James Henson and Joshua Blank join the response to the much-discussed memo from Ragnar Research's Chris Perkins on signs of sagging participation among Republican primary voters in Texas, and make some connections with the shifting politics of immigration and border security in the Texas GOP.
VIDEO
This episode was engineered by Lucas Toussaint and mixed by Nathan Crews.
References in the pod
Ragnar Research Partners, "Analysis of Republican Voters Not Participating in the 2026 Texas Primaries" 11 May 2026
Alejandro Serrano, "For Texas GOP, immigration politics show signs of fading potency," The Texas Tribune, 13 May 2026
Senate Race Polling Reveals Republican Turnout Challenges (Henson and Blank)
Sign up for the Texas Politics Newsletter
Stay up to date on the latest polling results, analysis, events, and more from the Texas Politics Project.
Republishing Guidelines
We encourage you to republish our content, but ask that you follow these guidelines.
1. Publish the author or authors' name(s) and the title as written on the original column, and give credit to the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin (and, if possible, a link back to texaspolitics.utexas.edu, or to the specific subpage where the content resides).
2. Don't change the column in any way.
3. You can republish any multimedia (including, photos, videos, audio, or graphics) as long as you give proper attribution (either to the Texas Politics Project, if not already included in the media, and to the media's author).
4. Don't resell the column
5. Feel free to publish it on a page surrounded by ads you've already sold, but don't sell ads against the column.
6. If we send you a request to change or remove our content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
If you have any questions, feel free to email us at texaspolitics@laits.utexas.edu
