'Potentially in play,' Trump, Harris come to Texas in campaign crunch time

AUSTIN (Nexstar) - Both major presidential candidates came to Texas on Friday, visiting the state on the same day, just over a week before election day. That's not unusual for voters in battleground states to see. It's something Texas voters haven't seen for a long time.

Former President Donald Trump arrived in Austin early Friday afternoon. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, and Senator Ted Cruz were among those who welcomed his arrival.

Trump held a rally at a private facility at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. He told the audience that the election will mark “liberation day in America” as his campaign plans to dismantle current border policies, should he win the presidential election.

Among those on stage with Trump was Alexis Nungaray, mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray. Jocelyn was kidnapped in Houston back in June and later found dead in a creek. Two undocumented men from Venezuela face capital murder charges connected to her death.

After the rally, Trump joined Joe Rogan for an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. Rogan lives in Austin and his podcast, described on his website as “a long form conversation,” had more than 14.5 million subscribers on Spotify as of March and more than 17 million on YouTube.

Vice President Kamala Harris scheduled a podcast appearance of her own during her visit to Houston. She sat down with author and podcast host Brené Brown. Brown's podcast also has an audience in the millions, skewing toward women.

Afterwards, Harris rallied in Houston to an estimated crowd of 30,000. The audience heard from several speakers, including women and doctors affected by abortion restrictions in Texas.

The rally also featured an appearance by performing artist and Texas native Beyoncé. She did not perform, but had a message for the crowd as she introduced Harris.

"I am not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician.  I'm here as a mother. A mother who cares about the world our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we are not divided, our past or present or future," she said, before introducing the Vice President.

As Harris spoke, a large video screen behind the stage displayed the message "Vote for Reproductive Freedom." Harris spoke about abortion restrictions in Texas and how the outcome of the election could decide whether similar policies spread to other states.

The dueling visits from Harris and Trump come on the heels of new polling that shows the race in Texas is not particularly close. Emerson College and The Hill polled likely Texas voters. In the poll, 53% said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today. Harris pulled in 46% support.

The poll, funded by Nexstar Media, was released Wednesday. It found the margin between Trump and Harris grew from 5.3 points on Sept. 27 to 7.1 points on Oct. 22.

The presidential race will be decided in a handful of battleground states. Texas is not one of those states.

"I think there are a couple of reasons [for the visits]," explained Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. "The first is that we see the national political map really changing. It has moved from being a contest about who can win the rust belt or the blue wall, to being a contest about who can win the Sun Belt states. So places like Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, even Texas now are going to be potentially in play as you see more people moving to the states, and the demographics are changing as a result."

Rottinghaus said he believes bringing the campaigns to Texas can help both candidates get attention nationwide, rather than just in battleground states. It could also boost candidates in the hotly-contested race for U.S. Senate.

"It helps Texas Democrats. Obviously, the turnout so far has been kind of lackluster, so they're hoping that maybe to get that boost. And frankly, specifically, in places like Harris County here in Houston, they need to have big turnout. They're lagging behind where O'Rourke was in 2018 and so they really would love to see those numbers bump up," Rottinghaus said.

Polls show a narrow margin between Cruz and Allred. Rottinghaus said that the Trump visit could be a boost for the incumbent Senator.

"He's got to get big turnout from rural areas. He needs Republicans to come vote. His problem is that he runs behind Trump in terms of polling. His favorability numbers are lower than Trump, and so he's got to really kind of hitch on to Trump's popularity," Rottinghaus said.

Cruz and Allred may both hope to portray a bipartisan image and attract voters from the other side. The race has created some unlikely political friendships and led longtime partisan officials to break with their allies and endorse based on principle over party.

"I am a Texan and I am an American long before I'm a Republican," former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said.

Whitley has served Tarrant County for 26 years, including as county judge from 2006 until 2022. He's a conservative Republican, but he said he can no longer support Cruz.

"I think the straw that broke the camel's back was the insurrection on Jan. 6," he said. "Cruz supported and worked with Trump to basically try to stop the certification of votes."

Whitley also pointed to some of Allred's bipartisan appeals, criticizing Cruz's lack of support for the CHIPS Act, the PACT Act, and this year's bipartisan border bill.

"We can disagree on policies. We really can," Whitley said. "But if I know I've got someone of good character, then I know what they're doing, they're doing it for what they truly believe is the right reason."

Whitley's county is perhaps one of the most interesting in Texas politics -- and certainly one of the most competitive.

"I think what Tarrant County people are looking at is, they're looking at the character," he said. "[That] goes back to the fact that you let someone disrespect your wife, and you didn't do anything about it, that you left the state in time of crisis to go to the beaches of Cancun while Allred was back passing out food in the food banks, and then the [Jan. 6] insurrection."

In 2016, Donald Trump won Tarrant County by nearly nine points. Since then, the county voted blue in 2018 and 2020 for Beto O'Rourke and Joe Biden -- both winning the county by less than one point. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott flipped Tarrant back to red by four points.

The Rio Grande Valley is also a battleground as both campaigns hope to court Latino voters. Former State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. is an authoritative figure in South Texas politics -- after 32 years representing Brownsville as a Democrat in the state senate, he's all in for Ted Cruz.

"He's very effective. As a public official, I really feel he's got the pulse of the community much more so than other people," Lucio said. "I know that with him we're going to have someone that will protect the unborn."

Lucio has long been a conservative Democrat, unapologetically saying that he lets his Catholic faith guide his politics, and often breaking with the party on abortion. But he also pointed to Cruz's noncontroversial, bipartisan achievements as a reason to endorse him.

"The Texas economy is important, and especially there, I know that Senator Cruz was called upon to work on some permits for international bridges, a couple in the Laredo area, one in El Paso, and one in Brownsville. And he did that effectively by proposing legislation that got bipartisan support. So you can count on our senator to do the right thing," Lucio said.

While both campaigns are leaning into their ability to cross the aisle, it's unclear how many more voters there are to convince. In the latest Nexstar poll from The Hill and Emerson College, only 5% of Texas likely voters reported they were undecided.

But the poll found Cruz leads Allred by a single point -- so each candidate's ability to reach the other side may make all the difference.

South Texas races could help decide control of Congress

While the U.S. Senate race in Texas has received national attention, there are similar stakes playing out in two south Texas races for the U.S. House. Their outcomes will factor into determining whether which party holds power in Congress.

The race for Texas Congressional District 34 is a rematch from the hotly contested 2022 campaign. The district includes Cameron County on the Gulf of Mexico and parts of Hidalgo County. Republican Mayra Flores held the seat for a few months in 2022, after winning a special election to replace Democrat Filemon Vela, who retired earlier that year.

Flores lost to Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez in November of 2022. Gonzalez previously represented neighboring Congressional District 15, but redistricting pushed him into District 34. This year's rematch has brought in millions in campaign donations.

Campaign reports show Flores has received $5.8 million in campaign donations. That includes $800,000 from the Republican National Committee. Congressman Gonzalez has raised $2.8 million according to campaign finance reports.

Gonzalez and Flores faced off in a live televised debate earlier this month at KVEO in Harlingen, highlighting their positions on the economy and border security.

District 15, which Gonzalez previously represented, flipped in 2022 to the Republicans for the first time in history. Republican congresswoman Monica De La Cruz, who lost to Gonzalez in 2020, won the seat in 2022 and wants to hang on to it again.

The congresswoman from McAllen faces a repeat challenge from Democratic entrepreneur Michelle Vallejo. De La Cruz performed well in the red ranchlands to the north, but areas closer to the border, like Hidalgo County, favored Vallejo.

Money could be a key a factor in this race. De La Cruz has raised $7.1 million. Vallejo is running a grassroots campaign, with little support from national Democrats, but has raised $1.9 million.

Effort to save death row inmate raises questions beyond guilt or innocence

A Texas man whose execution was halted after lawmakers ordered Robert Roberson to appear at the state Capitol did not show up as planned Monday after a dispute over transporting a person on death row for the extraordinary purpose of testifying in a public hearing.

His absence at a highly anticipated hearing at the Texas Capitol was another twist in last-ditch efforts to spare Roberson's life over claims that outdated science and faulty evidence led to his 2003 conviction in the death of his 2-year-old daughter.

It also opened tensions between a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers who say Roberson is innocent and state Republican leaders, including Abbott, who say the unusual maneuver by legislators to subpoena Roberson at the last minute in an attempt to buy more time crossed a line.

Roberson had been set last Thursday to become the first person in the U.S. executed over a murder conviction connected to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. He was taken to America's busiest death chamber and was waiting in a holding cell when the Texas Supreme Court abruptly halted plans to give him a lethal injection.

Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody, the chairman of a state House committee that led efforts to stop the execution, said as Monday's hearing opened that Roberson likely would not appear but that lawmakers still hoped he would do so soon.

“If this committee wanted to take a heavy-handed approach, there are dramatic ways that we could enforce that subpoena,” Moody said. “But we didn't issue the subpoena to create a constitutional crisis, and we aren't interested in creating division between branches of government.”

The Texas Attorney General's Office had told lawmakers that Roberson would only appear by videoconference, which Moody said would be “poorly suited” for Roberson because he is autistic.

“That doesn’t mean Robert won’t testify at all,” said Moody, without saying when Roberson might testify or how.

Among those testifying Monday about Roberson’s case was daytime television psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw and best-selling author John Grisham. The veteran talk show host McGraw threw his full support behind Roberson, stating that there was not enough evidence to convict him of a crime.

“If you execute people when you now know better, you need to abolish the death penalty. If that's the standard by which you're gonna execute people, you've got a bad system,” McGraw said.

Roberson's claims of innocence are backed by a group of Republican and Democratic legislators who say he was convicted based on outdated science.

Roberson received the death penalty for the 2002 death of daughter Nikki Curtis in the East Texas city of Palestine. Prosecutors argued that the infant’s death was caused by serious head trauma from being violently shaken back and forth. Roberson’s attorneys say that the bruising on Curtis’ body was likely due to complications with severe pneumonia and not child abuse.

Once Roberson testifies to lawmakers, prosecutors could seek a new execution date at any time, according to Gretchen Sween, one of his attorneys.

Lawmakers had sought to have Roberson transported from death row to appear in person, raising the possibility of an extraordinary scene in the Texas Capitol. However, the state attorney general's office told the committee he would appear virtually.

Abbott's office said the Texas Supreme Court should toss out the subpoena, writing that the House committee has “stepped out of line” in their first public statement on the case.

Almost 90 lawmakers across party lines, medical experts and civil rights advocates had called on Abbott to stay his execution. Abbott has not commented on Roberson’s case and the Texas parole board rejected pleas to grant clemency.

Rebuffed by the courts and Texas’ parole board in their efforts to spare Roberson’s life, legislators last Thursday subpoenaed Roberson to testify. Lawmakers on the House committee have expressed frustration with Texas' junk science law, which they say has failed to work as intended, including in Roberson's case.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.

In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.

Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, has previously told the committee that a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson's attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims.

On Wednesday, the Office of Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a news release highlighting details from the trial record that indicate Roberson abused his daughter. The release included a link to an autopsy report that states the girl died from blunt force trauma.

Paxton wrote that efforts to get a new trial for Roberson are based on "falsehoods." The title of the news release referenced "rebutting Jeff Leach's and Joe Moody's lies about convicted child murderer."

Moody noted that the information Paxton released contradicted testimony the committee heard from lawyers, medical experts, as well as from a juror and the lead investigator in the case. In a statement responding to Paxton's news release, Moody maintained that Roberson deserves a new trial.

Texas lawmaker considers bollard bill after hospital crash

A Texas state senator wants to make hospitals safer following a deadly crash inside the emergency room lobby at St. David's North Austin Medical Center in February and is now considering filing a bill after a KXAN investigation revealed these types of accidents are not uncommon.

"We'll sit down with the hospitals and kind of get their take on exactly how we go about tackling and resolving this particular problem," said State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. "I'm committed to it."

It's been eight months to the day since a drunk driver drove her car into the Austin ER, killing herself and seriously injuring five people, including all four members of the Bernard family. At the Texas Capitol, West had a message.

"We re-emphasize to the Bernard family: What happened to you is a tragedy and it shouldn't happen again in the state of Texas," West said. "And, I'm going to do everything I can in my power to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The Dallas Democrat is taking notice of KXAN's investigations, which found more than 300 similar crashes across the country in the past decade -- a number West called surprising and "alarming."

"So, all of that's taken into consideration," he said.

Earlier this year, KXAN traveled to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute near College Station to see how crash-rated security barriers, called bollards, can stop a speeding car. After the Austin crash and during our investigation, St. David's installed a dozen bollards. While experts say these devices can save lives, KXAN found no local, state or federal requirement for critical infrastructure, like hospitals, to have them -- even though medical facilities carry extra risk, with patients in distress driving right up to the entrance.

"Do you think hospitals should be required to install crash-rated security bollards?" KXAN investigative reporter Matt Grant asked West.

"Given what happened to the Bernard family," West said, "we need to really look at this particular issue."

The Austin City Council is also looking into this issue. An ordinance requiring crash-rated bollards at new hospitals, stand-alone emergency rooms and urgent care clinics is being finalized. In July, after watching KXAN's investigation, Councilmember Mackenzie Kelly introduced a resolution, to authorize the drafting of the ordinance, which will go back to the council for a vote on Dec. 12.

"That's amazing," Kelly said in a text message when told about the potential for a statewide bollard bill.

KXAN's investigation also sparked a bollard review at all federal facilities in the southwest. In June, Congressman Lloyd Doggett's office asked the General Services Administration to look into this following our reporting. That review is still ongoing.

West will make a decision on whether to file legislation to create a uniform statewide bollard standard after speaking with hospital officials, he said. He also wants to research what other states have done.

KXAN checked and previously found California updated its law in 2022 to allow insurance company discounts for businesses that install bollards.

Over the past decade, the Storefront Safety Council, which tracks crashes, worked to help pass local ordinances requiring crash-rated “vehicle impact protection devices,” like bollards, in business parking lots in at least five cities and counties. Three were sparked by deadly crashes:

• A 6-year-old was killed at a dentist’s office in Midfield, Alabama in 2017
• A 73-year-old was killed at an ice cream shop in Artesia, California in 2014
• A 4-year-old was killed at a daycare center in Orange County, Florida in 2014

The McCue Corporation, which invited KXAN to watch its products undergo crash-testing at TTI, said it would cost up to $30,000 to install 20 of its crash-rated bollards at a hospital ER. For hospitals with multiple entrances and locations, that can be costly. The company's CEO previously said: "It's just a cost of keeping their employees and the patients safe."

West wants to meet with the Bernard family during the legislative session. He said what happened to them should concern all lawmakers.

"You do a cost-benefit analysis: Life over a few dollars," said West. "And, you know where I'm coming down on that. I think life is more important than a few dollars."