CSPAN - Washington Journal David Weigel
Aired: 2026-03-03
Duration: 15:57


=== Republican Race Dynamics (11:19) ===

[00:00:00]  Really encouraging conversations with Democrats and Republicans.
[00:00:04]  We'll continue bringing you updates as we get them here on the C-SPAN networks.
[00:00:12]  Tonight, kicks off C-SPAN's campaign 2026 primary coverage.
[00:00:17]  Live across the C-SPAN networks.
[00:00:19]  First up, North Carolina and Arkansas.
[00:00:22]  But all eyes are on Texas.
[00:00:24]  The Lone Star State could decide the balance of power in Washington, shaping control of the U.S. Senate and influencing redistricting battles that could redraw America's political map for years to come.
[00:00:36]  We'll also bring you high-stakes House and Governor's races across all three states.
[00:00:40]  Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.
[00:00:44]  Watch as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas head to the polls.
[00:00:49]  Primary night on the C-SPAN networks.
[00:00:52]  Every moment, every result, every speech.
[00:00:55]  C-SPAN bringing you democracy unfiltered.
[00:01:00]  Welcome back to Washington Journal.
[00:01:02]  We are talking about the 2026 primary election season.
[00:01:06]  It begins today with primary elections in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
[00:01:11]  And we're joined by David Weigel, who is politics reporter at Semaphore.
[00:01:15]  Dave, welcome to the program.
[00:01:17]  Good to be here.
[00:01:17]  Thank you.
[00:01:18]  Let's start with Texas.
[00:01:19]  And let's start with the Democrats.
[00:01:21]  We've got Representative Jasmine Crockett and State Representative James Tallarico.
[00:01:26]  Yes, this is a very high turnout Democratic race.
[00:01:29]  They're probably breaking turnout records by the end of the process.
[00:01:32]  They beat Republicans in turnout.
[00:01:34]  Now, obviously, Texans could just go to the polls and choose which party they're voting in.
[00:01:37]  And Tallarico got in fairly early, built a national reputation as a religious Democrat, very progressive, but religious, comfortable talking about his faith, popular with podcasters, popular with magazine profilers.
[00:01:48]  Jasmine Crockett got in the race the final day of filing with some goating from Republicans.
[00:01:53]  And if you covered both candidates on the trail, Crockett's argument is that Republicans, one, are more afraid of her.
[00:01:59]  She's more combative.
[00:02:00]  She has viral moments where she humbles Republicans in hearings or says very memorable things.
[00:02:06]  I was covering her and people had t-shirts with some of her sayings on them.
[00:02:10]  Whereas Tallarico, his argument is not that he's not a pure Democrat progressive, it's that he can reach across state aisle to more Republican voters and convince them that at this moment with this president, the election is a choice of up and down, not a partisan choice between Republican and Democrat.
[00:02:25]  What do you mean she got in by goating by Republicans?
[00:02:28]  Do they want her in the race?
[00:02:30]  That's an important part of the story is that the National Republican Senatorial Committee took a poll last year, months before the filing deadline, that found she would beat any Democrat in a primary.
[00:02:43]  She would lead at least any Democrat in a primary.
[00:02:45]  Crockett had her own numbers and was tempted to enter the race because she has been rising very quickly.
[00:02:50]  She was elected state rep in 2020.
[00:02:52]  She's elected to Congress in 2022.
[00:02:54]  And she becomes one of the most well-known members of the House from her work and oversight hearing.
[00:02:59]  She has more than 2 million followers on TikTok.
[00:03:02]  She draws huge crowds.
[00:03:03]  And I saw this on the trail.
[00:03:04]  She would announce an event late Thursday evening.
[00:03:08]  By Friday morning, there'd be 200 people out to see her.
[00:03:10]  A very passionate fan base.
[00:03:12]  And she saw that.
[00:03:13]  She saw that reflection.
[00:03:13]  She's also argued she has the loyal Democratic base.
[00:03:17]  She's a black woman who's very supported by black women, by black men, by Latinas, by a lot of white progressives.
[00:03:24]  The Tallarico argument, again, is more, and it's not really ideological.
[00:03:27]  It's more about electability.
[00:03:28]  Tallarico saying, I'm also progressive, but I'm not somebody that Republicans would prefer to run against because I'm less combative.
[00:03:36]  I can maybe appeal to your neighbor who stopped listening to Democrats because I talk differently to them.
[00:03:41]  But in Crockett's telling, Republicans are more, whatever they're doing, whatever money they're spending, they're more worried to run against her.
[00:03:48]  And I found that from her voters who think if she is in the race, if she's on the debate stage, she's going to steamroll the Republicans.
[00:03:53]  They don't think that of Tallerico.
[00:03:54]  I guess we should establish why do we care about the primary race in Texas.
[00:04:01]  So Texas had been moving since 2012 toward Democrats.
[00:04:06]  It moved back in the 2024 election, and that was a lot of lower turnout in some of the big cities in Texas and Republican gains in the Rio Grande Valley Latino areas there.
[00:04:18]  I wouldn't say fool's gold, but it's been a challenge for Democrats to get to even 48% of the vote in Texas.
[00:04:24]  Their hope this cycle is that, one, Trump is not going to hold those Latino voters he gained because of his immigration and NICE policies and because costs have not gone down, which was very appealing there.
[00:04:36]  And two, that they will have a new post-Biden approach.
[00:04:40]  They're not encumbered by the policy of the administration.
[00:04:42]  That there are going to be voters who do want to check on the president.
[00:04:45]  The turnout will be different with Trump on the ballot.
[00:04:47]  This is going to be the first election where he's president, he's endorsing people, but he's not driving turnout in the same way.
[00:04:55]  So there's a lot of money behind Tallarico, a lot of national interest.
[00:04:58]  There are Democrats certainly who say, we've heard this before.
[00:05:00]  We heard Beto Arorca do this.
[00:05:02]  We heard that Hillary could compete in Texas.
[00:05:04]  But there is more optimism, and you do see this in a lot of the suburbs that Republicans have redrawn in congressional maps.
[00:05:10]  You saw high Democratic turnout in places that were Republican just 10 years ago.
[00:05:14]  How much of that is frustration with whether Donald Trump has delivered on his agenda.
[00:05:19]  And before we switch to the Republicans, how far apart are Tallarico and Crockett on issues?
[00:05:26]  They're not very far apart.
[00:05:28]  Again, it's not been a progressive versus moderate race.
[00:05:31]  It's more style over substance?
[00:05:33]  Yeah, that's one way to put it.
[00:05:34]  It's much more about their style and their approach.
[00:05:37]  And they have this has been manifested in their supporters.
[00:05:42]  Crockett supporters believe that Tallarico is too compromising.
[00:05:46]  He will criticize the Biden administration, say Biden failed on the border.
[00:05:50]  Crockett is a much more loyal Democrat.
[00:05:51]  Crockett is one of the arguments you'll see her make on the trail is that voters voted for a felon.
[00:05:58]  Kamala Harris was more qualified than Donald Trump.
[00:06:00]  It's ridiculous that he won.
[00:06:02]  The Tallarico argument is more, well, no, voters have chosen Donald Trump several times, and we as a party need to adjust to why that is.
[00:06:08]  So it's much more style in how they reach out to people.
[00:06:10]  And talking to Tallarico's voters, I found a lot who said that their relatives were sharing memes or asking them how they can be a Christian and a Democrat.
[00:06:20]  They haven't talked to them in years.
[00:06:22]  And this is something he appeals to a lot.
[00:06:24]  He talks about even the fight over the Super Bowl halftime show and says the country has gotten very divided because of culture wars driven by billionaire company owners.
[00:06:34]  Whereas her argument is more that Donald Trump is corrupt and he's been leading a corrupt administration and Democrats need to passionately go and prove to voters that that's the case.
[00:06:42]  They're very different electoral arguments.
[00:06:44]  They're not really different on policy.
[00:06:45]  So let's talk about the Republican race.
[00:06:48]  Donald Trump, President Trump has not endorsed.
[00:06:51]  He has not endorsed.
[00:06:52]  And there are three candidates running.
[00:06:54]  They all canceled their schedules to be with Trump on Friday.
[00:06:56]  He didn't really do anything for the candidates.
[00:06:59]  They showed up.
[00:06:59]  But there's Senator John Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term.
[00:07:02]  It would end when he's celebrating his 80th birthday if he wins it.
[00:07:06]  And Ken Paxton, the Attorney General, who is a reliable Trump ally, which has helped, he was the leader of the state AG's effort to overturn the 2020 election unsuccessfully.
[00:07:20]  Paxton has run against Cornyn as a disloyal Republican who has not been, who did not want Trump to run again in 2024.
[00:07:28]  He's criticized some of the compromises he's made with Democrats.
[00:07:32]  There's an ad where he points out that Cornyn has worked with Crockett.
[00:07:36]  And Crockett will point this out, that she could actually work across the aisle sometimes.
[00:07:38]  In Paxton's view, we're a red state.
[00:07:40]  We're a pro-Trump state.
[00:07:42]  You need a loyal senator who's going to work with the president.
[00:07:45]  There's also Wesley Hunt, the congressman from the Houston area, in the race.
[00:07:49]  His argument is that unlike Ken Paxton, who was impeached and survived in the Texas State Senate, who is an affair that he had an affair that he did not deny, Wesley Hunt's argument is that I'm an upstanding citizen and a veteran and a man of faith who is a loyal Trump Republican.
[00:08:05]  And Republicans have spent more money in this Texas Senate race than any to defend John Cornyn, more than $80 million.
[00:08:12]  It started with ads defending Cornyn and attacking Paxton.
[00:08:15]  They ran some at the end attacking Hunt just as somebody who doesn't show up and support the Trump agenda.
[00:08:21]  They want a runoff, which would be 10 weeks, where, well, they want to win.
[00:08:25]  But what is more likely is that they would get a runoff between Cornyn and Paxton.
[00:08:29]  Would Trump weigh in on that?
[00:08:31]  And this is a factor throughout every Texas race we're talking about that's competitive.
[00:08:35]  The key factor is did Donald Trump endorse you or not?
[00:08:37]  Have you said something in the past or cast a vote in the past that was anti-Trump?
[00:08:42]  If that's the case, then you're in trouble.
[00:08:44]  What did Mr. Raxton get impeached for?
[00:08:47]  He had staff that claimed that he was, it's very technically get all the details, but staff that claimed he was basically taking bribes.
[00:08:59]  It was unrelated to his barrel situation, but he was indicted in Travis County, Liberal County where Dallas is, throughout his tenure.
[00:09:08]  He's elected in 2014, and he is embroiled by scandal.
[00:09:11]  He almost loses his reelection in 2018.
[00:09:13]  But basically, he had staff leave his office, turn on him, and said he was corrupt.
[00:09:17]  Republicans, enough Republicans in the state House agreed with that.
[00:09:22]  A lot of the Republicans who voted to impeach him over these bribery allegations from former staff lost their primaries in 2024 because Paxton campaigned against them.
[00:09:31]  And so Paxton's very confident, his supporters are very confident that the base believes that allegations made against him by whoever they were are just like allegations made against Donald Trump.
[00:09:40]  If you're Republican, that means they're not real.
[00:09:43]  That he is so effective and he's so conservative and he's so MAGA that people are making stuff up about him.
[00:09:47]  Is that what the record shows?
[00:09:48]  Not really, but that is a consistent thing I heard from Republicans in Texas.
[00:09:52]  Trump vouched for this guy, not in this race, but he's endorsed him before.
[00:09:54]  He fought for Trump when it was hard.
[00:09:56]  Therefore, I don't believe anything the establishment, quote-unquote, says about him.
[00:10:00]  Dave Weigel is in the studio with us from Semaphore, and he is answering your questions about the primary season.
[00:10:06]  We want to hear from you.
[00:10:07]  You can go ahead and call us.
[00:10:08]  Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000.
[00:10:11]  Republicans, 202, 748, 8,001.
[00:10:14]  And Independents 202, 748, 8,002.
[00:10:17]  Especially if you're in those states that are holding primaries and you want to share with us how you're feeling about that, please do call us and let us know.
[00:10:24]  So the primary in Texas is open, so you don't have to declare whether you're a Democrat or a Republican ahead of time.
[00:10:33]  How does that work?
[00:10:33]  Yeah, it's not a party registration state.
[00:10:35]  You show up and say, I want a Republican ballot, I want a Democratic ballot.
[00:10:38]  And so that is something that Republicans have sounded the alarm about in the last week to drive up their own turnout.
[00:10:44]  That a lot of people who have not voted Democratic recently or ever are definitely showing up and voting in the Tallarico Crockett race.
[00:10:51]  Now, there's some down ballot races, but that is the competitive one.
[00:10:57]  The worry for some of Cornyn's supporters is that there might be people who'd be inclined to vote for the senator.
[00:11:02]  It's not that he's a moderate, but that's somebody that they know, somebody who has resisted Trump just a little bit, although he runs on how he's voted with them almost 100% of the time, that they might cast a ballot for a Democrat today, then they're not going to be around if there's a runoff in May to bail out Cornyn.

=== Open Primary Battle (04:37) ===

[00:11:19]  And you mentioned this about the amount of money being spent on these races.
[00:11:23]  What are we looking at?
[00:11:24]  Oh, it's historic.
[00:11:25]  It's more than $100 million for all Republicans in the Republican primary.
[00:11:30]  Cornyn has vastly outspent.
[00:11:32]  It's PACs in D.C., basically Senate leadership PACs that have been supporting Cornyn, Zone PAC, that are on the air consistently.
[00:11:42]  There is less money for Paxton.
[00:11:44]  There's less money for Hunt.
[00:11:46]  Hun has some supporters who funded very early ass, before he got in the race, just trying to build his name idea up statewide.
[00:11:52]  But this is a frustration for conservatives around the country that they're not right now, are they worried they're going to lose the Senate?
[00:11:59]  Not that much.
[00:11:59]  But every dollar spent in Texas, where they have not lost a Senate race since the 1990s is a dollar that didn't get spent in Michigan, didn't get spent in Alaska, where there's a strong Democratic candidate.
[00:12:09]  The most that Republicans have ever spent in a Senate primary, they have spent in Texas, which find a map of the media market.
[00:12:17]  It is very expensive to run any kind of race in Texas, and no senator has had to do this much in a primary to bail himself out.
[00:12:25]  All right, so let's talk about, there's also primaries in North Carolina, Arkansas.
[00:12:29]  Anything specific you're looking at there?
[00:12:31]  Well, in North Carolina, there is a rematch between in the Durham area, the 4th district.
[00:12:37]  Republicans drew gerrymandered seats, safe seats for Democrats.
[00:12:41]  The one around Duke University, Durham, has been represented since 2022 by Valerie Fouché, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
[00:12:49]  She won in 2022 against Nida Alam, who is a Durham County Commissioner, much more progressive, a younger Muslim woman.
[00:12:57]  In that race, pro-Israel groups, APAC, and PACs that it created funded, helped Fouché a lot, and she won by single digits.
[00:13:05]  Alam got back into this race because, I wouldn't say because, but with more of an angle because Democratic support for Israel since the war in Gaza began in 2023 has collapsed.
[00:13:17]  It's collapsed with all Democrats in this district.
[00:13:19]  This is a combination of African-American voters and highly educated white liberals, Asian voters in the Durham area.
[00:13:28]  It is no longer popular to be a supporter of Israel and whatever it does.
[00:13:31]  And Fouché said earlier in the campaign, yes, she had supported, she had taken APAC support in the past.
[00:13:38]  She won't anymore.
[00:13:39]  She's co-sponsored the Block the Bombs Act in the Congress to limit aid to Israel.
[00:13:44]  She was not getting support from pro-Israel groups until the very end of this race.
[00:13:48]  Alam's also been running against data centers, and Fouché has been getting support, crucial support, millions of dollars from pro-AI PACs, which have been intervening in some primaries so far.
[00:13:59]  Bernie Sanders adorsed Alam, as he did the last time.
[00:14:02]  So it's a progressive race versus a not a not a moderate, not a right-wing Democrat, but a Democrat who was not out there early against AI and against funding for Israel.
[00:14:13]  And that has definitely tightened.
[00:14:14]  Progressive groups took that as an offensive opportunity.
[00:14:18]  There's a new PAC that's meant to be sort of an antidote to AIPAC that went in for Alam early.
[00:14:24]  The sense there is that Alam came on very strong, and Fouché has needed help to even this out.
[00:14:32]  But there is concern that just in New Jersey, where progressives won Mackie Sherrill's open seat in a very divided primary, that one, the energy of Democratic voters is against funding for Israel.
[00:14:46]  And two, that progressive voters are angry that the party is not fighting harder.
[00:14:53]  Fouché is not as visible a member of Congress in terms of being on TV, in terms of fighting Trump, in terms of having key moments, casting memorable votes.
[00:15:02]  Alam her final ad, which she ran yesterday, she cut in her home on Sunday, put it on TV immediately, is saying she's against the war in Iran.
[00:15:10]  Fouché was slower to say that she is against what the administration is doing in Iran.
[00:15:14]  So it's a combination of the Israel and AI issues, but also this theme we're seeing among Democrats of do you fight hard enough.
[00:15:21]  Let's talk to Alan, Cincinnati, Ohio, line for Democrats.
[00:15:24]  You're on with Dave Weigel, Alan.
[00:15:26]  Honey, Doom, retired military, retired attorney.
[00:15:29]  I like to see more military people get involved, The lawyers and things, because it seems like we have a lot of people in Congress that got there for whatever reason, because of affirmative action, or they just spent a lot of money.
[00:15:45]  It just seems like the people that spend the most money, millions and billions, they're the ones who win.
[00:15:50]  And again, we need to have everybody in our country serve in the military like these other countries do.