Early voting & new political ads | Dallas News Live

Now there's a new ad out by James Tallarico. It features Crystal Mason, a North Texas woman who was involved in a voter fraud investigation. Take a listen. In 2016, I cast a provisional ballot. I didn't do anything wrong, and the ballot never counted. Crystal was sentenced to five years in prison because of Ken Paxton's crackdown on voters of color, putting politics before people. For almost 10 years, I lived in fear of losing my freedom. All right, joining me live Bud Kennedy from the Star-Telegram. But my question to you first off is what do you think of the timing of this ad? Well, you know, the timing, it's very fortuitous for Crystal Mason, and for Tallarico that her uh case was finalized only a few weeks ago by the Supreme Court. She is uh she was not guilty of illegal voting, and you know since that first conviction and prosecution, imprisonment of Crystal Mason, not only the courts, the judges, and even the Texas Legislature and the House of Representatives, the House Speaker, have all said she wasn't guilty of illegal voting and should never have been prosecuted. Bud, you're there in Tarrant County. Tarrant County always, every election cycle, seen as a possible bellwether county. It's a purple county right now. What do you make of this first week of early voting when it comes to the turnout in Tarrant County? Well, you know, Tarrant County is getting a little bit too blue to be a bellwether at this point. I think Collin is more of a bellwether for the state of Texas. The Democratic voting has been really intensely heavy in Tarrant County. more Democrats than Republicans. As you know, this is all based on how people voted in the primary. So about 40% of the voters so far voted in the Democratic primary. about 30% didn't vote in any primary at all. Those voters are favoring Tallarico, according to the polls we see. And then about between 25% and 30% of Republican primary voters have voted. So the Democratic turnout's been very heavy, and the Republican turnout's been pretty tepid. Now, is it Democrat turnout heavy just because Democrats are energized to go to the polls right now and things may change this week or on election day, in your opinion? Well, you know, Democrats across the state are energized because they feel like there's a lot at stake in this election. They're always energized when Republicans in the White House. A lot of this starts with the whole structure of the election, that it's always going to be more of a Democratic election because there's a Republican in Washington. But some of it is also local. There's been problems, conflicts between the two large factions in the Republican Party. the business more moderate faction, and the right-wing MAGA faction. And so that's led to conflicts over County Judge O'Hare, the former county chairman, Beau French, the state Senate candidate, Lee Wamsgans. We saw divisions in that race when Lee Wamsgans ran in the spring in a district that for 16% of the people voted for Donald Trump. In that race, not only did Republicans stay home, 25% of the Republicans voted for the Democrat. and Taylor Remit went to the state senate but when i posted this weekend that Fort Worth Republican Mayor Maddie Parker endorsed Rosenthal over Beau French for railroad commissioner and Beau French is Fort Worth is his backyard a lot of comments came out people saying oh Maddie Parker's not a republican should people be shocked about this endorsement of Rosenthal from Maddie Parker because she also endorsed Tim O'Hare well you know the difference is you know Mayor Parker didn't just say, I'm not going to vote for Beau French, as some of the other prominent Republicans have said. Several Republicans have said they're not going to vote for Beau French. Not as many have said that they're going to vote for Rosenthal. I think Speaker Phelan did. But the outright rejection of the former Republican Party chairman is pretty significant. Now, since then, of course, she's also said that she'll vote for the Democrat for Attorney General. Mayor Parker is conscious of the fact that Fort Worth is mostly a democratic city even though the county is republican and she's tried to represent everybody and she's tried to you know to walk that line and be sure that everybody gets a share and say so in county government she is certainly not an arch right wing mega republican and has never pretended to be but the president will be back here in Texas in Lubbock and in Corpus Christi tomorrow, a week from election day. And then the vice president is going to be in Weatherford on Thursday. Is this just the chips are already pushed in, so let's go into the finish line? Or does this signal concern to you? Well, this indicates that Republicans aren't voting statewide. There's not enough Republican turnout. And, you know, Republicans were a few at that point and said, look, look, look, we've got record turnout in Parker County. Well, yeah, there's record turnout because it's a record turnout everywhere, but their record turnout is not keeping up with the Democrats record turnout in other places the president is going to places where they're really excited about having the president come like Lubbock and Corpus before that he planned Waco you know he's going to towns where it's still a big deal when the president comes and it doesn't hurt him it's not a detriment to Republican candidates like it is when he comes to a larger market JD Vance comes to Parker County which is underperforming so far for a republican county and also JD Vance comes to Texas because here he can kind of campaign early for 2028 in Ted Cruz's backyard yeah and I know uh our colleague uh Roop Raj my colleague Roop Raj in Detroit over the weekend asked President Trump who does he think will run in 2028 the president said well you got JD you got Marco I'm thinking we may see a Vance Rubio ticket even though uh some circles may say that Rubio is a better 2028 candidate than JD Vance but Kennedy from Star Telegram thank you for your time thank you We'll be right back.