- If patterns hold, the 2022 midterm elections will offer a course correction after two years of the Biden presidency.

Today's guest will help us assess the impact of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the President's recent legislative successes, and whether changing conditions on America's southern border just might lead to some surprises in November.

He's Jeremy Wallace, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(light upbeat music) (light upbeat music continues) Hello and welcome to "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller with "The Providence Journal."

- This week we're joined by Jeremy Wallace, the lead state political reporter for the "Houston Chronicle" and the "San Antonio Express-News."

He's also the cohost of the "Texas Take" podcast, and he's coming to us today from deep in the heart of Texas.

Jeremy, thank you for being with us today.

- Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.

Appreciate it.

- We wanna spend some time talking with you about the issues in the 2022 electoral cycle, the midterm elections, both in Texas and nationally, but let's even take a step back from that.

When did you start covering politics?

- Oh, I've been covering politics since the early 1990s.

I got my start at the "San Antonio Light," which doesn't even exist anymore, which shows you how long I've been doing this.

But, you know, I've been trolling around Texas for, you know, the last five years I've been here, but before that I was in Florida and did some time up in Washington D.C. covering Congress, at one point, writing for "The Boston Globe."

So I've been all around, you know.

I've been everywhere, man.

(laughs) - (laughs) Were you a political junkie before you were a political journalist?

- Absolutely, you know, in 1984 I was, while other kids were watching cartoons, I was watching Mondale.

It's like, "What's he gonna say now?"

(Jim and G. Wayne laugh) - So I was clearly a nerd who was going to be thrown out of the playground from day one.

(laughs) - So give us an overview of what's happening in terms of politics now in Texas.

What is the big issue, the leading issue, both in terms of local elections and in terms of national elections from Texas?

- Well, you know, first of all, Texas politics has been changing so rapidly and so quickly.

You know, it's like what people think of Texas right now is very different than what is happening on the ground right now.

Our voter registrations are off the charts.

It's much more diverse and urbanizing than people probably realize outside of the state of Texas, even in the state of Texas.

But the predominant issue still remains border security.

That has become one of the, you know, the issue that just keeps coming up number one in most polling.

And you see it in both the campaigns.

Governor Greg Abbott makes border security his predominant issue in almost everything he does.

And even Beto O'Rourke has made, you know, who's running for governor as the Democrat, he's made the border a big issue too.

In Del Rio, he's assured folks that he will protect the border, he will also have troops on the border to kind of help protect.

So you can see it's an issue on the minds of not just people away from the border, but directly on the border.

There's all kinds of safety and security issues that people want answers to.

- So, bearing in mind that this will be broadcasting a couple of three, four weeks before the actual elections, where are O'Rourke and Abbott now in the polling, and what are the trends saying?

I understand it's a fairly close race, to the surprise of some people.

- Absolutely, so, you know, in Texas, we're talking about a four or five point split in most of the public polling we're seeing, which, look, in Texas, polling is really difficult, you know?

One of the things we saw in 2018 is that no pollsters understood what was happening.

They did not know who was coming out to vote, and everybody was shocked when the U.S. Senate race then was decided by less than three points.

And so I think we're kind of in that same mode where, like these races are much closer now in Texas.

The polls show that they are certainly tighter than we've had in years past.

And so we're kind of buckling in for what we think will be the closest governor's race since 1994 in the state of Texas.

- You know, I wanna come back to the border security issue.

There was some news this past week, I think that I read that two million migrants had been stopped at America's southern border this year alone, which is a record.

Is that an indication that border policies are working or that they're not working?

If you're stopping two million people, doesn't that mean that two million folks didn't get across the border?

- Yeah, you know, the issues with the border are very complex and nuanced.

So a lot of that two million is like, what we're seeing is a surge of different kinds of migrants coming through that border that I don't think enough people are paying attention to.

One of the things that we've seen is that there has been a dramatic rise in Cubans and Venezuelans who have come through that area.

Now remember, those are authoritarian governments that are making life even more miserable for those populations than we've seen in the past.

So we're seeing this influx in Venezuelans.

And so when they come across the border, they think that they have good asylum claims to make immediately.

So those are legal asylum claims that, once they get in, they want to be caught.

They want to have that encounter with the border patrol.

That's very different than some of the maybe, you know, the Triangle countries and some Mexican migrants who want to come work here and then go back.

Those folks don't necessarily want to be caught.

So the encounters really have been really interesting to watch.

You know, there's a sector in Del Rio, Texas that has been just overwhelmingly, you know, the target for Venezuelans to come through.

And I talked to Secretary Mayorkas, you know, the Homeland Security secretary, a couple weeks ago on this issue.

And he said, "We're seeing something happening in the shift of migration from, you know, what we used to think was a Mexican, you know, a transient type issue or the Triangle nation.

It's now become much more of a South American and authoritarian government escape route is what's happening."

And so it's changed the dynamics of how we talk about the border.

And, certainly, everybody who's come across it is not the same.

You know, it's like we make a mistake when we think it's all one homogenous group of people who are all trying to do one thing.

It's like it is as diverse as this globe is right now.

And people are coming for very different reasons.

- So is that change changing the public perception of who is coming here and why?

And as you noted, many of the people coming here now are coming to escape persecution, possible death, you know, very, very poor economic circumstances.

Hunger or poverty are driving many of these people.

Has the public perception, starting in Texas and then you can take it to the national level, change or is it changing?

- Yes and no.

Okay, so the first part, I think there is an impact in terms of, there's a different level of sympathy that we're seeing in some of the migrant, you know, resource centers in places like San Antonio who are processing these people.

I think, you know, communities like that like understand that these Venezuelans are escaping something.

They went through jungles to get here to try to, you know, get away from prosecution.

So that's one thing.

But look, the sheer number of people coming across the border is still creating that same strain on those communities along the border.

Places like Del Rio, Texas and Laredo, they're not equipped to handle the surge that we're having.

And so you still have that rooted concern of there's just too many people coming across and we can't care for them and we can't track them.

And I think that kind of goes to that national discussion.

When you see some of the conservative media that get frustrated with that number coming across, they're kind of amplifying that concern, that like somehow these folks coming across are just too much for the American people to handle.

But there's good news on that front.

We're seeing that like Mexican and the Triangle countries, you know, crossing over into Texas have been starting to decline a little bit, or and at least flatten out in other areas.

And so we're seeing some improvement along there.

Well, who knows what that looks like, you know, by the time we hit election day and what kind of issues are popping up.

But it seems like it's getting a little bit more controlled on some levels.

But like we said, it's like there's a lot of different people coming through, you know, from Venezuela and Cuba, that's really escalating that.

And I think they bring a different level of sympathy.

When you talk to people in Florida, when you're escaping Cuba and escaping Venezuela, you are looked at as like, you know, with a lot more sympathy I think than a lot of other people who may be crossing over into this country.

Remember, it wasn't too long ago, if you were Cuban, you just had had to set foot in this country and you were gonna be on the path to citizenship.

You know, the Venezuelans are facing much of the same kind of crisis back in their home country right now, but they're not being afforded that.

And you're starting to hear people question why are we shipping Venezuelans to places like Massachusetts or to, you know, Washington D.C. or New York to handle when we have communities in places like Houston and Miami that have Venezuelan populations that could help these people assimilate into our country, in our states.

- Jeremy, this is a hugely important conversation, and you've just mentioned this recent example of Florida and Texas seeming to cooperate, actually, in shipping some migrants who were, I think, from Venezuela to Martha's Vineyard, sort of a tony island off the coast of Massachusetts.

It smelled here anyways, and we're in the Northeast where we tape the show, it smelled here as a little bit of a political stunt, but I'm wondering how did it play in Texas and with the people that you're talking to?

- Well, what an interesting turn of events on this.

So on one level, you know, and it's funny 'cause some of the community groups who are trying to help these migrants are kind of thankful that, you know, people are providing transportation for these people free of charge to get the places like Washington D.C. or to New York or even to Boston, you know, if that was originally the intent.

So there's some of those community advocacy groups who are helping these people that are like, "Hey, this is kind of a good deal in some ways."

But, of course, that's not how the governors are approaching it.

The governors are approaching it not 'cause they want to help these migrants, you know, move on.

They want to use this as a way to pressure the Biden administration to do more on immigration.

They wanna pressure Kamala Harris.

Governor Greg Abbott actually sent migrants on a bus, again, primarily Venezuelan, to the residence of Kamala Harris, which is far from any sort of resources or help that they would've needed, which should put more pressure on the system in D.C. to get those people to the places that they could get the help, where they could get food and housing and even, you know, maybe employment and get their paperwork taken care of.

So there's kind of like a double edge to this thing, right?

In one in respect, they're kind of giving some assistance to some people, but the political show that they're kind of putting on, they know that plays big with their, their base loves this, you know?

The base of the Republican party in both Texas and Florida are applauding Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis every time they do these things.

And I think that is that that positive reinforcement they're getting out of this as they both look to try to be national leaders on this topic.

- So, once again, Florida Governor DeSantis is in the national news and in the spotlight, and he has been, of course, for quite a long time.

But recently, meaning in the last several months, there has been increasing talk of him as being possibly a presidential candidate in 2024.

And, obviously, we still have former President Donald Trump out there, again, as a popular, or as a possible candidate.

What do you make of all that?

I mean, the talk that you are hearing about DeSantis is growing.

It seems like he's walking, you know, in two different areas at once, trying to secure his future.

And again, we don't have a crystal ball here, but what's your take on that in terms of him- - You cannot be governor of the state of Florida or the state of Texas or California without thinking that one day you're gonna be president.

(all laughing) If they can't (indistinct).

- And history shows that, right?

- Yeah, they have already all rehearsed their acceptance speeches by now at some point, in a mirror somewhere.

(Jim and G. Wayne laugh) But you know, with that being said, I have no doubt Ron DeSantis, you know, like they know that there's a potential here if he can keep his national profile where it is.

I think they know that he needs to keep striking now to keep his name out there.

Remember, in politics, a year is a lifetime.

You know, people who are already trying to coronate Ron DeSantis, I remind them, you know, in 2006, we were all talking about how Rudy Giuliani had the, you know, nomination for presidency wrapped up.

Remember?

He was so super popular.

But no, it's like he clearly never came close and nobody saw Barack Obama coming.

So there's a long way to go so I would, you know, hesitate to say Ron DeSantis is gonna be the guy for sure.

Iowa is a tough place to campaign, and I can guarantee you there'll be plenty of Texans running around in Iowa at the same time Ron DeSantis is if President Trump is not running again for reelection.

- Yeah, Jeremy, I wanna pivot a little bit, still keeping it at that national perspective, but President Biden earlier the summer made some news when he referred to followers of the Make America Great Again movement as semi-fascists.

How did that play in Texas?

- Poorly in the wrong spots, probably.

Look, in the suburban areas that were already moving away from Trump, you saw it in all the, you know, the post-election stuff in 2020, that like, look, Trump lost, not only, you know, suburban women, but he was starting to lose suburban men, you know?

And so I think in those suburban areas, Biden and his team are kind of making a calculation that, "Look, those people have moved away from Trump.

They're not gonna go back to him.

Let's make this case to them."

But there's these really hardcore red areas that are probably Republican, I think of areas just outside of Houston and outside of Dallas that are pretty conservative Republican areas, people that voted for George W. Bush, but may not be Trump and may not be MAGA, but they may have voted for Trump.

You know, and I know it's a complicated thing to get through.

And so Biden risked alienating them for the people who kind of like, look, they vote Republican all the time.

So if you're in these areas and you voted Republican for Trump over Hillary Clinton, are you evil and MAGA or are you something different?

And I think there's a nuance there that I don't think Biden can address in that speech that kind of made, you know, gave a little pushback.

So I think the gains that Democrats were making in those areas, you know, kind of get blunted a little if he's gonna start, you know, referring to everybody who voted for Trump as potentially a problem.

'Cause, look, those are real people.

They live in the suburbs around Dallas and Houston.

They're not bad people, you know, like not all of them who voted for Trump in 2016 are.

And so, like how do you thread that needle?

And I think Biden's playing a dangerous game there of trying to win over suburban areas.

But boy, in conservative areas, you just might lose a few people who you might have been able to swing over.

- So let's look at the Senate, again, bearing in mind there were a few weeks out and no one has a crystal ball.

What are the chances that the Republicans can regain control of the Senate?

Both of your senators, senators in the state of Texas, Cornyn and Cruz, are not up for reelection.

So that isn't a factor really in Texas, but nationally, what are the chances?

How are you pegging that?

- I mean, the steel line I heard from U.S.

Senator Ted Cruz when I talked to him recently, he said, you know, 60% chance of taking back the US Senate still.

I think that's a little high, I'm putting it more at 50/50.

You know, I think he was being optimistic 'cause he really, really wants to be in the majority again.

(Jim and G. Wayne laugh) But, you know, I think that's a tough climb, 'cause, look, a lot of people have made the case already, but the candidate choices in Pennsylvania and Georgia are just tough choices.

You know, they have such a bigger uphill climb because of the candidates they picked on the Republican side to run in those races.

And I think that's just kind of really, you know, it throws a big curve ball in this thing.

And, you know, look, as a former Florida reporter, like I'm never so sure where Florida's gonna be.

You know, when you look at how many elections they've had that have been within 1%, every governor's race in Florida has been within 1% or 1.2% since 2006.

It's close.

Everything is close in Florida.

And it could just come down to a rainstorm in Broward County whether or not a guy like Marco Rubio could be in danger, we just don't know.

That's why they campaign like crazy 'cause they know, despite all the money and despite whatever the polls say, nothing is ever certain in Florida.

You'll have a curve ball thrown out there every now and then.

And so I think that affects the entire national scheme.

You know, if Marco Rubio goes down, there's no hope of the Republicans taking back control of the United States Senate.

- And what about the house races?

What does your crystal ball show about that?

- Well, there was a point where I thought Texas could have been a little bit more vulnerable, you know, in ads in some of those races, but I don't think that's gonna be the case anymore.

I think Republicans, I think, are in a very good position to regain control of the United States House.

They've done an immaculate job of gerrymandering, in ways that you just, you know, you almost have to tip your hat even though it can be pretty evil stuff.

But, you know, it's like, look, they did what they needed to do in places like Florida and Texas to make sure they don't have any more leakage of Republican seats moving over to Democrats, like we've seen in the last four years.

So I think they've done enough to kind of protect themselves on that, and there's enough open seats to kind of work with that I think they can get there.

I don't think it's rock solid.

You know, I think the majority that they may gain out of this is gonna be pretty small.

You know, I think as Joe Biden's approval numbers have improved and as inflation takes on a different kind of a feel, especially as gas prices come down, those issues really kind of affect how, you know, average, regular voters are gonna go vote.

And I think, you know, if they're not making this as much of a referendum on Joe Biden as we thought might be the case, that's good news for Democrats in at least keeping the majority in the House close.

But boy, yeah, if I had put money on this at this point, I'd definitely say the House is gonna be Republican when we wake up on November 9th, and I think the Senate is probably gonna hold, you know, with the Democrats, unless the Republicans can figure out a way to win that scene in Pennsylvania.

- Interesting, you know, one of the things that has been fascinating to me in American politics in the last couple of cycles are the inroads that Republicans have made with Spanish-speaking communities, particularly in the American Southeast.

I'm curious if you've seen that, but I'm also curious if you are tracking or hearing about concerns about Spanish language disinformation coming up out of Central and South America, but beginning to manifest itself in Spanish language outlets in the American South.

- Yeah, very good questions on both those fronts.

You know, we've been looking at this a lot.

You know, it's like, really, you know, in Texas, what we've seen along the Texas border, particularly in some of the more rural areas, the Hispanic populations there are showing a little bit more tendency to be willing to vote for some Republicans, not all Republicans.

Look, there are places like Laredo and Brownsville on the very, you know, tip of the Rio Grande Valley that are just gonna vote Democratic.

There's almost no way that they're not.

But we've seen a couple of counties that ended up like flipping over for the first time in 100 years, smaller counties, but flipped over to vote for, you know, President Trump in the last election cycle.

So he made some gains in those areas with Hispanic voters.

Some of it is the Spanish language stuff.

They did more on Spanish language, you know, TV and radio.

We're seeing that with Governor Greg Abbott in Texas right now.

The guy has put a lot of money into Spanish language outreach, which is so different from what we've seen, you know, at least for the last few cycles in Texas.

And Democrat Beto O'Rourke, though, is not gonna let him just roam free there.

So he's aggressively going at that.

He knows Spanish really well.

He holds full events in all Spanish.

And so he has an advantage sometimes in being able to convey a message.

Now, whether that message gets accepted is another thing altogether, as we've seen in places like Florida.

That, you know, and like you mentioned, the misinformation that can be out there is hard to track and hard to, you know, tamp down.

It's like we haven't heard as much of that so far on the border.

I have my ears out.

I've learned enough Spanish to understand when people are getting lied to, so we're trying to listen to that stuff and kind of keep tabs on it because that is gonna be important.

But there's one other huge caveat on that, there's a lot of focus on how the folks on the border are maybe more in play, and absolutely true.

I think that it's a little bit more competitive down there and I could see the governor doing better down there than maybe in years past.

But the predominant number of Hispanics in Texas are in places like Houston and San Antonio.

Houston has a million Hispanics, and they're voting bluer and bluer with each cycle.

In San Antonio, which Republicans were just winning eight years ago, it is now so incredibly blue that there's no hope of them winning San Antonio this year.

And that has a lot to do with what's happening on the ground in those areas, where Hispanic voters, they are registering and they are going to vote in ways that we haven't seen in this state, you know, going back 20, 30 years.

So I think as much as there are gains by Republicans in some of those Hispanic areas in the rural communities and outside the Texas border, they're losing ground in big cities like San Antonio and Houston in big numbers.

So that might offset whatever gains they think they're making in that Valley area.

- You know, Jeremy, there are so many issues in play here during this election.

It's hard to recall similar election with so many, and we could do a separate show on all of them.

I'd like to get your take on one though, and the fact that this, the importance or lack of importance this will play in the election, and that is the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Polls I've seen show that a lot of people, for a lot of people, this is a critical issue.

What's your take on that?

- Yeah, I think it's a bigger issue than people understand.

You know, I've spent a lot of time on the ground traveling in all kinds of places in Texas.

I was in a little place called Muleshoe, Texas.

You know, it's a very conservative, Republican area.

And in that room, I kept hearing, you know, women between the ages of 18 and 20 saying, "I am mad and I want to know how to vote.

Show me how to vote."

But then I saw that again in Dumas, Texas, then I saw it again in Abilene, Texas.

I think there's more of that going on, which I've seen with my own eyes, of young women particularly who are like, "No way, we're not doing this."

And so I think that kind of frustration is hard to kind of gain in polls.

And so watch that younger voter group.

Especially when we get into, you know, post-election stuff, you're gonna see a lot more younger women, you know, active and voting in this election.

And I think the Democrats are starting to kind of feel that wave.

I think that's the kind of energy they needed if they were gonna try to counteract.

Is this race all about Joe Biden?

No, for half the population, potentially, this is about more than, you know, Joe Biden at this point.

This is about that Supreme Court decision and how it's playing in some of the states.

In some states, it's a much more aggressive result, than, you know, in others.

In Texas, it literally has stopped anybody from being able to get an abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

That is going really extremely far for Texas voters.

Polling shows most Texas voters don't agree with that.

And so the Democrats have a lane to go on and they now have a large amount of young women who I think particularly are leading this charge to do something about it.

If they could harness that, you can see how we could be sitting there on November 9th with the Democrats having pulled off something they haven't done in 30 years in Texas, which is winning the governor's race.

- Jeremy, do you see them having that kind of traction?

We got about 10 seconds left here.

- I think it does.

I think it has a lot.

It's like, I think the more I talk to young voters in different parts of the state, it cuts across all areas.

It's not just liberal areas that this is happening in.

Even in conservative areas, we have, you know, people saying, "Look, it's like this is too much, and this is gonna motivate them."

I think it's far more motivating than polls are picking up right now.

- That's remarkable, Jeremy, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation.

He's Jeremy Wallace with the "Houston Chronicle" and the "San Antonio Express-News."

That is all the time we have this week, but if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on Facebook and Twitter or visit pellcenter.org where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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