Transcript: Fox Drops Brutal Poll on Trump as GOP Panics: “Wake Up!”

As the Trump-GOP position worsens, a political theorist explains why Trump-MAGA’s corrupt and depraved misrule has created space for a values-based Democratic politics to emerge.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 5 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

A new Fox News poll finds James Talarico up seven points over Ken Paxton in Texas. It’s such a shocker that it induced Fox figures to panic right on the air. But what’s striking about this poll is what it says about Trump and Republicans, and how Texas captures what’s happening with the MAGA movement as Trump sunsets. Also telling is how this comes as Republicans are moving around their Senate spending in ways that reveal what they think of their own plight at this very moment.

We’re talking about all of it with political theorist Alan Elrod, who had a great piece for Liberal Currents on Texas Republicans as representative of the Trump-era GOP. Alan, great to have you on.

Alan Elrod: Good to be back.

Sargent: So the new Fox poll finds Talarico up by seven points among registered voters in Texas, 53 to 46, and up two points among likely voters, 51 to 49. I think his lead is probably somewhere in the middle there. But critically, the Fox poll finds Trump’s approval at 44 percent to 55 percent disapproving.

He’s eleven points underwater in a state he carried by 14 points only two years ago. Alan, you have some experience with Texas personally. How surprising is that Fox finding?

Elrod: Yeah, it’s true, my wife is a Texan. She’s from Fort Worth. You know, I think the interesting thing about the finding is that it points at a number of the groups that are frustrated with the second Trump administration, right? Texas does have a lot of Latinos who are jilted—some of them who voted for Trump, some of them who didn’t, but a lot of whom are very frustrated on immigration.

It has a lot of conservative Christians, but there’s also a lot of moderate and progressive Christians in Texas who are angry with Trump for different reasons. And then there’s just the, I think, broader problem of the Texas GOP and some of its candidate selection issues that gloms onto Texas politics in general at the moment.

Sargent: Well, those non-MAGA Christians are going to loom large in this discussion, so let’s put a pin in that. Fox anchor Ainsley Earhardt was so shocked by these findings. Listen to this exchange between her and Fox contributor Clay Travis.

Ainsley Earhardt (voiceover): If you look at that Fox News poll, he’s ahead by seven points in the state of Texas. How is that possible?

Clay Travis (voiceover): Texans have to wake up. I think sometimes when you have seen Republicans win for generations, a lot of people out there just don’t think at all that Democrats are capable of winning in the state. Now, I watch a lot of football, I watch a lot of sports. Every single game that I am watching, I am seeing Republican ads dominating. I think that Republicans have held their proverbial, you know, cash until the last moment, and they now are delivering overwhelming amounts of dollars into the playing field.

Sargent: Alan, note how she says, how on earth can this be happening? And the answer she gets back is, don’t worry, Republican money will bail out Paxton. All that cash going to ads to reach the football demographic. Like, those are the people who should be there for Republicans, but really need to be re-energized behind Trump and today’s Texas GOP. I thought that was telling. What do you think?

Elrod: So I don’t want to pretend that I have no fear of big spending close to the election, but Travis is just avoiding the key problem, which is Paxton. The problem is Paxton. Paxton is a terrible candidate. He’s hated by a lot of people in his own party. I mean, 60 members of his own party voted to impeach him a few years ago. So we’re not talking about a guy that is beloved across the state.

And so, you know, when we look at this, I think one of the encouraging signs is, hey, actually, you can find candidates that are so bad, and on the other side you can find candidates that are so kind of perfectly built for the moment, that you can put those things together and get a potential big win in a state like Texas.

Now, we’re not there yet, right? Signs and polls don’t vote. But what we’re seeing is that candidates still do matter sometimes, and we’re getting good indicators that it is important that the Democrats nominated Talarico, and it is relevant that the Republicans nominated Paxton.

Sargent: Yeah, I mean, this race is on a knife’s edge, let’s face it. And the money is going to be a big deal. They’re going to put a lot of money in there. But let’s talk about Paxton and the Republican Party. He’s sort of like the perfect exemplar of the Texas GOP. And in order to set up the rest of this discussion, let’s talk about what the Texas Republican Party........

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