Talarico & Paxton's final election push

Welcome back. You're watching Fox 7 Austin News at 5 30. Early voting now underway and the major candidates at the top of the ballot are not easing into a final push. Fox 7 Austin's chief political reporter Rudy Kosky is in the newsroom with an update from the early voting campaign trail. Rudy. Yeah, Alec, the election cycle is winding down, but these campaigns are certainly ramping up. Competing get out the vote bus tours crisscrossing the state today. Governor Greg Abbott in Houston this afternoon, his Democrat challenger Gina Hinojosa in San Antonio this afternoon. Now, Abbott and Hinojosa both early voting in Austin and both throwing some hard punches at each other before heading out of town. On our Battleground Texas show, we talked about that race and about the road trip punches also being thrown in the Senate race. We heard from James Tallarico, who in an interview with our Stephen Dyle, denied that he has flip-flopped on several hot button issues. And we heard from Ken Paxton, who we learned today will be getting more help from the president next week. Well, my positions have been the same. I haven't changed my position on any issue for the Senate campaign. And so I know Ken Paxton doesn't have any line of attack and so he's gonna accuse me of changing positions, but that's not true. While Tallarico fights for his radical agenda, we fight for faith, family, and freedom. And we fight for Texas. Steven, President Trump, he's been pushing straight line voting, and he's also coming back to Texas. A week before the election, the president is coming back to Texas for now a fourth time. He's going to be holding rallies in Waco and in Lubbock. And Ken Paxton will be at both rallies. This just signals to me that the president is concerned about this race, Rudy. Now, the return to Texas trip by the president, we're told, will happen on Tuesday. We also saw another straight-line party vote defection from another notable Republican today. Outgoing Ag Commissioner Sid Miller releasing a scathing op-ed letter against GOP nominee Nate Sheets. You may remember Miller lost a very bitter primary battle to Sheets, who was endorsed by Governor Greg Abbott. Alec? There's been a lot of talk about straight-line voting, but that's not legal anymore in Texas, correct? Right, which is kind of interesting because they're really pushing hard on vote straight line party ticket. But in Texas, you just can't mark a single box on the ballot to do that. State lawmakers back in 2017 eliminated that one punch straight line party voting. The law faced several court challenges, but eventually was upheld in 22. So sorry, folks, you just can't check one little box and then walk away. You're going to have to go line by line by line by line and make that vote. No easy button. Thank you, Rudy. No.