In this episode of “The Texan Explains,” General Audio Staffer Shreya Vaidhyanathan joins News Editor Isaiah Williams as they talk through the results of the Nov. 3 midterm elections and the impacts Texans will see in the coming months.
Narrated by Shreya Vaidhyanathan. Edited by Rhea Chowdhary. Cover photo by Makenna Morgan. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.
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Vaidhyanathan: We are coming off historic midterm elections in Texas. Democrats have won their first statewide election since 1994; Texans have their first Hispanic governor in Gina Hinojosa and Senator-elect James Talarico won by double digits on election night.
“The Texan Explains” is a weekly news podcast featuring reporters from the news department, explaining the biggest stories that are impacting students at the moment. In this episode, we’ll break down what happened this election cycle, and what it means for Texans. My name is Shreya Vaidhyanathan, and I’m a general audio staffer here at The Texan. I’m joined by Isaiah Williams, the news editor here at the Texan.
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Vaidhyanathan: Isaiah, thanks for joining me today.
Williams: Of course, Shreya, I’m always happy to be here.
Vaidhyanathan: For our listeners, we’re speaking on Wednesday, Nov. 4th: the day after election night.
Vaidhyanathan: Isaiah, Democrats seem to have swept every statewide race in Texas. What were the key reasons behind this upset of multiple longtime incumbents like Gov. Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick?
Williams: Yes, for the most part, it seems to be discontent with Republican incumbents, whether that be on the federal level or state level. You will see statewide executives in Texas; they all won by very similar margins, five to six percentage points, uh, with Rosenthal winning by seven and Talarico winning by, as you said earlier, double digits. That says to me, because they all won by very similar margins, that it was very similar things going through voters’ minds as they were voting for these candidates. So it seems to be more discontent with what was going on right now.
Vaidhyanathan: Let’s talk polls leading up to the election. Talarico won by 12 points last night, and Hinojosa and the rest of the statewide executives won by about five or six. But the polls we were seeing beforehand do not match those numbers. How’d they miss that?
Williams: For the most part, polls undercount the Democrats in the state. That could be due to a variety of factors. At this point, polling can change different weights based on different demographics, and it seems if there was some sort of undercounting, it seems that they weighted one demographic more highly than another demographic. That could be the reason. It could just be simple sampling errors. There are a lot of things that could feed into how the polls missed this.
Vaidhyanathan: I think a big topic of conversation was whether or not those downballot elections would swing the same way as what we were seeing at the very top. Speaking of Bo French specifically, he had some very controversial tweets about UT students about a month or two ago. His margins didn’t seem too different from the other statewide executives up and down. What does that mean for how the hot water he was in affected his election?
Williams: Yeah, what you’re talking about is, if results hold, Jon Rosenthal will have defeated Bo French by about seven points. Other statewide executives, with the exception of Senator-elect James Talarico’s, uh, election, were about five to six points. Rosenthal’s margin isn’t that different from the other statewide executives. And that tells me that voters weren’t voting against Bo French because he was Bo French. It was more they were voting against him because he was a Republican.
Vaidhyanathan: Why do you think this dramatic shift to electing Democrats happened in Texas this year?
Williams: Well, it’s impossible to talk about this election in Texas without talking about the results on the federal level. You’ve seen Democrats in the United States Senate take back at the very least seven seats. They could take back two more for their largest majority since, what, 2009? You’re looking at the U.S. House of Representatives, which, if it continues on the path that’s going right now, will also be one of Democrats’ largest majorities, uh, in the past couple of decades. A lot of this is going to be discontent with the federal administration and Donald Trump’s record level of unpopularity. But there is also a quality here of discontent with Republican incumbents, right? Longstanding Republican incumbents, Gov. Greg Abbott, who was running for his fourth term, had he won it, he would have been on track to be the longest-serving governor in the state’s history. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick also fell. There seemed to be a lot of discontent with these Republican incumbents, and they seem to have fallen by the wayside because of it.
[People cheering]
Vaidhyanathan: The energy on and around campus was absolutely palpable on election night. Many students celebrated at bars and on the roads as races started to get called for Democrats. Isaiah, what did you see from students on campus and just youth voter turnout in general leading up to the election?
Williams: The main thing I heard, uh, from my reporters about youth voter turnout was a lot of enthusiasm for voters turning out. In terms of what I heard after the election, once results were announced, much of it- much of it could be called shock and disbelief. I think there was a pretty good idea that Senator-elect James Talarico would defeat Ken Paxton. I don’t think anybody, whether they were, uh, professionals in the field or just people watching the race casually, uh, expected a statewide sweep to the degree that, uh, we saw. And so most of what we actually heard from students, the reporters who I sent out, was a lot of shock, uh, and a lot of surprise too. I mean, you have to remember for 99.9% of the students here at UT, the last time a Democrat was elected to statewide office was well before they were born. It was, I think, before James Talarico was born as well. And so when you think about this long-lasting Republican control of the state, it seems almost impossible to imagine that a Democrat would- would win election here.
Vaidhyanathan: What were the key issues that Texans were voting on this year?
Williams: The big one is going to be cost of living, uh, and affordability. It had been the main theme of the national campaign throughout the United States, coast to coast. Democrats were very consistent in their message of affordability. From that message spread a lot of other things, criticism of President Trump’s war in Iran, uh, and criticism of data center developments. It’s a big thing in rural Texas as well. Governor-elect Hinojosa was very particular in her campaigning against data centers and actually probably forced Abbott to take some action against data centers for political reasons, uh, in the last couple of months of his term.
Vaidhyanathan: Gearing up to these elections, Texas Republicans redrew multiple districts. From my understanding, they redrew five and they only flipped one seat in the five that they targeted. Can you talk to me about what vote they were counting on that didn’t show up for them?
Williams: Yeah, when it comes to redistricting, it was a little bit of, uh, a flaw of what they- it was a little bit of a flaw in their method. They had redistricted based on 2024 lines. In that election, they had done particularly well, especially among Hispanic voters. That coalition did not show up for them this time. You’ll see many of the seats that they lost, uh, seats that they lost and attempted to redistrict were across the (Rio Grande Valley). And so, it seems as though the Hispanic vote that they were counting on did not pull through for them, uh, on a U.S. Congress level. The state Senate redistricting that they had done in 2021, uh, seems to have allowed them to hold the state Senate for now. That’s going to be an interesting part of this next legislative session, whether, uh, Hinojosa calls, say, an emergency item to do redistricting again, if she believes that the congressional seats warrant that.
Vaidhyanathan: Speaking of the Texas (Legislature), (Democrats) are in control of the House, and Republicans maintain control of the Senate. What does that mean for January?
Williams: For one thing, Texas will be in divided government for the first time, in- I can’t even tell you how long. What that means is it will be exponentially more difficult for, uh, the Texas Legislature to pass any legislation. Remember in the 89th, 88th and 87th Legislatures, Republicans were able to get quite a few of their priority items passed. As of now, I would be shocked if they are able to get- if they are able to set their own priorities. Each chamber is going to change a little bit based on how these election results have gone.
If results continue in the way that they are going right now and Democrats retake the state House, um, they, the rules of the state house will prevent them from making too many changes to the structure of the state House. Obviously, Democrats will take committee chairs, but they will be expected to give some equitable measure of committee seats to Republicans, and the state House should proceed as it normally does. The leaders of the state house tend to have a lot less discretion and exercise a lot less discretion in enforcing the state House rules.
The Texas Senate gets particularly more, more interesting. Over the last 12 years, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had accrued near-unilateral power to pass things through the Texas Senate, and that is because Republicans in the Texas Senate, who held this majority, had allocated that power to him. There is now a Democratic Lieutenant Governor-elect, Vikki Goodwin, and the question is, well, will they allot her the same amount of power? They likely will not, and so what does that do to the dynamics of the state Senate? Because while the lieutenant governor does have some constitutional power to decide what happens in the state senate, most of their power is granted to them by Senate rules, which are voted on by a majority of state senators. Then there is also the question of what happens to the state Senate seats of the people who were just elected. Nathan Johnson is a state senator from Dallas. Sarah Eckhardt, the state senator from Austin. Johnson has been elected attorney general. Eckhart has been elected comptroller. The question is, will their special elections, as they will both need to resign their seats to take office, take place in time for them- for their constituents to have representation during the legislative session? The legislative session is the first 140 days, or- is 140 days from January to May. If their seats are not called for special election, not filled until March, their constituents could probably lose representation for about half of the session.
Vaidhyanathan: Democrats do have somewhat of an advantage here because of Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa being able to declare emergency items that limit the agenda of the Texas (Legislature) at the very beginning. What are her priorities? What do you think we’ll see her declare?
Williams: For reference, in those listening, the Texas Legislature is restricted for the first couple of days of a legislative session. They are not able to pass legislation, uh, that is not designated as an emergency item by the governor. For the most part, emergency items by the governor actually do not translate into legislation happening within the first 60 days of a legislative session. Emergency items are used more for the bully pulpit to bring attention to issues, uh, and to show off what the governor’s priorities are. However, with that being said, you are correct. That does give Hinojosa a pretty substantial advantage in setting what the agenda of the Texas Legislature is going to be.
Vaidhyanathan: A lot of Democrats in Texas and nationwide were running on an anti-Trump, anti-Republican platform. That includes Governor-elect Hinojosa. Her platform emphasized public education and affordability and anti-data centers. But what else do you think we’ll see from her?
Williams: We’re going to see a lot of appointments. The governor in Texas, constitutionally, is written to be quite a weak position, especially when compared to other governors across the United States. Now, they’ve developed a lot of power over the last couple of decades as the Legislature has granted it to them through the creation of various state agencies appointed by the executive. The next big thing that we could see from Hinojosa is who she decides to appoint to various state agencies. When we’re thinking about UT specifically, there are three seats of the UT System Board of Regents that will be- whose terms will elapse within her tenure. She will have the ability to, with the advice and consent of the Texas Senate, appoint their replacements. That includes Chairman Kevin Eltife, one of the leaders of the UT System Board of Regents.
And so, we’re going to see Hinojosa exercise her power mainly through who she appoints to head up these state agencies. Abbott had been able to accrue a lot of power because of his tenure. He had appointed or reappointed nearly every state agency head, uh, in Texas. I cannot name any state agency head who had not been appointed, uh, or reappointed by Abbott, who is currently in office. Time will tell if Hinojosa will be able to exercise the large amount of executive power that Abbott has been able to exercise over the last couple of years. Much of that will depend on how long she stays in office.
I hate to look towards another election while we’ve just finished with this one, but much of her power will be proportionate to whether she will be able to win re-election in 2030.
Vaidhyanathan: I’m glad we’re talking about UT. Like you mentioned, the UT (System Board of) Regents, for listeners who don’t know, there’s nine governor-appointed spots that must be confirmed by the Texas Senate. Like we said earlier, Texas Republicans maintained control of the Senate, and there are other appointments as well that have to be confirmed by them. So how much of Governor-elect Hinojosa’s power is limited by that?
Williams: It is only going to be limited for the first couple of months of 2027. When Hinojosa nominates people to positions that require advice and consent of the Texas Senate, uh, the Texas Senate can only rule on those things while it is in session. The Texas Senate, after the legislative session is over, cannot bring itself back into session, uh, in order to rule on Hinojosa’s appointments. So if Hinojosa decides, to say, uh, wait until the end of the legislative session, she could very easily just make some recess appointments, um, and they could serve until the next legislative session.
Vaidhyanathan: Moving forward with how UT students are going to really feel the changes of this election, what comes to mind first when you think of what changed in the (Legislature) and what affects students directly?
Williams: A couple of areas. When it comes to legislatures, the main thing that we talk about in the news department is funding. Now that James Talarico has made it to the United States Senate, part of his job and portfolio will be negotiating funding, uh, negotiating federal funding for various Texas projects. That includes UT grants and programs that fund UT grants. Very similar thing for the state House. Our new state house member, Montserrat Garibay, will also be in charge of negotiating some funding for the Austin area, including UT.
In terms of what it could change for students, we had talked about the UT System Board of Regents before, but a good amount of the UT administration had been at events hosted by the governor. We have Chris Del Conte, head of UT Athletics, on the record saying that he would support Gov. Abbott.
Jim Davis has done multiple events with Abbott in the past. Many of the members of the UT System Board of Regents were former Texas state representatives and they were Republicans and allies of the governor. Now, I would be shocked if Hinojosa went in and said, ‘you are all fired,’ but I’d have to imagine it creates some friction between the governor’s mansion, uh, and the (UT) Tower. Of course, that is speculation, but, you know, time will tell.
Vaidhyanathan: And then when we talk about funding for UT students, Greg Casar just got elected to Congress and you know this way better than I do, but he’ll be in charge of grants for UT. What does that mean and what does that look like in terms of funding on campus?
Williams: When you think about the way that Congress works, one of the ways that they deal-make and negotiate is that, uh, leaders of the parties will, uh, give funding for special projects in different house members’ districts in exchange for votes on certain topics.
Greg Casar will be able to leverage his experience, uh, and his vote in the U.S. Congress to get, um, money for Austin.
Vaidhyanathan: Moving back up to statewide executives, Sarah Eckhardt just won comptroller. Like you said, that leaves a vacancy in her Austin Senate office and, when she takes office in January, Travis County may have a special election.
This goes for other positions as well. What does that mean for constituents who won’t have representation when these winners take their statewide offices?
Williams: It’s all dependent really on the timing of their resignations.
Eckhardt’s race has been called. At this point, she faces, uh, a pretty clear- she faces a decision of whether to resign now or to resign in January when she takes office as the comptroller. If she resigns now, the governor’s office could start saying ‘special election’ quite soon, but there’s no guarantee that, uh, Gov. Greg Abbott, while the lame duck governor, uh, will set her seat’s election relatively soon.
I don’t know what the legal requirements are in terms of dates in which he needs to set, uh, the elections, but he has in the past for seats that he knows are going to be won by Democrats delayed, um, putting the special election on the calendar. If Eckhardt, uh, resigns closer to, uh, when she would be sworn in as comptroller, uh, Hinojosa would probably decide at what date to set the special election. And so, what probably needs to happen is Eckhardt needs to run the math and figure out when is the soonest that special election, uh, could be called given the circumstances.
It could result in a scenario where UT does not have representation in the state Senate for a large swath, uh, of the legislative session. Like I had said earlier about, uh, federal funding in Congress, it’s a very similar dynamic that goes on for state funding, uh, in the state Legislature. If UT doesn’t have somebody negotiating for it in the state Senate, yeah, that could impact how much funding that they get.
I would be shocked if funding for UT changes all too much, and it’s not as if Eckhardt won’t be in the budget negotiations as comptroller. She has so much power over budget estimates and whether the budget is certified or not.
Vaidhyanathan: Speaking of representation for Austinites, there are four Austin natives, or residents, at the top of the statewide ballot. How is this going to change the dynamics of the Democratic Party and the (Legislature) in general?
Williams: It’s very interesting because you’re right, the statewide executives and the U.S. Senate seats are dominated by Austin Democrats. It’s not as if Houston and Dallas don’t have their own representatives. Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson is a state senator from the Dallas area. Railroad Commissioner-elect Jon Rosenthal is a state representative from the Houston area. It’s not as if Dallas and Houston don’t have their, uh, their own representatives in the upper echelons of the Texas Democratic Party, but there is substantial weight now given to Austin Democrats, and I don’t know if this could create friction between Democrats from these different geographic areas. My gut tells me it probably won’t. There’s a whole new generation of Democrats, and it will be interesting to see how their personalities mesh at the top of Texas state government.
Vaidhyanathan: This massive set of switches from Republicans to Democrats is a whole different ballgame. One in particular, Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson is taking over Ken Paxton’s current office. That is going to change some legal opinions, it’s going to change the laws in the state. Talk to me about what we’re going to see.
Williams: For reference, the attorney general of the state of Texas is Texas’s chief legal officer. That means the attorney general has absolute discretion to determine the legal strategy of pretty much any state agency whenever they are sued or whenever they want to sue something else. What that means is that Nathan Johnson has a lot of discretion about how Texas is going to conduct itself in future lawsuits. The one that comes to mind immediately is the Texas Dream Act. Ken Paxton and the federal government had come to a court-sanctioned agreement, uh, about declaring the Texas Dream Act invalid. The Texas Dream Act had allowed undocumented students in Texas to get, uh, in-state tuition.
That law was determined to be null and void by an agreement between the federal government and the attorney general of Texas. What happens to that agreement over the next couple of years? Will Johnson attempt to pull out of that agreement? Will he continue the agreement? Can he pull out of the agreement? All of these are questions that are going to need to be answered and arbitrated over the next couple of years. And I’m not a lawyer so I don’t, uh, I can’t, uh, quite tell you what’s going to happen there.
Vaidhyanathan: Well it’s safe to say that the elections this year absolutely reshaped Texas politics. If you want listeners to take away one or two things from what we talked about today, what do you think they need to know?
Williams: I’ll say, remember that the elections happened yesterday. You know, take a moment, really grapple with what has happened here in Texas and what has happened across the United States, uh, and then look forward, right? This is one of the largest changes that we have had in generations. We have a lot more questions than answers and I would encourage listeners to remain engaged and remain informed because knowledge about politics should not end at Election Day. It should continue forward, so stay engaged.
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Vaidhyanathan: This is a production of The Daily Texan Audio Department. To listen to more podcasts or check out more coverage of the election, you can visit thedailytexan.com. That’s t-h-e-d-a-i-l-y-t-e-x-a-n-.-c-o-m. You can also follow us on Spotify at The Daily Texan Audio. Thanks for listening.
