3/4/26: James Talarico Defeats Crockett, Dan Crenshaw Goes Down In Texas

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To discuss all of this, we're going to be joined by Dave Weigel of Semaphore, David

Sarota of Leather News.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

Appreciate you guys being here.

So let's start with, and we're going to do a second segment later on the Republican

primary, but let's start with Talariko and Krakut.

Sarota, so it seemed like this started out as a race that didn't have any kind of ideological

content to it, that it was like different styles, like different MSNBC styles, really.

That seemed to evolve as Talariko and while you're taking on this too, as Talariko started

embracing this top bottom, like we're taking on the billionaires there, your real problem

and Krakut stuck with whatever the MSNBC stuff is.

Yeah, I'm not sure what she was really running on.

Right.

It's like a brand, like a vibe.

I mean, look, it's all vibes, right?

It's all vibes.

I think Talariko clearly, as the campaign went on, recognized the, I guess we could call

it proxy-wise, like the Bernie vibe, like if you call the anti-billionaire stuff, like

the Bernie vibe, right?

Like I think what I take away from this race is that people like him have realized that

there is, that is the normal middle center of the Democratic Party.

Oh, by the way, if people are getting news from this show, he won.

Yes.

I should mention that we don't want.

Right.

Like I think we've seen in a series of races that these candidates who are winning these

primaries have recognized that while there's this debate going on between, you know, third

way and, you know, the so-called left, et cetera, et cetera, that actually there isn't

really much of a debate going on at the kind of voter level over anti-Alegarch politics.

That is now the just sort of mainstream normal of the Democratic Party, which I, you know,

taking a long view now.

Because Crockett was running on that, too.

Right.

Yeah.

And like I just turned 50 recently, and you're about as old as I am, right?

I am, right?

That may seem like a just like, well, not all that interesting, but like that has not

been the way it's been up until now.

And I, so I look at that race and I say, wow, to think about how far we've come since

like just Bernie 10 years ago, Bernie five years ago, that's my takeaway of a candidate

who can kind of code moderate, you know, viwise code moderate, but be the, the anti-billionaire

candidate.

I want to run that past you, Dave, because one of the reasons I thought this was such

an interesting primary is you have the stylistic, the stylistic, queuing to norms from

Tallarigo, who's almost stylistically again, like a Biden candidate, who says we're going

to restore decency to the country.

We're pretty sure you can.

I like that.

Exactly.

Right.

But then his policy prescription, he was trying to sell populism, really.

The rocket was kind of the other way around.

She had the style of post-Trump politics, but the substance of almost corporate dem politics.

It's hard to say because they're both kind of mixed and you were on the, you were on the

trail, weren't you?

I was, I was last week and David's right.

And I would start with Tallarigo picked and polarized enemies.

The enemies were, were corporations that were working with Donald Trump to impoverish

you, the voter.

Going to the submit, he took money from Maryam, he did on a gambler.

Yeah, I asked him.

He interviewed I asked him about that and he had, he had an answer.

It was, it was like, I'm, I'm not pure.

That was a specific thing.

I'm not going to do that in this race.

It was, a, a, a, rocket did not run a very tight campaign, did not use that as effectively

as she could.

She had lots of influencers online calling him corrupt, but they got really sidetracked

into identity where I, I, his, some speeches, it's one of those in, in a boot of judge

way.

If some speech, it's very memorable because he, it doesn't change very much.

He would talk about an auguration day and the, the wealthy people sitting behind on Trump

talk about Elon Musk.

The impact of the Stephen Colbert thing was him talking about the Trump administration opening

the door for his supporters to own corporate media and control what you see.

He called it the ultimate, corporate cancel culture is one thing he called it, but it was

about the enemy is these, these people at the top were dividing us and it wasn't evading

issues or pivoting.

It was, it was that she was less clear.

She mentioned that a couple times when I was covering her, it was, she had some, some

big events, some big, big conversations, but a lot more of what Democrats have not had

any success with, which is how dare some, a felon, a 34, a 35 count felon be allowed

to serve in the government.

Exactly.

These, this guy is corrupt.

But it was like, okay, well, yeah, Trump's rupture, but who is behind him and like, how

are you being distracted?

And every time you're watching a reaction to him, what are you missing?

It's this, it's, it's, it's this policy.

It's this divination of Medicaid funding and with that, but enemy first, which is, it's

kind of obvious, but there have been lots of Democrats who never get there and they're very,

they're very loose and they do not say, here's the bad guy, I will take on the bad guy,

you're going to, your life's better for this reason.

He did it all the time.

So when I was writing speeches for Bernie Sanders, some people would, well, one, I'd get

Razz at well, how do you write a speech for Bernie Sanders?

He says the same thing over here.

I mean, that's like a, that's where I got all my hair, trying to, you know, put in new

things.

But the question of, why do people show up to hear what they've already heard?

It was like, I feel like they, a lot of people showed up on those campaigns because they

liked hearing somebody recount and name the villains, the enemies, because it felt like

no one else was naming them.

And so when you say, you know, when you point out the Talleriko was actually naming villains,

naming the enemy, I feel like that's a, like, become code for

authenticity, code for like, I am willing to name villains, I am, the people who don't

want you to name villains are the donors, like the money doesn't want you to name that.

And I think this question about what is left and right, what is moderate, what is, you

know, liberal, et cetera, et cetera, I mean, the third way conference this, this week,

right, was all about how, you know, the Democrats need to be moderate.

They need to like reject their left.

I would ask a question like in this race, who do, who does the average voter think in

the Texas primary was the candidate on the left or who was the moderate, right?

I think those terms like don't mean anything anymore.

That's why I say, you know, when I, when I, when I'm referring to, you know, people

have to wear my, my politics, I'm like, I'm not even sure the, the words left or right

or moderate or like, I don't think these terms mean anything.

Yeah, certainly not to regular people who are trying to follow this.

Now the Hispanic vote swung wildly to Democrats this time.

Either one of you can take this, but Tom Bonn, your Democratic data analyst, and we

can put this up and post.

He flagged that he says, Zapata County, turn, turn out the dem primary there yesterday

was 143%.

The total number of votes that Kamala Harris won in the general election.

Republicans, Republicans very in this high profile manner went and redistricted Texas to

try to add a couple of members, and I want to get your take on this.

It may end up being an incredible own goal.

Shoot yourself in the foot kind of moment.

So he flags four of the districts, congressional districts, the 9th, 28th, 34th and 35th that were

redistricted in order to be Republican districts.

In each one of them, Democratic primary turnout was higher than GOP primary turnout.

In some cases, by like three or 4,000, in other cases, by 20 to 30 to 40,000 more votes.

So these are, in order to get more districts, get more seats, you have to take a seat where

you're normally one by 30 and you take it down to like 5 or 10.

And then you take those voters and you spread them out.

But if it's a wave, all of a sudden, you've put all of these districts in range of Democrats.

Which one do you want to take that time?

More in that direction, I'm sure back in African analysis been, if it's just like a 2020

Hispanic breakdown, then those seats are hard for Republicans to win.

I've been to that region a lot.

I'd say there's a long period where Democrats are just in denial that it could change because

Donald Trump was the nominee.

And listen to what he says.

And look at the numbers for Hillary Clinton, he destroyed, he got destroyed in that region.

The Tallerick campaign, I think everyone knows Chuck Roach is one of the strategists, but

he spent a lot of time in the district.

He was very clear on ice and making the argument that again, Democrats, I think are mostly

comfortable making.

Even if they don't like saying abolish, well, we agree with that immigration enforcement

is good, but why are they flacking down Hispanic people and seeing if they have papers?

That's popular there.

Border Patrol is very popular.

The South Texas people have, it's a big employer.

Well, yeah, you know, in the blue ice matter fly, you'll see a green line in a flag, that's

the Border Patrol flag.

Myroflora.

Yeah, exactly.

And he was careful about that, but it was spending time in that area and also talking

about religion.

I think there are going to be a lot of criticisms of how he talks about religion.

Many from me.

Yeah, it's a little more like Gnostic than most Hispanic Catholics are comfortable with.

It comes to like the Divinity or God's gender, et cetera.

That's a really good idea.

Which by the way, is something that was hugely divisive in the Rio Grande Valley for Democrats,

this question of like what's moderate, what's not.

It's, I agree, the labels are really hard to say because it's like, he runs as a kind

of stylistic moderate.

Where is he on some of these cultural issues, Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley independent

type Hispanic voters?

That might be an issue for them.

It was.

And I did meet Hispanic voters who were saying their fellow family was Magga last election

or they've got right wing Catholic family who share memes on Facebook and they can't

believe they're Democrat, but they, they can send them a telerico video about something

specific and say, well, this is what I believe.

And it was, it's not going down the litmus, the libous test of a Catholic voter who's pro,

pro life, he's not going to match that.

So gender critical person, he's not going to match that, but just talking about faith

in the way he did, quoting the book of Matthew, quoting, quoting the Sermon on the Mount.

He was doing that versus the secularism they were used to from other Democrats.

This beta work is not very comfortable doing that.

A lot of Democrats are not, they don't go to church very much, they don't talk about

it.

Going to church, the fact that he was a seminarian and talked about God at all, I think

I was maybe a little bit cynical about that because it's when going in, before I go

out there, but just they had not heard that.

They were hearing Democrats talking about shouting your abortion and talking about, he would

talk about Christian nationalism, which I think is more for the, you know, John Oliver

audience.

But the part they were hearing was, well, he's quoting the Bible.

I haven't heard a Democrat come here and quote the Bible because he's not like Henry

Quayar, who knows the region, he's at least trying and he made some inroads that way.

But that plus the ice thing, this is, and I've heard that from Arizona and from other

places too, that look, they're not saying abolish ice, they're saying there has to be

some Goldilocks bowl in the middle that is that is protecting the border and not chasing

my friend down because he has a Mexican flag on his truck because he's fifth generation,

he just has a Mexican flag.

But last point before we go to Needle Alarm and you may have something to add, it's just

Crockett was flirting with, like just dragging this out last night, we're saying, looks

like there's cheating in Dallas County and it's what Republicans do.

It was unclear what she totally meant by that.

Just a half an hour ago.

Yes.

No, she really was going full stop the steel last night, pulled back from that.

And so she has conceded as of this morning, but she was going in that direction.

I don't know if you get anyone wants to jump in.

I just wonder if all of this is actually something more simple in that it is an anti-system

vote.

I mean, I'm just thinking through the last many elections.

The last time the party that was perceived to be in power was reelected was 2012, like

think about it, like Obama winning re-election.

And then every election seems like a referendum on who was perceived to be in power.

And so I think when it comes to dicing different voting segments, I think the larger question

is maybe it's as simple as whoever is perceived to be the anti-system candidate is going to

be the one to get that swing.

Like our swing voters, Latino voters, are they working class voters?

Maybe the swing voter is like none of those categories, and it's the anti-system voter

who feels like they keep voting for change and not getting any change, which is in all

of those categories.

Just keep voting for it.

Exactly.

So in Arkansas, we don't even know.

You could go deep into this, but they had a Supreme Court election.

Kamala Harris lost Arkansas by 31 points.

The Republican seems to have won it by about 10.

So 21 points swing in Arkansas.

Not great.

But we covered a lot in North Carolina for this is Valerie Fouche elected in 2022 with

a enormous amount of crypto money and APAC money.

She evolved in 2026 to APAC money and AI money.

So better or worse, I don't quite a pack, I don't know, wherever you forget it.

She vowed she wouldn't take any APAC money so it got ended up getting rooted through this

other pack.

She raised very little herself and so two plus million dollars kind of rained down on her

opponent, Nitta Alam, in the last like week and a half, two weeks of the race.

We can put up the results there.

Has not been called yet.

The Fouche is up by 1,020 votes or something like that, little under roughly 1%, doesn't

seem like there are enough votes for Nitta Alam to come back.

But what it does suggest is that absent this two million plus dollars and Nitta Alam had

her own kind of anti or pro Palestine super PAC that linked to Bernie, what Hannah Ferdick

a old Bernie.

Can't beat him.

Yeah.

It's kind of organized muslim money is finally kind of breaking on to the scene.

So she had some support, nothing approaching what Fouche does seem like that was decisive.

Without that two plus million in the last couple of weeks, she ends up, you know, food

this incumbent would have gone down.

What was your raid on this race?

I mean, my question coming out of this race is how much is this going to change how all

of the other House Democrats in comments can't paint?

Nobody wants to win by it.

You'd rather win by a thousand, lose by a thousand, but you don't like to work that hard.

Right.

There was that, I think it was an Axios piece earlier this week that was 30 House Democrats

now have primary challengers who've raised more than a hundred thousand dollars.

Now a hundred thousand dollars is not going to ruin you a Democratic primary, but it makes

you nervous.

Makes you nervous, right?

I mean, and I thought what was funny was it was like that, you know, unnamed sources,

the House Democratic leadership are like enraged that there's so much money being spent

on it.

And my takeaway from it is they've gotten so used to never having to fight at all for

their party, for their party's nomination.

And again, I go back to...

Dempty party.

Exactly.

And the thing is, I wrote a book back in 2007 saying like this was going to be a moment

all the way back then.

That's how old we all are now.

Okay.

I'm president.

Okay.

We.

I was 14.

Right.

There you go.

But that the rage of that moment was going to be channeled in one direction or the other.

And I think what happened on the left end of that spectrum was it was channeled into

the Democratic party through the hope and change brand.

And it was on the right.

It was channeled into the Tea Party.

And I think now the difference in this moment is it's the same if not more level of rage.

But the polls that show that the Democratic base is annoyed and angry and frustrated

with its own leadership was not a condition that existed back then.

And so I think that is what the current Democratic party leadership is just not used to and

is sort of scandalized by, right?

Because on the right in the Republican party, the idea of Republican primaries against

incumbents, that's become somewhat more normalized than in a...

Like, the idea that like a Democrat, like I'm living Colorado.

The idea that John Hickenlooper might have a...

And he does have a primary.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's got a challenge.

Right.

The whole idea, like you talk to people in Democratic circles in Colorado, it's like no

one could possibly do it.

It's a blue state.

No one's going to put primary a sitting as senator.

I'm not sure what's going to happen in that race, but I guess the point is, it's a long

way of saying the presumption for so long has been that there will not be a challenge,

that the people who are in power are scandalized.

And I think to come back to this primary.

I think every House Democrat is going to look at that and be like, I don't want to have

to run for just my party's nomination and have to deal with something like that.

Yeah.

And Dave, not every Democrat can get the kind of help that she got from, and particularly

from Hakeem Jeffery.

So he put her within days of this, within days of Nidalein launching her campaign.

He put her on this three-person Democratic task force to write AI policy.

And what that is, is that is a giant signal to the AI industry that you need to shower

money on this person.

The others are Ted Lew and Josh Gottheimer, both various fundraisers, Gottheimer in particular.

And so they did.

They came in 1.6 million at last counting.

I bet when we get the final numbers, it'll be higher as anthropics coalition of AI.

So it's the AI safety people, the good guys.

But so he did that.

And then there was also this pack that he's connected to that raised money from APEC,

moved it through a separate pack so that it could, it was called Article One Pack, so

that she could abide by her promise to not take any more APEC monies.

But Jeffries can't do that for everybody.

I mean, maybe he can, can he?

So how are, to throw this question, how are, how are House Democrats responding to this

and do you have any other thoughts from covering this race?

Yeah, I covered more close of the 2022 race when it was an open seat and proven to, no,

at that point, it was a more fair map, but anyway, it was a state Democratic seat.

And in that race, which you've been setting up, it was very clear that Fouche was the pro-Israel

candidate.

She got the APEC support.

It just was not in the Democratic conversation as a top issue at their thin.

How did she, what did she do in the advance of this race?

She, she disclaimed the APEC money now.

If it helped her in the end, but she made a very splashy at a town hall announcement that

she was not going to take the support anymore.

She co-signed, blocked the bombs.

She, when the Rand War started, Nitto was very quickly.

She went to her, her house and couldn't add it, what she was against the war, Fouche didn't

do that.

Just a less energetic candidate in general, but she was opposed to the war too.

So, would she have one had she not done that?

I don't think so.

I don't think with that money.

If she was running as Dan Goldman in that district, she would have lost.

She needed to be critical of Israel.

She needed the pro-Israel money and she needed to be in some real.

Some memorable, okay.

Well, I'm voting for this person and she's moving in the right direction.

In 2022, and this is, I interviewed the then CEO of APEC in 2022 about how they just,

they run ads on what works.

But in 2022, it was, this is good politics, but maybe we're going to do the issues, but

we're not going to say this is the best can on Israel going to say something else.

And now it's, they're giving them a little bit of permission structure to denounce pro-Israel

politics just because maybe they'll get there and they, they, they, they, they don't want

more voices in Congress that are criticizing them.

So I think that is one lesson for all these candidates and there's Illinois primaries

in the next week.

But for all these races, if you have a progressive challenger, what do you say on Israel?

It's important that the permission structure has been created for you to, you know, denounce

them three times before they then, and then, and then get elected anyway.

But what does that say about their, their, their the power of their issue?

We can look at the polling, but I think this is even more, more powerful to say that you

cannot, in order to survive a primary by one point, she had to very performatively say,

and also I'm against the, she, I don't think she said genocide at the end, but I'm against

what Israel's doing.

I'm against the war, etc., etc.

You need two million dollars in that.

That's new.

I think, and, and just one other point, I think that it's, it's interesting to think about

the A-PAC issue and the AI issue.

The A-PAC issue for a long time had been an issue where there wasn't as organized and

motivated an anti-constituency.

So the money could go to candidates, and the candidates didn't have to worry about the

money.

It's a very organized, popular opposition in a democratic primary.

They're kind of helping the moderate, or your moderate, and you're going to get the

A-PAC money to somewhere.

Right.

And the voters don't really care.

Now the voters really care, where I think I'm terrified about like, is the world going

to survive, or are we going to go into like, sky net world, is that the AI money assumes

that there isn't a similarly organized voting block against them.

In other words, the AI money presumes for now that we can give a lot of money to Democrats,

get them to be pro-AI, because they don't have to worry that in taking the money and in

being pro-AI, they're going to prompt an organized, popular resistance with political consequences

when they run for election.

You see that with, you saw it with crypto, too, right, like, you think about these dynamics

where you want a candidate to go out, you know, if you're a progressive, maybe you want

your candidate to go out there and say, crypto's terrible, or go out there and say, AI is

terrible.

Why aren't they doing that?

Well, the answer is because I think at a candidate by candidate level, they fear that

if they speak up, even if they sort of in their heart agree with speaking up and against,

you know, deregulation of the financial sector, AI, et cetera, et cetera, that not enough

voters will care, and all that will do is prompt a flood of money, again, they'll become

the next Katie Porter, and that's set it around, exactly, yeah, they've very bragged about

that.

Exactly.

That's our example.

So that's like your share of Brown's head.

Do you want to be him?

Yeah, it's like, the money is organized on those issues.

But the people aren't.

Right.

The A-pack was exploiting that in the sense of the money was organized, but the anti-A-packed

people weren't organized.

Now that's an organized constituency in a way that does what happened.

One very small point is that Alam, and then I had I mentioned, she did try to tie that

to the Shea by saying, and she supported by the sort of AI companies that are giving

intel that are helping prosecute this war.

And the ones that are building the data centers, and it was, I think maybe she was a couple

of weeks early for that, or a couple of who knows about it.

Yeah, the data started to make that argument, but it wasn't there yet.

That's where she took it.

I think that's where the people you're talking about will take it.

Yeah.

And I think the data, the local data center stuff will, has the chance to actually create organized

politically.

Yeah.

It's already been happening.

Yeah.

I would have, if I were her, I would have, yeah, she said, you know, it's the AI used

by ICE and used by, yeah, for the Venezuelan, for the, and then Iran, and that part of

the area.

Yeah.

The data center.

The data center.

In your history, with the water and the energy in my electricity bills going out.

I'm against it.

And they're coming in.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because otherwise it's like crypto and AI.

It's like a bank shot.

It's a hard sell because a lot of people like crypto and AI.

Yes.

And also we're looking at monster turnout in Texas, by the way.

I think that's something worth adding.

It looks like right now that it's roughly double what it was for Beto's not a hugely contested

primary.

In Beto's case, I think he won with like 90% of the vote.

So you can understand why you would have a higher turnout this time around.

But that's a signal the dumb bases organized and energized and ready to go in November.

Yeah.

If you told somebody a month ago, Crocett's going to be a million votes to say, oh,

she's going to win.

Yeah.

Nobody gets a million votes in Texas Democratic primary.

That's usually the total.

Yeah.

It's usually around a million.

And this looks like it's going to be north of two million.

Can I also say that like as somebody who has worked on campaigns, I do appreciate that

if you know in broad strokes here, that Talleriko seemed to run as we were discussing before

this run like a quote unquote, a real campaign like organizers like the ads had a message

sort of much more of a grassroots footprint than Crocett.

Crocett sort of, you know, I think basically ran as like an influencer campaign.

Like a fully influencer campaign, not like not as much of a real campaign.

And I think I worry about turning campaigns into just, I am with my iPhone, you know,

making TikTok videos not really out in the community and that being validated by voters.

Like I think there's something good about the person who was whose campaign was more grassroots

more in the community, more of a traditional campaign was actually validated by voters.

And still used TikTok and Instagram for sure in the service of that rather than as a

thing.

Right.

Right.

Interestingly, he got more money from K Street Politico had an analysis of that.

But they both do.

Hey, this is well, Zadams with by order of the Faithfuls podcast alongside my fellow

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The three of us have been watching the season of the traders and we've been inside that

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I think coming out of where I came from, I'm from the Bronx, I think I grew up really

poor.

I didn't know that then because I very much used my creativity to romanticize life and

I'm like, my mom did a really good job of like you step back and you're like, whoa, we,

I don't know how we made it.

So a lot of my life was like built out of like survival to get to the next place.

Like my drive, my like tunnel vision of like, I gotta be better.

I gotta achieve this was off the strings of like, I want to make a better life for

us.

If you knew better, brings real talk from women who've lived it, unpacking career pivots,

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Let's move to the Republican results in in Texas.

We'll talk about Ken Paxson and Cornyn who we're going to go to a runoff in a moment.

But let's start with Dan Crenshaw.

So this is a very well-known Republican.

So happy you made the talk about this.

Very, we're kind of reviled.

This is a Republican.

It's such a kid.

Yeah, actually I want to ask Emily, why do people hate this kid?

Yeah, why don't you say that?

He got absolutely obliterated by the way.

It was 50 as of right now with 95% of the votes in.

It's 55.8% to 40.6%.

Crenshaw, I believe, got elected.

I mean, this is, he got trounced.

And Emily's very happy.

And we're like, he seems like the other Republicans to tell us, tell us.

Tell us why people hate it.

Colorado where we have like Lauren Bobert and would never happen to Lauren Bobert.

I don't think.

But she's inside of what's Robert and Crenshaw, do they hate each other?

What's their name?

I'm sure they hate each other.

He's, I mean, he hates anybody who is aligned with Tucker Carlson.

But he also, very high profile, had picked high profile fights with Sean Ryan,

who is really popular with conservative like podcast listeners.

But you know, just on a substance of level, he was out of touch with the base on foreign policy.

He is an insider trading maven.

He loves to trade on insane history.

The follow-up trade is now that he's losing access.

Well, he was a, you know, he wouldn't call it, he wouldn't call it insider trading.

But of course, he's in Congress and he's trading stocks.

He was a foreign trade, which is actually interestingly enough,

one of the things that this White House has zeroed in on,

being an important part of the Trump agenda for the midterm cycle.

That's what they were at.

Capitol Hill, I'm talking about.

Maybe I can do something about it.

That's what they're saying that Trump is going to run Republican Canaan.

It's in 2026.

I'm stopping congressional insider trading.

So do it.

Because the insider trading should happen only in the White House.

It's only happens on, it's only in Trump being a insider trading,

people named Trump and Wake up.

It is a sacred task, but anyway, so.

What the insider's going to do is get all made for the executive.

I'm sick of these candidates creating their own coins

and having people buy them for access.

Amazing, but he was, he's, he's self-aggrand, listen,

he's just said my perspective on how he's self-aggrandizing

anti-populist in ways that were wildly out of touch with the moment

and just made him a really bad guy.

From my perspective, I think voters probably had a similar perspective.

But I go, you've, I think I've only ever talked to him like once.

And in that conversation, he was talking to me about Tucker Carlson

unprompted.

So you sent it up very well.

He also, the remap of the state gave him areas he had not represented.

They had not seen his campaign as an anti-stop doing these,

but are you aware of his action movie ads,

the Michael Laysons, for he would parachute into people's districts to save them?

That, they had seen those.

But they had seen Tucker, Steve Toath, who won,

Tucker had a long interview with him four months ago,

didn't make a lot of news because that's who outside of

Southeast Texas knows who Steve, who Steve Toath is.

But everything you said, he was a interventionist,

anti-populist, who was believed that the,

not the, it's part of the American first movement,

not all of it was going to wreck the Republican party.

And that, if you, if that is the people who are voting,

they might take objection to that.

It's really that simple.

I was a little surprised that you were saying you were surprised,

but it wasn't on more people's radars because this is a project for years to get rid of that guy.

I don't know who first coined iPatch McCain,

but that was the way he was seeing.

This is a long run, it might have been, it probably him, yeah.

But he did not cultivate support from people who didn't like him in 2018.

I was, I was also struck.

Chip Roy, he was doing that and Chip Roy was running for AG.

Ted Cruz finally say Ted Cruz endorsed Toath,

endorsed his opponent.

A lot of Republicans wanted him gone.

So part of it was personal,

but it wouldn't have been possible if he wasn't so alienated from America first.

If I was going to say, Chip Roy,

running for AG came in second,

two in that maggot candidate,

and that was more about Trump,

but it was also sort of the heterodox,

can we trust this guy?

His instincts are not the same as those of us who wanted to just keep resources in the country,

who have questions about the 2020 election.

And these are both guys who I think had bigger profiles in DC,

because this is how media works.

You're more interesting to the media if you'll criticize your party from sometimes.

No interest in that in Texas.

A lot of love and confidence that Donald Trump is doing the right thing.

So if your brand is trashing not just Trump,

but influential conservative thinkers and speakers,

you've alienated more people than you'd alienate by,

you know, going to the Rotary Club and insulting them.

They hear about that.

And their media diet has changed in ways that clearly Crenshaw,

but I think also Hazard had a podcast.

He was trying to get into the space.

Yes, yes.

That was not as popular as history as it was here.

I also wonder if in a race like this,

how much somebody like Crenshaw

is hurt by the fact that independent voters

in an open prize and open private.

Yeah, you just pull a ballot.

So, but you have to choose.

In other words, how many independent voters

were animated by voting for Tallarico

and didn't come into a race couldn't pull a ballot

for somebody like Crenshaw, right?

Like, I mean, in open primary states,

you can be a candidate in a primary

and think you're going to be rescued

by or helped by independent voters.

But if there's a race higher on the ticket

where most of the independent voters are going to be vote,

they can't come help you, right?

That should be able to pick.

You want to vote?

Right, race by race?

Yeah, that's not how it rolls.

Granted, this is a pretty decisive margin.

So far, but who knows where,

yeah, I think that is a great point.

Definitely bigger.

The surprise is definitely those that bit.

Is that big?

Your home in Texas knew who was at risk,

but now that he was just walking dead in the white line.

100%.

Yeah, and he's someone who came in with a lot of momentum

because people might remember he got made fun of

as looking like a porn star by Pete Davidson on SNL.

And everyone was like, he's a veteran.

So they brought him back out SNL

and he was on weekend update.

And everyone was like, this is the way Republicans

will win young voters.

Dan Crenshaw knows how to use new media and pop culture.

So he had youth summits.

Crenshaw youth summits of his own conservative organizations.

He was trying to do like a mini CPAC for young people in Texas

where conservative organizations with like buyboods

and it never really got off the ground.

But he saw himself as a light for the Republican party.

And this is a really decisive reputation of that.

Let's talk about Ken Paxton.

Ken Paxton, like Chip Roy, headed to a runoff with John Kornin.

We can put F3 up on the screen.

This is the results.

Very, very interesting results in this race.

Kornin overperformed what a lot of people expected.

He's not quite a Crenshaw style figure.

He's been around Texas for a long time.

He's obviously a senator.

So he has probably more built in good will

but is definitely friendly with leadership.

He's a member of the GOP establishment.

No question about that.

Lots of people in Texas.

Angry about that post you ball the gun bill

that Kornin got behind.

That's definitely been a problem for him.

Wesley Hunt pulls in through 13.5%

Senate leadership fund,

aligned with Kornin,

then lashes out at Wesley Hunt

as he's defeated.

And it's basically like well we could have avoided a runoff

if you hadn't even gotten into this race.

Those three are Kornin votes.

Wesley Hunt.

What do you think, Ligel?

By the end I don't think they are

because the last two weeks in Texas you'd see the ads.

The last two weeks was that I left going after Hunt.

They wanted, they wanted this number.

So what is their theory of this race?

It is get Kornin above packs by any margin at all.

If it was a, if it was like the polls were a month ago

and it was packed in 43,

Kornin 33, Hunt better than he did,

then Trump would look at that and say,

this guy's a loser, I'm not going to endorse him.

They just want Trump to endorse John Kornin.

Forget any other issue in the race.

Just endorse him.

And right now in other rooms,

I'm sure they're saying they got,

we got Tolerico not Crockett.

There's no runoff on their side.

So we're not sure Paxton can win.

Texas Republicans are not that worried.

I mean, they voted for,

this was the store I covered in 2022.

We were running it for AG after all of his indictments.

George P. Bush was running as the savior

who would save the AG seat and Paxton was fine.

So it's tough to convince Republican voter.

The people in DC who make these donations

were pretty well convinced that Paxton would blow it

to Tolerico, so they're going to do that today.

We're not talking about any ideological differences.

They're really weren't any of the campaign.

The entire argument against Hunt was that

he was a showboat who never showed up for votes.

It was not, he voted wrong on something.

It was just that.

And Paxton just kind of,

he wasn't raising as much money,

but he was kind of holding his powder

because he knew he had this locked in.

He had, I mean, this is similar

what he got, I think, in his AG primary

because he had two challengers.

I think he did a little bit better.

But that's the story.

It's just, to the extent,

there is a big Republican establishment.

This has been their thing for years.

It's just, we can't really make a positive argument

for our guy's individual record.

We can say that Trump loves them.

So let's just wait this out

and see if we can get Trump in the race.

And the hunt theory was,

court and so weak that I can leap frog in

and I'd easily win.

That's true.

And if Republicans blow this at some point,

they'll say, why did we invest so much

when we could have just easily held the seat with Wesley Hunt,

who would not have any problem, no scandals.

That was kind of the premises of campaign.

I'm a family man, I'm a Christian, I'm a veteran.

Look at this resume.

It's incredible.

I'll just hold the seat, no problem.

You know, you dance with them, the brung you

and they knew Kornin, they wanted him back.

So it's almost depressing talking to these races,

literally no ideological difference.

It is just, we know this guy.

Let's help him out.

Screw this guy for opposing him, yeah.

Now, the ban and the ban and wing

will argue that that's not the case.

You know, they describe Kornin as a rhino, a liberal.

Yeah.

He voted for that gun, Bill, I'm serious.

Well, some of it is vibes, right?

That he's friendly with McConnell world and soon world

and that he'll, you know, throw Republicans under the bus

if he has to at any point.

Like some of it's just like, this guy's been around all the time.

Yeah, he's probably not running for re-election.

He's like 77 or something.

So he'd be 80 at the end of this show.

He would be bold and only to people

who are going to pay for his retirement.

Paxton, you know, was the first Republican AG

to join Trump and trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Paxton has gone after a big tech all over the place.

That's a separate court.

He's more of a pressure on hype.

He'll file these lawsuits on social issues

that no other Republican will get to the head of the pack.

I think him and Andrew Bailey and I was a realist.

So that's an idealist.

But if you are a religious conservative,

he is the one fighting for you

and what's Kornin done on that?

Even though he's a, you know, the Dalton world.

Well, it's always like who these,

it's always like who these politicians think they owe, right?

I understand why Bannon and Maga wants Paxton and not Kornin.

Because it's not, I mean, you're right.

Maybe you go down like bill by bill,

issue by issue, it's pretty similar.

But it's the perception of who they think they answered to.

Right?

And I think the perception probably among the Maga folks is,

John Kornin doesn't think he answers to us.

Right?

Yeah, he answers to, right.

And Ken Paxton clearly does answer to us.

Ken Paxton sees that his political formula

is by aligning with us all the time.

And that's what they want.

Yeah.

Well, last point that I was going to make is,

so run off May 26, got a couple of months for that now.

But also what the thread between our first segment on Dems

and Republicans, I think that's interesting is,

this is one of the first midterm cycles post 2024.

It's the first midterm cycle, post 2024.

But it's also the independent media midterm cycle, right?

Like, are we past the point of critical mass

on independent media changing these narratives

in a way that does really hurt incumbents

and hurts establishment candidates

where a needle alum can make a race uncomfortable

where Dan Crenshaw can get trounced.

And I mean, I don't know.

I think that's that, and Talleriko can run ads

on top versus bottom.

I don't know.

And it's up against huge money on the Republican side.

If you count the uncounted like C4 and C3 money,

I'm curious if you would think this correct.

I've seen the like Paxton crowd and Baxon supporters

saying it probably approaches a hundred million.

That if you factor mail and everything in

that we don't know about yet.

And they may have by the last four,

they bought every point, yeah.

And then behind Paxton, four or five, six million,

like a lot of money, but nowhere near $100 million.

They're now looking at potentially,

if Trump can't figure out a way

to like, nuke this primary.

Another hundred or two million is bent over.

Is it two months or three months?

Is it June?

No, it's May.

May 26th.

So almost three months.

Yeah.

March April May of Republicans like savagely attacking each other.

So to spend $100 million and to have a guy who's been in office

for decades, and before that was Attorney General attack,

it's like, they know who this guy is.

And still he gets 41.9 percent.

Is it crazy to think that if Cornyn spends another $100 million

next three months against Paxton,

and Paxton beats him, that then he's wounded enough

that it's actually a toss up in Texas.

Or should we not pay attention to Texas

because we've been fooled so many times?

It's like Florida's, right?

No.

And Talry go then loses by eight or something.

Well, and it would be unlike 2022, 2018 with Cruz.

Cruz has his enemies in Texas, but better at raising money,

has no scandal, whatever you think of him,

does not have any personal scandals, family man.

It would be a weaker candidate they had in 2018,

a stronger Democrat.

Yeah.

No, not impossible.

It's just what's happened.

It's that Latino vote shift.

If that's what Ken Paxton's betting on,

that the Rio Grande Valley is going to lock in the race for him.

No, it would be a tougher race.

I don't think they're full of it when they say that Paxton makes them spend money

and Cornyn doesn't.

It would be a, he's part of the establishment race,

but it wouldn't be, he would, again, have the money.

And I, they're just Paxton has not cultivated the sort of people

who can just keep dipping in.

There are a lot of them in Texas.

And Paxton was very successful in 2024

in getting rid of in primaries Republicans who voted to impeach him

in the state legislator.

He was right.

But that's a smaller investment.

That's $200,000 you can take a guy out.

It's not, if Talry go becomes a phenom as he already kind of is

and then spends a hundred, does Paxton have a hundred

from the energy scene?

No. And you've seen turning point in groups that are still angry

that there wasn't that money for Blake Masters in Arizona,

but there was money to save Lucifer Kowski in Alaska.

It would be a continuing sort of point

for why should grassroots people get to it.

Now, at least it funds the opposite of grassroots.

They don't care about that.

But that is the sort of thing that Talry can talk about.

My, like, DC wants this to happen.

He had some donors in DC, sure, we all do.

But this guy owes people and I don't.

The elements of an argument there.

And Paxton's just, I do think it's underage.

He's the guy, if a social conservative wants to sue abortion clinics

or to investigate clinics that do gender medicine for minors,

he will do it.

But Texas Republicans have not sent one of those guys to the Senate.

They've sent more talented politicians

who have some appeal beyond the conservative base.

This would be new for them if they try to tax them.

Now, everybody says Paxton is the more vulnerable candidate.

The Paxton crowd, that his defenders,

they say the opposite.

I'm curious if you're a take of this,

if this is co-oper, if this is anything real to this.

Their argument is,

Kornin has spent $100 million attacking our boy.

We love Kim Paxton.

We are so mad at how vicious you have been to our guy,

that if Kornin wins,

effort, we're staying home.

And that a chunk of Paxton voters won't even vote at all.

I don't think I buy that.

I think what I, the one grain of truth, I think,

is that there's an argument that John Kornin being the nominee

makes it easier for Talleriko to be the anti-system candidate.

Right.

The, they're in Washington.

I'm, I'm, and, and, and you can imagine Talleriko is saying,

most of my life he's been there yet.

Exactly.

And, and, and, and Talleriko can do the whole,

um, it's both parties in Washington,

like, it's Washington is the problem,

whether Republican or Democrat.

And, and Paxton makes that harder.

Definitely.

Right.

Paxton, I think that, then what Talleriko probably has to do,

is it's more of an anti-Trump campaign,

or an anti-base of the, like, sort of the heart,

the extremist base of the, that, that's how it would be portrayed

of the Republican Party.

Yeah, exactly.

They, they want to run against Paxton.

That's true.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

But I, but I do think that, like, Kornin being that the old

establishment, I guess, which is kind of crazy,

but can be portrayed as, like, like, country club Republican.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

Like, that's a whole different campaign

that I'm not convinced is, is like, not effective.

Like, I think it can be a next-to-a-picture Biden.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Oh, yeah.

I did see Kornin asleep on a plane recently with this,

his mouth, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth.

So it, you went.

Boned him out.

He was asleep on a plane.

But it was, it was almost like Biden, that's great,

except he was on a flight.

So he should be sleeping on a flight.

God bless anyone who could sleep on a plane.

All right.

We'll have to leave it there, everyone.

Dave and Dave, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me here.

This is a lot of fun.

We appreciate it.

We have 11 news that's going to do it for us today, Ryan.

Yeah.

And so, again, bringingpoints.com, we got that month free.

Is it BP free, 26?

Yes.

BP free, 26.

Don't share that with anybody else.

That's just for people who watch this segment.

No, this is for everybody.

Share it with a friend.

Okay.

Share it with your friends, but not just not like people

that you don't like.

Do not share it with John Kornin under any circumstances.

He's not sad.

He just burned a hundred million dollars.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

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