Turnout Battle | Battleground Texas

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 Dial in Dallas. And I'm Greg Grugan in Houston. All right, buckle up. Here we go. More than two million Texans have cast their ballot in this midterm election. Today, Senate candidate James Tallarico added his name to the list. Tallarico stopping by a polling place right here in Austin to cast his vote. He said he was surprised to find a line of people. I didn't expect there to be a line here. This is my polling location. I live a few blocks that way, and I don't think I've ever seen a line here at this time of day. And so really excited that Texans are getting out there and making their voice heard. no matter who they vote for. Now, Tallarico also making a stop in Temple for a rally this afternoon. He'll finish his day back in Austin for an event at the University of Texas. Greg? Tallarico's opponent, Ken Paxton, cast his ballot in McKinney on the first day of early voting. He spent the last two days in South Texas. The attorney general has gone after Tallarico in recent days on the issue of taxes. Everything I just talked about puts money back in your pocket. His entire record takes it out. 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. Paxton will make a campaign stop later today in Selma, just outside of San Antonio. A pro-Paxton super PAC is looking to drive home the message that the race is about more than just a Senate seat. In a new ad, they say it could be the difference in the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is considering retirement and the race for Senate could determine the future of our country. James Tallarico wants extreme liberals in charge and that means open borders. Anyone can come in. Mandatory transgender indoctrination in our schools. Dangerous soft-on crime policies that turn violent criminals loose. The stakes are too high. Certainly a lot of voices. Now, a familiar name in the TV ad game is getting political. Big dollar corporate jet flying attorney Thomas J. Henry caused somewhat of a social media frenzy by posting his endorsement of James Tallarico. Now, it's an interesting move considering Henry donated money in the Republican primary. Here's the explanation that he posted. I'm Thomas J. Henry. I'm here to announce my support for James Tallarico for United States Senator from Texas. The reason I'm supporting James is I had the opportunity to meet with him in person for quite a long period of time and go over the issues that affect Texas and affect our country. And I found that James' approach to these problems that affect Texas and our country were balanced, straightforward, and honest. Now, Henry's putting his money where his mouth is. He donated a million dollars to Tallarico's millionaires, or not so big a boogeyman, Super PAC, earlier this month. All right, polls continue to show that the Senate race, Paxton-Tallarico, is neck and neck. A new Emerson College Nexstar Media poll shows that Tallarico has a 48% to 46% over Ken Paxton among likely Texas voters. Tallarico's lead is a point higher than Emerson's August poll, but still within the margin of error. The poll also showed 5% of likely voters still being undecided. In the race for governor, the poll shows that Governor Greg Abbott has a 49 to 45 percent advantage over Jeannie Hinojosa, his Democratic challenger, with 4 percent still undecided. It's almost like the polls are just saying, we don't know. Now, another race that we're watching is for Texas comptroller. Democrat State Senator Sarah Eckhardt is looking to upset Republican Don Huffines. He took over the comptroller job back in July, you may remember. We caught up with Eckhart after she cast her ballot today she criticized Huffines over his handling of Texas's education savings account program and in his brief time in office he has ripped the wires out of the walls fired the top watchdogs in the agency and he refuses to give taxpayers a straight answer about how the voucher dollars are being used we can't afford four years of our crazy uncle who posts you know conspiracy theories on Facebook that's not what we need in a comptroller rip the flyers out of the wall that's a good one Huffines fired more than 40 employees from the Texas comptroller's office shortly after taking over that office he says his campaign is centered around rooting out fraud waste and abuse in Texas Steven Allright coming up more to discuss we'll talk about the railroad commission race and everything in between we'll be right back welcome back to Battleground Texas it looks like there will not be any debates between statewide candidates in Texas our best chance may have been last night here in the Metroplex Democratic candidate for railroad commissioner John Rosenthal's campaign originally said that Republican candidate Bo French agreed to a debate at the DFW Press and Media Club French denies ever agreeing to that debate the race for railroad commissioner found itself in the national spotlight after French made controversial comments about a group of South Asian students at a University of Texas football game. at the moment, gave Rosenthal a boost in the polls and fundraising. The Democrats still made the trip to the site of the would-be debate and laid out how he is different from his opponent. Voters have a clear choice in this election. I'm 25 years in the industry. I mean, I'm oilfield trash. I worked on drilling rigs, production platforms. I did pipeline work, offshore deep water technology. I know how this stuff works. And for terms in the Texas government, I know how to work through the legislature. I know how it works and how sometimes it doesn't work. So you can have someone who's an expert in the industry with the technical part of it and how government works. Or you can have someone who's an expert at rage baiting tweet online. Okay. Well, French did not address Rosenthal's comments online, but did make posts about his opponent's record, citing votes against bills backed by the oil and gas industry. The Texas Railroad Commission regulates that industry. French was left off of a list of Texas endorsements posted by President Trump earlier this week. Commissioner candidate Nate Sheets was the only other statewide Republican who was not on that list. All right, guys, you have covered Texas politics longer than I have. When is the last time we had zero debates for major races, Greg? Stephen, honestly, this is the first major cycle in my 40 years covering politics that candidates across the board flatly dodged head-to-head face-offs in front of voters. Somehow the chicken factor, the cowardice label no longer matters so much. You know there was a time when dodging a debate would be a disqualifier in the minds of uncommitted voters. now political combatants just trade insults and allegations on Twitter while claiming they can't agree on a fair venue i think it's absolutely fair to say Abe Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan would be ashamed guys rudy for three cycles Governor Abbott is always debated he's a good debater but he's not doing one this round yeah you know three out of four ain't bad right chalk it up to a strange election cycle guys uh it's where as Greg mentioned all the debating seems to be being done on social media and with campaign ads you know one of the biggest head scratchers though for me has to be that post and i'm going to go back to that that post from Thomas J. Henry endorsing James Talarico that we saw earlier you know the comments that followed that have hit like a yellow hammer to the hand it's interesting how a businessman whose product is he himself is willing to alienate such a large block of potential clients i guess that LegalEagle missed what happened to Elon Stephen Greg we talked about that the French Rosenthal debate didn't happen. Would a debate have been toxic for French? Yeah, no doubt there's no getting that racism genie back in the bottle so really what's the point i think it's also fair to point out that campaigns are now hedging against the worst possible outcome. For example, Joe Biden's epic collapse in the summer of 24. There is a cost-benefit component here. In other words, you probably don't pick up many votes with a solid debate performance, but you certainly can lose a boatload of support with one well-publicized miscue strategically exploited by a crafty opponent and an unforgiving press corps. Guys, Rudy, yeah you know it felt like the party leadership got involved in it shut it down right you know but it didn't stop Bo as you mentioned Steven from posting his way all the way down uh it's interesting uh that he just kind of like is a little tone deaf right all right what if Sid Miller had anything to do with all that all right the governor's race is heating up with several new ads. Up next on the battleground, an insider from the last campaign that the Democrats won statewide talks about the familiar echoes that he's hearing now. It was chaos under Joe Biden. I saw drugs, gangs, and cartels pour in. Crime shot up. Governor Abbott's common sense policies closed the border and gave us the tools to fight crime and keep you safe. Gina Hinojosa wants a return to Biden's policies. She supports weaker penalties on human traffickers and giving illegal immigrants voting rights, even taxpayer-funded health care. Gina Hinojosa's policies are too dangerous for Texas. Governor Greg Abbott's latest ad goes after Gina Hinojosa saying her policies will bring back the chaos of the Biden administration. Meanwhile, Hinojosa is hitting back at Abbott over another hot topic data centers. News has broken that Greg Abbott has approved more than 35 data center permits since his so-called pause on data centers and no one is surprised. Greg Abbott has received 22 million dollars from data center interest. He gave data centers the richest tax break in the country that's why they have all descended upon Texas. It is why he has lost the faith of Texans, because he sells us out and then lies about it. Hinojosa's campaign has also launched a wedding-style save-the-date website called gregandthedatacenters.com. The website says, we're taking a little time apart while ERCOT finishes an audit. Rudy? All right, well, using data centers and the alleged corruption associated with them as a big campaign issue certainly no surprise for an individual like Chuck McDonald now you may recognize that name because he was part of the Ann Richards gubernatorial campaign the last democrat to be governor of texas for richards her big political villain was republican nominee Clayton Williams now 36 years later names may have changed but McDonald says the campaign trail today, looks and sounds very familiar. I think there's a lot of comparisons to 1990. And I really think Gina Hinojosa has a really good chance to pull this off. Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. And today you and I become carpenters. It's different, but it's very similar. And let me Let me explain. To say there's voter fatigue with Greg Abbott would be an understatement, it's voter exhaustion. What was it that put Ann over the top? And what is the warning for Gina? Ann Richards won that statewide election by like 96,000 votes. It was razor thin to the very end. I think the secret sauce for Gina Hinojosa is gonna be what turned out to be the same for us in 1990, and that's rural voters. And I'm not talking about, she's gonna win rural voters, but if she can cut, there's West Texas counties that vote 90% Republican, if she can cut that to 78%, she's making money. Every single vote they get in rural Texas comes out of that margin that the Republicans have to have. 20 or 50 or 100 years from now, school children are gonna open their textbooks or perhaps switch on their video text, and they're gonna see a picture, they'll see us. And Richards in a way kind of won the battle but lost the war. What are the pitfalls? What should the Democrats learn from that? It's what the Republicans should learn for that. You look at Abbott's ad campaign, they're running against a phantom that doesn't exist. So he's gotta be careful because when you're running a campaign against institutional control and you are the institution, it starts falling flat with people. But getting back to the Democrats, let's say the blue wave happens. The only lesson they need to remember is don't do what the Republicans have done, which has become exclusionary and shove everybody else out of the room. Certainly great talking to Chuck again. Now, the Democrats sure think that they have produced a political sequel to Back to the Future. Greg, you remember Chuck, what do you think of his assessment? Are the echoes real or are they ghosts? Yeah, I do remember Chuck well and fondly. He was always a straight shooter. And I think he's shooting straight now. But let's face it, it took a perfect storm for the lady to beat, lady back in 1990, including massive unforced errors by the Republican. Frankly, it's taken a perfect storm of Abbott flops, Trump-induced headwinds, and general economic angst to get Gina into striking distance. And yet my wild-ass guess, 11 days out, is that the governor ultimately gets about 98% of the Republican vote and just enough conservative-leaning independents to hold the three-point lead reported in Real Clear Politics' average. My only hedge, if this urban storm of early voters elevates to mega-tsunami status, Katie, bar the door. Yeah, it's important to note that Ann Richards in her 1990 winning campaign was coming from a statewide office, the state treasurer. Stephen, Ann had name recognition, also came off that big stage, that DNC convention where she skewered President Bush, that silver foot comment. How does this all compare with Gina in your mind up there in North Texas? Yeah, I mean, I will say, and I think everyone on this panel will agree, when Gina Hinojosa jumped in this race, a lot of people thought it might just be a blowout. And granted, we don't know what the final result will be, but she's gotten within striking distance in poll after poll. And so that gives some type of energy to her campaign. Now, is this a flashback to the 90s? I don't know. But like you guys both mentioned, this is the perfect storm for Democrats. My question is, if on election night everything goes for the Republicans in Texas, the question is, will it be 30 more years? And that's not being an overreaction, because if they don't have the magic sauce with this storm, when will they have it? All right. Let's say it's a blue wave, Greg. Do the Democrats follow Chuck's advice and play nice or do they, you know? I don't think that's in the playbook, Rudy. Pardon me if I'm lost in a cloud of nostalgia. I was actually about 10 feet from that Ann Richards speech back in 1990. Ancient history. That's about all I got. Stephen, your last word: do the Democrats play nice if everything goes blue? Heck no, no, no all right, take us to break with that one coming up our parting shots. Welcome back, it's time for our parting shots. Mine is about debates since that's something we talked about in the show my question is, of course, debates are gold and TV gold for us in the news industry, but it also gives an opportunity for people to see both candidates on the same stage answering the same questions and seeing their mannerisms, seeing how they react. I'm wondering if debates are a thing of the past. In my home state of Georgia, the governor candidates had one debate, but then other debates that one candidate agreed to, the other candidate didn't. But we got no debates here in Texas, which raises a flag in my mind of is this a one off or is this something that we are going to keep seeing? who's next? All right, I'm next. Parting shot. Go vote, definitely. And then also, an interesting endorsement happened today. The band that used to be called Dixie Chicks came out endorsing Gina Hinojosa. Is that really a good endorsement, or is that going to be a sour note with a lot of independents who haven't voted yet? Remember, the Chicks, you know, they've got some serious baggage. Greg, what do you got? All right, what everybody seems to be watching very closely here in the Bayou City is the huge number of early voters who did not cast a ballot in the last midterm 2022 so far that cohort amounts to one out of every four voters roughly 27 percent now veteran poll watcher tells me participation by young folks is higher than she's seen a development which may well benefit Democrats we're going to have to wait and see 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 with us by hitting us up on social media the campaign battleground is not taking the weekend off we'll keep an eye on it and then we'll be back as the final week of our early voting gets underway see y'all Monday