Quorum Report Radio

Houston was rocked this week by ICE agents gunning down a grandfather who's lived in the city for 35 years. Houston Chronicle Opinion Editor Evan Mintz joins the show with the latest on the investigation. Meantime, Little Gov. Dan Patrick says Black people won't vote for James Talarico, arguing the Democrat is “a 90-pound weakling” who “couldn’t lift a ten-pound weight in a gym if he helped it," w...

In the 2026 campaign, it's the women in the Texas Democratic Party who are addressing the nitty-gritty, eye-level issues that voters of all stripes really seem angry about this year: School closures and data centers. And that merits a substantive discussion of the governor's race in which Gina Hinojosa is going right at Abbott on both. Plus: An election denier gets an elections job with Gov. Abbot...

Yes, Lt. Gov. Patrick got a lot of attention for saying James Talarico is "going to hell, for sure." But in understanding what may happen in this election, what's maybe more significant is that senior Texas Republicans including Patrick and Sen. John Cornyn are still feuding following some of the nastiest high-profile GOP primaries in this state's history. Plus, take a trip with us to South Texas...

Scott is at the Texas GOP Convention in Houston and Evan is on the beach. So, for the show this week we're featuring Harvey's conversation with Joe Trippi on his national podcast: On The Ground . Republicans feel entitled to keeping Texas. After all, they've been in power for nearly 30 years. But could Democrats flip the script? Harvey and Joe talked at length about the potential Dems have in the...

Texas House Republicans and Democrats alike are getting really frustrated over the fact that they voted for billions in additional funding for public schools but the ISDs aren't getting what they were promised. Well, there was a shady process for passing that school funding bill last year and it deserves an explanation. Also: "Rural Texas is on fire" politically. That's the way one GOP legislator...

Republicans are scrambling now to scrub their social media and deleting nasty comments about more than one of their GOP nominees in Texas: Bo French and Ken Paxton are at the top of the list, with the former being too extreme for Lt. Gov. Patrick and Gov. Abbott while the latter's been blasted by US Senate Republicans as a scandal-ridden albatross. Plus, Talarico hits back on all the nicknames, ta...

One of Texas' top elected Republicans will have his career ended on Tuesday: Either John Cornyn or Ken Paxton. And election day can't come fast enough after President Trump may have dealt the political death blow to Texas senior senator, who's been nothing but a solid soldier for Trump. Loyalty up to Trump never equals loyalty back down, though, and Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton serves as the...

"Channeling his inner Trump": Even though his actual fight over property taxes is with Lt. Gov. Patrick, Gov Abbott's political operation is threatening lobbyists' livelihoods over that issue while Abbott himself is threatening local governments over immigration enforcement. Harvey has a lot to say about both. Plus, the Republican runoff for Attorney General is red hot while the US Senate race now...

This week on the show: Even he can't believe it, but it's now been 30 years since Scott Braddock dropped out of high school to start a full time career in Texas media. He started as a small town disc jockey in Brenham and worked his way up to run the essential news outlet for Texas political professionals, the Quorum Report, alongside Publisher Harvey Kronberg. This past year he and Harvey launche...

On so many levels, the way Texans deal with grief was on full display this week. It was on the faces of the parents who testified about their daughters who were killed in Hill Country floods last year and it was in the outpouring of concern after the sudden death of radio host Chad Hasty. But our audience at Quorum Report really is a community that comes together during these times. I can't tell y...

After voters in Virginia this week approved a new congressional map giving a big boost to Democrats, the Republican Party is now running behind in the redistricting arms race that started last summer at the Texas Capitol. We'll break it all down for you including some exclusive reporting on how some Texas Republicans in Congress were hoping state Democrats would block President Trump's "dumb" idea...

Some South Texas Latinos who have voted Republican in the last couple elections are throwing their MAGA hats in the trash after President Trump posted an AI-generated image clearly depicting himself as Jesus Christ while getting in a fight with the head of the Catholic Church over the war in Iran. Plus: The immigration fight playing out now in Houston is coming to cities across Texas as Gov. Abbot...

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick raised eyebrows this week by going further than any other elected Republican has this year in describing the challenge faced by his party in the general election. Patrick even went so far as to say the Texas House majority is possibly in play. And yes he took a shot at yours truly as well. Plus, we'll head out to Far West Texas with Forrest Wilder, senior writer at Texas Month...

We're not even really getting into the heat of the runoff elections yet and Gov. Abbott already seems to be slamming the door shut on any effort to expand gambling in Texas next session. The news comes right as Mark Cuban announces he regrets selling the Dallas Mavericks to the owners of Las Vegas Sands. Meantime, Texas House Democrats gathered for their retreat in Houston where there was an emoti...

Should there be a "Top AI Slop" award for campaigns in Texas? It sure seems like it. We'll get into that plus Tony Ortiz at Current Revolt checks in from CPAC in DFW. And yes, we'll address what Rep. James Talarico said about meat. Our producer is the famous Evan Sherer and the original music is by Checkmayne in Houston.

Crashing out: There are new calls for Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo to resign after she claims she was "manhandled" by Houston Rodeo staff. That's not likely to happen but some sharp Quorum Report readers were quick to point out that officeholders crashing out at rodeos is now a bipartisan tradition in Texas. You know what else is bipartisan? The growing pushback to the rapidly expanding data c...

Now that he's the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Texas, national Republicans – and the ones around here – are wastin' no time working to define him as a "far left" Austin liberal. He’s trying to get ahead of that but Republicans are using Talarico’s own words to prove it. Meantime, Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton spent most of their week wondering if President Trump is about...

Reporting from Deep East Texas this week: A Texas Senate race here is intriguing because it's the only such race in which Little Gov. Dan Patrick isn't overtly trying to hire a specific senator. We'll explain. Plus, bossman Harvey Kronberg checks in about how the primary and general election could completely change the math in the Texas House for Speaker Burrows, who's made the decision to govern...

Reporting from San Antonio this week: Big John Cornyn says the future of the Republican Party itself is on the line in this primary season that now features a former Senator buying Jeffrey Epstein's ranch and Sid Miller's opponent turning a debate into a public confessional about alcoholism, porn addiction, and infidelity. Meantime a Congressman faces allegations of an affair with a woman who late...

The hatred some Texas Republicans expressed for the Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime show reminds me of the racism and hatred some Texans expressed decades ago when a legendary rock station in Houston flipped formats to Latin Pop. Then, as now, they sound angry and bitter. More significantly, they sound like the past while Bad Bunny sounds like the future. We'll get into that. Plus, faith-based group...

Not even 48 hours after their historic win in Fort Worth, Texas Democrats were already at each other's throats in the US Senate primary with former Rep. Colin Allred all but calling Rep. James Talarico a racist and a pro-Talarico group slamming Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the first attack ads of the party's nominating contest. But are these the nastiest attacks ever seen in Texas? The boss, Harvey Kr...

This week, why don't we all have a conversation about why we are now in a place where federal immigration enforcement includes the deadly shootings of American citizens? How did we get here? After the ICE shootings in Minneapolis and the detention of children and tear gassing of protesters in South Texas, I can't help but think about the way a Republican President's administration 20 years ago pro...

Reporting from the campaign trail this week in Dallas-Fort Worth: As a potentially catastrophic winter storm bears down on Texas, Republicans and Democrats are going head to head in a special election in deep red Tarrant County that even Little Gov. Dan Patrick thinks the GOP could lose. As Patrick said, Democrats might pull off an upset victory because it's something Republicans were able to do i...

Reporting this week from Houston: The Republican primary for Texas Attorney General includes talk of fighting the "dark forces of the left" and making state government the enforcer of biblical values. Reporter Jen Rice checks in about the governor's plan for the state to take over Houston elections. And we check on the Uvalde families seeking at least a small slice of justice following the massacr...

The year begins with unrest around the world after US Military action in Venezuela and an ICE shooting in the Midwest that's reverberating on the campaign trail in the Great State with less than six weeks to go before early voting starts in one of the most consequential elections on Earth: The Texas primary. Plus, President Trump kind of admits what the whole redistricting war that started in Texa...