Choosin' Texas with Bobby Pulido

The hosts of Pod Save America recorded this episode live in Austin, Texas, at the Texas Tribune Festival, and they came armed with a simple message for the national Democratic donor class: "This is a generational opportunity to win Texas." But the episode is less a single thesis than a tour of a political map that is suddenly, unexpectedly, alive. From the Senate race to the governor’s mansion to a handful of competitive House districts, the conversation covers a state where Republicans are dumping record sums of money to defend incumbents that voters already seem to have judged — and where Democrats are, for the first time in a generation, running campaigns built to win, not just to lose by less.

Trump's "Deep Red State Tour" and the Senate Money War

The episode opens with a telling detail: Donald Trump is planning trips to Alabama and Oklahoma but has no plans to return to Texas before Election Day. Dan Pfeiffer calls this a strategy of containment — the party is steering him into the "least damaging places possible," which happen to be states where there are no competitive races. But even that carries risk: Trump is going to Alabama’s 2nd district, a majority-minority seat represented by Democrat Shomari Figures, where a poor performance could do real harm to Republican candidates.