Tell me about this evolution from your perspective as opposed to ours.

People in Texas are just really fed up with what's going on.

There are so many issues.

Dan Patrick helped pass the voucher scam last session, sending a billion dollars to private schools.

He's all about religion in our schools, doesn't believe in the separation of church and state.

He banned THC.

He isn't helping everyday Texans.

How do you convince those Republicans or independents who are going out and are sort of really they just can't bring themselves to vote for Ken Paxton? How do you get them to make sure they take a good look at you and say, vote for me while you're voting for James Tallarico?

Kind of get our viewers up to speed on why that seems to be a prevalent issue that you're hearing from constituents and others when you've been out there campaigning.

Yeah, so in the last legislative session, that was one of Dan Patrick's, the current Lieutenant Governor's main priority was to ban all THC products.

He strong-armed members in both the Senate and the House to get it passed.

A lot, you know, we had over 600 people come to the Capitol to testify against that bill, and a lot of them were veterans.

So again, Lieutenant Governor had to strong arm members.

It did pass into law.

Well, it landed on the governor's desk and the governor vetoed that bill, which you don't see Governor Abbott veto many of Dan Patrick's main priorities.

I mean, again, let our viewers know what it's been like serving in the legislature in the state of Texas like that for so long.

But will they be are they going through a realignment? Are they deciding we're going to stay home or we're going to not vote for these people, but vote for some people? And how does that fit with your campaign?

yeah every day i hear republicans saying that they are re-evaluating their stance you know rural republicans are re-evaluating their party because the republican party is not helping them right now i met with some ranchers the other day who one rancher in particular lost 87 head of cattle over the last few years He had reached out to Governor Abbott to see if he could get some help to pass a bill to help with their particular situation, which deals with chemicals coming from a neighboring property.

Unfortunately, he never heard back from Governor Abbott, and that infuriates him.

He nearly came to tears saying how difficult it is for ranchers to survive these days.

Of course, they're really unhappy with Trump, the tariffs bringing in beef from other countries.

You know, they're they're really reevaluating the Republican Party at this moment in time.

A couple of them that were in that meeting said they weren't sure if they could vote for Democrats, but they certainly weren't going to vote for Republicans this election cycle.

So what's your pitch to them? Do you think that you can improve the quality of life, the economic conditions that are in rural Texas, especially when you come to things like Medicaid expansion?

we're at the bottom right so give it to us

all right so we have the Texas Cares plan which is intended to make sure everybody has good health insurance we have five million Texans who currently don't have any health insurance so they put off going to the doctor they end up in the emergency room that's very expensive and we all end up paying for it so this plan will cover everybody it will expand Medicaid And it will bridge the gap for those people that don't qualify for Medicaid, but don't make enough to buy their own insurance.

And then everybody else.

So myself being a small business owner, it would help me even to be able to afford some really good quality health care.

Right now, we have good health care through the state, but everybody should have access to a good health plan.

Can we talk about that for a second?

Yeah, that's the other big issue I want to address.

We have the highest number of women who die in childbirth or postpartum.