<Music> Welcome to Party Politics where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, also political science professor here at the University of Houston.

We're going to take a little bit of a pause in terms of our normal discussion about the week's chaos, and instead talk about a different chaos.

All right.

That's the chaos to watch in the future.

We're going to split our discussion about what races to watch in the primary season in Texas, as we've been hinting in the last few weeks.

There's a lot of things happening, a lot of races that are interesting and very telling for the future of the state.

We're going to highlight there are Democrats this time, and after the break, we'll talk about the Republicans.

So you can use these as a little guide to think about what the political world is going to look like come March, because it'll be here before.

You know what, my friend.

- I know.

And let's talk about, general things in terms of how the landscape looks in Texas politics for Democrats.

Well, good, bad, ugly, positive, negative.

Everything above.

- You can kind of twist it in a way to see kind of what you want.

Yeah.

Like, it's like a abstract art, right?

Like some people see, like, oh, it's a person.

Some people see.

Well, it's obviously a dog.

Like.

Good.

Right.

Well, but but you can, you can see some good things and some bad things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, in terms of, of looking for the positive side is midterm election, Trump presidency very polarizing the economy, not, doing as it's supposed to be doing.

Inflation still, lurking around.

- Like the Grinch.

Exactly.

I love the Grinch.

Always around.

You know, those little things that couldn't make it very complicated, very controversial.

Especially after, President Trump has said the issue of affordability is a hoax created by Democrats, something that, the general public and voters would say, like, Wait, what?

Yeah.

And also, like members of his White House staff saying, wait a minute.

Yeah.

How are you going to set the Republicans up for success?

Trump is the linchpin, right?

He is the thing that makes the Republican Party spin.

And as a result, you know, they need him to be on message.

But the fact that he's blaming Democrats for this and the fact that the American people blame him and the administration for the fact that the prices are so bad and the economy is kind of in the tank means the Democrats have got a chance.

Right?

Right.

And you cannot, win this midterm election by blaming, the Biden administration for it.

Right.

Who?

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

Joe Biden has been basically absent from the scene and probably for good for Democrats.

Right.

He was definitely a drag on the ticket in 2024.

And the fact that, you know, he had a drop out is a pretty good indication that, like, he's not welcome around these parts even at Christmas time.

So I do think you're right that there is a kind of kind of flaw for Democrats where and they're still looking for that kind of national leader to really energize things.

There are potential spots here for Democrats.

Some candidates in some of these races definitely are going to be the kind of future of the party.

They may not win this time.

Maybe they'll run again.

Maybe they can raise money at least shows that there is sort of proof of concept here.

But we've been in this position before.

Yep.

Jeronimo, we've seen this Christmas movie before.

How many movies are there about Santa Claus?

Like 9000.

And Democrats have had this narrative repeated a lot.

That is it's, good moment for them nationally.

Yeah.

They've got good candidates.

They raise just boatloads of money, and then all of a sudden they're stocking is full of coal right at the end of the cycle.

Like, how do you see that narrative playing out?

How do they overcome the idea that they are perpetually under, underrepresented in Houston, in Texas?

Well, they just have to do their homework.

I mean, I need some matter that, needs to happen every single day of every single year, whether there is an election or there's not an election.

Right.

Republicans have done so.

Right.

It's little by little, little by little, election by election.

Yeah.

So on and so forth.

Yeah.

So it's a matter to see if that's going to be certainly, the Trump presidency is not going to hand out, a win for Democrats.

It helps, but he has to have the right message.

You the right candidate and the right effort.

And of course, the right amount of money.

Yeah.

And Democrats found out the hard way in 2024 that like running against Trump is not sufficient.

Right?

Right.

Necessary but not sufficient.

So there's more to be said.

And I think one of the ways that we've seen that very true is in South Texas, the Latino vote in Texas is the biggest swing vote.

Yeah.

1 in 4 primary voters is Latino.

But about 20% of Latino voters across most polls are kind of undecided at this point among different candidates.

So what that means is that although Republicans are making gains in South Texas, it's still the case that this is the Democrat's area to lose.

So what do you think about the way that this has unfolded?

Can the Democrats create a statewide coalition that includes the Latino vote?

I think so, I mean, I think that if, Latino voters.

If Democrats focus on issues of affordability, on issues of the economy, on issues of jobs, on issues of health care, and highlight the chances that we have in our system, then they can be successful.

Right?

And again, you don't need all Latino voters.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

You need a significant coalition that is going to allow you to pass.

You need that successful 60/40 split.

And if you can manage it, the 70/30 split, that's been the sweet spot for Democrats.

But it's been harder to come by and it's going to be even more hard to come by as the messaging internally becomes much more complicated.

So one other consideration for Democrats is that they're still fighting these internal ideological battles about who's a better candidate.

Should we go in the progressive direction and have somebody who excites the base?

Should we elect somebody who is a moderate, who can appeal to swing voters in a general election?

That debate we're seeing played out in a bunch of different ways, and we'll talk about that in some of these races.

But the fact is that if you look at the history of this, moderates have fared pretty well in these fights.

You can look at Allred over Gutierrez Hegar versus West.

And Tzintzún Ramirez.

You have Sadler in 12.

Tony Sanchez even over Dan Morales who neither of them were particularly like, you know, ideologically committed or liberal.

But in oh two, that was something that definitely was where moderates won.

So with the exception of Lupe Valdez over Andrew White in 2018, basically, you know, progressive haven't had that much of a of a purchase here.

That's changing to some degree because the party is changing.

But it's also the case that internally, Democrats still aren't sure kind of what that line looks like.

Well yet.

But but these candidates are going to be different.

Right.

You have very progressive candidates in the Senate race, also progressive candidates in the governor's race that we're going to talk about.

Yeah.

Just a second.

Yeah.

So it's a different kind of, candidate that we'll see.

And we have never test them to put it that way in this election.

So a great point.

Let's leapfrog over the Senate race for Dems because we talked about that last week.

And we're definitely going to spend, you know, a lot of time talking about it like, yeah, I had a friend texted me saying basically like, so is every day going to be a Talarico-Crockett story?

And I think the short answer is yes.

Yeah, let's leapfrog over that and talk about some races that we don't get a chance to talk about as much for.

Let's first talk about the governor primary.

Now again, we're talking just about Democrats.

Right.

We'll talk about Republicans in a couple of weeks.

Let's talk about what the landscape looks like for the governor's race in Texas for Democrats.

Alright.

So we have, state representative Gina Hinojosa.

Then, we have Andrew White.

Then we have, former U.S.

Representative Chris Bell and Bobby Cole, and then, Patricia Abrego, Angela Villecaz and Jose Navarro Balbuenna.

So who are these folks?

So.

And what are they doing?

Yes.

Why are they all in my ballot?

All right, so, Gina Hinojosa, she's an Austin Democrat.

She is focusing her campaign based on fighting, corruption.

She's one of the most progressive, members of the House of Representatives here in Texas.

She serve as Austin school board, president and is, firebrand in terms of these, I would say progressive, but, yeah.

Andrew White, so it's, he's some businessman.

He's the son of late governor Mike White.

He's running as, independent Democrat, more moderate and making, you know, these, I guess, argument that he's more electable in a general election, former U.S.

Representive Chris Bell is second run, for governor.

And he's, Houston attorney.

He also running the, Democratic Primary to challenge, Cornyn in in 2020.

And then the other one is Bobby Cole, as long as the information that we have, he's, former firefighter, he's a farmer.

And he's also arguing that, there needs to be more working people, running government.

So, yeah, this race certainly is developed top cycle.

I think, you know, Hinojosa, probably is the one to beat.

She's the one who's most visible.

She's going to raise the most money.

She's obviously the daughter of Gilberto Hinojosa.

Yeah.

Who was a former party chair.

She's known in these circles.

I like the fact that she's running as a, progressive Democrat on an education issue.

I think that that's a winnable story for the for for Democrats.

Like, there's a lot of consternation about the way education policy has been handled in the state.

And so I think that's a kind of comparative advantage for her.

You can see lots of ways that that might unfold.

But again, she's very progressive in a way that, you know, is something that she can challenge, that she can be challenged on.

And it's also the case that people seem to like the way that the education system is going in Texas.

There's a support for vouchers, which is really the cornerstone of Greg Abbott's kind of, you know, sort of education policy and maybe for his entire governorship.

Andrew White, yeah, he's kind of a incrementalist he's a policy tinkerer.

He's a bit more moderate, right?

On abortion.

He's pro-life, but wants to veto restrictions.

He's against recreational marijuana, but supports decriminalization.

He's presenting himself as a kind of, again, as we said in this debate, like a more moderate somebody who can appeal to crossover voters.

There's still serious debate about how this might function.

She's definitely better among the base.

He's probably better among leaning voters.

But, you know, leaning voters don't vote is often and as is, and is kind of powerfully is vociferously.

So, there's definitely going to be this fight here.

Chris Bell I'm not sure yet.

Right?

I mean, I get press releases from Chris Bell or he'll kind of chip away at an issue or something, but you don't see a lot of attention to him.

And so maybe some debates will kind of tease this out, but they've all kind of pick their lane to some degree.

For Hinojosa, her lane is definitely the progressive lane.

And honestly, as we said, there's this sort of movement now where Democrats are fired up.

They don't like Donald Trump.

They want to see some real fight.

And she's the one who probably presents... Oh, yes.

...that most effectively.

So you know, again, we'll see.

But this is sort of typical, I think of that fight that the the Democrats are trying to kind of tease out.

Really the question here is money because Greg Abbott has about $90 million.

Now he's going to spend that across the state, but I'm sure I'll spend a little bit of that on himself.

Yeah.

Pursue, a victory.

And that's a big chunk of change.

The other is, you know, just.

Can Latino outreach be successful?

I just said Hinojosa is from the Valley.

Exactly.

She's connecting to these voters.

That seems to me to be an opportunity for Democrats to really kind of set that stage.

So there's lots to be able to tease out.

Let's talk about the attorney general's race.

Ken Paxton is vacating, to run for Senate.

We'll talk about that, of course, because that's going to be one of the marquee races.

So for the first time in a decade, there's a basically an open primary, right?

The AG's office unpacks and is really redefined the office of Attorney General.

And so in his wake will be this question about what the attorney General's office is supposed to do.

Democrats are saying, let's get back to basics, right.

Let's focus on the stuff that the attorney general should do and not on the kind of political, you know, Roustabouts that you know, that the attorney general currently is doing.

So they want to pitch basically a new way of approaching this and to create these sort of platforms that make the office more like it was designed to be.

What do you make of that?

Just generally in terms of how the office is seen, is the public that worried about the AG's kind of dalliances or these Don Quixote like fights?

Or are they just kind of ignoring The Office altogether?

Well, let me give it a real, think, No.

Most people don't exactly.

Or even as an attorney general.

Exactly.

But it's important they do is also important for 11,000 billion things, right, that have very important implications in terms of what city governments are allowed to do in terms why, county governments are allowed to do.

But yeah, I mean, over the past years and I would say this is a trend that started perhaps with, Governor Abbott in terms of suing the federal administration.

In his case, it was about administration.

And it's a trend that has been going over and over and over.

And the question is, yes, indeed.

That is a role that attorney generals, in the US play.

Why?

Because we live in a federal system.

And the balance of powers and everything that is not allowed based on the 10th amendment, that is not, given to the national government is left to the states and to the people.

So they should play a role in that 100%.

The question is, if the Attorney General's office should be, you know.

Yeah.

Just like, oh, you move your cup, I'm going to sue you.

Suing you.

Yeah.

And then also the inner, state control in terms of, rightfully elected local governments, whether it's one party or the other.

Yes.

That's another very important issue in terms of governance.

It's a great question.

And how sometimes these municipalities and cities are tied and they cannot do a lot of stuff because the attorney general's office does not allow them.

There's not enough academic work on attorneys general.

There's a little.

But there definitely is a new phase where attorneys general across the country, including and frankly, led by Ken Paxton, are doing a lot more sort of in, in things to, to, to kind of, you know, cement their own political perspective, but also as a legal question, you know, giving the states these power.

So it's really interesting.

But let's talk about the Dems, though, because this is a fight that, it definitely could be pretty, you know, pretty strong.

You've got two notable candidates, Senator Nathan Johnson of the Dallas area is emphasizing kind of professionalization of the office wanting to reduce outside council contracts, which, as you said, for Ken Paxton, he's suing everybody.

So you got a bunch more lawyers.

They're definitely getting rich.

Build in-house capacity with attorneys and shift the focus from political litigation to more of a legal service delivery.

And then Joe Jaworski, who is a former Galveston mayor, he's run before, for, attorney general.

He emphasizes some basic things like open records, child support enforcement, which the AG's office does.

You know, by law, nonpartisan administration.

And he says to enforce the high school voter registration law, which, you may remember, I spent a lot of time studying.

That's something no one talks about.

But just as a little snippet, basically, Texas state law says that the high schools in Texas have to offer high school registration to people who are eligible twice a year.

Almost no schools do it.

We've done a couple studies of this with undergraduates and found there's a real lacking here.

And not surprisingly, young people aren't voting.

They're probably not voting because they don't have access to these pathways.

Right.

So this is something that I think is a really good thing.

So both of them seem pretty competent.

I don't think there's any real ideological differences.

No.

They're both well known, like I said, kind of in Democratic circles.

Not sure who's got the edge here, to be honest.

Yeah, I don't know either.

And, and also it's very technical issues in terms of what they want to do.

Eventually.

Yeah.

Like does it sell to voters.

They will like look to a back to basics.

Let's, you know, prioritize in-house counsel over extra counsel.

I mean it's cheaper I guess you could make that case.

Sure.

But I guess I mean at the end is going to be also how they sell or how they argue against the politicization of the attorney general's office, right.

Or what?

They're going to do, in terms of changing it or whatever it is that they're going to do.

Yeah.

So I think that eventually is going to be, is going to have these partizan, angle, but it's too early so far.

Yeah.

Well, wait and see.

Let's talk about some lower local races for the U.S.

House of Representatives.

Congressional district 18 has been one that's been shifting around.

One thing we noted earlier is that basically redistricting has created lots of different moving chairs.

You've got incumbents retiring.

Sometimes they're shifting around.

Here's an example of incumbents shifting around Al Green, who forever is represented.

The ninth district is going to run in the 18th district, but not so fast.

There's actually more people running.

Right.

Yeah.

You've got Amanda Edwards who is likely to run for this seat.

You've got, you've got Christian Menefee who's going to run for the seat.

They're actually fixed in a battle to run for the remainder of Sylvester Turner's term in the old 18th district.

This is for the new 18th district.

So you've got three pretty notable Democrats, two of whom have run races before, literally in the same space.

You've got Al Green, who's been in Congress for a long, long time.

So, how is this going to shake out a real kind of pitch battle inside the Democratic Party?

Oh, yeah, it is basically, you're, putting, very important figures, in terms of local politics, against each other.

Yeah.

And he's going to be, redefinition of where the Democratic Party, I think is going to go, at least at the local level, going with, you know, the the proven leadership of Green that has been representing that area of the city for many, many, many, many, many decades.

And then you have these new up and coming, you know, maybe half the age of, of, Al Green, trying to say, okay, it's time.

Time to step aside.

Right.

It's time to step back and remember when, Sylvester Turner, was elected.

He said, I'm just going to serve a little bit and then I'm going to pass the baton.

Right.

And he's going to pass it to Al Green, who's older than Turner.

In Congress for longer.

Right.

So so it's one of these issues that we're going to see, right.

Yeah I like the way you put that.

Like it's a real generational battle.

It's I mean young versus old.

And that's something we've seen in different phases of the Republican Democratic Party primaries.

But this one is very much in the face.

And the question here connected to that is sort of who gets the edge.

And I think to some degree, Al Green is still in really good space, like he is a, well known Democrat.

Oh yeah.

So the people who are now in a new district are going to have to make a decision about somebody.

The two people, they don't know that well, one person that do know really well, there's a chance that that could give an edge to Green.

The other is that it's about who votes.

Right.

And this is a turnout race where older people vote and they know Al Green and they trust him.

So there's another possibility here that that happens.

So it's very conceivable this goes to a runoff.

And if it goes to a runoff then I think we'll see that kind of yeah condensed together.

But that's the real question is whether Al Green's name, ID and experience is enough to overcome the younger challengers who see a kind of new vision.

It's unknown, but definitely of interest, all mixed together with, you know, wicked brew of redistricting and a bunch of new voters.

And so.

Yeah.

it's going to be an expensive proposition and one that's going to flood our inboxes with a bunch of mail pieces.

But let's keep talking about Congress and move to North Texas.

And that's Congressional District 33.

Now, again, all these districts are basically new.

This is a district that is basically part of the old 23, but now is kind of reformed.

Julie Johnson is going to run for this office.

She's a member of Congress from the 32nd district, but now she's living in the new district, so she's running for that.

But you've got a surprise.

And that is that Colin Allred who is running for Senate.

Right.

But dropped out after Jasmine Crockett jumped in to be able to run for this seat.

So he's now saying, well, you know, the basically the 33 is really like the 32nd that I used to represent.

So it's new but it's really old.

What do you make of this again kind of getting chippy early on.

What do you think about this?

Well again it's a turnout fight.

And it's you're putting cousins against cousins.

And and it's like you're putting what is that movie the Hunger Games.

You put the weapons, You got to get it.

In the middle.

You got to get to your weaponry.

Right.

That's a great one.

Run.

And, and try to see who's going to, have the, the, the, the winning punch.

And I mean, Julie Johnson and Allred are good representatives.

They care about the constituents.

And it's one of the byproducts of redistricting.

That is.

Exactly what I was thinking.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

I like the chaos of this is really what Republicans are gaining as a side product, like the addition to picking up seats, right?

With the redistricting.

Now they've got this chaos.

They're sowing inside the Democrats house.

It's gotten trippy.

Like I said, you've got pointed language from Julie Johnson that says that women should never be treated as placeholders for men who fail to advance.

Yikes.

And even Allred, who punches back saying, well, this majority minority district needs a real fighter.

So both of them are edging around this fight.

Jab, jab.

We'll see if anybody can land a haymaker, but this will be another race to watch because again, it tells us something about where the party is going.

Let's return back to Harris County.

Let's talk about the judge race.

Right.

Lina Hidalgo is leaving and this leaves Harris County open.

As a judge position.

This is interesting because we as we said before, this is a race that is in a county that's pretty purple.

Republicans are hoping to make a stand here.

Greg Abbott's pledge to spend a bunch of money, but it's obviously pretty fertile Democratic territory.

Annise Parker is running for the seat.

Former mayor she enters is probably the best known figure.

Letitia Plummer, who's a former member of city council, has got a kind of progressive energy she's bringing to it.

So there's a lot that could be played out here.

Older Democrats versus younger Democrats, progressives versus moderates.

What do you think?

Well, I mean, once again, it's going to be depending on what's going to be the difference in terms of how they approach this issue and how they.

Either, stay in Hidalgo's policy or Yeah, yeah.

Or separate from it.

So.

Those voters are still there and those are probably more naturally Plummer voters depending on how the messaging plays out.

But the, you know, Mayor Parker is definitely really well liked in that space, too.

So there's like going to be competition for those votes for Hidalgo votes voter.

Right.

But then if Plummer wins.

What's the likelihood that she can reach out to more moderate voters?

Right.

Remember, Harris County judge is a position in which you are the county administrator and you are basically the shepherd of, Commissioners Court.

Yeah.

So it is a administrative position, very public policy.

It's like, oh, we have a whole then all we need to cover the whole and etc., etc., etc.

and then.

Right.

It is the political part.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you how you can navigate that world is going to depend how you can basically be like this.

So we'll see.

Yeah, I mean Plummer's themes have been about strengthening the health care system, especially Harris Health expanding county contracts and focus on green energy, attention to ICE and cooperation limits, finding a way to kind of make that balance that, you know, doesn't violate the law, but that definitely respects, kind of the progressive view of things.

So she has, I think, potential policy operations in that space.

But obviously, Mayor Parker can lean on her experience, right?

Yeah.

Literally running a city and have that be potentially a big factor.

Interesting.

Yeah.

We'll see that race, because that's going to be a big determination of kind of whether or not the, you know, Democrats have a candidate who can win in November and beat the Republicans, who also have got a pretty sizable field.

Last thing, let's talk about, Tarrant County.

Tarrant County is a weird one because it just very recently became kind of a big purple county.

I talked about Harris is that way, but Tarrant really very swingy.

Tim O'Hare, who's their current incumbent Republican judge, won by only about 5 to 6 percentage points.

So it's Republican leaning, but definitely is swingy.

And in this case, you've got Alisa Simmons, who is a former count who's a former, commissioner who, has butted heads with Tim O'Hare and and a late breaking entry.

Mark Veasey, who was a member of Congress, decided because he's not in his is going to run for county judge.

This is a wild card to me.

And again, internally, there's going to be a pretty serious fight.

But does reflect the fact that you're seeing this churn.

Oh yeah.

It's going to be very interesting because Tarrant County is, as you say, recently purple is going to be very competitive race.

If Democrats can juice up turn out there, there's a potential of that success.

Oh yeah.

It's like some support up ballot.

Oh yeah.

Well, this is it for, before the break.

We wish you, happy holidays.

And when we come back, we're going to do the same thing.

But for Republican candidates, I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We'll see you after the break.

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