Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

Political science professor at the University of Houston.

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

Thanks for hanging out.

Talking politics again.

Like a crazy week.

It feels like kind of Groundhog's Day ish.

Obviously, the shutdown is still happening.

Yes, indeed.

We've got contested kind of military interventions.

We have a Texas attorney general under fire who's running for Senate.

If you saw all this happening in a different country, you'd be worried.

Right, right.

Like, this doesn't look good.

But the good news is that elections are on the horizon.

And as long as we're having free and fair elections, we're built in to have the success that the system supposed to have.

So let's get into it and talk about some of these issues.

First is that, the Texas military has been deployed, to Illinois.

Yes.

Now, there's a long history here of the Texas National Guard being deployed to the border for some additional protection.

This has been a story we've covered and talked about a bunch, but obviously, like we said last week, the some of these troops have been sent to Illinois, but then some of them got returned back.

Yes they did.

What is going on with that?

Well, they did not meet the mission requirements.

Okay.

Yes.

That's what they said.

Right?

This is a week after Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, said, basically, like we want a new, fit army, right?

Yes.

That looks like a movie.

Exactly.

Like Starship Troopers.

But that's not exactly the way the National Guard was.

And so some of them had to be sent home.

Seven in total had to be sent back home.

It's obviously kind of, I think, a joke among people who, like, examine this, but I don't think sending them to Chicago, where the casserole sized pizzas are, like, available on every street, is the way to, like, prevent them from gaining more weight.

But the bottom line to me is that there's a real morale problem here.

This is not going to help that, right?

17 National Guard soldiers have died since the beginning of Operation Lone Star.

Many have taken their own lives.

And so there's a real, I think, problem here.

And indeed, the morale of it.

That's not to say that there is not just a bunch of money being spent on it, because there definitely is.

But critics say it's inefficiently spent.

You also see people like Barack Obama on Marc Maron's podcast, say, if I had sent the National Guard to Illinois or to Texas, then there would be rioting in the streets, right?

And even the governor, a Republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, said, why are you doing that?

Like, we should respect these federal boundaries.

So it's hypocritical in a way.

It's also violates this kind of federal norm.

That system sort of needs to have.

What's going on?

How do we assess all of this together?

I mean, I think that it's extremely important when you think about, in terms of the federalism or the feral pact that we have between states and the national government.

So once you break that, there's going to be intrusion in one way or the other.

Remember, Reagan started all these things like Reagan started with the the evolution revolution.

And that is returning powers to the states, because the argument is states are closer to the people.

Therefore, states can govern better for the people.

Well, now Texas is governing what happens in Illinois.

Exactly right.

And that's the problem that, like Kevin Stitt, the governor of Oklahoma, points out that like, I don't want your troops here.

Like we have our own protection.

And if we're not true on the issue of the states being able to protect themselves and or being able to control what happens inside their borders, then like, we don't want your troops here, we don't need them.

Well, and also the argument by the argument that the federal government is making is not a credible argument, right, because the evidence is not there.

You don't have riots.

Chicago is not being set on fire.

So it's why why do we need.

In addition of the point that perhaps the Trump administration wants to make.

Yeah.

And that's what Greg Abbott has said, basically, like, well, if you can control your streets, then we wouldn't have to send these troops.

But again, this is a, you know, spurious argument because there's lots of reasons this is happening.

And if you wanted to help them, you could give them more money to help.

Right?

That's one issue.

So I think that there is a real liability here.

And the more of this that happens, and I want to your take on this, the more that you see the kind of visuals of this.

Right?

Like you have agents from the federal government masked up with guns and they're like, you know, dealing with people like running down people in CVS.

Right?

There's a lot of these things that I'm sure people have seen this.

Oh, yeah.

Ways that I think at some point you're going to make people look at the flaws in this and say that, okay.

Yeah.

I mean, crime is being controlled in some ways, but you're also creating this kind of chaos which makes people unhappy.

But but again, the evidence is so far that we have, I mean, the argument that the Trump administration gave at the beginning of, of, of, of his term was we're going to deport, dangerous criminals.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Everyone was like absolutely 100%.

Yes.

But now what we're seeing is, you know, moms being taken away from their kids, right?

And yeah, you said like, wait, but is she a criminal?

Oh, no, she's not right.

Right.

Okay, but when does that happen?

When we were changing from dangerous criminals to a mom with, little kids that is pushed away or shoved down, etc., etc., etc.. So or this reporter from WGN in Chicago that was like detained for a while, who's like a U.S.

citizen, right?

You know, was just sort of covering this, that these are these are kinds of stories that I think do end up potentially backfiring, even despite the fact that people still see crime as an issue.

But I don't know how far that goes.

And at some point, there's a diminishing return on the potential for this to be a useful political tool.

Joe Rogan Rogan, in his podcast, has also questioned, these, ways that the administration is doing.

Right.

And the question is, I understand the argument about the sovereignty of the state.

I understand the questions about immigration policy without getting into the issue of, the policy is completely broken, but I think there are ways to do these things.

Yeah, yeah.

And and the ways that the Trump administration are not perhaps the best ways to accomplish what they want to accomplish, especially when we are targeting these non criminal super, Dangerous people.

Yeah.

There's a policy and there's the enactment of policy.

Right.

And the enactment of policy on purpose is supposed to be very harsh.

Right.

That's the goal of it.

I mean, I think that's a secret, right?

Like the goal is to really look this be like this kind of chaotic scenario, because then you can convince judges that, like, your impression of what's happening is real, and therefore we should be sending troops, right?

As the law allows.

So that does sort of this creates this perpetual cycle.

It's hard to kind of get out of until there's people who push back and say, like, we don't want this.

And or there's sort of problems that in terms of how it gets implemented.

But what you just said, right.

I mean, there's going to be a, a president from the Democratic Party.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So once you set these precedent.

Federal troops in, you know, Biloxi.

I mean, yeah, I mean, this is what this equation is being created, right?

Perhaps, especially when we think about the argument, or the Trump administration is.

Okay, fine.

But Democrat can make the same argument totally.

And then.

Think, oh, absolutely.

and then it's this vicious cycle that we're going to enter in a tit for tat, tit for tat, tit for tat until someone says, okay, enough, we're not, but maybe he's going to be too late.

It could be too late.

Yeah.

So let's talk about something a little rosier and then.

Okay.

Competitive Senate primary in the Republican Party here in Texas.

Yes, sir.

It's definitely been a fine.

Very normal.

Very, you know, kind of cordial race.

Okay.

Just in Bizarro.

World.

In Bizarro World.

This week.

The Wall Street Journal has reported documents it's reviewed implying that, Ken Paxton went from middle class lawyer to millionaire in just the time that he's been in office.

Before he ran for office, he had less than $175,000 in wealth.

By 2018, the total worth for both he and Angela Paxton, his wife, was about $5.5 million.

Some of this money came from a huge payout, an investment in a police technology company that has a lucrative DPS contract.

This apparently was never disclosed.

The after this big win to the PACs and went on a buying spree buying up property in Florida, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Utah.

So if you want to go to those places, you should get friendly with them because they've got rental properties there that, apparently total more than about $7.5 million.

So I guess the question is, does this make it look like Ken Paxton is sort of using his government office to be able to parlay this into his own personal fortune?

Is it going to be a problem for him politically?

Well, politically is it's going to be a problem.

Yeah.

Because one of the things, I think that the general electorate doesn't like, is these issues about abusing these power and getting from normal, allegedly middle class to, well, now I have millions of dollars.

That's something that the electorate does not necessarily like in, in, in, in such a way.

Yeah.

The kind of and the thing is like it's in the spirit of this I think ethos politically now that there's this kind of the regular people versus the billionaires, right.

Like for sure, Democrats are playing this up.

But there's also a populism in the Republican Party, the yeah, we look at this and says, like what?

You made how much money?

and none of these things are mostly things are not illegal, right?

I mean, they may have been disclosed properly, but they're not like things that he's done in a negative way.

But the fact that it happened while he was in office make it look like he's using the office to be able to feather his own nest.

And that is something people are like.

And the issue here is transparency is the same thing that we're seeing with the Department of Defense.

It's like we want transparency.

But oh, by the way, we want your, press badges.

If you don't do what we want you to do.

Yeah.

So the issue here is transparency.

And and this issue of transparency is going to have an impact because we have two power weights in these particular Senate races.

And also on the Democratic side, because Democrats are going to milk these all the way because it feeds the narrative.

So yeah, clear.

People won't even know who the Democratic nominee is, but they'll know how much they don't need Ken Paxton.

Right.

That will be the tone of the race at the end of it.

It won't even be about the the candidates.

It'll be about how Ken Paxton is, you know, have all these sort of ethical flaws.

Now, the thing is, like, there are differences, as you say, between the primary and the general, the scholarship suggests that voters prefer an ideological proximate candidate, even despite the fact that they may have ethical issues.

We also know that a lot of scandals end up actually just kind of muddying the zone.

Like it makes it so that people don't really know any one thing that happened.

So it could be this is kind of one more thing that people look at Ken Paxton and say, well, there are all these problems he's got.

And, you know, I forgive him for them or they don't matter to me or something like that.

Right.

Kind of media silo and creates this moment where people like aren't paying as much attention to it or they're, you know, it's been minimized.

No, I understand that.

But the point here is that you have first in the primary, right?

You're going to have two Democrats and potentially two Republicans against.

Just hammering away at them.

Right.

Going against, the attorney general.

And then you're going to have the general election, whatever happens in the primary.

So, is it here that, the enemies of my friends are my friends or the friends of my enemy, whatever it is.

Right.

Makes it wonder and obviously, Cornyn and Hunt.

Yeah, have an incentive to say, okay, you are nice.

Yeah.

We're not going to attack each other.

Right?

Right.

We're gonna focus our.

Training this.

On ammunition on, Paxton.

And then we are and I, I differences if we move.

I think that's right.

But the Wesley Hunt is just so anti Cornyn that he said that he doesn't care who wins as long as it's not John Cornyn.

Like it could be Ken Paxton or it could be him Wesley Hunt but not Ken.

Not not not not can not John Cornyn.

So I mean, I there's still a lot of like viciousness happening regardless of who it is.

But I think, hey, scratch that.

Yeah.

Well, no, I mean, I think that's so possible.

I mean, I don't they obviously wouldn't coordinate as such, but like, there's definitely a sense that if you want to win, this is the pathway to win.

And I think everybody recognizes that regardless of their coordination or not.

But the polling suggests that Paxons up by only a little bit.

I mean, Cornyn, close that gap, which is pretty impressive in a very short period of time.

And you also have now Wesley Hunt in the race, probably feeding some of Paxton's, you know, kind of, support among, Republicans, really hardcore Republicans.

So it's still pretty close race once it comes down to it.

So we'll kind of see how it works out and how all these things play with the Republican primary electorate.

But there's also a race on the other side of things.

On the indeed.

Democratic side of things.

You have, this week Colin Allred and James Talarico both running for the Democratic primary for Senate, in South Texas.

What are they up to there?

And is it going to work?

Well, is, I think it's the first step.

And I think that they just realized one way or the other that, especially South Texas, the RGV, Rio Grande Valley region is extremely, extremely important because you have a huge chunk of the of the electorate.

Yeah, that can go one way or the other.

Yeah.

Also the way that there are, you know, using it, is just, I guess highlighting their working class backgrounds.

Yeah.

That, that sells very well in the region.

Right.

So the RGV region is.

Yes.

Is blue collar working class, is developing.

It's growing.

It has a very deep sense of, family.

It has a very deep sense of religion.

A lot of Catholics, a lot of, how do you call, non-denominational Christians?

So those things make that, especially in the Latino electorate very interesting.

Right.

And the the narrative that they're using, I think, is the narrative that they're gonna, you know, try to exploit.

And the next question that I have for you is if you think that the strategy is to highlight, like, saying, well, you bought a new president, right?

That's what you get, like, how's life going for you so far?

Right.

Are you better off than you were?

It's a great question.

Yeah.

And the polling suggests that Trump is basically under water and has lost ground among independents.

Gen Z and Latinos are down 12% among Latinos in Texas.

That's a huge drop.

And if you look at the kind of strategy for Republicans who hope to pick up the newly drawn ninth, 15, 28, 34th district, it they're going to have to have the Latino vote as part of that.

Coalition.

Oh, yes.

And there's a chance that they might not.

So I was intrigued by your question about the kind of religiosity of the region, because I wonder how much the kind of evangelical storyline sells with these voters.

That's something that I think is still in question.

But for sure, there's this lament about voting for the president so far that is, I think, connected to the economy.

And so that's the one thing I think that's going to be the most biggest issue.

But Democrats have got a lot of ground to make up, right?

Oh, yeah.

Turnout in Cameron County was the lowest of any in the past presidential history.

The Democratic incumbent there lost, the 27th district, the Senate district, which is a huge problem.

They have to claw back any kind of support they can get in the valley.

And so there's a lot of, I think, problems there.

And if you look at the kind of numbers both of them are, kind of unknown amongst Latinos, and this is a place where you're seeing about 20% of Latinos who are unsure about who they're going to vote for.

Yeah, with respect to the Democratic ticket.

So there's still a lot of ground to make up.

So the visiting there makes a lot of sense, right.

This is the biggest swing vote in the state.

So you want to be able to move that needle.

But as it is now they're not.

And they're candidates that are better at this and would be more accepted, at least according to polling.

Right.

Jasmine Crockett and Beto O'Rourke are both better known and better liked among Latino community.

So there's a lot of ground they have to make up, right?

Right.

But then it's going to be, I think, the combination when you have, our friend Bobby Pulido, right.

Who thinks you can't sing.

But yeah, I disagree with him.

Vehemently.

I think I can sing, and thank you very much.

Yes.

You're welcome.

Number one, number two, we have the potential entering of the race of Gina.

Gina Hinojosa.

Yeah, yeah.

That's right.

So what I'm trying to see is if this strategy when you have, these, two political figures, well, in case of, of, Hinojosa and then deep connections with the valley, right.

Obviously you have Bobby Pulido right there.

And then, you have Albert and Talarico doing the rounds.

Yeah.

Would that make, a dent?

Would that make sense?

In the sense?

Okay, fine.

Is like the prodigal son coming back in, like, oh, we forgot that you existed.

Now we're back.

Yeah.

We're not going to leave you alone ever again.

That's a great point.

I think that that stacked kind of attention is really going to pay off.

Right.

And we've seen it before.

In 2018, the exact same thing happened.

You had candidates running down ballot who were able to juice up the turnout at the top of the ticket, helping O'Rourke at that point.

And probably, you know, again, whoever helps whoever wins the primaries here is probably gonna get that same kind of juice.

But the thing we know about the Latino electorate in this part of the world is that they want to have consistent, constant connection, right?

They don't want to have just election time.

Yeah.

People come back and talk to them.

They want investment, real investment.

So that goes along with exactly what you said with respect to faith and family and the kind of businesses that are growing.

So this is a moment where Democrats could, you know, kind of really dig in here.

And if they do that, they can find that success.

And if they don't, then Republicans will continue to make these gains.

But once again, when you put the investment question into on the table, you can see have they invested yes or no?

Yeah.

And that's it.

Yeah.

Or is the same thing as, you know, what happened with Democrats or this or that.

But obviously the Democrats have not been in control.

Yeah.

So, so true.

Hard to build an infrastructure.

Exactly.

You know, kind of trying to just fight for your life.

Yeah.

Let's talk about crosswalks.

Okay.

Most important political question that that confronts the state.

This week, Greg Abbott, basically threatened to withhold any road funding from Texas cities and counties if they don't remove, quote, political ideologies from their street.

This is actually joining the Trump administration in declaring things like rainbow crosswalks a dangerous distraction.

So again, this is sort of this interesting legal process where the white House, the executive at the federal level, issues this order, and then it gives some cover politically and legally for people who are in the subs units.

That is in Texas, to be able to act.

So it's a kind of clever legal strategy here that Greg Abbott is certainly embracing.

Now you're seeing pushback from some places, and you're seeing acceptance in others.

Metro here in Houston has decided to re stripe the pavement.

That was probably triggered some of this in Montrose.

Kirk Watson has done the same.

Galveston is removed to Gina Ortiz Jones and San Antonio was decided that they're going to kind of wait out and see what happens here.

But how do you think this is going to play out?

And obviously there's a political element to this, but there's promise of legal action.

What do you think it's going to look like?

I mean, of course there's going to be legal action.

But here the question goes deeper.

I would say.

And the first one is the role of the state, right.

The state of Texas.

Let's take political parties and put them in a box right now under the political.

Yeah.

Put it in a box with a puppy in it.

It's like just bouncing.

Bouncing, I know.

Yeah, trying to get out and push it down.

Down.

No, the issue here is, cities are creatures of this state, right?

So that means that the state can and do whatever they want with cities.

If the state tomorrow wakes up, Yawning and say, like, wow, I want to, you know.

How am I going to crush them today?

Right?

Houston 2.0 or Houston better, Houston or whatever.

They can do that.

Yeah, but the question here is what does that entail for governance?

What does that entail for home rule and what does that do for voters.

Right.

Yeah.

The other question is fine.

Are we really going to fight sidewalks?

Right, right.

And is, I guess, First Amendment issue.

Right.

But here is when everything gets extremely, as you said, a very tricky legal question.

Because the First Amendment applies to the things that I like, but also the First Amendment applies to the things that I do not like.

So true.

So that is the balance.

And in terms of how, First Amendment and free expression, we really.

Are.

It's a good question.

No.

And I mean that the, the what constitutes a political ideology is sort of unclear in this legal case.

So some of the local officials are saying that this is kind of unknown in terms of like it's sort of status like in particular, the rainbow crosswalks were apparently painted that way according to them, because it was brighter.

And it might be safer because somebody sadly was killed in that intersection.

So it's, you know, I think a kind of, uncertain what it means to have this kind of political ideology.

And so I think that's a legal question that has to be issued.

But to me, the question is sort of, is this how far can this fight go to the point where at some point it won't pay off anymore, where they'll look at this and say, it's not worth fighting about this, right?

This is sort of small potatoes, and we should focus on things that do matter.

I feel like this is that kind of fight where, you know, we're at that point where voters look at this and say, what are you doing?

Why are you wasting money on this and time on this?

Right.

There's so many more important things so that to me is, I think where we are.

And at some point there will be this like just like with the kind of National Guard issue, there's this, this diminishing return on this kind of Partizan fighting that voters are going to say, like, look, this is all nonsense.

We want to fight about stuff that really matters.

And certainly there are values to be had here and discussed here, but there is something that voters want that's not this.

And yeah, that has to be thought through.

But a lot of voters aren't getting anything that they want because the government shutdown has entered a third week.

Yes.

Republicans are still playing hardball.

The hard knuckled, you know, kind of bare knuckle part, like very partizan fight canceling energy.

But infrastructure projects in various places, flights are delayed, tax hotlines go unanswered, farmers aren't getting loans.

Meanwhile, no one's budging.

What's going to happen here?

Well, we're still at 49.

45, right?

Yeah.

Two Democrats, Cortez Masto from Nevada and Angus King from Maine voted for that.

Fetterman from Pennsylvania voting yes or no, depending on what he the mood of the day.

And, Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky voting no, on this.

I don't think anyone is going to budge.

The real question is when Thanksgiving traveling starts to increase.

Yeah, and that's going to be because we're going to be in there.

And also how especially when we think about, TSA, employees and flight controllers, are going to say, yeah, enough.

We need some money.

We need money.

Yeah.

Which is just it's just insane not to think, I don't know, or week three.

And it feels like people aren't really even affected by it.

But they will be.

Oh, yeah.

And I think there's some deadlines coming up for sure.

That'll matter.

Obviously people are not getting paid.

And the, you know, white House is dipping into some money, tariff money to help.

I've joked about this, but like basically tariffs are the cause of and solution to every problem state faces.

It's like Homer Simpson talking about alcohol, like it's the cause of and solution to every life's problems.

So there's some money available that the white House is going to use for this.

But to me, the deadline I think, is more closer to the beginning of November than to Thanksgiving.

And that is that on November 1st, that is when the premiums will increase for Obamacare.

So Democrats are hoping they can hold to line long enough that, yeah, they can use this as leverage, because at that point people will start to see like a huge bill.

Like that's going to be a real tall sign for people.

But so far, I think you're right.

Democrats have unified around Chuck Schumer, which is surprising.

That hasn't happened before.

Republicans messaging is a little bit all over the place.

Right.

You're seeing the Trump administration fire people saying, you know, this shutdown has to end, and I'm going to use this as leverage to I think that's probably not going to play that well.

But you're also seeing pushback among airports, who obviously are the brunt of where people feel a lot of this.

But the homeland Security DHS is it has this ad basically featuring casino, who, is talking about how the Democrats are to blame.

Some airports are not showing it, like places like DFW, Love Field in Dallas, Corpus Christi International, they're not showing the ad because they say this is political.

Like we don't want to make this political more political than it already is.

Right?

Right.

And eventually, yeah.

Well, first of all, federal workers are furloughed.

Are the ones that are hurt the most.

Yeah.

And it's completely unfair for them to be working without a paycheck.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just like, I wouldn't imagine, especially when you have people living paycheck to paycheck.

Yeah.

So it's one of those things that, we're going to see and we're going to be talking about.

Probably and we'll be talking about it next week.

Hopefully.

Not.

Hopefully not, but if it is, we'll keep you informed.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The conversation keeps up next week.