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The battle for Texas: Can Democrats win it back from Trump?
00:31:45
Republican panic as voting starts in the Texas primaries
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A
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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Really?
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There hasn't been a Democratic Party senator from Texas for more than 30 years. There hasn't been a presidential win for a Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter's time. Is that about to change? On both sides of the aisle, the Democrats and the Republicans, they are choosing their candidates who are for the vital Senate race coming up in November. We're gonna look at Texas. Why it matters, why it could have implications for the whole of the midterms. Welcome to AmericasT.
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C
AmericasT. AmericasT from BBC News.
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A
You hear that sound?
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C
Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. Nicholas Maduro yeahed around and he found
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B
out this is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.
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C
This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.
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A
Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.
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C
And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmericaSt at the BBC bureau in Washington D.C. and if there were a
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A
Texan taking part, they would say that theirs was the best headquarters, the biggest headquarters. Because that's just the way Texas is, eh?
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C
Absolutely. You know, I grew up in the state. It is my home, always will be. And as I say, everything's bigger in Texas, including the electoral campaigns.
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A
Yeah, but in recent times, statewide, not for Democrats.
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C
Yeah, it is rough and tumble. Always is. And it is a state, as you mentioned, that has been dominated by Republicans for several decades now. It's been a long time since a Democrat has won statewide and it is one of those states that Democrats eye hopefully. It seems like the next election is always going to be the election where they finally break through and win. It always gets their hopes dashed. However, Joe Biden came somewhat close to Donald Trump in 2020, presidential wise. Beto O', Rourke, you remember in 2018, the congressman who ran for Senate darn near knocked off Ted Cruz, came within a couple of percentage points. But they get close to the top of the mountain and never seem to get over the hump. There is hope because Democrats seem to be having the political wind at their back now that they might be able to win statewide here. But it's still, I think there are a lot of pessimists who look at Texas and think they're going to tilt at windmills once again.
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A
In other words, they have serially tried and thought that they were close and not managed it. Before we get to this race, we what is going on then?
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C
Behind the scenes, there's a combination of factors. A lot of people are moving to Texas from other states. A lot of people are moving to Texas from California and the east coast. And they aren't as dyed in the wool conservatives as some of the existing residents. The cities, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio are becoming bastions of the Democratic Party. They're having a lot more representative. It took a while but Dallas started electing Democratic mayors. Houston has Democratic mayors. Austin with the university has always been fairly liberal. But that has given people hope that it would become more of a battleground state combined with a Hispanic vote that they had relied on being solidly Democratic. The challenge of when I talked to my Texas friends and analysts there, the challenge for Democrats is while the cities are getting more Democratic, the Hispanic vote has not. The Hispanic vote, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, which is that little strip along the Texas Mexico border, has become more conservative. And in fact, in recent elections, in the presidential election two years ago, Donald Trump made great inroads in those areas and actually won some of the counties. And so without that bedrock Hispanic support, the it kind of offsets the advantages Democrats have been developing in the cities.
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A
Yeah. And we should just add as a kind of aside, but it is really important, isn't it, when you think of the big states where you can win the Electoral College in that state and you're getting then a load of Electoral College votes for your presidential candidate. And the obvious example being California for the Democrats. I mean, California has been Republican in the past, but it's pretty definitely for the Democrat candidate recently and in the immediate future as well. It's Texas and Florida for the Republicans, if you're looking for a really big punchy number of electoral college votes and then they're down into having to scrabble around and get together a kind of patchwork of smaller states. So Texas, if Texas politics really changes and it becomes competitive at the presidential level, it's fair to say, isn't it, that for the Republicans is a real problem.
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C
It would realign the electoral map. And yes, a very real problem. If Democrats have hopes of winning statewide in Texas, then they have two of the big three prizes along with California. Florida seems to be going the other direction towards the Republicans, but it would make life a lot easier for the Democrats and a lot harder for Republicans. They would definitely have to win the industrial Midwest, the Michigans and the Wisconsins and the Ohio's and the Pennsylvanias just to make up for the fact that Texas might slip out of their fingers. So that's one of the reasons why Republicans fight so hard to keep control of Texas. It's one of the reasons why Democrats are constantly hopeful that maybe things will change there because you've seen other states tilt. As you mentioned, California used to be reliably Republican, now it's Democratic. Colorado, another one, used to be reliably Republican. Now it's Democratic. Virginia, there are states that move and there are states that move the other way, too. Ohio to the Republican column, Florida to the Republican column. So West Virginia decidedly to the Republican column. So it's not beyond the realm of comprehension that Texas could at some point shift. And maybe this year is finally the year where we see some very real indications and the Democrats break through and actually notch a victory.
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A
Okay? So then it comes to who the candidates are and who is likely to win. And on this, you think back, don't you, Anthony, to the 2022 midterms and the fact that the Republicans actually kind of around the nation didn't do as well as they hoped they were going to do. And afterwards everyone said, you know what? That is? Candidate quality. In fact, Mitch McConnell, the boss in the Senate, said it, didn't he, that it matters who you get to be your candidate.
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C
Yeah, Beto O' Rourke in 2018, he was the kind of candidate who had star power. He was a rising star in Texas politics, a congressman from El Paso. He activated young voters. He pulled different coalitions together in the state. He got lots of good press. He fundraised like a presidential candidate. And there's A candidate kind of that is drawing comparisons to Beto work this time around running for the Democratic nomination Senate. His name is James Tallarico. He's a state legislator from Austin and he has a different kind of appeal than we normally see from Texas. He has a religious evangelical background and he leans heavily into that on this
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A
campaign and lots of AmericasT, in fact, getting in touch about James Tallarico. We are coming to him after he's been much mentioned in our inbox, but rightly so. So a lot of the messages and this is a typical one actually. So hello AmericaSt. There is a name I haven't heard mentioned on any Amerikast episode. I think I'm talking about James Talarico from Texas. Could he be someone that could be representing the Democrats while being respected without necessarily agreeing by more traditional Republicans? That, I suppose is his potential appeal, isn't it, Anthony?
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C
Yeah, he's a former middle school teacher, as I mentioned, he was a member of the House of Representatives in Texas. He often quotes scripture and challenges conservatives who lay claim to kind of the evangelical Christian mantle. Until he started the Senate campaign, he was planning on going into the seminary, becoming a minister. He was a part time seminary student. Here he is talking on the Stephen Colbert show, the late night CBS talk show about his background and what it means to him. As a state rep, you fought against the a bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools. That's right. Why, even on that level, do you think it's important to keep the separation not just for the state, but for the church? Well, because we are called to love all of our neighbors, including our Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, agnostic, atheist neighbors. And forcing our religion down their throats is not love. And it's why I have fought,
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it's
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why I fought so hard for that sacred separation in our First Amendment. Because my granddad, he raised me to believe that that boundary between church and state doesn't just benefit the state or our democracy, although it certainly does, but it also benefits the church because when the church gets too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice, its ability to speak truth to power, its ability to imagine a completely different world.
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And he's really excited a lot of people, hasn't he, in the, if it's fair to say the right of the Democratic Party, those who want moderation to be the message, partly because of his Christian faith, but partly also because he has a knack, doesn't he, of putting into words what I think they hope could be the party's message into the longer term future.
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C
Right. He's a candidate that I think a lot of people in Texas believe could build a new kind of coalition to build a kind of a winning majority in that state. Now, I will note that as the mayor casters may remember, this CBS interview actually didn't air on CBS over the air on broadcast. It got blocked because the threats by the Trump administration saying that if you give Talarico time, you also have to give time to the other candidates running, although it was released on their YouTube channel and on their video outlets online. And it generated considerable amount of attention, maybe even more attention than it would have gotten if it had just aired in the regular running of the show. So he was able to fundraise millions of dollars off it and that generated a new kind of swell of attention for him after the fact.
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Yeah. And it's worth saying that name recognition is one of his potential problems, isn't it? That he does need to really introduce himself to Texas and do it pretty fast. And how much people like to say, like the look of him. And certainly I was listening to James Carville the other day, the Ragin Cajun, the Clinton era operative who's sort of very much on the right of the party, saying he's a real Talarico fan. But the problem that those people have is that in those circles he's very well known now. But in wider Texan circles, he isn't that well known, is he?
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C
No, he's a state legislator. He's well known, I guess in Austin and known among people in politics who follow it nationally. But yeah, Texas is a big state and you have to spend a lot of money to get people to know who you are. Having said that, his Democratic opponent, Jasmine Crockett, the congresswoman from the Dallas area, she is well known in the state. She has been prominent in the political debates here in Washington, D.C. clashing with Donald Trump, clashing with the Republicans in the House of Representatives. I know we have covered in the past what she said about Marjorie Taylor Greene being a bleach blonde, bad built butch body woman and the back and forth that those two had. So she is, she's a firebrand ruling
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if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach blonde, bad built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities. Correct.
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She maybe is more like the kind of Democrats who usually win the statewide races that generates a lot of attention but then doesn't turn that base affinity into a winning electoral majority for the general election in November.
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Yeah. And it's worth saying, too, she's a black woman. She's sometimes accused of using race in politics, but she also would be to some Democrats, very much the kind of person that they want to be in prominent positions. And she's. When she goes for it, she really does. There was this exchange recently, we should listen to a bit of it, that she had with Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, over Epstein. And she's been very, very much going for them on Epstein, our witness, who
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B
somehow is a lawyer but does not understand how it works witnesses. I'm not really sure what law school she went to and what all kind of cases she tried, but typically when you come into a space and somebody's a witness, then they sit there and they answer questions instead of asking questions. And then we also have this objection that we use as lawyers called non responsive when a witness fails to actually answer the question. But nevertheless, let me address the survivors, because that's exactly who they are. They are not victims. They are survivors. Let me say thank you for having more courage and moral clarity in your pinky fingers than the entire Department of Justice. We are currently the laughing stock of the world, partially because of the failed leadership within the doj, as we see kings and queens fallen everywhere around the world. But we don't know the basics of right and wrong in this country. The fact of the matter is that you will be remembered as one of the worst attorney generals in history, an attorney general who has prioritized obstruction over justice, corruption over the law, fealty to the president over loyalty to the Constitution. And Mr. Chairman, I will yield.
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A
There you go. You got an impression there, didn't you, that she doesn't hold back and she wasn't holding back there. And as you say, Anthony, she's well known, but also divisive potentially.
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C
Right? If you look, there's a poll that came out just yesterday actually of this Democratic race in Texas, and it actually had Jasmine Crockett up by eight points. She was over 50%. I think it was 54 to 46 or somewhere around that. And the reason why she was doing so well was overwhelming support from the black community in Texas. She is well known to them. They view her as a fighter, someone who's willing to stand up for them. She also has a modest lead among Hispanic voters, according to this poll, trails narrowly to Talarico among white Democratic voters. So it is by no means a slam dunk that Talarico wins this nomination. But I think what you get here, and it's really fascinating why this race is important is you see the choice that Democrats have, right? You have a choice between someone who is a fighter, who is taking it to Donald Trump and the Republicans all the time. And then you have someone who is more, presents more as a centrist, although I will say Talarico votes fairly liberal in the state legislature, but someone who presents differently, who talks differently, who talks about bringing people together and talks about his religious faith. And I think when we see what the results are on Tuesday, it might give us hints about what direction the Democratic Party wants to go in these midterm elections. And I think there are a lot of prognosticators who look and think that Talarico has a better chance of winning. But there are also a lot of people who really, truly believe that Jasmine Crockett is the kind of fighter that the party needs to start embracing.
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A
You see, that's the interesting one, isn't it? Because there'll be a lot of people, I mentioned James Carver, there'll be plenty of others in the party who say this is a test. It doesn't matter about policy. It doesn't matter whether Talarico has voted liberally or whether Jasmine Crockett believes the things she believes. Actually, the test is, are we going to put someone into this race as our candidate who is genuinely capable of winning this state? And it's that emphasis, isn't it, that these people make within the Democratic Party. We need to be cleverer, they say, and put people into states. And not just Texas, but you think of all the rural states that used to have Democratic senators until relatively recently and now don't the Dakotas and all the rest of even West Virginia. Are we going to run the sort of candidates in those places who could appeal to those people or are we not? And this is the test of that.
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C
Right? And that's something that you actually have heard from Democrats last year in particular, when we were going into those off year elections. And it was that, all right, we're running Zoharan Mamdani in New York City because he's the kind of candidate who would appeal to New Yorkers. We're running Abigail Spamberger, the former congresswoman who gave the response to the State of the Union address that we heard a little bit of on Wednesday for governor of Virginia because Virginia is more of a battleground state. It had just elected a Republican four years earlier for governor and she's someone who has a better appeal for that state. So we're pitching candidates. We're a big tent party. We're pitching candidates who can win. But that doesn't mean that voters in the primaries are actually gonna do that. We've seen that with Republicans as well, where candidates who may not be more electable win primaries and then go on to lose in November. I will say one more thing, because I'm hearing from my contacts in Texas that while Crockett has the advantage in these polls, she actually isn't running that robust a campaign. She came in late. Talarico was already in running somewhat established his campaign. She dropped in closer to the last minute. She hasn't done a whole lot of active campaigning in the state. She hasn't done a lot of get out the vote organizing the way Talarico has. She hasn't spent the same amount of money that he has. And so there may be a disconnect between the polling and what's actually happening on the ground. And it also has prompted some concerns that if she ends up winning, how committed is she going to be to running in the general election? So that's something to keep an eye on Tuesday as well.
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A
Yeah, that's really interesting. And you mentioned the money there, and she hasn't spent that much. But overall, the expenditure on this primary campaign, both the Republican one, which we'll get to in a second, and the Democrat one, is now well over $100 million, isn't it? Which, I mean, certainly to Brits, but actually, I think to people right around the world, that is a staggering sum on merely the primary campaign in a U.S. senate race.
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C
It is. It is staggering. And part of it is, as we mentioned at the top, Texas is a big state. I mean, it's the size of Germany. So this is running in a state that has tens of millions of people and in fact has three of the largest metropolitan areas in the country in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, San Antonio. So it is incredibly expensive to run statewide television ads. It's difficult just to get around. You practically have to have your own plane to be able to bounce around Texas and campaign at all of these different areas. You can't get on a bus and drive for eight hours from Beaumont in the East, El Paso in the West. That just is impractical. So there's a reason why there's so much money being sloshed around. But also, as we've talked about, the stakes in this state are very high. So it attracts this money and willingness of candidates to spend it.
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A
Why is that the motto of Austin, Keep Austin weird?
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C
Well, it's because Austin was always kind of a quirky college town When I was growing up there in the 70s and 80s, it was basically just the university, a bunch of hippies, and the state capitol. And then Austin started this kind of tech revolution in the 90s. Dell, the computer manufacturer, started up there. There was a big semiconductor AMD plant that was built there. Samsung came to town. All of a sudden, all of this money was pouring into Austin. The tech sector was growing by leaps and bounds. And there was a feeling among the locals there that the quirkiness of Austin, what made Austin a kind of a big small town during those 70s and 80s, was being lost. That's where the Keep Austin weird slogan came up. It caught on. But I go back there now and it has grown so much. It's a different city than my childhood. And a lot of that weird quirkiness has kind of dissipated a bit, unfortunately.
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A
Right. Let us talk about the Republicans, because their race is more complicated, isn't it?
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C
It is. John Cornyn is the incumbent senator running for reelection. He was first elected to the Senate in 2002. He's been around for quite some time. He's in the Senate leadership. I was watching him during the State of the Union address when he walked in with all the other senators on Tuesday night, and he was slapping backs and shaking hands, joshing it up with all of his fellow senators. But he is in a real fight for the Senate Republican primary nomination against Ken Paxton, who is the Attorney General of Texas. And the fight is over. Who is more of a hardcore conservative, who's more of a Trumpy conservative, who more embodies kind of the fighting spirit of the right in Texas. And Cornyn is maybe viewed by a lot of these Republicans, hardcore Republicans in the state, as too establishment, too much go along, get along. Not as much of a fighter as Paxton, who's kind of made his name picking legal fights with liberals and pushing hardcore conservative social policies. That that's what better reflects the state than someone like Cornyn.
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A
Yeah. But then Cornyn himself pushing back and saying in as many words, if you choose to my opponent, you're going to lose the state. And he's. He's been saying that loud and clear, hasn't he? Let's listen to him on Fox News pretty recently.
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C
So what you're saying to me is Jasmine Crockett or James Talarico would have a real chance to win a senator from Texas. Absolutely. That we haven't elected A Democrat since 1994, as you know, Will. And. But this would be the first crack in the red wall. And unfortunately, that's what is being put at risk as a result of the corruption and the baggage that Ken Paxton brings to this ring?
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A
Corruption and baggage, Anthony?
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C
Yeah, Ken Paxton has kind of a checkered history. He was under indictment for securities fraud dating back to some of his business interests. He was impeached. He narrowly won that impeachment trial and returned to office. But there were Republicans in the state who didn't like him and actually pushed to get him kicked out of the attorney general's job. And then during this campaign, there's been reports of a very acrimonious divorce. There were allegations of infidelity and impropriety involving a woman that Caxton was reportedly having an affair with. So there's a ton of baggage that the Cornyn campaign has been very willing to bring up and throw out there. It has become a very ugly race. But according to the same polls, the same poll I saw yesterday, but also polls that have been coming out consistently over this year, Paxton's leading comfortably. In fact, if you talk to some of the Paxton people, they'll say they don't even think Cornyn will make the runoff. He might finish third behind Wesley Hunt, another former member of Congress, and end up not making the June runoff if no one reaches a 50% mark. So they're very confident that they have this in the bag and that. That Cornyn is going to go down.
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A
Yeah. And that has made Cornyn, when it comes to his advertising, pretty desperate. And let's. Let's listen to one of those adverts just to remind people we are talking about one Republican talking about a fellow Republican in the race. So this isn't even between the parties. We talk often, don't we, about the viciousness of modern American politics. These are two Republicans talking about each other, or at least in this case, Cornyn talking about Paxton.
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C
Now think of the Paxton dirty deeds we don't know about yet. The wife, cheater and fraud, or the Texas workhorse. Senator John Cornyn is endorsed by the Border Patrol, and he voted with President Trump 99% of the time. Cornyn got the money to finish the damn wall. Texans know what to do. I'm John Cornyn, and I approve this message. Join my team and give to. So the Paxton campaign has responded to that with a statement, and it goes. The character matters in this race. And that's why the people of Texas overwhelmingly support Ken Paxton. They know that he is a conservative warrior who will always fight for us and our freedoms.
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A
Right? So we will get a decision for the Democrats, but we are almost definitely not going to get a decision for the Republicans next week. Is that where we are?
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C
Yeah, I think so. I mean, there are only two candidates, two prominent candidates in the Democratic race. So it's more likely someone will top 50%, unless it is neck and neck and then it's a 49, 48 kind of a race. But in the Republican side, it's almost guaranteed to go to this runoff. And that gives our President, Donald Trump, more time to weigh in. Interestingly enough, he has been keeping his hands off this race so far. And actually, when we were flying back on Air Force One last week, one of my colleagues in the press pool asked Trump about why he hasn't endorsed a candidate in this race. I just haven't made a decision on that race yet. It's got a ways to go, and I have it. He's a good man. John is a good. I like all three of them, actually. I like all three.
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A
Those are the toughest races.
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C
They've all supported me.
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A
They're all good.
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C
And you're supposed to pick one.
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A
So we'll see what happens.
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C
But I support all three involved in the rift between you.
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A
And this is where it gets really interesting, doesn't it, Anthony? Because if they are going to hold the Senate, they do need to win this. The likelihood at the moment is that the Republicans will hold the Senate in November, but they need to shore up seats that they already have, like Texas. They don't want to be losing it. And I suspect behind the scenes. Well, that is certain behind the scenes, isn't it, that there will be those who are getting messages to the president saying, look, Cornyn would be far more likely to win and it would be much, much cheaper for the party because we wouldn't have to spend a ton of money introducing Texas to someone who didn't have the name recognition that he does as a sitting senator. So for those reasons, you, Mr. President, although you might not terribly like him, Cause Cornyn didn't vote for a legal action to be taken to delay the results in 2020, didn't he? He could have done. He's not incompletely in the Trump camp. And that seems to be. Is it right to say what's holding Trump off supporting him?
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C
Yeah, it's complicated for Trump because, yes, the strategic move would be to go with Cornyn, who is the incumbent. But the complication for Donald Trump, I think, is that even if he endorses Cornyn, there's no guarantee that Cornyn will win. And one thing Trump likes to do is pick a winner and Keep this veneer of being the kingmaker in the Republican Party. He might not want to do the strategic move. He might want to vote with his heart and give the endorsement with his heart to Ken Paxton. And then Paxton goes on to win, and he can say, look, I pushed him over the top again. So it's not quite the slam dunk. I think that a lot of these endorsements that he goes through are.
- [29:19]
A
Yeah, that's really interesting. So, I mean, and that might explain why he's not managed to come down on one side or the other. He's not much time left.
- [29:28]
C
Before we sign off on this Republican race, I do want to say that Cornyn has one of my favorite campaign commercials of all time. This was back in 2008 when he was running for reelection and he was trying to style himself because there was this perception of him being too much of an insider to establishment. Even back then, he ran these ads posing himself as a cattle roping cowboy, which was just hilarious. And I think what makes Texas politics really great, he fought heathens and hellions and all kinds of crime. He was just getting started, a long ways to go. We sent him to Washington to the really big show. Big John. Big John. Big John. Big Bad John.
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A
You could. I can feel, even though we're the other side of the Atlantic, I can feel the hairs on the back of your neck rising, Anthony, as you hear that appeal to a real Texas man.
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C
Yeah. And he won that race. But I think it does also show that he needed to kind of wrap himself in the Texas flag because he looks like a senator. He's tall, he's white haired. He has this kind of senatorial demeanor, which may work well in the halls of Congress, but doesn't necessarily play all that well when you're back in Texas going to rodeos and cattle shows, trying to get voters to support you.
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A
Anthony, just before we go, could we talk about Alison in North Norfolk and her extraordinary work? Because we've had now, she promised us quilts, americast quilts, and we've now had them. And in fact, one of them, you're not gonna be able to see this, but I think you can see the quilt. But we've now framed a quilt which we're going to have here in our AmericasT worldwide headquarters. And she's done another one, which I assume we could give to the. The sub office, the branch office that you inhabit. But the main point being, they're just incredible works of art from Alison, and we're incredibly grateful.
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C
I'm looking at the pictures now. They're beautiful.
- [31:38]
A
Yeah, really. Really. We're so grateful to her. It's an absolutely beautiful thing to have, actually. Anyway, huge thanks to you, Alison, for sending it to us.
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C
Yeah, thank you, Alison. That is so touching. And I can't wait to see them in person.
- [31:53]
A
Righty ho. We'll say goodbye. Bye, Anthony.
- [31:55]
C
Bye. Thanks for listening to another episode now. If you liked what you heard, why not subscribe to AmericaSt on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. That way you'll be notified every time we publish a new episode. We also want to hear your thoughts, feedback, questions, anecdotes, ideas and keep them coming. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we get. So you can email americastbc the WhatsApp is 443-301-2390, 480, and you can get involved in the americast discord server. That link is in the description of this podcast. You can also watch us on YouTube just search for americast. So until next time, bye.
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A
I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor
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C
in Our man in Moscow.
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A
I'll show you what it's like being
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C
a news correspondent in Russia as the
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A
Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent.
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C
The sound of war has reverberated around Ukraine for three years.
- [33:13]
A
Dramatic geopolitical upheaval alongside threats of intimidation and imprisonment. Our man in Moscow. Watch with a subscription to BBC.com and the BBC app. Visit BBC.com docs to learn more.
- [33:27]
B
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