WTW154: Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick and Vivek All Lost on the Same Night

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke, the Woke One! Dear God, it's so nice. I'm Thomas, that over there is Lydia, how you doing?

0:00:48 Lydia: Man, spoiler alert, I was going to have our man Steve Kornacki talk about like, like we could listen to that. We could listen. Okay, but let's, let's just, let's play that.

0:00:53 Thomas: Yeah, no one's heard yet. Breaking the news.

0:00:58 Lydia: Let's play that little clip so we can kind of get the feeling of what election night was like. I want to hear the clip because

0:01:05 Clip: Two, two, wow. Oh my

0:01:02 Thomas: Oh, we're going right away on the clip. I was just a super cut of him saying.

0:01:10 Lydia: Yeah.

0:01:09 Clip: Gosh. This one is like, this one is like shocking. You know this is a bit like, remember Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democrat who lost his seat out of nowhere in 2022? But this is, you know, wow. We have some major breaking news now. NBC News has just projected that James Tallarico has won the Senate seat. Folks.

0:01:26 Lydia: Yeah. He like keeps stopping so he can listen to the news come in.

0:01:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:01:36 Clip: Look at that.

0:01:38 Thomas: Look at that.

0:01:38 Clip: Do you see it folks? Wow. Wow. We've got... I'm listening.

0:01:50 Thomas: It just keeps stopping.

0:01:51 Lydia: He can't even focus.

0:01:52 Clip: They've called Chris Pappas, that's the folks on the next thing. Oh my gosh. Richard Hudson's going to lose.

0:01:52 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:03 Lydia: He's like talking on the side. Adam.

0:02:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:07 Clip: Wow. How many times am I going to say Wild Night because I'm seeing things I've never seen in this board before. Here's an example. Collin County.

0:02:16 Lydia: Amazing. Amazing.

0:02:17 Thomas: Perfect ending.

0:02:18 Lydia: Yeah, so if you guys haven't heard, I think we did pretty well. We did pretty well last night, you think? Yeah.

0:02:22 Thomas: The woke one. Wokeness one.

0:02:27 Lydia: Yeah, as we stand right now, you know, AP hasn't called every race.

0:02:30 Thomas: I'm trans.

0:02:32 Lydia: The Democrats have gained seven seats in the Senate, expected at least one more, maybe two, because wouldn't you know it, Mississippi might be going blue, which is insane.

0:02:43 Thomas: It is insane.

0:02:44 Lydia: Yeah, nobody expected that at all.

0:02:45 Thomas: I think that one, yeah, at this point, I think that one's maybe more solid than Alaska. Could

0:02:50 Lydia: I think so too actually. I think I want to say like the spread on that one's like 2,000 votes. It's not as much in Alaska. But could get both.

0:02:58 Thomas: Get neither and it would still be a good result, so that's, you know, that's good too.

0:03:00 Lydia: It'd be fine. Yeah, exactly. We'd be okay. We're at 54. We're solidly at 54. We could get 55 or 56. But no matter what, we're walking away with 54.

0:03:06 Thomas: Man, 56 is on the menu.

0:03:09 Lydia: Yeah, I know. In the house, we have 240 officially called, which is a gain of 30 seats.

0:03:10 Thomas: Crazy. Look like Woke's back on the menu, boys!

0:03:18 Lydia: I think we're expected to hit 255. Have you seen something more than that?

0:03:23 Thomas: I stopped counting.

0:03:24 Lydia: Yeah, that's fair. I mean, we're rich, you know, exactly.

0:03:26 Thomas: Once we got past 230, yeah, please,

0:03:30 Lydia: It's like probably what Elon does with his money.

0:03:30 Thomas: I can't count every house seat I have. I mean, come on.

0:03:35 Lydia: We've also gained five governorships so far. There's two outstanding, but they're...

0:03:38 Thomas: I have servants who do that kind of thing.

0:03:40 Lydia: They're both leaning Democrat, actually, both of the two outstanding governorships. Those are Alaska and Kansas. So we might have the governorships there as well. And things are flipping, obviously. You know, we're talking in states like Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, and obviously Texas.

0:03:45 Thomas: Outstanding.

0:04:00 Thomas: Also can name places.

0:04:02 Lydia: But what I thought would be really fun for this episode was spending a little bit of time going through some of the races and issues that touched on things that we covered in previous "Where There's Woke" episodes.

0:04:13 Thomas: Oh, keeping up with the, let's check in, let's check in with the previously covered topics, subjects.

0:04:14 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And before we dive in though, like just generally, how are you feeling from election night to now? Like just feeling good? Feeling riding that high?

0:04:28 Thomas: Yeah, I just can't, I may keep making the same point, but it's just like, I can't wait for this to be like, well, yeah, Trump just sucks. You know, before Trump won, it's, you know, oh my God, it's a reflection on, yeah, a mandate's reflection on trans people and sports is a reflection on all this stuff. And then now we'll see what it is, you know, be like, oh, well, you know, the economy. It's like, yeah, I think that was it last time too. It was the economy both times, actually.

0:04:41 Lydia: The mandate. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting. I've touched or like poked around a little bit on some right-wing media and seeing them talk about this, and maybe we'll have another episode where we can kind of dig into it more, but the Five got into it, like Gutfeld and Jesse Waters are like very, very different reactions. They're both very Disappointed and upset and stupid, but they're very different. And Jesse Waters is like, I don't think that's fair. Like he's, I don't know, it's very interesting.

0:05:13 Thomas: Really? Stupid. Like what?

0:05:22 Lydia: So just Gutfeld going off and being a comedian in quotes, I guess.

0:05:27 Thomas: In what way? I don't know what you're talking about.

0:05:29 Lydia: I guess, what to expect with the Democrats and what this all means and stuff.

0:05:31 Thomas: Like whose fault is, oh okay, I thought, I wasn't sure if it was like the blame game or the,

0:05:34 Lydia: And yeah. Yeah, I mean there have been been some infighting on that too, uh, I mean we'll see. I think that's gonna be a topic for another episode, but it probably is worth digging into a bit more and kind of exploring, because I personally, when there's infighting on the right, I love it. Burn each other down, like that's fine by me. So I don't know, I think it's an interesting thing. We saw the beginnings of that really with the Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro rift, some of the stuff that had been happening because of Israel. And I think divide is potentially deepening even more so because they're reeling after these incredible losses. But yeah, so I think maybe we take a break and then we'll get into Texas. I mean, like, excited to talk about Texas for once. Who would have thought?

0:06:22 Thomas: Yeah, isn't that crazy?

0:06:23 Lydia: Who would have thought?

0:06:24 Thomas: Isn't that crazy? I All right, yeah, let's take that break and then I can't wait to catch up with some of our, some of our best friends and closest relatives, not really, but some friends of the show. We'll take a break. Hey, support the show at patreon.com/wherethereswoke. I've got a great idea for a bonus this month. Can't wait to do it. You gotta, no, she doesn't know it. Uh, and you gotta get on patreon.com/wherethereswoke, hun.

0:06:39 Lydia: I don't even know it yet. Well,

0:06:45 Thomas: In order to, yeah, you will. That's right, better do it.

0:06:45 Lydia: I guess I'm going to have to do that. What are you talking about? I'm already on there. I'm a Wokey.

0:06:49 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. You're a Wokey. You, you too can be a Wokey. Skip the ads, get the goodies. Alright, we'll be right back.

0:07:00 Lydia: All right, we're going to start with the one that Steve Kornacki's clip spoiled for us. James Tallarico the Senate seat in Texas. We talked about James Tallarico specifically on WTW 135. This was where we explored all of the ads that he had been facing.

0:07:20 Lydia: Called him gay, like right-wing media. I think it was Media Matters did an entire analysis about how often Fox News was going after James Tallarico, how many segments per, like, day they were doing about James Tallarico versus everything else that voters actually turns out care about in the election. And despite all of those attack ads, the AI campaign ads that we got to play during the OA election live stream, if folks were able to check that out, you can still check it out on YouTube if you want. That was from Ken Paxton, a ridiculous AI campaign ad. They blacked out TV airtime for him, if you guys remember that, when Colbert and Kimmel were going to do interviews with Tallarico.

0:07:58 Thomas: What? Oh, yeah, yeah.

0:08:04 Lydia: And saying that it was the, equal time issue that's like never really gets applied. It didn't matter. Tallarico, yeah it was, yeah exactly.

0:08:07 Thomas: So stupid. That was forever ago, I forgot about that. That was before the primary even, I think.

0:08:14 Lydia: Uh-huh, yeah. But Tallarico beat Ken Paxton 55 to 43.

0:08:20 Thomas: And I don't get it, because Ken Paxton is such a good candidate, I'm just, I'm at a loss to explain this.

0:08:25 Lydia: So embarrassing. This is the first time that Texas has had a Democratic senator since 1988. huge upset. Now, yeah, I mean, what's interesting, you say, you know, Paxton, great candidate, you obviously sarcastically. But Trump aligned with Paxton in the primary against Cornyn, and that actually soured a lot of Republicans because, and they publicly said, you know, within Texas, they publicly said they were planning on voting for Tallarico instead. Paxton is not liked in Texas government. So that that, feels like a foolish choice.

0:08:57 Thomas: He's not liked by virtually anyone, even Trump, too.

0:09:01 Lydia: Yeah, it's true.

0:09:02 Thomas: Which is weird. I don't know why he endorsed a candidate he doesn't like.

0:09:02 Lydia: So, because he was mad at Cornyn. Like, that's really it.

0:09:06 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Maybe that's not a good way to do things.

0:09:09 Lydia: No, I think it's probably a very foolish idiot way to govern. Paxton had been impeached by his fellow Republicans in Texas in 2023 because his estranged wife, who is a state senator, had sought a divorce on quote-unquote biblical grounds. And that's going to do it for you in Texas. That made them mad.

0:09:28 Thomas: Like, King James Bible, or the... I'm just kidding. They had a disagreement about the Bible, I guess. They're like, which version?

0:09:32 Lydia: Unclear. Unclear the, yeah, the authority. Yeah, and the Senate ended up acquitting Paxton, unfortunately, in this impeachment. And Trump took credit for that, that he said that he basically called, folks over in the Senate and encouraged them to drop this and to let it go. Elon Musk was so invested in this race specifically, he dumped hundreds.

0:09:56 Thomas: I know who that is. We've talked about him on the show before.

0:09:58 Lydia: God, so many times. He dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into this race specifically. Yeah, this one race. It was crazy. And James Tallarico was so smart. He just took that and said, you know, like he didn't even focus that.

0:10:04 Thomas: Wow. This one race? That's a lot. He took it?

0:10:16 Lydia: Well, yeah, but said he like that not necessarily that. This is a race between him and Ken Paxton. He was like, this is a race between me and Elon Musk. And Elon Musk does not have a lot of friends in Texas either. There's a lot of animosity involving Elon Musk, obviously.

0:10:16 Thomas: Wow, that is smart.

0:10:30 Thomas: Imagine being, like imagine if anyone is Elon Musk's friend. I actually don't think he has a single friend. I wouldn't be surprised.

0:10:36 Lydia: I don't think so. Joe Rogan maybe is like the closest. Yeah, but they're both, they're like parasites for each other, I guess, is really what they are. They're just trying to get something from the other person over and over. But this was a resounding victory. Latino voters swung back toward Democrats. They had previously supported Trump in 2024 in Texas. And early voting data showed that Hispanic voters had come out specifically in like massive numbers in Texas. We had surges of young people, Texas young people, and also people who didn't cast ballots in 2022 or 2024 either from, just not voting in general or based on age, know, you just young voters finally getting the opportunity to have their voice heard. So huge, huge victory for James Tallarico. Again, we talked about... The Fox News attacks on him in WTW 135 if you want to refresh your memory there. But happy to be done with Ken Paxton

0:10:39 Thomas: Nah. Yeah, maybe. Trump. Yeah.

0:11:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:35 Lydia: Quite a bit actually. I mean he abandoned his previous seat to try this and lost miserably.

0:11:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:43 Lydia: What an asshole. Speaking of assholes, recent episode...

0:11:46 Thomas: That could mean so many things.

0:11:47 Lydia: I know, but we're staying in Texas for a bit because a lot happened in Texas. So, and we talk about Texas a lot on the show. A more recent episode, WTW 149, we talked about Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and his, yes, yeah. So he was up for reelection. He has,

0:11:50 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yes. I was wondering about this. Really? I didn't hear anything. Okay. You told told me when we did that excellent episode that the lieutenant governor is like more powerful than the governor in a way. And I was like, that's weird. But then I heard someone else say it and we're all super happy about it. What's her name? That's awesome. And that's great. But then I was thinking like, wait, shit, who is that? Who's the lieutenant governor? How does that work? I haven't heard anything about it.

0:12:13 Lydia: Incredibly powerful.

0:12:27 Lydia: The person who won against Sam Patrick? Okay, yeah. So, Vicky Goodwin is stepping into this position. He, no podcast. She's actually...

0:12:28 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, we gotta get our podcast. We gotta get... No podcast? How can you do the job without a podcast?

0:12:40 Lydia: She's not a stranger to public service, but she is newer to elected office. Dan Patrick's been doing this since like 2007. He's been in elected office for a long time.

0:12:51 Thomas: Wow, he's early on the iTunes charts,

0:12:54 Lydia: Yeah, but he ended up losing to Vicki Goodwin 51.7 to 45.6 percent. Goodwin is currently a state representative out of Austin and her focus is primarily on public schools, access to health care and affordability. She had a couple of very clear ways to go after Dan Patrick. One was on just his general incumbency, like the fact that he has thinned the line between state and church so terribly in Texas. We talked about it in 149 to a significant degree, but he is really behind a lot of the things that you see that happen. In Texas, you know, Bibles in schools, all that kind of stuff, the Ten Commandments and whatnot, like he helps to create and curate this stuff.

0:12:54 Thomas: I guess.

0:13:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:43 Thomas: And his audio quality leaves something to be desired. So that was... I imagine that was major a campaign talking point.

0:13:49 Lydia: I'll tell you, one of his biggest missteps though, was when he tried to ban hemp-derived THC products and that pissed off a lot of far-right personalities that love him, like in the media and stuff, because they like their hemp-derived THC products and they're like, "Why are you getting involved in this, Dan Patrick?" So she was able to like leverage that actually, and really hammer him on those things. It's the first Democratic lieutenant governor in 27 years in Texas. The first woman to ever hold this job.

0:13:55 Thomas: Wow, really? Huh. Okay. Wow. Oh, it's a woman.

0:14:21 Lydia: Yeah, and yeah, Vicky Goodwin. And yeah, it's

0:14:22 Thomas: Holy crap. Oh, I missed it. Sorry. So we got a female governor and lieutenant governor. When has that ever happened?

0:14:26 Lydia: Okay. I don't know if it's ever happened in Texas. I really don't think it's ever happened.

0:14:34 Thomas: I doubt that's ever happened in many places.

0:14:36 Lydia: No, no. Let me this a little bit just very quickly that, the lieutenant governor's primary Position and authority is overseeing the state senate the state senate in Texas is going to remain GOP, so it's unclear how much control she really will have. I mean, she can still decide what comes up to vote and things like that, manage those things, but it's not clear that she's going to have like the kind of power that Dan Patrick was able to wield in his position.

0:14:46 Thomas: Right. And they're dicks.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:08 Lydia: Dan Patrick, this is an indication of Dan Patrick has viewed his opponents in the past. He's never really campaigned against an opponent. Like he, in previous races, he doesn't even say their names. He just says I'm running and, you just talks about himself and never really even mentions his opponent.

0:15:25 Thomas: Well, I mean, he oozes charisma, so I get it, you know.

0:15:28 Lydia: Yeah, but he ended up having to mention her by name and he created attack ads actually, which is like a first for him. He's never done that before, it was kind of too little too late because he primarily focused his energy on attacking Tallarico. I don't know why. I think it's because he's a Trump sycophant and so he was more concerned about the, yeah, it could be.

0:15:33 Thomas: Wow. Huh. Yeah, it could also be a coattails thing, like you saw him as he's driving a lot of the, you know, energy.

0:15:57 Lydia: And then maybe you get the down ballot kind of thing, like energy from that. But, you know, he had won his last re-election bid in 2022 by 10 points. And then he lost this one by, five and a half. So, yeah, kind of a big swing.

0:15:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:12 Thomas: What a swing. Yep.

0:16:13 Lydia: Yeah. All right, more Texas stuff. You mentioned we have a female governor now as well. Greg Abbott lost his race. We talked about him in WTW 97, so a ways back.

0:16:21 Thomas: So good. Oh, wow. Okay.

0:16:25 Lydia: We dug into Greg Abbott specifically when we were talking about the free speech and Charlie Kirk issues and Greg Abbott touting that they were investigating over 300 teachers for their comments on Charlie Kirk. Like that was a good thing, right? But Gina Hinojosa beat him for Texas governor, 52.8 to 45.7. She's a public school advocate. And additionally, not just the flip of the governor here in Texas, in now blue Texas. God, it's incredible to say.

0:16:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Reliably blue, Texas.

0:17:01 Lydia: Yeah. We were also able to flip the open attorney general seat because Paxton had left, to go run for Senate.

0:17:09 Thomas: Oh, he was still that?

0:17:10 Lydia: Yeah, he was still Attorney General. Uh-huh. And so we got a Democrat there, Nathan Johnson, who beat Mays Middleton. Mays Middleton had beat Chip Roy. That was the Trump candidate from the primary. Very, very conservative. But Nathan Johnson was able to beat him. And Nathan Johnson, as has been making the rounds today all throughout the media, wrote a bunch of music for Dragon Ball Z episodes.

0:17:12 Thomas: Oh, Oh, wow. Really? Okay. Huh.

0:17:22 Thomas: Maze?

0:17:34 Lydia: He's also a lawyer and, you very qualified.

0:17:34 Thomas: So bizarre. Wow. See that one coming.

0:17:38 Lydia: No, I don't think anybody did. That was very surprising. Yeah, he's on like the Dragon Ball Z wiki. I think someone just stumbled on that and they were like, oh, weird. I mentioned that the GOP is maintaining, is retaining control over the state senate, but the Dems were able to flip the state house in Texas. 76 to 61 seats as of right now. There are 13 races yet to be called, but that's pretty big. Also, very big, we are potentially looking at a flip of the state board of education.

0:17:40 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Oh, wow. Okay.

0:18:10 Lydia: Huge. This is big because this is the board that rewrote the social studies lesson to be Islamophobic.

0:18:12 Thomas: Yeah. Guys, you're going to be able to see the main character's kiss in your book again.

0:18:19 Lydia: Yeah, they are also the entity that required Bible readings for all public school students. They downplayed slavery in the curriculum for all public school students. Like, this is a big, big deal. They determine what schools must what learning materials can be used throughout the districts, what charter schools will be able to operate in Texas, and they also oversee a multi-billion dollar school fund. For Texas.

0:18:43 Thomas: My God. Holy crap. Oh yeah, Texas is always the big thing. Well, that might not be what you just said there, but I remember it was always like, oh, they print all the textbooks, so they're like a major, you know, it matters quite a bit.

0:18:55 Lydia: Oh yeah, that's true too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but what we're looking at right now is there are two seats that are undecided. Right now the Democrats have seven seats, the GOP have six, and it's very possible those two seats could go to the Dems. So that hasn't been called yet. I think everyone's waiting with, yeah, with bated a breath or whatever and we'll see. Man, a lot of incredible wins across Texas.

0:19:14 Thomas: Wow, must be close. Kidding.

0:19:23 Lydia: And I'm glad that we've been trying to, you know, cover. Some of the nonsense that's been going on on this show with some of these people. And yeah, a little toot

0:19:32 Thomas: I think, yeah, I think we did, we're responsible for

0:19:34 Lydia: Our horn. Yeah, yeah. Alright, we gotta leave Texas. We're gonna get in our plane. We're gonna fly up. I'm gonna go to Ohio.

0:19:35 Thomas: Sure. But it's so blue there, I don't want to leave my blue, blue Texas.

0:19:46 Lydia: Well, lucky for you, we had an incredible night last night, so we're going to keep flying to blue places. So, Ohio, another blue place. Vivek Ramaswamy, I initially was like, okay, what WTW episodes can I reference? It's so many, you guys.

0:19:51 Thomas: Wow. Ah, so good. Is it?

0:20:02 Lydia: I think it's like 17 times we've talked about Vivek.

0:20:03 Thomas: But have we ever, yeah, we haven't like focused on them, it's been more like, oh, and this fuckstick, like, is that, that's, I'm asking, that's my memory of it, like, didn't do like a Ramaswamy special.

0:20:08 Lydia: That's true. That's true. That is also my recollection of it. Yeah, exactly. I think we actually had planned. We planned on doing one.

0:20:20 Thomas: I started listening to his dumbass book on Audible.

0:20:23 Lydia: Yeah, well, we were listening to it together because we were cleaning one of the kids' rooms.

0:20:27 Thomas: Yeah, I remember that. And then it was like, oh, no, this sucks too much. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't.

0:20:28 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. We tapped out.

0:20:34 Thomas: Interesting enough, like it's like he's so boring, this fucking guy. God, we, I don't think he's going to be doing much. I think, uh, think he does not have a future.

0:20:35 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, actually, in his concession speech, it certainly sounds like he might be done trying to seek elected public office. Thank God.

0:20:52 Thomas: It's like, all right, well, it turns out I just fucking suck, I guess. I guess I just suck. And, uh, yep. So I'll go kill myself. Bye.

0:20:55 Lydia: Yeah. So he ran against Amy Acton for Ohio governor. I'm sure everybody listening has heard about the despicable campaign ad that he did and double down and triple down that used her estranged mother who had sided with the stepfather who was found guilty for sexually assaulting Amy when she was a child. And it didn't matter. He was like, no, it's fine. You know, it's a mom and she thinks that her daughter's a liar. So I'm going to. Let it run. Okay. So Amy Acton had the last laugh. She won 52.3 to 44.4. She will be the first woman governor of Ohio.

0:21:05 Thomas: Yep.

0:21:35 Thomas: I saw a headline that I didn't vet, but I'm going to share it anyway. That was like, Ramaswamy's, uh, concession call went to voicemail.

0:21:38 Lydia: So that's in my notes because yes, it did happen.

0:21:45 Thomas: Oh, it did happen?

0:21:45 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. He attempted to call her on election night to...

0:21:46 Thomas: Oh my god, okay. Get fucked. That's great.

0:21:52 Lydia: Yeah, to congratulate her, the call went to voicemail. It's not that she necessarily declined it to go to voicemail, but they declined to return the call. So, good on them.

0:21:56 Thomas: Ah, it should be. God damn it. Yeah, what do you need from that? I get that, like, in typical times you do a concession speech, it's like, oh, you know, we, yeah, it's like we went hard on each other, but, you know, even, Trump and Hillary have done that back and forth, you know, and it's just like, what are we doing?

0:22:07 Lydia: Yeah. No, he's a fucking asshole. Why? Why? Yeah, he tried to say that it was, you know, bitter on both sides, you know, but he did, to his slight credit in his concession speech, he also called on everybody to support Acton because, you know, it's going to be better for Ohio. If people, like, want to see Ohio succeed, then they're going to want to see her succeed, so blah, blah, blah.

0:22:18 Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah.

0:22:32 Thomas: Yeah, it's like, you know, I have a dispute with my neighbor. I hit him with my car. He got mad at me for hitting him with his car. It's like we, it's just both sides got heated, you know? It's toned down the rhetoric, I think.

0:22:42 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, we're both mad. Worth noting too is Amy Acton, her previous public public service position was as the health director during COVID in Ohio. So that's probably a bigger uphill than some of the others that we've talked about where they've won. You know people, especially in more conservative areas, do not have a lot of positive memories about public health with COVID.

0:23:08 Thomas: Well, no one has positive, okay.

0:23:10 Lydia: No, no, specifically like what they were being asked to do, right? And so this is the person that was behind a lot of that stuff in Ohio, and she still won by eight points, eight percentage points.

0:23:12 Thomas: Yeah. Well, and again, all of this is not the point. Like that's, that's what, it's depressing. But it also needs to be what we should have all fucking known when this happened in 2024, when they won in 2024. Not much of anything fucking matters. It's depressing, but it's mostly like, well, shit's too expensive. And our idiot country doesn't understand how anything works. And so they're like, expensive, bad, Biden out. And it's like, yeah, I don't know, Biden was doing actually a pretty good job at that kind of stuff, know. You At the very least, Biden had competent people. And you know that Trump wasn't going to have. Now, there's a further problem that is always the case where even when people say, and this is the focus of this show, one of my main theses, which is people are like, yeah, well, you know, people wanted a change. They saw prices were high in 2024, they wanted a change. But it's the part where you're like, okay, but why would they think Trump had any credibility on that?

0:23:25 Lydia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:20 Thomas: You know, that's the part where it's like, that's not just like, oh things are bad, it's oh things are bad and for some reason their brains have been altered by propaganda enough to think that Trump had anything to offer. Because,

0:24:32 Lydia: And that he could relate to them about affordability.

0:24:34 Thomas: I mean it's objectively fucking insane to think that that idiot would have any idea, or the people in his administration, would have any idea how to make things better at all. And that...

0:24:34 Lydia: Yeah.

0:24:45 Lydia: Well, they're just going to write $5,000 checks, right? Like that's what, that's how you fix it.

0:24:48 Thomas: But going into that election, I mean, in 2024, it's like, that's the propaganda problem that we have. And it's like, that's what we're trying to fight here on Where There's Woke.

0:24:51 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, it's that same idea. Yeah. All right, we're done with Ohio. That was a big, big win in Ohio, but I want to get over to Maine because we spent quite a bit of Where There's Woke time talking about Graham Platner and the race to get rid of Susan Collins finally.

0:25:07 Thomas: Yeah. How'd he do? Did he win? Who?

0:25:14 Lydia: So we talked about him in WTW 134, 138. We had a couple bonuses and just, general you reminder, I'm sure everybody listening to this knows. Platner did not end up running in this race. He withdrew in July because there were sexual assault accusations, very credible. So he did not deserve to be in public office. And Troy Jackson stepped in. Susan Collins, Troy Jackson, okay.

0:25:39 Thomas: No, I'm just kidding. I still don't know who this is. I've seen him several times and I'm like, I was nervous about this one because Collins always finds a way and yeah, and Troy Jackson, I don't know who that is still, even though he won and I've seen him several times and it's like the and her, you know, like I just don't, I don't, it doesn't register. Who, who, what did he, is he, what is he? He wasn't like the best candidate.

0:25:47 Lydia: 30-year Senate career, you know? Yeah, yeah, Yeah, he probably means more to like Mainers. Like if you're a Mainer, maybe that's a name that is more familiar to you than people who are literally on the other side of the country. But regardless, Susan Collins, long time Senate career, 30 years, and she lost 53.4 to 46.5. That's not really close.

0:26:25 Thomas: Well, I think it was one of the best performances of all the. Yeah, I think so.

0:26:29 Lydia: Really? The most expensive Senate race in Maine history. The candidates themselves raised tens of millions of dollars, but then you had outside spending in the hundreds of millions of dollars trying to influence this election as well because people saw how important it was. There was a, hurt Susan Collins, I mean, there's elements of her being too cozy with Trump. I think that really started to wear on people. But then there was also these accusations, the investigation of potential corruption, right?

0:26:59 Thomas: Yeah, we talked about it on OA. It's like that didn't affect her in the slightest. It's crazy.

0:27:05 Lydia: And then, but I think it might have come to play in terms of this election, potentially. Like it gave ammunition for the Democrats to constantly talk about corruption and Susan Collins and that she's getting away with corruption because she's been cozy with Trump. And that came out like pretty late in the election cycle. You know, so got they to really just sit on that for a whole month and a half, basically, the last month and a half.

0:27:33 Thomas: Yeah, but my reading is that she still did better than most Republicans. And most Republicans did not have a scandal like that. I, I was, my take on, on OA when we covered this is it's just, it's horrific how little anyone cared about that. Like just nobody fucking cared about it at all. Now, you're right that like, I'm not in Maine, I'm not seeing the ads, but I also don't, again, I, what, what does anything? What, what causes anything election wise? I don't know, you know, and I think Maine from from what I saw. Initially, at least, and maybe I'll end up being wrong, I think she did maybe better than a lot of Republicans.

0:27:39 Lydia: Yeah, that's fair.

0:28:10 Lydia: Yeah, one of I the other interesting things that I saw when I was prepping for this was She frequently would be like, you know, sit I on the Appropriations Committee, so like that's really helpful and stuff. And there were Republican voters that, there was one in particular that was a Democrat then like just has really liked Susan Collins, ended up changing to become a Republican. And then she was like, I don't really care that you have like power on the Appropriations Committee. Like, eh, I think we'll be fine.

0:28:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:39 Lydia: Why would that be a reason I vote for you? It's stupid.

0:28:42 Thomas: Yeah, and if you want to look at that map that we looked at a bunch on the stream that is the arrows of, you know, blue in terms of what changed, if you want to go scroll up to Maine, you'll see that Maine is red. It's like the one place that went more red. I'm telling you, no one gave a shit. She outperformed. We got, I don't want to say lucky, but so much of this is because of how truly fucking stupid and horrible Trump was in past two years. You know, and it's like, we got to be careful not to... Not to think that, like, oh, okay, people love Democrats now. That's not true.

0:28:50 Lydia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no.

0:29:22 Thomas: Man, yeah, I'm looking at this map. I mean, look at this. It's, there's, there's one, there's like one county Look at that. Bunch of red. More, imagine being more Republican than 2024. That's like the one state that had a bunch of those. Now it did have like Stetson County I guess went way more blue and she still won there actually. Yeah, Caratunk, these are made up so I don't know. I don't know how much stock to put in these made up places and names. But yeah, there's a whole bunch of red arrows. That's not true of any other state.

0:29:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:54 Thomas: There's like a couple that went more red than 2024 and then Maine, tons of it. You know, she's superhuman, but not even she could overcome the dog shit that is Trump. Like just the fucking dog vomit that is the Trump presidency. I mean, it's just, it's unfathomable how badly he fucked up, even for his own people. Again, like we're always going to obviously say like he's doing all kinds of harm that no matter what, he's the worst president fucking ever. But even for his own people, he fucked up so bad. That's what's amazing.

0:30:26 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Let's visit an issue that we covered on WTW 152. This is the California voter ID proposition.

0:30:41 Thomas: Oh, well, you know, there's a law. There's a law that, that if you, you can't, you actually can't show, you can try to show, you try to show ID. And there's a, there's a law.

0:30:48 Lydia: They won't let you.

0:30:51 Thomas: And they've, I have a friend, and there's a law. And you try, you try to show a California ID. And you, you get, they actually don't, they actually will not allow you to show, there's a law. I just kept saying that over and over. Oh God, what a fucking moron.

0:30:56 Lydia: Yeah.

0:31:06 Lydia: Yeah, this was WTW 152. Thankfully, it failed in California. 41.4% voted yes, though. Like, that's still a lot.

0:31:15 Thomas: Yes. Guys, we can do all kinds of voter fraud still. Woo! Voter fraud still is easily to do. We can do it all the time easily.

0:31:22 Lydia: Yeah. We expected it would lose in California, right? Really We cared about what the margin was going to look like.

0:31:28 Thomas: Oh, I don't know. Dude, did you? Because I actually, I wasn't sure. And I'm not saying I was like right or informed or anything, but my instinct just when we were covering it was like, I'm nervous about this because it's just, it's a popular issue, more popular than, you know, we'd like to think.

0:31:30 Lydia: Uh, Yeah, I think for me, I expected it to lose, but not necessarily by this big of a margin.

0:31:50 Thomas: And what was that margin, sir?

0:31:51 Lydia: It was 58.6% voted no, 41.4% voted yes.

0:31:55 Thomas: Oh yeah, that's not particularly close.

0:31:57 Lydia: No, it's not particularly close, but it's also like really depressing to think that 41% of California voters want this. But again, like when I talked about it, the barrier was really low. Ultimately, it's more about like the principle behind it and like the example that it would be setting. Now, it wasn't the only voter ID proposition on ballots this year. Nevada did have it and they passed it.

0:32:04 Thomas: Oh wow.

0:32:25 Lydia: So Nevada's interesting though. So I think a lot of people are going to be talking.

0:32:27 Thomas: It's really not. It fucking sucks. End of story.

0:32:31 Lydia: I think a lot of people are going to be talking about this, like, as voter ID got passed in these places, et cetera, et cetera. And it did. But so Nevada, it was 62.3% voted yes, 37.7% voted no. And it requires you to verify your identity both in person or by mail. Mail would be similar to how California was setting it up, the last four digits of your driver's license or your social security number. But Nevada was pursuing it as a constitutional amendment, and in Nevada that means that it has to be approved in two consecutive election years in order to be part of their constitution.

0:33:05 Thomas: That's right.

0:33:06 Lydia: So this is why this is interesting because this the reason why Voter ID passed in Nevada. This was its second year. And the first time that it passed in the previous election cycle was it passed 73.23% to 26.77%. So it actually lost quite a bit of support. But that's a tall order to go all the way down to failing from a high of nearly 75 to 25%.

0:33:36 Lydia: Incredibly demanding to get it all the way over to a negative when they've been so supportive in the past, but it did lose quite a bit of support. It is a constitutional amendment, however, that passed, it will be taking effect. Carolina is, it passed as well, 60-40, but... Here's the other thing. In North Carolina, they already have laws that require voter ID in person and for mail-in voting. But this would just basically clean it up because the Constitution only says that it's for in person. So now it's just the Constitution matches the law. So that's really what North Carolina was voting on. They already have a law in place for this. Now it's just making their Constitution, you makes it harder to undo, but their Constitution now matches the law and the practice that has been happening in North Carolina.

0:34:24 Lydia: Ohio is the same thing. It was already required by law. Now it's in the Constitution because their voter ID initiative on their ballot passed. It specifically says photo ID. So I don't know how that's going to work for their mail-in ballots. And that might be something I would have questions for Jenessa.

0:34:40 Thomas: Well, it's not just for registration.

0:34:42 Lydia: No, no, this is for voting. Yeah, so I don't know. If Jenessa, if you're listening, would like to hear your thoughts.

0:34:44 Thomas: Okay. Well, I mean, if they're mailing it to, like, based on your driver's license or something, maybe they just consider that.

0:34:53 Lydia: I don't, I don't know. I I think the language is pretty clear. It seemed weird.

0:34:56 Thomas: Oh, like it might be written in a

0:34:58 Lydia: You have to present your photo ID when submitting your ballot, but they still allow for mail-ins. Yeah, so I don't know how that would work. But that one passed 65.33 to 34.67 percent. And then we have a number of unnecessary ballot initiatives that are basically virtue signaling jack off motions on places like Alaska.

0:34:58 Thomas: Weird way that would... Huh. Yeah, that would be interesting.

0:35:21 Thomas: And not as fun as the state gun that we covered on the LA livestream.

0:35:23 Lydia: No, no, certainly not as fun. Alaska, Arkansas.

0:35:29 Thomas: Fucking idiots.

0:35:29 Lydia: So let me just dive into this. These are basically. States that say we should put something in our constitution that says you have to be a citizen to vote. And it's like, oh, okay, but that's already the case. So like that's, so Alaska passed this, this, they changed the state statute language from a person may vote to only a person who is a citizen of the U.S. Doesn't change anything else. Again, it's just literally saying you must be a citizen to vote, which again is. That's what, yeah, that's the law, like, of the country. I don't really know what you're supposed to do.

0:35:39 Thomas: Oh yeah, sure. Okay. Damn, you got us. Fucking morons.

0:36:02 Thomas: That's already how it is. There's a law. There's a law.

0:36:09 Lydia: Arkansas already has voter photo ID requirements, and then they were like, ah, let's add citizenship in there too. So they added their citizenship stuff to their constitution. I think they also added their photo ID qualification to the constitution as well. Kansas, they did a constitutional amendment saying you have to be a citizen. South Dakota, theirs is funny. Their constitution already says it, but they decided they were going to have a ballot initiative to say it again, like just in case in a different place.

0:36:15 Thomas: Yeah. Huh. Oh, a bit louder. In a bigger font.

0:36:38 Lydia: It's so stupid. That's what I'm saying, like this is completely unnecessary. It costs, South Dakotans, if you guys are listening, that costs you money to put that on the ballot. Like I would be so pissed.

0:36:40 Thomas: These idiots. And you don't have much money.

0:36:50 Lydia: No. And West Virginia also has this, it's already a law there as it's also federal law, but it added it to the Constitution as well that you must be a U.S. citizen to vote in their elections. Yeah, stupid. So yeah, I don't know, I kind of have mixed feelings on that, voter the ID stuff that did get through. I don't find it particularly impressive or you know, like it's a bummer but well it's a bummer because it's, you know, in the state constitutions, so it is harder to undo and, you know, and fix. And And potentially it could grow from there, but it's not like any of that was new, you know what I mean? Like, like, those were already laws in place and now it's just a situation where you can't have someone, a governor come in and over, you know, or a legislature come in and overturn it if they get a majority. It makes it a little harder to do. But it's not like any of that is necessarily surprising because they had already passed those laws in those states.

0:37:03 Thomas: Okay.

0:37:17 Thomas: Like you're not worried about it?

0:37:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:53 Lydia: So I don't know. And if anything, Nevada's shift almost feels more hopeful to me that even in a state like Nevada went from huge support for this measure to dropping quite a bit. And I don't know that necessarily the people have changed or if it's that the turnout has changed or makeup the of the electorate in Nevada has changed. I'm not exactly sure, but just kind of an interesting swing there from literally just two years ago. The last big one I wanted to talk about for this episode is WTW 142. We talked about James Lindsay, frenemy of the show.

0:38:30 Thomas: He didn't run for something, did he?

0:38:32 Lydia: No, no, but he talked about what Woke 2.0 was and that it was here. And this, I mean, he's not wrong. He said Woke 2.0 is here. It will be the shape of this midterm election and all the primary elections in 2028. Bookmark it. And that... The Woke 2.0, what it's going to look like is a Marxist interpretation of affordability and using anti-corruption to attack Trump. And like, that's kind of what we ran on, right?

0:38:32 Thomas: Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah, it's because he just said what

0:38:58 Lydia: Like affordability.

0:38:58 Thomas: Was... Yeah, I mean, we covered this at the time. It's like, cool, man. Great prediction. I'm gonna guess that, know, MAGA 2 will be fucking taxes are too high and trans people shouldn't do sports. It's like, cool, yeah, duh.

0:38:59 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. And exit polls show that the economy was a big concern for voters. Those who said the economy was bad voted for Democrats, for the House, like wide, wide. Margin there. About four in ten U.S. voters said the economy was the most important issue to them. Things like cost of gas and groceries. Three in ten said it was the state of democracy. Only one in ten said the same for immigration or for health care. Half of U.S. voters said government corruption and cost of living were crucial to their vote, And way fewer said that about immigration enforcement, the war in Iran, or AI data centers, which feel like big issues to I think a lot of voters, but like the vast majority of voters, what they care about is affordability. And then state of democracy was also very important to them as well.

0:39:58 Thomas: Truly a Nostradamus.

0:40:00 Lydia: Now, Hakeem Jeffries, as they're announcing, you know, the plans for The leadership transition in the House has said, you know, they have affirmed that they have heard the voters and that affordability is going to be what they're focusing on. But what drives me crazy, and I think we should play a little clip of this, is this pushback that the American people, you they care about affordability. I haven't heard anybody. Care about impeachment. And it's like, well, but you just do both. Just do it all. Like, why wouldn't you? So I don't know. Let's listen to this press conference for a minute.

0:40:39 Clip: We have been focused relentlessly on dealing with the affordability crisis and driving down the high cost of living. We made a promise to the country that we would fight for an affordable America and we intend to keep it. We need to reverse the Medicaid cuts. We need to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We need to end this reckless and costly war of choice that has skyrocketed gas prices all across the country. And we need to stop the Trump tariffs that have increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year. Is Pete Hexeth still around?

0:41:29 Thomas: What?

0:41:30 Lydia: Yeah, he is.

0:41:31 Clip: What do you plan to have in conversation with somebody you yourself called the dumbest person ever to hold that office and you're facing calls within your caucus to impeach him? I haven't had a single member of the House Democratic Caucus talk to me about impeachment. We've been relentlessly focused on affordability and on accountability because the

0:41:55 Lydia: All right, we can stop it there. Yeah, but impeachment is one of the mechanisms of accountability, so I don't know why he has to take a hard line there. I don't know.

0:42:00 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, whatever. Yeah, I think that like... I think it's fine to be like, look, we're not coming in to just do an impeachment. I think it's fine to present it like that. But yeah, it's like accountability is impeachment. So

0:42:16 Lydia: Yeah, I think that there's just a better way to communicate this and that's been a concern of mine. I'm sure that's a concern of a lot of people is like something that the Democrats historically struggle with is effectively communicating.

0:42:30 Thomas: Like, I don't mind these quotes so much, but I know there's other quotes of him being like, well, the American people want us to fucking get along and hold hands. It's like, no, no, we don't. Not at all, like that's not what we're, you know, they're done with the squabbling and the fighting. You know, that's not what I think, but okay.

0:42:46 Lydia: Yeah, it's it also also like The the way that this is coming across is foregone conclusion that he will be Speaker of the House and Chuck Schumer's acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he is going to be the Senate Majority Leader. And I think like that, I don't, it really, really sucks.

0:42:59 Thomas: Yeah, it sucks. I want somebody to challenge them.

0:43:06 Lydia: And I think it's going to piss off a lot of voters because that just feels like status quo, you didn't actually hear us.

0:43:09 Thomas: Yeah, I think so too. You know, I just saw, did you see, I just saw AOC like clip that hit my algo that was like someone asking her like, oh, would you ever be Speaker of the House kind of thing? And yeah, she talked about it. It was just a quick clip, but it was, you know, she actually is accessible and answers people's questions and stuff. She was like, no, not going to happen. She was like, one time I ran for leadership of some kind. I don't remember. She wasn't specific and I don't remember what it would have been. Trying to think, I think there was a Nancy Pelosi thing, wasn't there?

0:43:23 Lydia: I didn't see that.

0:43:43 Lydia: Yeah, it was Nancy Pelosi kept her from being on a committee or whatever. Yeah.

0:43:46 Thomas: Yeah, It might have been that, but I don't know if you, do you run for those in the same way maybe you do? But she said she ran for some kind of position of leadership and she was just talking about how the process, you know, it's all anonymous votes, it's all this super, you know, weird politicking among... House Democrats, that's like an annoying thing and people vote in very weird ways based on alliances that have nothing to do with like anything that any voter would care about really. So, and like just region stuff.

0:44:12 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, well, not like fundraising pressure for the party, right? Like, I know that's a big part of it too.

0:44:21 Thomas: They're like, oh, these states vote together, you know.

0:44:21 Lydia: Yeah. God, that's so stupid.

0:44:25 Thomas: Yeah, it really is. So that was like, oh, okay. So I would have to imagine that... They probably have it locked up already because it's that sort of deal, but I don't know, I mean if you get enough, I don't know, you get enough new members, you know, right, like there's got to be people who are like, yeah, I didn't sign up for this, I don't, I want them to be leader yeah, I wish, like, at least make it a fight, you know.

0:44:39 Lydia: Yeah. You don't speak for me. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:44:50 Thomas: So I just fucking, if I had to pick one of them to go, it would actually be Schumer. Jeffries is just really like, I find him really underwhelming in every way.

0:44:59 Lydia: Milk toast. Yeah.

0:45:00 Thomas: Yeah, but but I find Chuck Schumer actively offensive in how he serves Israel more than, and he serves Israel and Republicans more than he serves Democrats. Like, he's got his made up Bailey family that's fucking voted for Trump and you're like, dude, what are you doing with this?

0:45:11 Lydia: And his imaginary friends. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

0:45:16 Thomas: That's who you care about? Stupid.

0:45:19 Lydia: Yeah, it's ridiculous. So other news from the night. There are some trans measures that were on ballots the across the country that are not looking so great. Unfortunately, Arizona passed Prop 318, which bans trans students from bathrooms and locker rooms. There's an existing law already banning trans girls from playing on girls teams in places like public schools, but this would extend it to private athletic organizations. So any trans kids wanting to play on Little League. They would not be allowed to play on Little League.

0:45:46 Thomas: What? How's that even, like,

0:45:51 Lydia: That got passed. Yeah, I think some of these things are going to end up tied up in litigation, honestly.

0:45:51 Thomas: Allowed? Yeah, I hope so.

0:45:56 Lydia: Because they feel so overbroad.

0:45:57 Thomas: That feels, like, unconstitutional. Yeah.

0:45:59 Lydia: Exactly. Nebraska had a sports amendment that also passed. This was Initiative 442. it requires public schools and colleges to designate athletic teams as male, female, or co-ed. And all participants must be of that biological sex.

0:46:14 Thomas: Wow, you have to be co-ed.

0:46:15 Lydia: Coed, yeah, exactly. Washington and Colorado measures are leading, yes, they have not been called. Colorado has two measures. Prop 135 prohibits doctors from knowingly performing gender-affirming surgery on a minor, and Prop 134 prevents trans children from participating in school sports, effectively, because of the same designate teams as male, female, or coed. Missouri had an amendment on the ballot that actually failed. And I think it's because they did a combination here. The amendment was to ban trans care for minors and it was also to repeal abortion rights.

0:46:48 Thomas: Wow.

0:46:48 Lydia: And so I think that ended up protecting the trans

0:46:50 Thomas: Went for twofer. Flew too close to the sun there, yeah.

0:46:54 Lydia: Kids in Missouri. But the margins are not necessarily overwhelming in all of these contests. I think that some of these really could be litigated.

0:46:59 Thomas: Yeah. Red states still suck.

0:47:05 Lydia: I think that it is a hot button issue. It still is a hot button issue. And we're going to have to keep fighting in those ways for it not to be a hot button issue and for people to just accept that trans people are people.

0:47:20 Lydia: On the plus side, Vermont voted to enshrine gender identity in their state constitution. So there's only a handful of states that have done that.

0:47:27 Thomas: Like Vermont shows a gender? Awesome. What is it? Yeah.

0:47:29 Lydia: Yeah. They, them. Non-binary.

0:47:33 Thomas: Vermont voted to put their pronouns in their bio.

0:47:36 Lydia: Yeah. Maple syrup. It's one of the 73 gender identities.

0:47:41 Thomas: Now you sound like those truffers are like, my pronouns are USA and Eagle. Like those aren't pronouns, you fucking idiot.

0:47:48 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. A couple other fun little updates. I mean, fun, whatever. Some of these are not great. Some Florida characters that, you know, we didn't talk about Florida because Florida, unfortunately, we did not do great there. But honestly, the spread was... Barely anything for races. So that's worth something, I guess. We didn't win, but, you know, reduced that margin quite a bit. Randy Fine, we talked about him, about New College of Florida. He's DeSantis' main guy in Florida state legislature. He was the original person that basically said New College of Florida shouldn't exist. It should merge with a bigger school because it's too expensive. Look at it now, Randy. Look at it now. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars per student for New College. It's so bad. It's like $260,000 per student.

0:48:00 Thomas: Still sucks.

0:48:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Really? Oh,

0:48:39 Lydia: It's the most expensive Florida college.

0:48:39 Thomas: Maybe the expense wasn't the thing you actually cared about.

0:48:42 Lydia: Yeah. So he was reelected, unfortunately. Byron Donalds, we talked about him when we did the MAGA Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden.

0:48:48 Thomas: Man. Oh, really?

0:48:53 Lydia: Yeah, because he was one of the speakers there.

0:48:54 Thomas: I don't, oh, I actually don't remember that. I thought I remember him from something else, okay.

0:48:56 Lydia: It was a lifetime ago, it feels like. We might have talked about him separately as well, but that was what I remember.

0:49:03 Thomas: Was he a member of the House? Because he wasn't a senator from Florida, right? So he went from the House, because I remember, I think he was the one, was he the one in the Nancy Mace thing where he's like, Nancy, come on, like, is he that guy?

0:49:06 Lydia: Correct. Yeah, House. God, I don't remember.

0:49:20 Thomas: I think it might have been, but I'm not sure. Anyway. Either way, we've touched, covered it before. Doesn't, you know, it was kind of funny when there's some news channel that was putting up a like, wow, it a banner day for black politicians and like they had him in there too.

0:49:35 Lydia: I know.

0:49:36 Thomas: It's like, well, okay, but you can't count him.

0:49:38 Lydia: That's what I posted. I actually posted, it was like the most, I posted on my Instagram, yeah, because it was like the most, black governors elected and, you a single night kind of thing or whatever. And I was like, okay, but like, let's not count Byron.

0:49:39 Thomas: Oh, you did? Oh, didn't see that. Oh yeah, can we do that meme that was like the thank you and you, not you, what was that? Like the, huh?

0:49:53 Lydia: Gretchen Wieners. Four for you, Gretchen Wieners. Oh no, I was thinking Mean Girls. You wouldn't be doing Mean Girls.

0:49:56 Thomas: No, the one that was like, it would be like the chart or whatever, and it'd be like, here's all these things that are great, or no, maybe I'm mixing two of them. One of them was like, it would say different things and why they were good, and then you would leave one blank. It would just be like, Fire and Donald's, and it would be blank, and then you'd move on to the next one. And then there was a, wasn't there one that was like, thank you, thank you, not you, I don't know. Either way, we'll get our memes right, and we'll get back to you.

0:50:10 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:50:22 Lydia: Yeah, but now unfortunately he is the governor of Florida.

0:50:25 Thomas: That's crazy.

0:50:26 Lydia: It's insane. It's insane. I

0:50:28 Thomas: Is he an upgrade from Meatball Ron? Yes, probably.

0:50:32 Lydia: Think so. I don't think so.

0:50:32 Thomas: No? Oh wow, Meatball Ron's pretty bad.

0:50:35 Lydia: He's bad, but like at least I feel like he has more experience. I don't know.

0:50:40 Thomas: No, I don't care about that.

0:50:41 Lydia: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

0:50:42 Thomas: That's not relevant at all.

0:50:44 Lydia: Yeah, that's fair.

0:50:46 Thomas: If anything, you need these idiots to have less experience so they fuck up things less.

0:50:50 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I guess time will tell. Time will tell, Florida.

0:50:53 Thomas: Hmm, alright. Sorry Florida, none of you are listening, but sorry.

0:50:57 Lydia: Tommy Tuberville is no longer in Congress because he won the Alabama governor's race. Disappointing, but...

0:50:59 Thomas: God, that's crazy. That's one of the dumbest people in Congress too.

0:51:06 Lydia: But I will say the state went plus 30 for Trump for the last presidential election and Tuberville won by about plus four. So that was close. That was honestly way closer than you would think Alabama would be. Especially with, he is a well-known person in Alabama. He has a lot of name recognition and Alabama is still a very conservative state. And now I want to close out with Oklahoma.

0:51:15 Thomas: Wow, that was close.

0:51:32 Lydia: Ryan Walters, Ryan Walters was not on the ballot because he knows better. He knows better. But the Oklahoma superintendent race was. And after Ryan Walters left, we talked about this on WTW, the interim superintendent, Lindell Fields, came in. And I think things have been going okay. You know, nothing has blown up as far as I can see from my news alerts and everything. I'm sure folks who live in Oklahoma might have, keener eyes on this than I do. But he decided, Lindell Fields decided, he was not going to run. So the position was totally up in the air for, you know, who's going to be stepping in

0:51:32 Thomas: Just a rendition of it. Oh, Oklahoma! What position?

0:52:11 Lydia: To serve the superintendent of education in Oklahoma. Oklahoma elected the Republican, but think it's an okay selection, which is crazy.

0:52:13 Thomas: Oh, that's right, okay. Is that a joke, like, okay, Oklahoma?

0:52:23 Lydia: No, I did not intend for that. His name's Robert Franklin, he decried Ryan Walters. He was like, this guy is crazy. I'm putting words in his mouth. He didn't say it exactly quite like that.

0:52:23 Thomas: Oh, okay. Huh. He's like, I'm Team Lydia on this one.

0:52:38 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. I was like, oh, maybe he listens to the show. No, he really did not like all the Fox News. Appearances he was doing, all like the political grandstanding he was doing, he was like, this is ridiculous. Robert Franklin was an educator for about 40 years in Oklahoma. He was a special education teacher, moved up to principal eventually, assistant superintendent for a district. He is an inductee in Oklahoma's Educators Hall of Fame. He taught courses after all of his teaching at schools and administration duties and stuff. He ended up teaching courses in educational leadership at the public colleges in Oklahoma. He voted against a publicly funded Catholic charter school while he was in those administration roles. And during his campaign stretch, there actually was another religious charter school that was proposed.

0:53:27 Lydia: And he reiterated that he... Believes, and he thinks it is wrong, for faith-based teaching to be brought into public education. He thinks it's unfair to teachers. He thinks it's inappropriate that there should be a separation of church and state. And I thought that was really great for him to be, yeah, Republican in Oklahoma.

0:53:37 Thomas: Wow. You're saying this is Republican? Okay, well, maybe a moderate. That's not bad.

0:53:49 Lydia: His focus for his role as superintendent, he has said, is to So it's not falling on teachers completely that if there are student... Behavioral issues or that need additional support, mental health care, things like that, that there are the appropriate resources at schools for students. He's very, very keen on that. He wants to expand vocational education at the middle school level and give students opportunities to start exploring those avenues for their careers. And he also recognizes that the state testing in Oklahoma is terrible and the model needs to be changed. And he certainly has the decades of experience behind that to really like see, that it could be better and have some ideas on how to make it better. Now his opponent, Jeanette Marshall, she was the Democrat on the ballot, but her, background is that she was a pastor and a former parole officer.

0:54:49 Lydia: And so it's interesting, like, if I were in Oklahoma, I probably would have voted for him too, Honestly. And I don't really know what, what kind of conclusions I want to draw from that. But it almost makes like me feel... I don't know, like, like maybe it's a window for the future someday, like if we can kind of get away from the MAGA Trump politics of everything, like that there could actually be a window for something where there's more nuance and we can have like more interesting discussions.

0:54:55 Thomas: Interesting.

0:55:22 Lydia: I Don't know. I don't know, maybe, but it was just like it was an interesting different race when the rest of my experience has been like blue, you know, up and down the ballot, and that's what I'm hoping for everywhere else. This one race I was like, oh, actually I think this went the right way.

0:55:22 Thomas: No, maybe.

0:55:38 Thomas: Huh.

0:55:38 Lydia: But Oklahomans if you're listening. And you think I'm completely off base here, please write in, let me know.

0:55:42 Thomas: Yeah, you're, you're Oklahomies.

0:55:43 Lydia: I could be totally wrong, but from my view, I think the right person won in that race, and that was a Republican.

0:55:50 Thomas: Weird. All right, well, there there you have it. An election update and the Wokeys, the Wokeys did well and the Anti-Wokeys didn't do as well. I like it. There's a few exceptions there, of course, but, uh, good stuff. Good stuff all around.

0:55:50 Lydia: Yeah, Overall, a successful election cycle, I think.

0:56:04 Thomas: Good times.

0:56:06 Lydia: And hopefully we can carry that momentum to, yeah, two years from now.

0:56:07 Thomas: Let's do it again sometime. We'll see.

0:56:11 Lydia: Keep it up.

0:56:11 Thomas: Well, I guess the only thing I have to say in closing is that there's a law. There's a law. You even show your ID. You try to show your ID, there's a law. They'll stop you. Ha.

0:56:15 Lydia: Oh god.

0:56:43 Lydia: Because they like their hemp-derived THC products