Voter enthusiasm, Cruz-Allred and the race for the White House | FOX 7 Focus

Election Day is just around the corner and more than 8 million Texans have already voted.

There are several races at the local and national level that affect Central Texans.

FOX 7 Focus reporter John Krinjak spoke with Quorum Report editor Scott Braddock about the election and the final stretch in the race between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred and Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

JOHN KRINJACK: The 12 days of early voting saw fairly high voter turnout. What do you think drives people to vote with these numbers and is there anything we can infer from that?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: Of course, there is a lot more enthusiasm on the Democratic side after the realignment at the top of the list. In Texas, President Biden trailed former President Trump by about 10 points before the restart, but now the numbers look something like they did in 2020, when Biden lost to Trump by 5 points in Texas and of course won statewide.

JOHN KRINJACK: We've seen a lot of new voters and younger voters registering, and by the way, it seems like there are at least some people who haven't voted in a while who are deciding, OK, I'm going to go out and vote. What might these groups say about the outcome of some of these races?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: I think you have enthusiasm among young voters, but in Texas, historically and historically, that has never really translated into success for Democrats. They've been betting on this for a long time, but we're seeing all these celebrities getting involved, which I think is interesting. Lots of Texas celebrities. You saw Beyoncé headlining that rally with Vice President Harris last weekend, and on the Republican side you have Joe Rogan and some of these other people who are very popular with young men on the Republican side. As far as celebrity endorsements and kind of influencers making an effort or pushing through, I think there are some people who maybe wouldn't have voted before and might vote now because they hear from someone they know. It doesn't really speak to persuasion, but it can express some of the enthusiasm you see out there.

JOHN KRINJACK: Speaking of Cruz-Allred, the U.S. Senate is obviously a big race this year. In some places it looked pretty tight. What does it look like now and what do you see from the campaigns in these last few days?

Ted Cruz-Colin Allred: Where the candidates stand on the issues

SCOTT BRADDOCK: We get the closing arguments and both campaigns are really trying to convey very different messages. On the Cruz page, he talks a lot about boys in girls' sports, which is really just code for talking about transgender people. On the Democratic side, which you hear a lot more often, I hear two things: One, he's attacking the Republicans on the issue of abortion, saying that the Republicans are eradicating women's rights, women's autonomy over their own bodies, and then this is what I saw from the Texas Democratic Party, this is the old Ted Cruz Cancun attack. That's something that you know can really hit home when there's so much noise in these campaigns.

JOHN KRINJACK: Polls show Cruz leading Allred by five or seven points and has a similar lead in the presidential race here in Texas. Do you think these numbers will hold up, at least nationally, as we look at the presidential race?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: When we see through all of this and the dust settles, expect that Texas will still be a Republican state. You know, if we look at early voting now, we see that Republicans turned out in larger numbers than in the past. Republican counties are keeping pace with Democratic voters in early voting. The big difference is that former President Trump is telling them to do it. The question now is: Will it produce new Republican voters in this early voting period or will it cannibalize the Republican vote on Election Day? Presumably the latter, so I'm assuming that while they will exhaust the Republican vote total, there will still be more Republican votes than Democratic votes in Texas if current numbers hold, but of course Allred and Harris are hoping that the case may end up getting a boost here. We have to watch closely on election night.