WILD Midterm Ads! Libertarian Votes and the Mistresses of JFK (with Andrew Heaton and Laurence Leamer)

About this episode

I drove from Austin to Waco along I-35, one of the most heavily traveled corridors in Texas, and James Talarico is dominating the billboard game. I don’t love the billboards themselves because the text is too small to read safely from a distance, but the themes are smart and clear: Talarico will protect healthcare, and Talarico will lower costs. One is the issue of the day — affordability — and the other is an issue Democrats are generally trusted on. Ken Paxton was almost nonexistent. The biggest Republican billboard I saw looked like something a random person had purchased: “Democrats now support communism, and Republicans don’t.” That belongs more on your uncle’s Facebook page than a gigantic roadside billboard. I don’t know how much billboards matter, but when these campaigns and their super PACs are spending roughly half a billion dollars, it’s worth noting that one side is buying more of them. Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The obvious Republican voters I met in Waco knew Paxton, had been in rooms with him, and didn’t like him. They were Cornyn voters an