Texas GOP Insider Reveals How Bad Things Are Getting for Republicans (w/ Garrett Fulce)

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark. I am here with a guy that I hired, like, I don't know, a hundred years ago. He's at the seeing red podcast now. His name is Garrett Foltz. And he's showing a little wisdom lately. Maybe it isn't at the same kind of wisdom I've had for the last decade or so. We're about to discuss that a little bit. Garrett, how you been, man? I've been doing well, you know, new dad kind of, kind of three-year-old and a one-year-old. So really in it on that and just commentating on politics instead of working in it every day. It's a different animal, as I'm sure you're aware. Welcome to the dark side, the light. Welcome to the light, really. It's wonderful. You just get to see what you really think. You know, you don't have to spin anymore. His show's seeing red, as I mentioned. So I was a Republican when I hired you. What was, remind me, where did we have you? What was the first job that you were doing? So I was in Iowa. So I was a tracker. So I was going to all of your track, and this is Iowa. The Bruce Bravy race. Yeah. Wow. So a long way, 12 years. Yeah, yeah. So Garrett stayed in the Republican Party, moved to Texas. And we've been DMing a little bit. He's written some columns, as we mentioned, had a podcast, not thrilled with the direction of the Texas Republican Party and the nominees in particular for a couple of offices. We'll get to that, but just kind of big picture. Like just put on your analyst hat. What he's seeing, we're a couple days into early vote. You know, it's dangerous to overinterpret early vote a little bit, but there's their trends you can look at. What do you think is the state applied down there in the Lone Sturston? I mean, honestly, it's about best case scenario for Democrats on day one, and things are starting to, you know, revert to the mean as we get further and further into it. So right now, it's hard to say anything. But the weekends when a lot of early vote happens, because in Texas, it's kind of split up. You have one big weekend, and it votes for two weeks. And then the weekend between early voting and election days, there's no voting. So this next weekend's going to be where a lot of votes come in. And so like, we'll have a better idea going into it. But at this point, it's still indicative of what the polls are saying. It's going to be a close race. What's the level of panic among your Texas Republican kind of friends? Oh, it's not like in like Defconned to three, like in the middle, people are worried. And most of these people have never worked to competitive general, like ever, because they've only worked in Texas. And so most people just don't even know what this feeling is. So I think that that might be, that might be adding to it. So that's part of it. But you know, also a lot of people are working down ballot races where they don't have any control over it because, you know, that's the Republican economy, plus the PACs in at the top of the ticket. And they're just kind of along for the right. Yeah. So obviously, what's the drive? I mean, it's so funny. Like here we are, you know, just over a week out. And, you know, if a year ago, you'd said to me, like Talarika, might really win. Like the Democrats, I really win Texas. And the government just makes me imply, you know, I would have said, no, that's the best case scenario for Democrats. That's like unimaginably good. You know, and now I can wear it today. And everybody's like, it's like, oof, you know, if, if Talarika loses by one point is like tonight, it's a catastrophe, you know, and so it's so it's interesting. I can't much things, things have changed. What do you, what explains that in the year? And you talked to other Republican economy, huge shift in his panic vote. But like what else, you know, has changed that has made, you know, this such a winnable race for Democrats? Well, Paxton being at the top of the ticket. And a year ago, I said this exact scenario, I played it out. I got it, and I put it in the, in the hill. I said that if Paxton wins, he, the primary, he may very well still carry Texas narrowly, but they're outside Republicans outside the state are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save it. And that's exactly where we're at. And they still might not be successful. And so that money could be in all these other places. Right now you're having about probably seven true toss ups, where they probably should only be two or three. And if you were to think about the $400 million being spread elsewhere, that's a major like impact across the ticket across the whole country because, right, because of that. And basically, I mean, you know, the amount of money there, you know, 15 spent in the last, short enough other places. Yeah. Yeah. Cause Texas expensive and huge. Yeah. It's like expensive and it's huge. Um, so it's just hard to get the coverage you'd want, uh, on, on the points. And so that kind of explains part of it. I think really, there's a couple of weird factors is Republicans have to run up the vote in rural areas. And there's been a lot of consternation in the rural areas like in Iowa and other places about diesel prices, about those concerns. But also, there's been a lot of press and taxes about data centers. Texas was poised to become the number one data center state, um, been surpassing Virginia. And there's been a lot of consternation about that. Democrats found a decent wedge at you to at least suppress some vote in some areas. Um, and that, that's a major factor. I think it's pushing a lot of numbers down. And then other issues similar to that where the, you know, you have gas prices, beef prices are going up. You know, in a lot of ways, that's good for Texas. Houston's oil capital. And Dallas has all the oil money and yeah. So like, those things kind of matter to people's pocketbooks, but also is helpful to a lot of other people. So it's kind of a wash on that issue. I think it really comes down to things like the data centers being up. And, and there's the issue of Texans pushed through Texas Republicans pushed through school vouchers or, uh, education savings accounts. And that's always been an unpopular thing in rural areas. And so a lot of people are upset about that and still upset about it because that no one can see if the policy is even working yet because it just launched last August. I mean, in practice. So you don't even have people who are like really like, oh my God, it's so good to like talk about it because the kids have been in school for two weeks. Yeah. So you've got, so basically what we're saying here is you've got depressed world turnout because of diesel prices, data centers, maybe it's education issue. You didn't mention this right on top of that. You have a huge flip in the Hispanic vote based in part on some of the same issues, but also in the way that the deportation campaign has been carried out. Um, you have, uh, as you mentioned, unpopular impacts on the top of the ticket and peach by his own party. And I energized democratic base. I mean, like those are basically the four factors that that are driving this. And it's creating an environment that I guess you agree. This is a better, I kind of is almost a significantly better environment than 18 for bad. Um, Trump's first midterm. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, it's similar. I think the bitch, cause the, at that point, Republicans hadn't really flipped the Hispanic vote. So that's kind of a net neutral. And so what was interesting about that one was just how much, uh, had been lost in the suburbs and suburban, suburban women, but a lot of those people came home and other people kind of permanently went away. So you didn't have the war driving up just at the price for that is to then that's that's sure as well. And I think there's an interesting like kind of correlating to be made. A lot of his hat has been said and been pushed on air kind of redoing, literally redoing the, they them, uh, that Tyler Ricklesway, they them, you know, tepaxons for you at, uh, in, in that motif. But the reason that that was effective in 24 for Trump was that, you know, you'd had four years of increased gas prices, increased uh, grocery prices, et cetera. And there was a feeling that Democrats were only caring about the social issues. And so that resonated. Now we're two years later. And the same factors are on play for Republicans. And now we're the ones talking about it. I mean, it just seems like hackery from like the consultants who are just trying to like do something that's not going to get them in trouble after the fact. And yeah, you know, just to Kensington and you're guessing there's a viral red post from a guy that's like conservative guy saying, hey, my kids are only hearing about trans stuff from you now, you know, you know, it's an ads ever at the, you know, commercial, every commercial football game. You have these mailers going out that are, you know, addressed to the student, quote unquote, you know, trying to tell them their rights. It's like this gambit to try to scare parents. Um, you know, and they're talking about on the campaign trail. It's on their news channels, you know, on right wing news channels. And so it's like, you know, the kids, like, if anything are being exposed to this through all the ads, they're like, that doesn't mesh with like what the priority of that issue should be given what else has happened. No. And it's all in the temp because everyone's looking at the polling and looking at the like, I'm looking at the, uh, the cross tabs and saying that Republicans were only polling at 86% for the Republican candidates, regardless of tax center down ballot or even all the way down ballot, like a county judge double stuff. It'd be like people as identified as Republicans were only saying they'd vote for those candidates at like 83 to 90 percent. Democrats were getting the usual 98 to 100 percent. And so clearly, there's just an attempt to drive out that, that, that base. But I'm not sure how many of those people are actually going to turn out, because there seems to be about 30% of corn in space from the runoff, which ends up being about a percent to 3% of the actual kind of general election vote that are so pissed off, they might just do a full flip to Democrat, not just not vote. Right. What do you thought about the mailers? Oh, I've written about it a lot. I mean, I think you'll appreciate this as somebody kind of came up on the kind of the more white hat side of the Oppo and Dirty Trick side of things. It's just bad craft. It's clearly done by professional because they covered their butts too much to not get into too much trouble. They have a LLC shield. They didn't really violate any laws that you can really tell. They covered themselves enough in that way, but it's so obvious what it is that you have these endless process stories about it, and is it going to be enough and is it going to be worth it enough? And at the end of the day, you're probably going to be found out that you did it, and like you said before, you just mailed a bunch of conservative kids this stuff that their parents really don't like. So I mean, how does that help you down the road? Yeah. One more thing in the early vote and then it's going to tie into the both French element of all this, though, run for railroad commissioner for people who don't remember, we've covered this. He was the guy that was offended that there were Indian kids at the UT game cheering on the UT football team, and that was posting them at that quite a bit on all the rumors out there about, but very unapologetic on the white identity politics. He posted this about the early vote. It's all this stuff, it's like, you know, Dallas is voting at 111% of what the 2024 pace was. Laredo is voting 110%. You know, these rural districts, these rural counties, Carnes, Los Al, McMullan, Andrews, Gaines, Martin, Winkler, that's all in the 40s and 50s. Is that like, is that legit, what are you saying? Or, you know, it's hard for me to take anything, both French, that's serious. No, I mean, the numbers are, they seem accurate as, because he's just regurgitating other stuff that I've seen as well. I think that there is a problem for Republicans is that these rural areas aren't in any of these targeted congressional districts or any targeted state house seats, which is a whole other question we can get into, but like, there's nothing else going on. So they just have to motivate themselves to go vote for the top of the ticket. And so I think you can really see that this playing out in those areas where Republicans do need to, you know, get their 80%, 75% to 80% of the vote and a higher turnout. How bad is Paxton Ben, like just, just speaking about candidate skills as far as motivating this part? Because this, this should be the one thing he's good at, right? Like, motivating the mega voters shouldn't be this, to turn out, shouldn't that be the one thing that he's good at? I mean, you'd think that, and if it were the case, he'd probably be debating. He hasn't debated. I don't think he's ever debated as Attorney General, if he did. I kind of recall him doing some forums back in 2014, but like on the primary side, but he hasn't really done anything in 12 years. When you're the Attorney General, you're actually not ever in court. It'd be weird if you were. And so like, he doesn't have to get up. He's used to being on a camera like this, talking to a host, and that's about it. No, he's not the most cares, man, the guy. He has a couple of funny Trump stories about being called in the shower and like, waiting to hear from him. But like, you know, you hear that once, eight years ago, you hear it every two years until it. He's in the shower. He's just really wanted to like, talk to the President, he was expecting a call, and he had to answer the call, who's in the shower. That's the, I say everybody 10 minutes if they ever have to go listen to a stop speech. But that was, so, yeah, fun, fun times. I think everyone has to think about Kinpaks in the shower, but the, you know, that's, that's it. He's not the greatest on the stump. He's kind of more of a, he reminds me of a pastor from the 90s. He'll set up a story that's, you know, that's his anecdote. He goes into some red meat stuff, and it kind of resonates with people who are used to being in the pew and kind of having that 20 minute like bite size, you know, whatever. But that's not really great for rallies or the things you need to do to really raw, raw the base. So, no, he's not been great at turning up voters. Back to Bill French. I mean, it's got to, is it enough to make you go full cock like me? I mean, you got to look at Bill French and think, this is, this is crazy that this guy's on the ballot for my party right now. I mean, we can get, let's, let's dive into that because he was the Tarant County GOP chair who, while that put out a Twitter poll that said, who has caused more problems for America, Jews or Muslims, right? And that spurred Dan Patrick and a lot of other people to say, hey, you should resign. This is terrible. And then he decides to run for railroad commission. While he was still for Tarant County chair, he endorsed, and he had the county party endorsed, which is weird, in municipal races. All of them are Tarant County is like Arlington Fort Worth. This isn't some random ass county, like that's, it's a big thing. Right. No, it's a million plus people. Every single competitive race he endorsed and the, they lost, every single one of them. And so, like him being involved is like a cancer to the people who are on the ticket with them or who he's endorsing. And so, yeah, I've didn't vote for him. I voted for the Democrat. So, the first time I voted for a Democrat since I lived in Arlington, then the option was Democrat or Socialist. How did it feel? No. Fuck good, didn't it? Fuck good. You know, just a little freeing just to fill in one bubble. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's a new fee, it's new, but it's a, we'll see how it goes. Like, if French is wins, he's just going to, he's, so since the UT situation, he's stopped tweeting about racial stuff and started tweeting about oil and gas, which is what the position he's running for does. But he is ultimately a, you know, of the Twitter troll variety and as soon as he has the, doesn't have the consequences of having to deal with that, he's going to go back to tweeting about the scourge of needing to deport 100 million people, including naturalized citizens and their children and all of that. So, it's, he's the kind of guy who quotes Nazi scholars, and I don't mean like people who kind of thought the Nazis were cool, I mean like actual Nazi scholars. So like, this is who we're talking about. This is not, this is David Duke level of just so far to whatever the hell he is, that like racist and xenophobic, whatever words you want to call him, whatever salad is it is, he's all of it and he's proud of it. You hear any of the country club rumors? So I have, of course I have. I may have propagated some of them at some point, but one of the leading kind of tabloid people has said that he's not been able to verify it and he's been pretty good about sniffing out. For to hear the Bose not one of my people on, you know, I don't want them in the, in the LGBT QIA plus community, you know, but whatever there's some chatter, the, I mean, there's a lot of chatter. There's also chatter about relationships and the Houston Chronicle insinuated this. There was random photos of him and Getty with, I don't remember the guy's name, but he was a politician up in the Northeast. I don't remember which party, but he ended up having to resign because he was sexually harassing his male staffers or salting, I don't recall which. And so, you know, that's his, that's a random association with both French, so go figure. Seems like a trend. I just don't know why he didn't change his name to both freedom. Like if you're going to be the xenophobic candidate and your last name is French, this doesn't really work. Go on. And how is his name not spelled in the French way? You know, like, there's a lot of, I just have a lot of problem with French. I think it's another thing that you can, you indicated that it's not just, and we've been talking, you know, mostly about Talriq on the statewide, let's just take a couple of the races really quick. It seems like you're, I opened the idea that Dina Housa can win the governor's race. I'm, I think it's, she's the way I put it is, you know, both French and Paxen are very much in the danger zone. It may not entirely be in their control, whether they win or lose. I think Governor Abbott in the, in the, in the, in the Housa race is, he would have to misstep at this point to, to push it over, or something major, you know, obviously something can major could happen. But I don't see. Abbott's running. Well, what, what, what's, what's indicating to you that she's running so far behind Talriq ago that it's not winnable? It's more that Abbott's run a competitive, a competent race, and Housa did not get have any money. And so there's some follow, there's some follow down, follow through with, you know, just turn out from the Senate race and stuff, but with how campaign finance works, typically you'd want to have a lot of money going to your governor candidate to run the field operation because you have untapped whatever. And that hasn't happened. And so that money has been almost wasted having to go through Talriq and so just there's it. But they've not, well, people have talked about like there's been a lot of value ad in Talriq being able to buy the ads at the candidate rates, not a lot. It's been talked about kind of that, that's that differentiation with Texas campaign finance law of really being able to push for public and turn out. And I think Abbott's, you know, Abbott. it's been on air, his positive, he's not cheating. - Jumping down on water, you saying there's a chance, does she have a chance? - Yeah, there's a chance. I think whatever, the last time I saw the market, they had it like 30%, I think that's way too high, but it's, I would say 15 to 20% chance. - That's all right, you think it's the favorite right now? - He's slight, probably 55. - And the house races move into the house, the Jerry Mander backfires basically. I mean, you end up losing two of the majority of Latino seats with Polito, Polito's definitely gonna win, right? And Garcia, I think his favorite, I got your sense on how the house map shakes out. - So I think there's three of them. I think there's, I think all three go Republican. Oh, sorry, go Democrat, but the interesting thing is that's still in that two for Republicans. And so, is it a backfire? I mean, you could have gotten five, but also, could you have ever gotten five? So yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, it's, yes, a backfire is in the sense that you could have had five, it could have been better. But in two years, you may be able to get those seats. And so, what we've lost in the seats, if it's in there as long as he wants to be, so that one, not that one. - Probably, probably. - Yeah, yeah. So, but like, Quayar and Gonzalez are probably are looking good. I think Herrera, the gun guy, aka guy, is the guy that loves talking about like, you know. - Wops. - He's the podcaster. There's like, yeah, he's the podcaster. - Yeah, he's the podcaster or the podcaster, yeah. - Yeah, I mean, but he, I mean, to be honest, a lot of people out there in his district, are veterans or no veterans. There's a ton of, there's a ton of bases out there. And he does not say anything that's outside the realm of anything I've heard veterans say. And it's a show with veterans talking about like, military and gun stuff. So, it's like, it's one of those things of them, it's rolling off most criticism's roll off amount there because it's pretty explainable. Unlike other folks, if they just say it out of turn. - Yeah, sure. So, that's 23. - That's 23. Nine was the other, another major one, which is on the, who used to cover South, like Houston and kind of them to my county and do some other stuff. And now it's over on the other side of Harris County. And I think it grabs some other counties over on that side. And, you know, the, it seems like it's going through the Republican direction. Though, you know, it's, it's listed as like, something that could be picked up in a huge dim wave. So. - That was that's where it says outgreens old seat are, you know. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So, he's been around a lot of time. - He's been around a lot of time. - All right, Garrett, what else have I asked you about? - I was hoping you're going to tell me that people are pissing their pants. I was hoping that you're going to tell me that the Republicans of Texas are pissing their pants. - I think, I think you'll see that this weekend. I honestly, I think people are going to freak out at the early voting numbers. - Who's George Cornyn rooting for in the race, do you think? - Oh, he won't say. So, you know, he's probably rooting for the most chaos possible. But he's, he's rooting for the Republican votes. - In the privacy of the ballot booth, that's a, that's a telerika vote, right? (laughs) John Cornyn. - I would, if there were a calcium market on it, I would probably put it on, on, on telerika go for that. - Yeah. - Yeah. We had Neil Bush through the Cajon A's to actually endorse him. But I think, I think Cornyn, W, George P, I think those are all telerika votes. - George P ran against backs in two. - So, other silent telerika voters, I think. - Yeah. - Robblebley. But a lot of people come out against French. A lot of people have come out against French. Instead, the vote for straight-up Rosenthal or just our no voting. - Yeah, even Karl. Karl roved, said that. I tried to get Karl on the show, but he didn't want to do it. Maybe soon. All right, behind the scenes, you know, when I went, when I threw in with the anti-Trump cause, all the other trackers that I hired, like talking behind my back, so there's a lot of jokes about the perils or like what was happening off the track. - Oh, sure. But I mean, people have been making fun of you a long time. - Yeah. - So, I mean, I mean, it wasn't much new. I would say this, there are people who, and you'll see him pop up every once in a while, who were kind of had earlier interactions with you before, before Jeb. And I feel like you had a change after Jeb, or you were just way more about just like, kind of helping people out a lot more. And so the people who saw you after that were have a much more positive like experience and talk nice way more nicely with you. - That's a really nice way to put it. I was a dick before that, a sort of thing. I was a little bit of a dick. - You were not known for your civility. - Yeah. - Yeah. I don't think you are now either, but you were. - No, but I've softened. My heart edges have softened. There's no doubt about that. You know, I became a father, started caring about the people around me. I think that's fair. That's growth. That's what I call growth, baby. - Yeah. - That's part of the life well lived, you know? Nobody needs to stay the same way the whole life. That's not how it's supposed to be done. All right, buddy. Well, I appreciate you speaking the truth about what's happening down there. And maybe we'll be, you know, as we kind of are analyzing the data as we get close to election day, we'll check it again, all right? - All right, sounds good. Thanks, Tim. - Have a good one. That's Garrett Foltz at the, I was about to call it the redening. The red? - The sea. - The sea red. - The sea red, God, sorry. It's 930. That's Garrett Foltz. Sea red is his part. If you want, you know, some Texas Republican talk. All right, we'll see you all soon. Subscribe to the feed.