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I'm Henry Olson, and welcome back to The Horse Race. After an extended July 4th break, we're back to bring you the best elections analysis. This week, we look at the overall state of play with 538's Jeffrey Skelly, and then we dig deep into the state of play in the state of Texas with one of the Lone Star State's preeminent pollsters and political analysts, the University of Houston's Dr. Richard Murray. The horses are at the starting gates. They're off.
This week on Round the Horn, it's my privilege and honor to be able to chat with one of the nation's great elections analysts, Jeffrey Skelly, who is elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight, that site that all of you go and look at all the time. Jeff, welcome to the horse race. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Well, we're sitting here a couple of days after July 4th, a little under four months to go. Where do you see the presidential race sitting right now?
Well, I think it's sort of inescapable to say that Joe Biden has a significant lead over President Donald Trump. It's one that isn't so big that I think the race is over. But I do think that if the race doesn't start changing relatively soon, it's going to get harder to sort of see things narrowing enough for President Trump. Now, obviously, this is with the caveat that we don't know
Just how the November election is going to play out administratively in a lot of cases. There's just obviously with the COVID-19, the coronavirus concerns, you know, we could it could be election month in November, you know, so there's there's just some uncertainty, I think, surrounding the actual conducting of this election.
But assuming people will vote without too much trouble at the end of the day, I think it's kind of hard to not say that Biden is a pretty decent favorite at this point. So what do you think Trump would need to do in order to give himself, if not an even chance, at least a fighting chance of winning? One of the things that helped President Trump in 2016 was that he had an opponent who was
pretty well disliked in Hillary Clinton. And the fact that Trump had poor ratings from the public meant that it was sort of a race to the bottom in 2016. But this time around, you're looking at favorability ratings, for example. Joe Biden, while not beloved or anything, his favorability ratings are just maybe a little bit underwater, so very slightly negative. You'll see polls where his favorability is at
43% and his unfavorables are at 46%. So it's very different from Hillary Clinton. And I think you particularly can see that with, say, independent voters where Biden is underwater maybe by 15, 20 points among independents. But Trump is also in that area among independent voters. And Hillary Clinton, by Election Day in 2016, there were some polls that had her at like negative 50 among independent voters. So
I think for Trump, a really important thing is trying to figure out a way to define Joe Biden in a way that's going to cast sort of a negative pall, lower his numbers, make him more disliked. But that's kind of tough right now because the main story is the coronavirus. And as president, everything goes back to Trump.
And I think it's going to be really hard for him to sort of change that story. And I think you see Republicans trying to do that, talk about Biden trying to connect him to more liberal left-wing figures in the Democratic Party or associated with the Democratic Party. But as long as the coronavirus and also the economic turbulence associated with it is A1 every day in terms of the news,
It's going to be pretty hard, I think, to do that. So I think Trump probably needs the coronavirus situation to become less serious. And I'm not really sure if that's possible at this point. At what point do you think people begin to worry more about Trump?
the loss of freedom, the loss of jobs, the loss of normalcy, as opposed to the possibility of contracting the disease. Because certainly we see that cases are on the rise, but we certainly are not seeing the dramatic rise in deaths that would accompany the dramatic rise in cases. And there's been enough of a lag time that
We would be expecting to see that if it were as dangerous as it was in March. Do you think that Americans will continue to be more afraid of the disease than for normalcy? Or do you think that might change? You know, the polling we actually at FiveThirty, we track attitudes toward Americans.
COVID-19 and also say how President Trump is handling it, how worried people are about getting infected. And while there has been, I would say, a slight downtick in how worried people are about becoming infected with the coronavirus, polling generally finds it's not all that different at the end of the day. You still have a very large majority of the American public saying that they are somewhat or very worried
about becoming infected or someone in their family becoming infected. And until you start to see those numbers decline more notably, I mean, it was up more like 70, even a little bit above 70%. And now it's in like the mid 60s, back a couple months ago. But until that starts to slide more, and you see more people saying they're not very worried, or not at all worried,
I'm not sure if you will see, I guess, people choose to maybe prioritize freedom or just don't view it with as much concern as they have, if that makes sense. Because the polling so far has suggested Americans still are very worried about it and that they haven't become that much less worried about it. And that could end up trumping
Things with like reopening schools. I think that's going to be an interesting conversation over the next month or two, because clearly it's hard for people who have children to do their jobs if schools are closed. And especially if they aren't in a position to even stay at home. I mean, it's going to get really complicated. And I think this is an opportunity maybe for President Trump to
Show more leadership on this issue. I think one of the real general challenges for the president has been, I do think he's taken an approach of trying to downplay the coronavirus. And I think the problem is that it's just too big of a thing for him to do that successfully. And maybe he could reassert himself in a way on this issue. I'm not terribly confident he will, given how he's handled it so far, but there is an opportunity there for him.
I would agree there's an opportunity. One of the reasons I remain very bearish on Trump is I look at all the opportunities he's had and how many he's blown and how many of the opportunities require actual administrative skill.
And the sense is it's not enough to say open the schools without providing guidance and guidelines and a plan. And he seems not to grasp that even after four years in the White House. So while I think he's right on a lot of his instincts, the situation demands more than instinct and direction. It demands some degree of competence and leadership. And he seems right.
to find that difficult to pull off, to put it mildly. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. There are perhaps areas where President Trump, as you said, he's often had very good political instincts. But in this case, there's maybe a sort of administrative competency that he doesn't have in the same way that maybe others might, and that may be getting him into trouble. Because also, I think one thing that I've wondered about is we've talked about
I mean, there's been news coverage about how partisan do people view aspects of the coronavirus. And there are areas where you see some of that. But I think the problem for Trump is that this is not an issue that he can make partisan all that easily, at least when you get really down to the fundamentals of it. Like people are worried across the political spectrum about the coronavirus and trying to downplay that worry.
There are going to be people who are going to sort of follow Trump's lead regardless, but I think the problem is that he's not going to get the sort of full buy-in you might see among Republicans on other issues where they're absolutely with Trump 100 percent. Downplaying the coronavirus or trying to diminish its seriousness, it's just – people are just not buying into that entirely, even if they support the president at the end of the day.
When I look at the Biden campaign, I think that Biden is trying to be the Goldilocks of democratic politics, not to right, not to left, but searching for that just right.
Do you think he is doing that successfully or within the Democratic coalition? Do you think even if it's not going to hurt him too much in the campaign, once he governs, he's going to have to make decisions and make somebody in his coalition unhappy? Yeah.
from time to time. Do you think he's tending to pay too much attention to the left and not enough attention to the center, particularly those moderate suburban voters who may not have voices within the Democratic Party, but are a key part of his general voting constituency? It's interesting. Biden has spent his basically his entire political career being right at the center of the Democratic Party, no matter where it's gone.
uh ideologically speaking he is more or less stayed right in the middle of it which really does speak to your your goldilocks uh analogy because he's just he's always done that you look at his senate voting record and that's where he falls almost in every single congress when he was in the senate he was there were basically 50 percent of democrats were more liberal than him and 50 were more conservative uh so or you know however it broke out so it's it's
It really is his pattern, and he's been very successful politically at that. I'm inclined to think that for the campaign, he's going to be able to do this in part because he has President Trump to work against, and that's a unifying force. There was some polling recently from The New York Times where they looked at voters and how they voted in the primary, in the Democratic primary for president.
And whether they were supporting Biden, and they found that Warren supporters were 96% to 0% for Biden. So he had a handful of undecideds, but everybody else was with Biden. And among Sanders supporters, it was 87% to 4% in favor of Biden. So he's got the party unity for the most part.
And I think President Trump helps him immensely with that. But if he doesn't, I think you're exactly right that he will face challenges with trying to satisfy all parts of this constituency that elects him in this scenario. Because you're right, they're moderate, a lot of upscale candidates.
now Democratic-leaning voters in the suburbs, but then you have definitely a push from more left-wing individuals, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's of the world who have become big players in terms of how the media covers the Democratic Party, what issues they cover, what the range of acceptable views within the Democratic Party on different issues is.
So that's going to be a challenge for Biden if he does win for sure. But that's always something of a challenge for governing that I think wouldn't be unique when you're trying to hold together some sort of coalition of voters. And because of our two-party system, inevitably, you have to try to do that because we have two big parties with some range of views within them. So I do think one thing that people need to keep in mind is
Because we're always very short-term focused, and obviously the 2020 election is in November. But obviously if Biden wins, I would expect the 2022 midterm to be a decent election for Republicans because that's just how it goes. If you're successful, there's a backlash.
To some extent, obviously, you can do things to try to ameliorate the sort of scope of that backlash. But nonetheless, that's just that's how our political system works. So I would expect, you know, if Biden wins in 2020 for Republicans to be in a position to make a bit of a comeback in 2022. So that speaks to the next thing I was going to ask you about, which is that
It's not just Trump. It's something that is hurting Republicans up and down the ballot as poll after poll comes in from the Senate. You see the Republicans behind significantly on the House generic ballot. How do you see the state of play in the Senate right now? Republicans are on track to lose seats. But how many and how does Trump how well does Trump have to do even if he loses to give them a fighting shot at keeping control?
Well, I do think that the fact that Biden has the sort of lead he has right now in the polls, if that were to hold up, that would really give Democrats an opportunity to not only win a majority, but maybe even add a couple more seats than we might expect otherwise. Because my thinking is Republicans, if this were an equal electoral environment, Republicans would be
favored to hold on to the Senate. Currently, they have a 53-47 majority if you include the two independents who caucus with the Democrats. And a lot of the states that Democrats need to win to get a majority, states like in North Carolina, in Arizona, in Iowa, these are states that
And in some recent elections as well, like they lean at least a bit, if not more than a bit to the right in sort of a neutral electoral environment. Um,
But because Biden is doing well, and maybe in the case of a state like Arizona, Democrats have a candidate they think is really good, Mark Kelly, in that race. They've put themselves in a position where they could actually win the Senate and maybe even add a couple extra seats on top of getting a very narrow majority. Because Democrats had obvious targets with Colorado and also Maine, because those are slightly Democratic-leaning states.
But then you had to maybe get a little help because a state like North Carolina is a little Republican-leaning. And so if Trump does reasonably well, you could expect Republican Tom Tillis to maybe win reelection with that help at the top of the ticket. But the overall picture has gotten a lot better for Democrats in the Senate because Biden is doing so well.
If so, if that holds up, you know, that really could give them an opportunity to to win a not not an overwhelming majority or something, but nonetheless have a couple seats to spare with the majority. So looking forward to November, yeah.
What do you think the chances are, if you had to say which was more likely, a Trump comeback or a Democratic landslide? And by landslide, I mean Biden wins by 10% or more and Democrats gain six or more seats in the Senate. What do you say would be more likely, a Trump comeback win or a Democratic landslide? Oh, that's fun. Putting me on the spot there. Yeah.
I guess of those two, so Trump wins in the other city. I win, I mean the Electoral College. I'm not talking about the country. Sure, sure, sure, sure. I mean, I think given the information we have right now, I would say that a Democratic landslide is somewhat more likely than Trump winning the Electoral College at the end of the day. However, that doesn't mean that I don't think he can come back. You know, if I'm looking at the polls right now,
And, you know, obviously, polls can have some error, and that's something that we're going to see about in November. But generally speaking, the polls as a whole have not been terribly off in recent elections. Even in 2016, national polls were on the mark, but there were some state polls that were off, notably so. So I am cautious about all that, but I think that at the moment—
Trump just needs a lot of things to go his way to get back into a position where he can win. And I think for me, it's sort of, can he get within three or four points in the national polls? It's sort of a broad indicator of, you know, he's narrowed the race. That means some of these states where Biden is doing a lot better than Clinton and that our states still lean somewhat Republican, like in North Carolina or Arizona, you know, is Trump...
really close in those states. And then that creates paths for him to get to 270 electoral votes. And right now, given the coronavirus and economic conditions, and sort of just, like, I just don't think the coronavirus is going away. And I think that's a real problem for Trump. You know, assuming that that remains the case,
I just think it's more likely, somewhat more likely, that Biden is in a position where he could win by around the 10-point margin you mentioned. I will say that a candidate has not won by double digits in the national popular vote since Ronald Reagan in 1984. So –
More than 10 points gets, I think it's tough because the country is very polarized and very divided. But so anyway, that's my attempt at nuance on your question. Well, you came down on one side while providing a good explanation. That's what I was hoping for.
What's your canary in the coal mine race that if X looks like it's going in a particular direction, this indicates why? You know, like if we start seeing polls that John James is doing well in Michigan, that could be a canary in the coal mine that Trump and Republicans are doing better or.
you know, Dan Sullivan looking down in Alaska or something like that. Do you have a canary in the coal mine race or two that you would want to share with my listeners? Sure. No, I think the Michigan one is a good example in that obviously Michigan was one of the three states along with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, that Trump narrowly won in 2016 that put him over the top of the electoral college.
So if you're looking at sort of the state of play and you're looking outside the presidential race, Michigan's a good one because as long as Gary Peters is getting the leads in some of the polls he's been getting, 10 points roughly on average, high single digits, that signals to me Michigan's not as competitive this time around. And so if John James were – if we were to see polls showing James closing on Peters –
That would suggest to me that the playing field there is more competitive and that we may be also seeing that at the top of the ticket between Biden and Trump. I think one of the races that's really caught people's attention is Iowa, the Iowa Senate race. Joni Ernst seeking reelection there after being elected in 2014. My thought was, look, Iowa is somewhat more Republican-leaning now than the nation as a whole.
But – and Ernst had previously had fairly good approval ratings, but now you're seeing polls showing her neck and neck with her Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield. And it's just – if that's the sort of race that Democrats are in a position where they have a real shot at winning it, that's how you can talk about, oh –
This is how Democrats do get a Senate majority. This is how Biden maybe outperforms Greenfield even and wins Iowa, which, you know, Iowa's a state that if Trump is looking in bad shape in Iowa, you know, how does he win more or less? So, you know, those are I think Michigan's a good one, as you mentioned. And then Iowa is also one that I think is helpful.
Let's end this with a slightly humorous or light question. Have you seen Jon Stewart's political comedy Irresistible? I have not seen that yet. Have you?
I have. And while it has a lot of flaws, I greatly recommend it both for political nerds who will see a lot of small points and also for anyone who's listening who wants to understand the argument between data analytics and polling. A brief interchange between Topher Grace as the pollster and Deborah Messing as the data analyst is worth the price of admission.
I'll have to check it out. I haven't seen it yet. I, you know, I saw some of the reviews. They were mixed. But as a bona fide political nerd, I'm sure I would get a lot out of it. Oh, there's a it's a definitely mixed movie in a lot of different ways. But political nerds will enjoy it from aspects of it from the beginning to the end. Well, Jeff, thank you very much for joining me on the horse race. And I'd love to have you back.
Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you so much for having me. This was fun. This week's ad of the week takes a little bit of a detour into thinking about how campaigns run rather than looking at ads in isolation.
If you're running a small or relatively small budget campaign, like many primary campaigns are, you really only have the money to put up one or two ads. So there better be direct and there better be killer. But if you're going to spend $10 to $20 million or more on a campaign like many of these contentious Senate races, well, your ad is going to be part of a multi-ad campaign.
So let's take a look at two ads that are being put up this week simultaneously by endangered Republican Senate incumbent David Perdue in the state of Georgia to see what he's trying to say with the two of them in combination. The first one is called Justice. Let's listen. The vast majority of police officers protect us honorably. Do we need police reform? Absolutely. But is defunding the police the answer? Absolutely not.
Our officers need to look more like the communities they serve. De-escalation training is a must. Body cameras would help. Real police reform will make all of our neighborhoods safer and ensure justice for all. We need to put politics aside and get this done. I'm David Perdue, and I approve this message.
Well, there's the first one. The second one is called Patriot. And let's take a listen to that. Contrary to what the radical left is saying, America has been and still is the greatest country in the world. We are the shining city on the hill. Many Americans have died defending it. Now it's up to us to protect what the rest of the world envies. Economic opportunity for everybody. Limited government. Individual liberty.
I will not let John Ossoff destroy the American dream for our children and our grandchildren. I'm David Perdue, and I approve this message. Okay, so where do the two ads overlap?
Well, they overlap in touching some important issues to conservative voters. In the Justice ad, which is about police reform, he throws in his opposition to defunding the police as, quote, not the answer. This is something that polls show Republicans overwhelmingly reject the idea of defunding the police. And in fact, defunding the police is also something that a majority of independents and even a small majority of Democrats oppose.
So in the justice ad, he talks about that as a way to both build credibility with his Republican supporters while providing an issue in which he disagrees in some way with the left that is also palatable to the center.
The Patriot ad is one that is endorsing many more GOP themes, things like America is the greatest of all countries and providing economic freedom and opportunity for all and limited government. This is a very conservative ad that is designed to build up his support among conservatives. But again, the thing that he talks about in justice, opposition to defunding the police, and the things he talks about in Patriot build...
build on each other so that whether you see one ad or the others, there's something in there as a conservative for you to like.
Where do they diverge? Well, justice is one that is moderate in tone and moderate in its proposals. He talks about the necessity for police reform, and he name-checks a number of police reforms that he thinks are common sense and obvious. This establishes him as a moderate and reasonable voice on the questions of how to deal with police misconduct.
After the shooting, I would say the murder of Rayshon Brooks in Atlanta, this is a highly contentious issue in Georgia. It's one where Republicans are talking about protecting the police.
And, of course, Democrats are talking about punishing the police. And then there are people who have opinions both ways, which say that the policemen acted wrong in this case, but they also should be supported in most cases. And Perdue in this ad comes right down in that middle, which is, again, to say he's trying to appeal to the Republican plus moderately leaning independent voter, which is the modern Republican coalition.
You can't see it, but he's also not wearing a tie on this. This is moderate in tone in that he is wearing an informal and relaxed set of clothing as he's providing a relaxed and moderate and nuanced set of viewpoints.
He's talking direct to camera with his name, Senator David Perdue, on the screen the entire time, as well as running his business titles, CEO of this company, CEO of that company, quietly underneath. Again, reinforcing the idea that he's a trusted leader, both in the private sector and in the public sector.
Patriot, on the other hand, is, as I said, much more Republican-focused in its themes. It's also one where he is formally wearing a tie and a coat. He's looking formal because he's trying to appeal to that formal, more interested in tradition audience. It's a subtle point, but it's an important one that backs up visually the verbal message of America being a great country.
It's also the only ad where he mentions his Democratic opponent when he says that he's not going to let John Ossoff destroy or tear down America. John Ossoff is the Democratic nominee against him. And what he's doing is telling Republicans it's an R versus D contest. I'm for America. The Democrats, unfortunately, are not. This, as usual, is going to enrage Democrats. But it's something that is very talked about on Republican side. And this is an ad that speaks...
about Republican values in a way that Republicans will pick up while not saying anything that is really going to turn off the moderate voter. Both ads end with him in jeans and a
some sort of a coat like he's out on a farm. So that checks off a rural background that even though he is a business person and even though he probably is most identified with Atlanta, the last shot is one in both commercials that will resonate with rural Georgia. And rural Georgia is the heartland for the Republican vote here.
Between justice and patriot, what Perdue is introducing himself as is somebody who is a Republican who cares, a Republican who can be nuanced, and a Republican with whom moderates can feel comfortable. The interplay between these two ads is important to grasp, and that's why they, together, are this week's Ads of the Week. ♪
This week's State of Play, we're going to look at the Lone Star State of Texas, the state that continues to grow and is moving up as the most important economic engine in the country.
Joining me to talk about Texas and why it may not be as foregone a conclusion this year as it has been in previous years is Professor Richard Murray. Dr. Murray is a professor of political science at the University of Houston and has been following Texas politics in detail for decades and is one of the state's leading political analysts and experts. Dr. Murray, thank you for joining me on The Horse Race. Delighted to be with you.
Well, a lot of people have been talking for a while about turning Texas blue. That's been a Democratic mantra. But Beto O'Rourke almost did it in 2018. And some people think that this might be the year. What do you think? I think we're very competitive this year. You've had these long term demographic trends that have made the state a bit more competitive. But
The emergence of Donald Trump and his complete dominance of the Republican Party has accelerated the shift back to a very competitive state quite quickly.
I mean, one of the things that was very notable in both 2016, but especially in 2018, is massive movement in suburbs, particularly educated suburbs. Some of the largest moves in the country from the Romney vote in 2012 to Hillary Clinton in 2016 were seen in Texas suburbs, particularly Dallas and Houston, but elsewhere. And then it moved even further towards the Democrats last year.
What's driving that? Is this anger at Trump or is this a non-Texas influx of people from the north and the west or a little bit of both?
Some of it is long-term demographic change. The suburbs in Texas have grown very quickly, and a lot of that growth has been due to in-migration, and not from the south or other parts of Texas, but from within the United States, from donor states like California, which is the number one state that has contributed population growth, New York, Illinois, Florida, and
The traditional migration of a half century ago from the Confederate States, that's largely over. The other big source, though, is international immigration. In Harris County, which is almost 5 million people, 42% of the growth since 2010, and that's about almost a million people, are persons who were born outside the United States.
So you can see how a president that runs on a platform of hardening his base in part by attacking immigration puts his party at great risk in a state like Texas, where you've had a tremendous growth in population from South and East Asia, as well as, of course, from Latin America.
And one of the things that's notable about Texas is that the Texas Republican Party says it has done better than other Republican parties with Hispanics and that Texas business elites tend to be focused on global trade or they have been in part of the growth industries rather than the declining industries throughout this. How much does trade and immigration play differently in Texas than it might play in the Rust Belt where Donald Trump broke the blue wall?
Well, you've certainly got major elements of the Texas Republican coalition that are very much with the upper Midwest resistant to immigration. It's a real split within the Republican Party. But since Thomas staged effectively a total takeover, the more business-oriented, immigration-friendly Republicans have just simply lost out here in Texas.
Ted Cruz, of course, is the most visible figure, although himself an immigrant born in Calgary, Canada. You know, he has taken a very strong anti-immigration stance. And that symbolizes the Texas Republican Party. The old Bush Big Tent Party has effectively collapsed.
So that must give Democrats a lot of opportunities that the Texas Statehouse is said to be in play. Democrats gained a number of seats in 2018. And I am told that there are still nine seats that Republicans hold where Beto O'Rourke beat Ted Cruz two years ago and that if the Democrats can hold all of theirs and pick those nine up, they would have a narrow majority in the Statehouse for the first time in almost a quarter century.
How do you evaluate Democrats' chances to actually do what just four years ago would have been unthinkable and climb back in the game with power in Texas state politics? The chances are pretty good. Remember, in 2010, the Democrats were within two votes of having a majority in the Texas statehouse.
But they suffered a disastrous reversal of that Tea Party election in November 2010 and were further driven in the hole by a very, very skillfully drawn redistricting plan.
But the redistricting plan has sort of fallen apart because of all of the tremendous growth. So the districts that used to be, you know, safely drawn Republican have ceased to be. And the Republicans got a little greedy. In Dallas County, which had 14 seats and was trending Democratic, Republicans drew a map to elect eight state representatives and give the Democrats six overwhelmingly minority districts.
Well, the Republicans are on the verge of being totally wiped out. They lost six of their eight seats. So they're down to two members from Dallas County. They're probably going to lose both of those this year. So a plan that they drew for an eight, six ends up zero to 14. You know, the old Wall Street line, pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered applies in redistricting. You don't want to try to win too much, particularly if you're in a dynamic state like Texas, where the district starts off looking good.
But by the end of the decade, it's not any longer. So a bunch of the districts that were originally clearly Republican are much less so. So there are about 20 districts in play, two Democratic districts and 18 Republicans. So a pickup is quite possible here. One of the things that when you look at the Texas map that is striking to me is how in Democratic states, Democratic gerrymanders take power.
elements of the center city and move them out into the suburbs to take core Democratic votes and bury Republican suburban voters. Here, you had Democrat Republicans taking Republican suburbs and dividing them out into rural or low voting but high populated Latino areas to create Republican districts with a facial citizen population or voting population that had a high Latino percentage.
And now the movement of the suburbs, both through demographics and through voter change, has meant that all of these seats that were supposed in 2012 were safe are are completely up for grabs. And the statehouse, as you mentioned, is one of those. How many congressional deceits do you think are could Democrats pick up in a really good year because the gerrymander that Republicans drew are now leave them vulnerable to the counterreaction?
They could lose five or six seats comparable to what happened in California in 2018. You had several districts that Republicans won. They lost two congressional seats in 2018, but they came pretty close to losing six others.
And the trends since then have been not favorable. The continued growth of Asian and Latino voters and Trump's troubles with well-educated, particularly Republican women in districts that used to be very strongly Republican continue. The Republicans first broke through in Texas in the night after the Goldwater debacle by winning congressional districts in Dallas and Houston in
that were the most affluent in Texas and still are, like the 7th District in Houston that was represented by George H.W. Bush, they lost that seat back. It was the first seat they lost. It was the first seat they won. It's the first seat they've lost back. So part of the problem with Texas Republicans is that they lost the Barbara Bushes, literally. You know, she said couldn't vote for Republicans in the last round.
And that kills you because, you know, those aren't demographically changing areas. River Oaks is the most affluent neighborhood in Houston and one of the most in the country. It's just 25 percent less Republican than it was when Mitt Romney was running.
Well, one of those seats, not the Texas 7th, but one of the pickup opportunities is the 22nd District in Fort Bend and some of the western areas of Texas that's been left open with the retirement of the Republican incumbent. And Republicans have kind of a fight going on in Tuesday's runoff to decide who is going to be their standard bearer in a seat that is
rapidly moving to the left in part because of these demographic changes. Could you tell us a little bit about the Texas 22 Republican runoff? Well, again, this was drawn as a very safe Republican district. And it was in the first iterations, easily electing Pete Olson, a former military veteran. But the district has changed dramatically, particularly explosive Asian growth.
in Fort Bend County. And you had a Democratic candidate in 2018 whose father was from India. His mother was a native Texan and came within five points to beating Olson. Olson has had some health issues and is retiring. Twenty Republicans ran in the primary, including a nephew of President George W. Bush.
He did terribly. The Bush brand is pretty badly damaged now in Texas. And the finalists are the sheriff of Fort Bend County, who's retiring, and a very wealthy Republican who is an absolute 100 percent Trump supporter. And it's a really nasty, mean primary with the lady spending tons of money. And, you know, we'll we'll see where we go from there.
But it's one of the high profile Republican races. There are not many in the runoff on Tuesday on the Republican side, a bunch of Democratic races.
Well, one of those Democratic races is this race to be the person who takes on John Cornyn for the United States Senate race. Of course, just six years ago, you would have thought that this was a place where no hopers would congregate. But instead, there are people who think that in a Republican debacle that even John Cornyn could be at risk. Tell us a little bit about the Democratic runoff and then about the Cornyn possibility of losing.
The race was attractive. A whole bunch of Democrats got in the race. It went down to the veteran state Senator Royce West, an African-American from Dallas, and a congressional candidate, a military veteran who had a pretty powerful combat story, M.J. Hager. So they're in the final. Hager, as most of the national Democrats, Chuck Schumer recruited her.
probably wins, but we're having an unusually heavy turnout, particularly in the urban counties. West might pull it out, but the nomination is valuable. Cornyn is about as different from Ted Cruz as you could find any pair of Republican senators. Cruz is a polarizing light in rod. People love him or they hate him. Cornyn, people hardly know. He's been a
Name, identity, not many people feel very positively or negatively toward him, which puts him at risk because the election in Texas, like nationally, is mostly going to be about President Trump. And while Cornyn is by style and manner not at all a Trump Republican, he's gone along with the president. You know, for years he was the number two guy in the Republican Senate conference and he's laid low. But that means Trump's troubles in Texas make Cornyn vulnerable.
So what would it take for Democrats to win in Texas? That, you know, when I look at the polls, I see that despite all of these troubles, Trump is still ahead by three points, which is less than he won the state by last time, but would indicate that maybe everything gets really tight, but Cornyn pulls through. What is your sense of the likelihood, A, of Democrats, if they
winning the state at the presidential and or the senatorial level? And B, even if they don't, what do you think their chances are on the legislative level? You said that they could gain five or six congressional seats. But you think what do you think a reasonable expectation would be?
My guess would be the Democrats are going to win minimally two more congressional districts and win the two that they narrowly won that keep those. Those are trending more Democratic quickly, although Republicans have a very good candidate running in the 7th District, the seat that John Culberson lost two years ago. So I think the range is in a kind of okay year for the Texas Republican Party. They lose two or three seats there.
Will Hurd's seat's probably all gone for sure. He was a unique candidate that could win in a heavily Hispanic district. The Olsen seat's very, very vulnerable. One of the Dallas seats is probably going to be hard to hold. But maximum, you could lose six or seven. So the range is two or three to six or seven congressional seats.
Last question, then imagine a debacle. You know, Biden wins nationally by 10 or 11 points. Republicans lose seven to nine Senate seats. Cornyn either narrowly wins or he's one of the ones that loses. And, you know, Republicans lose the statehouse. Republicans lose six congressional seats, you know, pretty much a parade of horribles.
Can the Texas Republican Party bounce back post-Trump, or would this really be a death knell for Republican dominance? Well, I remember the last rights being set over the Texas Republican Party in 1964 after the Goldwater crushing. And of course, that turned out to be dramatically premature. Parties can be resilient after a devastating loss or two.
But, you know, the Texas Republican Party has got a big internal problem right now. The 10 counties, I believe, including some of the biggest Tea Party counties like Denton County, north of Dallas and Montgomery County, have passed resolutions condemning the Texas governor for being too aggressive in trying to encourage use of masks and slowing down reopening measures.
So there's a lot of blood going to be spilled within the Republican Party. The Democrats, normally fractious, have been so traumatized and united by Trump that momentarily they're pretty much keeping their fire focused on the other guys. Now, if the Democrats start breaking through in Texas, one would expect that given the diversity of their coalition, there'll be plenty of infighting within the resurgent Democrats. But
So post-Trump, you've got to move away from the Trump strategy, which doesn't work in Texas with this explosive growth of immigrants. And we're going to be a plurality Anglo County, Hispanic County this year and add very rapid growth of Asians and a sizable black population. More African-Americans live in Texas than in any state in the country. So you've got to get off the Trump train and get back to the George W. Bush big tent party mentality.
And I, you know, right now, again, the Bushes are in bad odor in the Republican Party. So it's going to be a challenge for both parties. Well, Professor Murray, I really appreciate listening and learning from you. And later in the campaign, I would love to have you back on the horse race. Look forward to joining you again.
That's all for this week's Horse Race. Join me again next episode for more expert and up-to-the-minute analysis of everything political in the United States. I'm Henry Olson, and I'll see you soon in the Horse Race.