But you're so hooked on hating Trump and anything Trump doing. Abbott, oh God, he only this second behind Trump and y'all hating him that you're not looking at. This is local. I know they say all politics is local. Hell, this is local. you need to really look at it because Leslie Briones what i've heard from people in her community is that she didn't align with the blacks in her community till she got ready to run for re-election i know some black elected officials who reached out to her and tried to engage with her and she wouldn't even return their calls and then she saw that she had a formidable opponent and a well-known opponent in Reddit then she started saying let's do the black and brown coalition and all that you know so y'all need to think hard about what y'all doing because i'm telling you her and Adrian just Adrian just don't give a damn i'm sorry he just don't care so think about it when you look at your money ben you know your listeners uh are they up in arms about this or is it well yeah they're up in arms about the harris county property tax increase and they're going to vote uh republican primarily we get some uh democrats that you know and independents obviously. But for the most part, what we're seeing is people care about paying $65 for a bag of dog food, and they can care less about their sidewalks. And so eventually, when they start the other side of the aisle here, when they start writing checks for their property taxes, they'll start to care a lot more about this and figure out, my goodness, it's gone up quite a bit. But again, the Trump downdraft is so dramatic, it's gonna sweep a few unsavory characters into office. All right, quickly, Charles. Yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna say the same thing I always say, which is that Harris County has no long-term memory. How many people have died in the jail this year, do we hold them accountable? How many times has Harris County increased taxes and do we hold people accountable? How many times do our elected officials get arrested or get charged for public corruption and we put them back? I mean, we just don't have the memory and so this is why people don't carry it to the ballot box. don't think we're going to see any outcome of what their actions are at the election this time. And they count on it. Yeah. Still to come, theft of public funds and fraud. Fort Bend County's tax collector now facing lots of hard time in the federal clink. But up next, the reality of property tax relief for millions of Texas seniors. It's a windfall they can literally keep in the bank. There's been a lot of chatter lately regarding whether the billions in property tax relief generated by the state legislature was real and actually impacting Texans in a positive way. State Senator Paul Bettencourt, the architect of massive increases in school tax, homestead exemptions for Texas homeowners. Now, after crunching the numbers hard, Bettencourt generated this map illustrating that 60% of Texas homeowners over the age of 65 no longer pay any school tax and in a huge swath of the state the brown area on the map there representing nearly 100 counties not a single penny is paid by seniors to public schools as tax on their homesteads panel for me anyway i'm not the sharpest knife in the book not the book the drawer right the drawer see what i mean that seems like proof of performance how about you bill yeah i think that chart is actually uh over 65 plus disability exemptions this is the 60 but nonetheless it's very substantial we did uh we set up this program over at baker that can run any property tax bill in the state and show you how much your school taxes came down versus how much your other taxes went up and so starting in 22 and these reforms came into place what you see is in the largest 20 taxing entities in the state their average increase year over year was eight percent and so what they did was just soaked up everything that the state dropped the school taxes on and that's why nobody believes they actually got any relief because their overall bill is about the same as it was before ours gone up slightly the two entities that did not raise taxes city of houston and tarrant county go ahead i think that the most important thing about this This is where I think a lot of elected officials can't see the forest for the trees. Everybody looks at senior exemptions. Nobody talks about first-time homebuyers. I remember when my wife and I bought our first house together when I was 21 and she was 20. And we lived on fish sticks and macaroni and cheese for probably a good year or two while we started our careers. And I think that that's something that they completely miss. I love that we make it more affordable for seniors who are on a fixed income. but seniors also have high net worth when you're talking about a first-time homebuyer you are cash strapped and you have no net worth and i think that's a very important thing that everybody ignores and so if we're talking about enthusiasm at the polls why people are and are not turning out this is a reason why young people are really frustrated with the system but we still can't get charles to buy a house the homestead exemption for everyone went up to what from 70 to 140 thousand dollars so everybody got real property tax relief. I just think that these other entities, including Harris County primarily in this area, are soaking it all up. That's why they felt so comfortable doing it. Thought they could skate by in a political year with a big downdraft for Republicans. Their bet is going to turn out for them. They're going to come up great in this election cycle, but I think it's going to hurt them in the next couple of years. are folks in the neighborhoods cognizant that they their their school taxes have dropped no they have no idea but are they looking at this tax bill they're still getting every day and i still don't comprehend why people cannot look at the people who are taking your money making it their money and leaving you with no money what is wrong with y'all y'all need to look at this this is real it's not fake and i'm telling you prices are only going up they are not going down and when you look at that new tax bill that you got to pay come january and you're trying to see where the hell you're going to come up with replacement for your subsidized health care if you're on the Affordable Care Act because you ain't got that money no more. Then y'all be saying damn, why the hell did I vote for them? But you see, he lived on fish sticks and macaroni. We lived on ramen noodles and chick pot pies. Up next, kickbacks funded by unsuspecting Fort Bend County taxpayers. Federal prosecutors reveal the scheme that's likely to land yet another elected leader in prison. Fort Bend County Tax Assessor Collector Carmen Turner criminally indicted this week on federal charges of theft of government money and wire fraud. Turner is accused of secretly placing her mother's full-time caretaker on the Fort Bend County payroll, along with executing a kickback scheme involving the father of her adult son. U.S. Attorney Aaron Wrights described the alleged conspiracy. And Ewing, who's the baby daddy of Turner's adult son. was up in Chicago working another full-time job while collecting Fort Bend County paychecks and then sending kickbacks from those paychecks to Turner herself. Now, instead of running for another term, Turner now faces the possibility of decades in prison. Here in Harris County, County Treasurer Carla Wyatt is running for re-election despite three arrests, two for drunk driving. Panel this week, Fox 26, was the first to reveal that Wyatt, whose reckless driving caused a four-car pileup in September was operating the vehicle with a lapsed auto insurance policy, leaving her victims holding the financial bag. Who wants a piece of that, Bill? I mean, this is what's wrong with the two-party system. Carla White will more than likely be re-elected. Beau French, despite the despicable things he said, will likely get elected that's what the polling shows right now this is because and you know people go down the ballot if they don't know what's going on they just vote whatever their party affiliation is and um you know and unless we do something to break the duopoly that the two-party system has in this country we're going to keep getting crazy results like that fort bend county with all this stuff with the former county judge all of whom had a big d by their name Paxton's down 18, Charles, in Fort Bend County. Well, I mean, you know, I'm not too surprised, especially with Bill mentioned before about the kind of Sharia law thing that has been going on within the Republican Party. Paxton's kind of been one of the tip of the spears when it comes to pushing back against that. And you have a lot of folks in Fort Bend County who take offense to that. And so I'm not too surprised. Carla White, the one that just keeps blowing my mind. I mean, you know, she said in the interview with the Houston Chronicle that no babies flew through the windshield of that four-car accident. And so, therefore, people should not be upset. And yet, you had her victims who testified, or not testified, held a press conference last week. One of them saying that because of her lack of insurance, they've spent $10,000 for their healthcare costs and their $6,000 for their car repair. Because I mean, it's mind blowing that this woman is very likely gonna be reelected. Go ahead, Ben. We interviewed the victims this week, and they said a lot more than that, including how she allegedly fled the scene. But look, I'll make an appeal, as a Republican, I'll make an appeal to the Democrats out there. The one Democrat you should not elect is this lady running for Harris County Treasurer, Mark Cowart, who is a Republican, who I know is smart, competent, partisan, yeah, but this is not a partisan job. So if you want to feel good about yourself and pull the lever for a Republican, vote for Mark Cowart, please. Tamara, do you have any thoughts here? What the hell? I mean, that's all I can say is what the hell. I mean, I'm not kidding. I don't get it. Number one, I don't drink. I never drank. Don't do drugs, whatever. But when you know you've got that kind of problem, go sit your ass down. Go get some help or something. I was in a bad car wreck. Ended up in a coma. I don't play about that crap. And that's all I can say this early morning is crap. I want to say sugar, honey, iced tea, but I can't. But that doesn't make any sense that you are doing this. I am want to tell you I am not voting for you I can't vote for you I ain't telling you I'm gonna vote for whoever he said I didn't know the name of all of this but I'm not voting for you I'm not you don't care about the people this makes no sense I'm not kidding I'm not talking about your job as a person you don't care I'm not looking for that I got enough of them idiots already in office like that if I can eliminate one vote from you it's gonna be mine all right up next a prolific and mysterious outreach to students trumpeting the trans texas takeover if you think the timing is suspicious you'd have plenty of company question why are millions of texas households receiving this texas trans student resource guide in their mailboxes two weeks before the midterm it is slickly produced professionally written and apparently 100 percent phony, mailed out from Wyoming by some mysterious LLC. The sheer volume of mailers dispatched points to deep pockets looking to convince parents that their kids are being actively lobbied. Panel, Sarah Stogner, y'all remember her, she ran for railroad commission, a district attorney in West Texas has launched a fraud investigation. But folks, I wouldn't hold your breath about tracking down the source here, but I wrote that before Bill King started looking into it. What's going on? Yeah, we learned a lot in the last 24 hours. So there was a Wyoming LLC that sponsored this. However, they used a printing company in Chicago that's owned by a family called Zerzan that are big Trump supporters out of Dallas. And then they used a mail tracking service that's in Maryland, just outside DC, that tracks mailing results for republican campaigns and so big trump supporters mail out this fake trans mailer right during the election with an LLC that was formed two weeks before early voting started now you tell me why all that took place by the way i think this violates i think sarah's right i think this violates multiple criminal laws somebody ought to go to jail over this this is mail fraud this is false mail by the way the return address they use is complete fake address that's illegal under the postal laws i promise you you appoint me as a special prosecutor i'll make a case out of this steven david ross thoughts yeah i think this is just another uh a very unique observation into uh the desperation of republicans right now in the state of texas yes it's this is a manifestation of the fact that this has been the playbook for republicans for the past decade or so of we've got to fear people into voting for us. We need to create a boogeyman and we need to be able to do it in an effective way. And two weeks before an election, it makes a lot of sense with the polls as close as they are. Rebuttal then. Yeah, so the Republicans copied the Democrat playbook. I mean, it's been going on forever. That stuff's going to go into the trash, have no material impact whatsoever. They wasted their money. It's stupid. If laws were broken, prosecute them. But please, spare me the indignation about Republicans, because you guys do it all the time. Dan Sullivan, thank you. All right, Charles, you want to jump in here? Yeah, I agree. Different guys do it all the time, and so we're just copying them. No, but I don't know if it's going to have any significant impact. The Republicans who I have heard who received it can kind of see right through it. They see what it is, and they weren't, you know, it went to Republican households. And they were like, well, this is a slightly offensive, but more offensive that it was coming from a Republican. Their kids might have seen it. And so I don't really think it's going to have any significant impact on the race. And, you know, interestingly enough, what has not come up is that while Ken Paxton in his old campaign has talked a lot about the trans issue, no one ever seems to mention that one of the first things he did when he became attorney general was go eat dinner at a trans kid's house because of all the rhetoric that was going on at the time. Him and his wife went and had dinner at this house to better understand the trans issue. And so we've come a long way since from then to now. Have you heard a better argument for a third party, Bill? No. All right. Still to come. The Houston Chronicle editorial board delivering a thumbs down to the Republican governor and a thumbs up to his hyper-progressive opponent. immigration that's helped drive our economy in many places. He's flip-flopped on these data centers. And he can't just deliver a straightforward message. I will say that Gina Yano, one of the big appeals that she has delivered to Houston-area voters, is opposing the state takeover that I think, while perhaps well-intentioned, has had some good outcomes in some places, has hurt a lot of really well-performing schools. And you see families fleeing the district because of that. The perspective of Houston Chronicle editorial chief Evan Mintz on the candidates for Texas governor also on the ballot here in Houston. Prop A, deprioritizing marijuana enforcement and a ban on so-called no-knock warrants. Charles, quick thought. Yeah, I'm just interested to see how it goes. I mean, these are two very different issues that they lumped into one proposition, and so I don't know how voters are going to react to it. I'm curious as to why the group did that with two propositions, but it doesn't look as though they really tailored it specific to Houston because a lot of language has city manager and other things that Houston doesn't have. So it looks like a kind of copy and paste from other cities. This looks like a prop in search of an issue because isn't current policy both of what they're proposing? Yeah, so HPD, they banned no-knock warrants a while ago with regard to the Harding Street raid. And more importantly, marijuana citations and arrests are really dictated by the policy of the district attorney and whether or not they're going to pick up charges. But I think the important thing, the thing that I'll tout for my former employer, is the fact that these folks put 42,000 signatures inside the city secretary's office. The mayor prioritized reviewing those things. We've seen previous ballot measures be dragged out over years in reviewing those ballots. It took them two to three months, and there was a lot of innovation. They actually partnered with University of Houston, and they did sampling, which is allowed under state law, to expedite the review of those ballots to get it on the ballot for this year, as opposed to dragging it out over next year. What do you think the chances are, if this passes, that it puts a big old target on the city of Houston from federal elements, both the state and national? I don't think anybody's going to notice. This is kind of a non-issue. All right. It's all the time we have. Thanks to this week's panel and thank you for joining us. The conversation continues on a national level next on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Breen. But we'll keep talking here with What's Your Point Overtime, streaming live on Fox26Houston.com and your free Fox Local app for your phone or smart TV. From all of us here, have a safe and healthy week.