The Texas Tribune festival which politico is proud to be an official media partner. Texansbune has invited to a free politics, news, and community festival. Anotherlike to thank sponsor for their sponsorship today. My colleagues and i are excited to convene important conversations this afternoon including a Playbook Exchange with the House Freedom caucus, spoiler alert, they are not for impeachment. How to fix american politics will be after that. 2020 and the border will be third in the order, and then finally agriculture in the modern world, so stick around. This brings me to our first conversation of the day, and i am honored to be sitting with this mostly distinguished panel of three of the Top Republican strategists in the country, three guys who wear the Campaign Managers for the jeb bush campaign, marco rubio, and ted cruz campaign. They are danny diaz, say hello. Hello. Hold your applause. [applause] tim terry sullivan. [applause] a little lesson through the and for terry. Please clap. That is true. Tim finally, jeff, no applause. Do not clap all around. Tim we were supposed to be joined by a fourth gas, who was the a fourth guest, but that ran into a little bit of flight difficulties, so she could not make it today, which will open the floodgates to the antikasich abuse that these guys were planning to levy. He is still writing his dropout speech. Tim can everybody hear us ok. Maybe not jeff . All right, we will let you jump into it. We concluded our last conversation, we had a great Panel Discussion with these and weome months ago, were talking about other things about the changing demographics in america and how that when she how that would shape the battleground map in 2020. We are here in texas and i want to talk to you guys about where we are 14 months out from election day. Where we are specifically as it pertains to texas being competitive in the general election next year. If you all responsible for running the campaign of the eventual democratic nominee, how heavily would you be investing in texas and preparing to invest in texas. And how real of a possibility is there for a democrat to turn the state blue next november . Jeff, he ran a lot of campaigns here, we will start with you. Watermarkps low would be seven or six, the high watermark would be 13. I would send early people, i would release early polling, i would included in barnstorming. I would act with the smallest amount of resources possible like i was going to play here all day long and i would not spend a meaningful dollar. That is the National NarrativeEveryone Wants to have, texas turning blue. Texas will never be blue. There is highly likely that in the next four or eight years that it will be poor purple and competitive. We are seeing the early advancement of that with the 2018 cycle, and you see it with the president s numbers, image, and job approval. If everybody votes in texas, republicans win by 10 in a president ial race, everybody votes. Tim you had near president ial level turnout. Jeff near previous president ial level turnout. Explain to folks who may be listening and they heard congressman say that this is now a 5050 state, next november. You disagree with that because why . Terry politicians are wrong. That is the first thing. I do not care what politicians say. Year, 8. 6 Million People voted. And 11t year, 10. 5 million. It is literally if everybody votes than you have a wipeout. A lot of people think that the new growth coming into texas are all democrats from and hopefully, as i have said before. It is not just that, democrats do not pick up and move from california to austin for the higher taxes. It is republicans. It is people coming to freedom. It is like freedoms dying breath will be in texas. They like their jobs and opportunities, it does not happen on the coast like here. It is not just democrats, it is republicans moving in. Ted cruz did better among people who lived 10 years and less against beto than those who lived here 10 years or more. Those are staggering statistics and they will round out with the rest your panelists and politicians, but the reality is beas is red and it will purple because of the nonwhite voting increase, and if there is any kind of Immigration Reform that legalizes illegal votes, it could happen. Where it would be more purple this year than before. But i would take it all the way through. Tim do either of you guys disagree . I do not. From my perspective, politically you might need to do a fake with respect to texas. I do not know how many people . Tim can we get their mics up . Is this better . You may need from a Voter Perspective to make head stakes can turning texas. I find it hard to believe that it will be on the map. It was a bit of an element of surprise in 2018. There is no element of surprise in 2020. This is a big state, basically a country. To run a Real Campaign costs real money. The money spent here is not money spent in phoenix, and not spent in atlanta, which would be more legitimate pick up opportunities and spending money in dallas, houston, and here in austin. From my perspective i find it hard to believe that they were making meaningful plays much more than it has been. Georgia betterd pick up opportunities . Terry absolutely. Advice got ted cruz reelected so clearly it is not a swing state. Let us be honest. It is a solid red state, maybe it is trending less solid, but it is not anything that is going to be several election cycles before there is any meaningful a lot of it is this by out flat outsiders of this bias, look at this bennett population. A large portion of the hispanic population in texas is fifthgeneration. This is not the hispanic population you will run into in florida or other parts of the country. Oversimplified to growing hispanic means only democrats will win. Tim the last time we got together, the four of us and beth, it was on the eve of the first democratic president ial debate, and we were sort of gaining out what the primary and democratic side would look out versus what the chaotic primary looked like on the republican side in 2016. There are similarities and differences. One of the big similarities that we were noting is how joe biden as a candidate reminded us in a not insignificant way of jeb bush. I would say that one of these, not the Biggest Development since we got together is that Jeb Bush Joe Biden is beginning to tread water. Coming back in the polls and his vulnerabilitynsed that they did not sense before. I want to take that to you, you were looking at this a couple of months ago and giving warnings to the Biden Campaign about how they could avoid what jeb bush suffered. How do you assess the way that they are running that campaign strategically, and do you see his current downward trajectory as a blip or is he in trouble . Danny the reality is that it is hard to be a front runner. When you were on top, in our case you have 16 other people shooting at you. In his case, over 20 people shooting at him. Is, he has been fairly durable. Performance, and the debates and whatnot. He has maintained a healthy lead on the National Plot and he needs seeing that she has seen slippage on the state plots, double digits in New Hampshire, and south carolina, so he has maintained durability. Day, thed of the question i am asking myself is how does he ebb that downward trend. If you look at any of the numbers, what is happening is that he has an enthusiasm gap. Number two, just as problematic is Elizabeth Warren is the second choice of a lot of voters. He is becoming less of a second choice. , and in first choice some ways there is more support and firmness around that choice, and she is a little bit softer and some of these early states. But she is the second choice for a lot of voters, and her energy level is on the upward trajectory. His energy level is on the downward trajectory. The question is what will he do to ebb the current direction . Tim what do you guys make up jab today rail at jeb relative to where he was at the outset . Biden or jab . Jeb. Tim biden. Let us talk about biden. For jeb at thets end. What do you make about biden today and we are all hearing almost a panic narrative. It was a reporter who tweeted out that the Biden Campaign, sources, had told him that they were bracing to lose iowa and New Hampshire. We are five months out and those are two very different states. There is a sense that they have to stick this. To dannys point, they need to do something to stop the bleeding. How worried are you . I think it is impressive how well they hung on. At the end of the day, he was dropped he has dropped into the margin of error. Other candidates have gone up, but he has not at all. He has done a very good job. He had everything stacked against him, being the front 1 front runner and everyone coming in. He is more moderate than the rest of his party. At the end of the day, he there was every reason to believe that he would tank out of the gate, and they have done a good job at surviving all of this stuff. This handwringing crab about insider, it is probably a friend who texted somebody who is like they are ready to lose. Who cares. I think they have done a smart running the kind of campaign they need to run. Bidens only chance is to be the front runner. Sherry and terry are not about to push the panic button. Jeff it is over. You have a better chance to be a nominee. Tim i am not 35. Jeff you are not 35 . Awardwinning author . You look much older than that. Tim thanks. Jeff i think that there is a when jeb was slowly leaking out, he was not nationally. A prop up and kept his numbers higher. Erodingre states he was without a lot of negative campaigning. Hit, he ist taking a taking a hit every single day. He has had 100 days of bad news and is getting ready to have another 100. The one thing is electability, and the one thing that he has going, and electability is always fulls goal fools gold. The democrats think that the president will be impeached, and we need to go with someone who will do what will get done and widen is not the safe choice to beach trump, that is no longer his narrative. Lose iowaare going to and New Hampshire and think you will hold, that is bad strategy. The post and the carrier had him at 46 . The post has him at 36 in august. He is on a down alert downward decline. He has to address that. And the way you address it is not lifting your guy up, it is by making sure that Elizabeth Warren gets the level of scrutiny over the next four or five months that he has gotten over the previous four or five months. That is a smart point. Which is what matters as much as anything, if the pressure comes off the limelight comes off him a bit. I do not think the limelight is coming off. I call bs on that. At the end of the day, everybody else has gotten a pass. Ofre has been no scrutiny Elizabeth Warren and her policies and ideas in the past six months. And, it will be her turn in the barrel, and there will be that level of scrutiny on her, and they are still going to be scrutiny on him, but that is going to bring her numbers down. I think i said they were running a rose garden strategy, and it does not work. You see him doing one event today, he cannot raise money like the rest can, so he has to keep doing fundraisers. They are hard to get to. It is high octane, you have to be well staffed, your entire operation have to go there has to go there. An event today is some diner that he is stopping by on the way to go to a fundraiser. Theow many events a day donald trump have a day . Donald trump had saturation Media Coverage in a way that joe biden will not have. My point is and this is the point, it is all about making impressions, and joe biden is able to get more impressions than anyone else, like donald trump. Who the has chosen nominee is, just like fox. An asset msnbc chooses there. Chooses theirs. You can call roger all you want to do and he said i will not tell andy or lori what to say. Take a look at the daytime daytime coverage. Try and find the last bad Elizabeth Warren story. You cannot find one. Measure media mentions on msnbc, which is what 4 million of their 10 million voters watch every day. Try and find a bad Elizabeth Warren story. Tim the three of you guys were bullish on a couple of people a few months ago, and on the eve of the democratic debate we were handicapping these things. You talked a lot about Kamala Harris we agreed was the best natural political athlete in the field. Pete buttigieg, you thought that buttigieg had the potential to take off. ,one of you were high on warren because of some of her vulnerabilities and the rocky start to her campaign. How impressed have you been with the way that she has taken off and how durable is it. Do you worry that she has peaked too soon because she is about to go under the microscope . The numbers show that her voters are not sold on her yet. If they can be persuaded and move off of her, she, unlike joe biden is not an entirely known quantity. You have to paint a portrait of her to those voters with a very powerful tool. New information, information that they have not seen, information they have not heard, you have to drive. Premise and it was my that, allah needs to hang around because if if that needs to hangmala around because if biden comes down there is room to maneuver. I do not know she controls her fate, but you cannot take your eyes off of her because the lane she is in and who is occupying the lane. Then there is the deathmatch, bernie and elizabeth, and she is cleaning his clock. He still is the most donors and money, that she is eating his vote share. We asked, what will biden do to change the dynamics, the next question is what will bernie do to change dynamics for himself . He is the godfather of medicare for all, and she dances on some of the stuff and he has the pure ideologue, and she is playing politics with some of these issues. You will have to figure out what he is doing, because she is blossoming. Have secondlitics act, and there is somebody will get a second act three or four months from now. To that point, i think buttigieg is doing an amazing job of hanging around. He got his little bit of a spike, and he did not settle down that much. He still sits around for a guy in a small town, he has done an amazing job and i think it has been out of his raw political talent and, from a generational standpoint and telegenic standpoint, he works and he is not i think he might end up gaining more from biden coming down than harris. Is she is not she has not done as well as anyone thought she would. Her campaign has been boring. As a candidate she is not as dynamic. She checks a lot of boxes, but she is not dynamic. You have to say it. Here is why, because no matter what, whether you voted for marco or worked for other candidates were secretly told me that you liked marco, at the end of the day, you listen to him and you are like, i like that. He inspires me, even if you disagree with them. He was inspirational. I do not see where she is inspiring anyone he anybody. People will have opportunities to have movements, it is way too early. Heres the thing with Kamala Harris. If i am running for a campaign that i am concerned about, the currency of a president ial campaign is moments. We get stuck in the turn of the screw every day, but it is the moments that break through that people remember. Kamala harris taking down job out joe biden in the first debate was the only real moment in my opinion and covering it. She did not capitalize in the way she needed to have that moment and the Media Coverage, and the tshirts being printed in the donations coming at flooded into her campaign. A month later she plateaued. That would be concerning. What it not for you guys . Important part of that is that it was a fabricated moment. Any sort of cotton candy high she got out of it was immediately erased. When people said, they did not believe joe biden was a racist, and they did not believe that she believed it. It was a great talking point that she rehearsed and debate prep and she waited for her moment, she delivered the talking point and everybody was like great. And everyone was like, that is not really fair. I think she paid a price. What matters more than anything else is authenticity or perceived authenticity, and that did not seem authentic. I think he is right, that is rubios problem and it is hard to have a moment of june engine that carries much. We had 24 Million People watched the first debate, they had 14. All the ballyhoo democrat energy, there are not a lot of people paying attention yet. You have small dollars that are fueling the campaign, small dollars that are required to make debate stages, so you have these people lurching way outside their comfort zones, way left of where they would ever naturally be. Senators that are really literally cosponsoring bills that they couldve cosponsored at any time in their career the day before they go on a road trip in a primary state. You have a bunch of characters acting out of character, they know it and they are faking it. It seems pretty mundane, which is why biden hangs on and is more durable than he should have been. Just liketly right, baseball in the playoffs and the ncaa tournament, you have to get hot at the right time. The top five can all get hot, i dont think anybody outside the top five has any gas into the tank. Tuesday playing a wildcard game. Nobody thought they would have made it. Her issue is that she is not growing on staff. Improvingmance is not on stuff. That is her problem. Politics isntity super strong their side, so when counting so counting her out is a fools errand. Tim let us talk about warren. The energy you are seeing on the ground for her is unrivaled on this democratic side at this point, and it is growing. And in the white house, and the president s team were not concerned about warren as of four or five months ago, they were outright dismissive. They were like, please make her the nominee, we would love to face Elizabeth Warren. I can tell you from conversations with those same people, there is lot there is a lot more concerned now than there