[Music] stories months in the making come to a head this week arguably the most important election in Texas arrives will the Attorney General get his revenge this part is political it's elections and we all have a right to support the people that we think will best represent the state of Texas do the votes change for the Governor's education plan empowering parents with a God given right to choose the school that's best for their child and does the speaker of the house go down against his main r
ival plus who will face Senator Ted Cruz in November I think the Senate is broken and late this week a Texan aims for a power position in Washington the stakes right now on lonar [Music] politics this is Lone Star politics from NBC 5 and the Dallas Morning News good Sunday morning I'm Phil praisin from nbc5 and I'm gromer Jeffers political writer with the Dallas Morning News and Phil we're we're now less than 48 hours from election day and remember you have so much more to vote for besides the p
residential race according to the Secretary of State nearly 18 million Texans registered to vote they'll decide several high stakes races including three open North Texas seats for congress Republican Representatives Michael Burgess of Lewisville and K Granger of Fort Worth are retiring and Congressman Colin all read of Dallas is running for the US Senate let's start there Dallas Congressman Colin alred and state senator Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio topped the list of nine democrats vying for
a chance to face US senator Ted Cruz in November recently aled has been more critical of the Biden Administration over immigration signing onto a resolution condemning his handling of the migrant crisis he also supports building some parts of the border wall along with a plan for comprehensive immigration reform that has brought some harsh criticism from Gutierrez who has his own plan for a work program and a country of origin program my opponent's idea of addressing it is agreeing with the Rep
ublican saying we need to build a border wall nonsense he said that on October 6th nonsense Colin aled's idea of is holding hands with with extremist Republicans saying oh Joe Biden you're an open borders president that's just not true we've had this crisis in Texas for some time uh and so for us it would have been better if we had been responding and been more front foot from both the administration side and I think from our party side talking about that we have an actual solution for this one
that will help us secure the border that we can do it in a humane way here's something that may explain that movement from alled According to a mid-February poll from the Texas politics projects Democrats are beginning to look at the border as a more serious issue 20% saying the number of migrants crossing the border is a crisis 37% saying it's a very serious problem but not a crisis 27% saying it's a somewhat serious problem only 12% saying it's not much of a problem at all gromer that shifted
to a more of it's a problem side is that why we're seeing this from Congressman all red oh exactly he realizes just like an increasing number of Democrats realize that border security is an important issue not just to base Republican voters but Independents and Democrats as well and so he has to move uh or project that he's looking for Solutions and even if that means being critical of the of President Joe Biden and it's kind of pivoting him towards the middle right yeah which could help in a ra
ce against Ted Cruz the the Republican incumbent where that middle and Independence will be very important uh particular particularly if if Cruz can rally most conservatives behind him and or can get the Democratic and the progressive base behind him assuming that all is is the nomin well I I think that's an important thing to talk about there has been a lot of chatter recently of whether Congressman alled can win without a runoff what do you think well the polls show that he's in Striking Dista
nce right recent polls one poll I think it was the uh Texas Pol uh Texas politics project poll at UT Austin had him at 52% and as you know they kind of nudged Independence a little bit and that one uh others have had them in the in the 40s so we'll see he he's the only one Phil on television major networks communicating with voters that's a big Advantage when you think about it no one else is able to get that message to a broad swath of Voters they're doing it by Sho leather reporters showing up
at rubber chicken dinners rallies things like that and so they have to hope that the sheer number of candidates in that race helps push it into a runoff if it doesn't all it could walk away on Election night as the as the winner outright so Senator Ted Cruz faces two lesser known challengers in the primary but he is already looking toward November I want to keep Texas Texas and I think that that's what this election's about if you want to have the policies that are working here in Texas low tax
es reasonable regulations lots of jobs your family safe and secure and your constitutional rights protected every day that's what I fought to do and every day that's what I'll continue doing although not up for reelection Governor Abbott has been very busy on the campaign Trail spending Millions to support 10 primary Challengers of anti-school choice voucher Republicans the governor vowed to clean house after 21 largely rural Republicans voted with Democrats to kill his top priority the governor
needs 13 more votes to reach a 76 vote majority if you just look at the the people who voted against sko who or vacating their seats uh that's going to be a huge pickup there there's going to be some other incumbents who lose because of the vote remember this and that is a school choice is extraordinarily popular in all of these house districts and and those people are going to go vote in favor of the values they believe in and that means they're going to be voting with the candidates I'm backi
ng we make our own decisions about who we endorse we're both independently elected I represent the governor I represent the legislature I represent different agencies however this is this part is political it's elections and we all have a right to support the people that we think will best represent the state of Texas but maybe the most important race for the Texas house is down in Southeast Texas Speaker of the House Dave felin of Bowmont faces two Challengers with one of them former Orange Cou
nty Republican chairman David cvy Landing the endorsement of former president Donald Trump now much of this Springs from the Texas House's impeachment of Paxton on bribery and abuse of power allegations the Senate chose to keep Paxton in his job but Paxton is a key Ally of former president Donald Trump who helped swing the endorsement against speaker felen the speaker responded in a new television ad 70% of House Republicans impeached him and Paxton just admitted to the charges no longer contest
ing the lawsuit vengeful Paxton is the reason Trump's himself in our race if Paxon will break an oath to his wife and God why would he tell Trump or you the truth but it is truly a pylon down in Bowmont against the speaker and a very rare move the speaker's counterpart Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick from the Senate is running ads against him as well these two are close to hating each other after two very long very divisive years in the Texas legislature daate failen wants you to believe that he
supports Donald Trump really I've been the chair of the Trump campaign now for three elections in Texas and I've never seen dat at one Trump Rally or event and he's never offered to help so why is D trying to fool you now because he knows he's in trouble with the voters gromer have you ever seen a lieutenant governor come into the primary race of a speaker no I I I I have not at least not so outwardly uh and you know hate and you mentioned close to hating each other and maybe an understatement
in in in this case but yeah this is really fascinating because it's not just Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is the it's the normal Insurgent crowd that always takes on seemingly uh Republican house speakers these days but Donald Trump and and you know is is involved in this race and yet uh the speaker if he's connected to his district uh he's popular in both bont uh if he if he's able to pull us out and when think what that will signal think what that will mean in terms of his political clout i
t will free him in a sense to do what he wants to do legisl either a bad mood or a terrible mood I mean exactly um is it it's interesting to see how many outside forces are in this one race though it really is and it it's a microcosm of the of all the race is because you have these these characters Trump uh Governor Abbott Patrick even Ted Cruz uh who's who were people endorsing and all of these house races the house members have never been so popular right but but here we are uh also about abou
t the speaker it would be interesting and I wonder how some of the members feel about him now post that vote to impeach uh you know brought a lot of flag to folks yeah he made them take a lot of tough votes and I wonder what they feel about that now and if a lot of them go go down and he survives will that impact him trying to hang on as Speaker when they vote in 2025 but gromer an interesting turn happened in the last few weeks in this fight former governor and former US Energy Secretary Rick P
erry came out of retirement to campaign for a group of candidates including house Speaker Dave felen he's speaking across Texas in support of Republican leadership and letting some democrat run committees in Austin here he is last week in Sulfur Springs you you got to reach Cross Island from time to time I had people um you know I I had I'm pretty sure that every lieutenant governor in modern history has had some democrat chairman and that's okay doesn't mean you're going to change your philosop
hy doesn't mean you're going to you're going to compromise your values it just means that you know you're you're going to be the chairman over there if you come with some crazy stuff it's not going to happen but I want you over there because there's some things we can work on together let's turn now to Denton County they have several big races what exactly are you watching in that county well a couple of things one the race the hotly contested race to replace uh Congressman Michael burges you kn
ow the the Doctor Who's represented that District since 2003 that's hot contested a lot of folks in that race and I think it's driving turnout out there you see a lot of people voting in early voting uh so I'm watching that and and we'll see those congressional seats don't come open a lot that often so that will be interesting there's also a competitive Senate uh District race State Senate District and then also two somewhat competitive Texas house races there's just a lot going on why do you th
ink there's so much attention in Denton County well Denton County is is really a hot bed for conservatism but it's all about how conservative you are and that's a lot of times a fight out there uh but these seats are coming open there are a lot of challenges um you know if you want to check the mood of of conservatives in Texas Denton County is one of those counties you look at and now more than a million new voters in Texas this election compared to four years ago that's that last presidential
primary election still ahead a closer look at how the state growing population could impact this week's election you're watching lonar [Music] [Music] politics Texas has boomed since March 2020 when the last presidential primary happened since then according to State and County election data there there have been 75,000 new voter registrations in Dallas County and there are more than 100,000 new registered voters each in Colin Denton and tarant counties let's bring in Derek Ryan founder of Ryan
data and research which tracks Texas voting trends thanks for being here thank you for having me so let's just start with with um compare what you're seeing in north Texas compared to Texas across the state are there any things that interest you yeah so I I think that right now uh we're on track to see about 2 million people in the state vote in the Republican primary and about 1.5 million uh on the in the Democratic primary and uh you know when you look at the Dallas teren Colin and Denton coun
ties uh they're going to make up about uh 20% of all of the votes that are cast in the entire States and then on the the Democratic side you're going to have those four counties make up about a quarter of all of the votes that are cast so Derek how does it how does how do the turnout numbers compare to previous primaries are are we up the same down sure so uh on on the Democratic side they're they're down but uh you know when you're comparing Apples to Apples and we look at the 2020 uh primary e
lection you have to remember that uh you know four years ago there was a contested presidential primary uh which drove up turnout in the Democratic side so uh it's down considerably uh compared to uh to that election uh but then you look at the Republican side and we're actually probably exceeding the turnout from 2020 but still way below where it was in 2016 when the Republicans had their contested uh presidential PR primary and Derek I I looked at some of your data that you put out uh every da
y in early voting and there seems to be roughly about 20% maybe a little less than that of people who aren't traditional Republican primary voters in in Colin and Denton County you know they voted in only in the general election or uh they have no voting history at all is is that different than what we've seen in the past uh you know it's actually down a little bit so far uh you know that may change uh you know come Tuesday night we may see uh an influx of non-p primary voters voting uh but you
know these are areas of the state that are are booming and that people are moving from other states uh you know to Texas specifically to Colin and Denton counties so you know they may have voted in uh party primaries uh in another state but this is the first uh you know chance that they're they're getting to uh you know vote in a tech primary and dere in a few seconds we have left uh are Republicans because of what happened in Trump in 2020 are they conditioned to vote election day are we still
seeing that uh that Trend I know it's like that in 2022 it's a great question uh I do think that there there is a shift in uh you know some previous Republican primary voters who voted by mail or voted early in the past who have decided to wait until Tuesday uh to cast their votes all right Derek Ryan thanks for joining us we appreciate your time thank you for having me could a Texas senator be next in line for the top spot in Republican leadership we take a closer look at what the exit of Senat
e minority leader Mitch McConnell could mean for Senator John Corin and the state of Texas next on lonar politics [Music] [Music] on the heels of another near government shutdown President Biden is preparing to address a joint session of Congress you can watch the State of the Union Address live Thursday night at 7 here on NBC 5 and online at NBC dfw.com at a North Texas mother who made national headlines and forced the State's new abortion law to go before The Supreme Court is expected to atten
d the State of the Union Address Kate Cox will be the guest of first lady Dr Jill Biden we also expect to see Carla Gates the Widow of North Texas postal carer Eugene Gates Eugene Gates passed away while delivering mail during extreme heat last June since then Carla Gates has been an advocate for for improved worker protections at the US Postal Service Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is stepping down which opens the door to Texas senior senator John cornin less than 24 hours after the ann
ouncement cornin announced he's running for the job that he's been eyeing for years I think the Senate is broken and it really hasn't been functioning as the world's greatest deliberative body which historically people have thought of it that way and uh we need to get the Senate working again McConnell is the longest serving leader in Senate history the now 82-year-old has held the position since 2007 McConnell said he will leave his leadership position in November but will serve out the rest of
his term which ends in January of 20127 Senator Corin called McConnell pragmatic knowledgeable humble and effective adding that he is grateful for his dedicated service to our country and this institution an election to replace McConnell will happen in November with his successor taking office in January gromer this could be huge for Texas if John Cory gave a very big deal because if he does become you know uh the leader Republican leader in the Senate there's a chance that he could one day be
Senate Majority Leader and that is a big deal he'll be on The Cutting Edge of everything one of the most powerful figures in the country you know he can try to match LBJ the master of the Senate he can be his own version of that yeah Texas is already a huge deal in Republican politics but this we would you know be at the seat of the front of the table of because he'll have his hands on every major piece of legislation out there something to watch that's all the time we have and join us Tuesday o
n air online and on our streaming channels for super Tuesday election coverage and then we'll see you back here next Sunday for more lonar politics [Music]
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