Yeah.

And, and so you either wake up in 2031 and wish that we built infrastructure, or you do it right now.

And people like Amy Bashir at the DGA who are refusing to invest in our gubernatorial race, they don't get that.

This is a bigger problem than just one governor's race right now.

This is about long-term building of the party.

That's number one.

Number two, on the legislative front, some people don't know that 70% of this country's textbooks are printed in Texas.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And, and so you either wake up in 2031 and wish that we built infrastructure, or you do it right now.

And people like Amy Bashir at the DGA who are refusing to invest in our gubernatorial race, they don't get that.

This is a bigger problem than just one governor's race right now.

This is about long-term building of the party.

That's number one.

Number two, on the legislative front, some people don't know that 70% of this country's textbooks are printed in Texas.

Mm-hmm.

OK, so putting aside her divorce on, quote, biblical grounds, what does that message say about the ingrained partisanship, Kendall, the Democrats are up against in your state?

Well, while Angela Paxton's lecturing people at a podium, I'd love for her to explain to us how Ken Paxton has 15 houses on a government salary.

We don't ever hear a lot of clarification on that.

Instead, we just tell people to close their eyes, hold their nose, and cast their ballot.

But the truth is, while Ken Paxton has been attorney general of this state, we've seen taxes on the rise, crime on the rise, number of school closures on the rise, number of hospital closures on the rise, and the number of data centers built in your backyard on the rise.

And so they can tell people to close their eyes, plug their nose and vote all day long.

The people of Texas aren't stupid, even if they may think they are, and they know better than to vote for Ken Paxton to be in public office again.

Kendall, make the argument for me that Texas is worth taking another state off that map for.

[laughs]

Yeah.

But- but I mean, where I think getting out of the thick of an election allows us to focus on infrastructure strengthening, right? So you're not just recruiting.

You can focus more on your training.

You can see where you had gaps in this cycle, and you can go through and evaluate what your data is from the previous cycle.

So I think the first thing we do is a postmortem.

We look through and see, um, where did we do different programs, um, and were they effective, comparing them to other places where those programs weren't effective or didn't run or whatever, and see what works.

What are our marching orders? If you want somebody to help out, somebody is home that's on their couch, what do you want them to be doing to help us out in this election?

That's

right.

That's right.

And people complain about the cost of Texas, where we are uniquely the most expensive state to operate in.

We've got 20 media markets.

I mean, it's a challenge not just with that, but how many people and how large it is.

And so, systematically, we've been working to build this infrastructure.

What do you say? Speak to your Democratic friends across the country who are looking at some underinvestment from the national

Have Democrats been doing enough to counter that messaging?

Well, I mean, I think it's really hard to counter that messaging when you constantly have misinformation flying all over the place.

I mean, it's strange, really, to hear a party that is in control of every lever of government because they won elections challenging whether or not elections, uh, uh, can be fairly conducted.

Uh, it only seems to be after they lose elections that they get upset.

But for some reason right now they're complaining about elections that they all won.

Um, they've, they've become conspiracy theorists, and those conspiracy theories are starting to permeate.

So what's important on all of us, I think, who are just trying to make sure we have free, fair, effective elections, uh, is to just make sure that they are run efficiently, uh, and that, that people are having access to legal ballots as much as we possibly can.

Um, what was your reaction to that initial post?

You could take the legislature?

Well, now I'm saying the statewide races.

And the thing is, if you take the lieutenant governor's seat, you control the legislature.

The lieutenant governor in Texas is more powerful than the governor on legislative policy.

But we have a candidate running for agriculture commissioner, and his name's Clayton Tucker.

And Clayton Tucker was the first one out the gate talking about how bad these data centers were.

And he's a goat farmer from out in Lampasas, and he's sick and tired of just regular folks getting steamrolled by governmental entities who've been bought and paid for by tech billionaires.

That's

Kendall Scudder is the chair.

Dallas has a world-class memory care clinic specializing in dementia, so it gives easier access and opportunities for a president who clearly has ailing health.

DFW is also home to more than 200 golf courses.

Given that President Trump has spent 37 percent of his presidency on vacation, this could actually give him something to do while he's here in Dallas.

Lastly, The president shares a lot of similarities to our mayor, Eric Johnson.

They both have great disrespect for their own wives and bulldoze public buildings that don't belong to them against the wishes of the public.

I'm sure that he'll have a great time here in one of the bluest cities in Texas, the economic engine of North Texas, a city built on Democratic policies in a state that was built by Democrats.

Legendary Texas Senator Ralph Yarbrough

But can we talk about the reduction in polling sites first? I mean, what is the impact that this will have on voters? And what is the party doing to try to make up the ground that they've lost in losing these polling sites?

Yeah, it's certainly concerning.

For those who don't remember, Tarrant County is where Taylor Ramet moved a state Senate district 31 points just January.

Tarrant County is the largest Republican county in the country.

And so this is Republicans in their last grasp on power there.

They know that they're in trouble, that people locally there have woken up and, and realize that what they're selling is a complete scam.

And so they're going to do everything they can instead of making their ideas better to earn votes, to shut down polling locations and make it harder for people to cast votes.

Is the inverse of that that you guys are feeling really good? I mean, what is the vibe check that you see on the Texas Senate race?

What are you doing with this? Are you doubling down on younger voters? If so, how? Or are you trying to find a way to reach out to those folks that are over 50 in the state of Texas?

Young people are a pretty crucial part of our coalition.

I mean, as young person, I'll tell you, it's very frustrating that we have grown up in a government that has been broken, by and large.

Folks younger than me don't really know a government that is functional.

When they see a candidate like James Tallarico that's talking not about, you know, building gold-plated ballrooms, but is instead talking about how to solve the problems that they're facing in their day-to-day life, the fact that they can't purchase a home like their parents did, that they're up to their eyeballs in student loan debt, following all the rules we were told to follow, that our young families can't afford to put soccer cleats on their kiddos.

Are you prepping for if you do win, are you prepping for Texas officials or the president of the United States trying to do something to stop Tallarico from being seeded?

We aren't only worried about the Telerico race, we're worried about every race on our ballot in Texas because we know how they play whenever they don't get their way.

And so we're building the largest voter protection team that Texas has ever had.

Where where are you on that spectrum and looking at this socialist phenomenon in your party?

Well, I think that there's a lot of misconceptions about what DSA folks are, which I think drives a lot of this kind of fear tactics around it.

I'll remind people, we've had a DSA president before, okay? It was Franklin Roosevelt.

And so my point being that they're acting like it's the end of the world if the progressives have an opportunity to win.

And the truth is, what they are motivated by is trying to make sure poor people are taken care of.

And you may disagree with how to get there or what they're doing, but it doesn't make me terrified when I wake up in the morning.

I just don't always agree with everything they're talking about.

What do you think? How'd Beto get that close in 2018?

How are you seeing this race tonight?

Yeah, I mean, the reality is that this George W. Bush Republican infrastructure in Texas is dead.

And John Cornyn was a creature of that.

He sold out every inch of his integrity to coddle to Donald Trump.

And he's left alone in a really sad room with nothing but reporters on election night.

I mean, he the fact that these Republicans refuse to stand up to a man that will sell them out in a quick minute, it's just shocking.

And so here we are.

What say you?

What's your opening argument?

I think that we prosecute this one the same way we did Senate District 9 a month ago, where we overperformed by 31 points.

It's one thing for the Democratic Party to constantly point to the Republicans and say that they're doing things wrong.

It's another thing to actually stand for something and that we as a party have an obligation to present to the voters of Texas that we are worth showing up and voting for.

That we're going to talk not just about preserving your social security, but expanding your social security.

That we're not going to fight to make sure you get to see a doctor when you're sick.

We're going to fight to make sure you get to see a doctor before you get sick.

Talk to us a little bit about the infrastructure and why you think you are you all are positioned to do well this coming November and potentially make Texas look a little bit more purple.

Mm.

That's why we've been pushing people to vote early as best we can.

But I do believe that this will continue.

I think this trend could potentially hold.

But I mean, look at what the Republicans have on their side.

No one in Texas' life is better off since John Cornyn got elected to office in the '90s.

Ken Paxton, certified garbage person, and I can't even start to tell you what, what's up with Wesley Hunt, 'cause the guy doesn't even show up to work.

[laughs]

Trump says he won that state by a lot, but he actually didn't.

Right.

So in Texas, we are a majority minority state.

White folks are not even the plurality.

Hispanic folks are the plurality in Texas.

So when you think of a Texan, a lot of people think of me, some guy with a thick accent, usually wears big hats, a belt buckle, walks around saying, "Howdy, partner." That's not the average Texan.

The average Texan is actually a 40-year-old Latina.

Talk us through the Paxton impeachment and where big crazy oil money comes into play.

Talk about the difference.

I, I don't, I think it's shocking to me that they're so hypocritical on this topic.

Uh, what we're telling you right now and hopefully shining a spotlight on is how what we need in this country is federal non-partisan redistricting committees.

We as Democrats are tired of being the only adults in the room.

We, where we're putting these non-partisan redistricting committees in place in places like California to our own disadvantage, uh, and acting like that is gonna somehow solve this problem.

I think that these Democratic governors in these blue states need to start carving their states up and bring these Republicans to heel so that they end up going to DC and begging us to sign on to non-partisan redistricting committees for the country, because that's what we want, that's what we think would help and save this republic.

Uh, but they're not gonna do that.

But I've been talking with a family member of mine about the crisis in rural healthcare for about a decade now.Can you talk about, in real me- in real terms, about, about the parents that, that are going to have to drive 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 more miles to receive care? About, about kids in the state of Texas, uh, that don't live in big cities, uh, that don't live in Dallas or Houston? Um, what's gonna happen to their healthcare when 30 to 40% of all children in Texas and across America get their primary healthcare from Medicaid? What are these cuts going to do to rural healthcare across America?

So tell me, what is the reaction from you and your colleagues? What consequences are you prepared to withstand if the governor goes through with those threats?

Oh, Greg Abbott is just looking at Donald Trump and saying, "I learned it from you, Dad." He's, he's being a wannabe authoritarian.

Let's make no mistake about what's actually happening right now.

What's actually happening is Republicans are doing everything that they can to avoid accountability for their actions.

This special session was supposed to be about flood relief.

137 Texans are dead.

They've had one hearing on flood relief.

When you see national democrats like the governors of New York and Illinois, Kathy Hochul, J.B. Pritzker, talking about Democrats fighting fire with fire using some of these same t- tactics when it comes to redistricting, do you think the Democratic voters will stand for that or do they view that as simply doing what the other side is doing?

Is that gonna happen again? What are you doing to prevent it?

It's a really tough thing to do to break quorum.

For those who aren't familiar, quorum basically is the number of people who have to be present in order for you to conduct business.

So in Texas, you have 150 people in the legislature.

100 people have to be there for you to conduct business.

So as long as 51 people are gone, it brings business to a halt.

But in order to be gone, you have to not be in the state.

Given how few are controlled by Democrats, what's your concern here?

Why do they even have to have... (laughs) Yeah.

... decision, they made a systemic decision that they were going to prioritize courts.

It was a very smart thing for them to do if they're trying to perpetuate fascism, 'cause nobody was there to stop 'em.

And so now that they have all these judges in their pockets that owe more to Donald Trump than they do to the people that they're supposed to be serving, um, I mean, it- it puts people who care about democracy and who care about, you know, the rule of law in a really bad spot.

So, I mean, this is, this is terrifying.

We can stop it, it's just going to be very, very uncomfortable and there's a lot of procedural mechanisms that we'll have to go through.

Um, you know, I personally didn't want our Democrats to even show up to this special session.

(laughs)