Texas
Democrats Had a Very Messy Week in Texas. Here’s What That Means for the Rest of the Country.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, which once again has had the NFL reject its pitch to perform a live reading of this newsletter as the Super Bowl halftime show.
The United States, and its news, failed to improve this week. Congress did fund the government but is already stuck ahead of the next spending deadline. Tulsi Gabbard remains at large. And while it’s not entirely about politics—though it’s not not about politics—we couldn’t resist a few words about the gutting of the local newspaper.
Blah, blah, life is sad—well, not anymore, because we’re kicking off 2026 primary season with Texas Week! Everybody grab two handfuls of sizzlin’ Texas chili (??) and git to reading.
1.
James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett
Entering the thick of primary season.
We are less than a month from the start of 2026 primary season, as Texas voters go to the polls on March 3. This is welcome news to the Surge. Early primary coverage feels so distant with its talk of endorsements, “war chests,” and other lifeless stats. Now we can cover proper knife fights down the stretch.
The prime drama of the week came in Texas’ competitive Senate Democratic primary between state Rep. James Talarico and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, of Dallas. It started when Morgan Thompson, a Texas TikTok personality, said that Talarico had told her privately “that he signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable and intelligent Black woman.” The Black man in question is former Rep. Colin Allred, who ended his Senate campaign last year and switched to a House race. Allred then posted his own video response in which he endorsed Crockett and trashed Talarico, telling him, “If you want to compliment a Black woman, just do it. Just do it. Don’t do it while also tearing down a Black man.” For his part, Talarico said Thompson had offered a “mischaracterization” of his remark, and that he described only Allred’s “method of campaigning as mediocre.” (Not a particularly controversial observation there.)
National Republicans, who would prefer to run against the more polarizing, partisan figure in Crockett, have greatly enjoyed this all. It’s been a welcome distraction from their own Texas problems.
2.
John Cornyn
How much do Republicans need to worry, here?
Our view of the Texas Senate race has been that it gets way too much attention for a contest that Republicans are probably going to win by 5 to 7 points. It’s not among the top pickup opportunities that national Democrats are targeting. Democrats haven’t won statewide there since 1994, and they seriously backslid in the state in 2024. It’s expensive to run in. There’s always a lot of temptation, every cycle, for Democrats to believe that this time could be different. It never materializes.
All of which is to say: It’s temptation time again! The national atmosphere is lousy for Republicans, the gains they made among Hispanic voters in 2024 to fortify their Texas standing are evaporating, Texas Republicans just got dusted in a special election in what they thought was a safe-red district, and, most importantly, they have candidate problems of their own. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who would likely win reelection to his seat if he made it to November’s general, is in dreadful primary shape. After $50 million in advertising has been spent on his behalf, it’s still not clear that he’d make it to a runoff in his primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Even if he did make the runoff against Paxton, he’d likely be at a disadvantage. If Paxton, another partisan, polarizing figure laden with personal and professional baggage, becomes Republicans’ nominee, Democrats will feel the Texas temptation like never before.
3.
Tulsi Gabbard
Things aren’t getting less weird.
We regret to say that at the rate she’s going, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is at risk of replacing Lindsey Graham as the Surge’s go-to “Here’s what they were up to this week” entry. Not a good sign for America. We’ve learned of late that Gabbard, who had been out of the public eye for a while, has been running her own investigation into the results of the 2020 election and sniffing around old ballots and voting machines. She was on the scene at an FBI raid of a Fulton County, Georgia, election center last week and, as we learned a few days ago, apparently called the president from Atlanta and put him on speakerphone with the agents who conducted the raid. None of this is within the DNI’s purview, all of it is wildly inappropriate at best, any of it would be a major scandal that Congress oversees immediately in a functioning government.
There is more. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that there’s a whistleblower complaint about Gabbard “that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress,” and that it’s “said to be locked in a safe.” A redacted version of the complaint, then, was finally made available to a select group of lawmakers later in the week, with executive privilege claims getting in the way of the good stuff. We shall see. Elsewhere in Gabland: It was reported that Gabbard “obtained” voting machines from Puerto Rico to play around with them and look for security vulnerabilities. OK!
4.
Jeff Bezos
A lot of people’s fault. But mostly his.
The Washington Post eliminated about a third of its staff and hundreds of journalism jobs this week in the worst single-day massacre of expertise and talent we’ve ever seen—even in an industry that’s been contracting all century. The Post nixed its sports and books coverage, axed much of its arts coverage, and gutted its international and metro desks. It is now narrowly focused on District of Columbia news and politics, making it less a swaggering international newspaper than a publication whose purview matches Politico’s.
The Post has gone through highs and lows going back decades. Yet the acute mismanagement of the past couple of years by its owner, Jeff Bezos, after he’d lost any apparent interest in owning a newspaper, is staggering. Seeking to protect his business before the government ahead of a potential Trump win in 2024, Bezos barred the editorial board from making an endorsement in the presidential race, costing the paper hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Individual mega-billionaires are under no obligation to use their largesse to subsidize public institutions like the Post forever. (A gentleman, though, might backfill at least the hole he personally created by interfering with the editorial board.) They’re not obligated to do so when it collides with their other business interests. We do think they’re obligated, however, to find someone who is willing to carry the task forward. Rather than destroy a public institution because it’s become a hassle in various ways, sell it to someone who gives a shit.
5.
Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries
ICE negotiations are going about as well as you’d expect.
Senate Democrats got what they wanted in the government funding battle that ensued following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Rather than extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security through September, it would be extended for two weeks while Democrats and Republicans negotiated some new restraints over immigration enforcement. The Senate passed this rejiggered deal late last week, and the House muscled it through on Tuesday.
It is now Saturday, and the sum total of negotiating progress that has been made is nothing. Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries put out a list of 10 demands—among them no masks for DHS officers, no roving DHS patrols, no racial profiling—which was met coolly by Republicans. “Democrats’ newest proposal is a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press,” Alabama’s Katie Britt, Senate Republicans’ lead DHS appropriator, said. “They continue to play politics to their radical base at the expense of the safety of Americans.” Democrats, meanwhile, say they are being serious—and it’s the Republicans who aren’t! Et cetera, et cetera, and so on and so forth. The conversation has moved largely toward what the next short-term DHS funding patch will look like, because a bigger deal to rein in immigration authorities does not appear to be in the ballpark of imminent.
6.
John Thune
Can the GOP’s dream voting law squeeze through the Senate?
A marked push from the most conservative factions in the House and Senate to pass a major voter verification and ID bill has kicked off, but it’s hitting the same old wall: the Senate filibuster. The bill in question was, at first, the SAVE Act, legislation that would require showing “documentary proof of United States Citizenship” in order to register to vote. Now there’s a new version—the SAVE America Act—that tacks on a requirement for presenting photo ID at polling places. Senate Democrats are fully hostile to the legislation, with Schumer calling it “Jim Crow 2.0” and saying it’s about “federalizing voter suppression.”
In order to appease certain House conservatives who were threatening to hold up the government funding bill this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he would at least have a conversation with his senators about how to proceed on the SAVE Act and its successors. One idea that’s come up, as it often does during desperate times, is to force the minority to stage a “talking filibuster” to stall it, and wait for them to exhaust their parliamentary options. Those never happen, and for good reason: It could eat up weeks or months of valuable Senate floor time and force Senate Republicans to be on or near the Senate floor for most of that time. This is one of those discussions we’d expect to naturally dissipate on its own once it becomes clear how unpalatable all of the options are. But depending on how involved Trump gets, Thune could have to withstand a lot of pressure.
7.
Jeanine Pirro
Preach!
The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia finally said something cool this week, then got in trouble for it. “You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail,” Jeanine Pirro said in an appearance on her old stomping grounds at Fox News. “I don’t care if you have a license in another district, and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” This didn’t sit well with gun-rights groups, who were already displeased with the administration for the way it talked about how Alex Pretti, who was carrying lawfully, shouldn’t have brought his gun with him to protest immigration officers in Minnesota. Elected Republicans, too, criticized her, with Florida Rep. Greg Steube, for example, telling Pirro, “Come and Take it!”
As Steube said in his own post, though, he’s licensed in both Florida and D.C. to carry. No one, regrettably, is going to take away Greg Steube’s gun. “Let me be clear: I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment,” Pirro said in a follow-up social media post. “Washington, D.C. law requires handguns be licensed in the District with the Metropolitan Police Department to be carried into our community. We are focused on individuals who are unlawfully carrying guns and will continue building on that momentum to keep our communities safe.” That’s just a simple explanation of D.C. law that it’s her job to enforce. So she’ll probably have to keep apologizing.
The Texas Longhorns haven’t slowed down throughout the 2026 season as they now hold a 29-1 record and continue to push the longest winning streak in program history farther along, as the Longhorns’ winning streak now stands at 27 games.
The Longhorns have strung together consistency and dominance over the last weeks of the season, as recently the Longhorns have become the unanimous top team in the country, earning the top spot, ranking as the No. 1 team in the nation.
And now No. 1 Texas will get back to the gauntlet that is SEC play with a conference series against one of its bitter rivals in the dirt edition of the Lone Star Showdown against the No. 15 Texas A&M Aggies. The Longhorns get ready to host, welcoming in the Aggies to Red and Charline McCombs Field with the first game of the series set for Friday, March 27, at 6 p.m. CT.
How to Watch Texas vs. Texas A&M
Who: No. 1 Texas Longhorns and No. 15 Texas A&M Aggies
What: Lone Star Showdown
When: March 27-29
Where: Red and Charline McCombs Field in Austin, TX
TV/Streaming: Friday on SEC Network+, Saturday on ESPN2 and Sunday on ESPN
Radio: Longhorn Radio Network
Meet the Opponent
The Aggies head into the Lone Star Showdown series with a 23-9 overall record and have found success through their two conference series of the season, with a 5-1 record in the SEC. Away from home, the Aggies have split four of their away games with a 2-2 record on the road.
With the flip of the calendar from non-conference to conference play, the Aggies find a rhythm on the field, taking their conference opener against the then No. 17-ranked LSU Tigers on the road 2-1 and followed that up with a sweep at home against the Kentucky Wildcats, outscoring the Wildcats 26-9 over the three-game series.
The Longhorns batting order will battle against an Aggies pitching staff that heads into the weekend series with a 3.10 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. As a whole, the Aggies pitching staff has recorded 193 strikeouts while holding their opponents to a .225 batting average.
The leader of the Aggies pitching staff is sophomore Sydney Lessentine, as her 72 innings pitched is the most by any other Aggies pitcher. In her 19 appearances this season, Lessentine tallies a 2.43 ERA and .82 WHIP along with 60 strikeouts and holds opponents to a .196 batting average.
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COVINGTON, TX – Clouds of grey and brown smoke rolled through the field as yards of fire roared across dead grass. About 30 acres of Austin and Kelli Rollins’ property burned on the March morning, leaving blackened remnants just a couple dozen yards from the house.
But what looked like a natural disaster was the result of careful planning.
Prescribed burns, like the one onthe Rollinses property, can benefit wildlife populations, encourage the growth of native prairie grasses and limit damage from wildfires. Throughout Texas’ history, fires occurred naturally every three to seven years. Most native species are fire-adapted, Texas A&M’s Prescribed Burn Coordinator David Brooke said, but human fire suppression tactics have substantially decreased fire frequency and changed the landscape.
“From the Edwards Plateau, Hill Country up towards Dallas [and the] Panhandle, our habitat was a lot more open. It’s supposed to be rolling plains, prairies … with intermittent tree cover. What we’re seeing now is woody encroachment,” Brooke said.
At the Rollinses, the prescribed burn began with an introductory meeting to discuss strategy and a test fire on a corner of the lot. The team, largely consisting of members of the North Texas Prescribed Burn Association, edged the field with a water line, creating a moisture barrier to prevent flames from spreading in the wrong direction. Just a few yards behind the lengthening water line, volunteers used drip torches to create a “black line,” a thin burned strip meant to contain the larger plumes of fire that would come later.
The tip of a drip torch is used to set fire to Austin and Kelli Rollins property outside of Covington, Texas, March 18, 2026. They used a controlled burn to regenerate the pasture surrounding their home. Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
The crew collaborated with the wind, starting the test fire at the most downwind corner and expanding the black lines perpendicularly. Winds whipped, around 20 miles per hour, approaching the regulatory safety limit. By working backwards from the fire’s natural destination, the team limited the chance of flames escaping their control.
“Essentially what we’re doing is building a catcher’s mitt so when we light everything up, [the black line] will be there to stop it,” Brandon Martin said, who serves on the board of the prescribed burn association.
North Texas Prescribed Burn Association members perform a controlled burn at a Covington, Texas ranch
Martin, dressed in a hard hat and flame retardant clothing, assisted with this prescribed burn as a volunteer, but he also knows fire professionally through his role in emergency management at the Tarrant Regional Water District. As well as providing advice, he actively spread flames with a drip torch. Torch canisters are filled with fuel that, when turned down, trickles past a burning wick and ignites as it falls to the ground.
This fire is part of an effort to return the field to native prairie, a landscape Martin said depends on fire to thrive. Regular burning limits the growth of saplings and bushes, keeping the environment clear of exotic species that can outcompete native grasses.
North Texas Prescribed Burn Association member Don Nelson radios wind speed and direction to the rest of the crew during a controlled burn on the property of Austin and Kelli Rollins outside of Covington, Texas, March 18, 2026.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
Brooke said fire isn’t only a natural land management process, it’s also cost-effective. Invasive species can be removed mechanically with chainsaws and digging, or with chemical application. But in either instance, the labor and equipment costs are usually significantly higher than burning, especially with bigger plots.
“From an economics standpoint, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to use fire,” Brooke said.
The resulting ash is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, which fertilizes the soil. With a little rain, Brooke said fields are often covered in green shoots within a matter of weeks, with a reinvigorated landscape emerging in the following months.
However, Brooke noted “one burn isn’t a silver bullet,” since invasive species could also be fed by these fresh nutrients. But if landowners can commit to following the three- to seven-year historic fire frequency, “it gives your native species the edge.”
Austin Rollins grabs a pressure sprayer to extinguish a spot fire during a controlled burn on his property near Covington, Texas, March 18, 2026.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
New growth also attracts a variety of wildlife, as it is highly palatable and an ideal habitat to spot predators. Brooke said he’s seen a number of landowners undertake prescribed burns to improve the hunting prospects.
Prescribed burns are best known for their power to stopthe spread of wildfire. The lack of fuel for a wildfire after an intentional burn can lower the fire’s intensity and help save structures. Brooke pointed to the town of Borger, which has a history of proactive wildfire management.
In the fall of 2023, they burned a 7-mile-long, 250-foot wide strip along the edge of town, creating a “black line” that proved crucial months later. When one of the 2024 Panhandle wildfires approached the town, it stopped just outside of several neighborhoods at the fire break. Firefighters credited the work with saving homes and possibly lives.
For landowners considering undertaking controlled burns themselves, Brooke said Texas is a “right-to-burn” state – guaranteeing landowners the right to burn on their own property – but there are still regulations to follow. County burn bans must be observed, local authorities notified and some state agencies regulate weather conditions to manage the smoke.
The North Texas Prescribed Burn Association used a backing fire to control a burn on the property of Austin and Kelli Rollins outside of Covington, Texas, March 18, 2026. They burned approximately 30 acres.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
Wind speeds are required to be between six and 23 miles per hour during a burn. If the breeze is too low, smoke won’t clear properly and it could settle on nearby roads, potentially causing an accident. If gusts are too high, fire behavior becomes more unpredictable.
Some counties also require a copy of the burn plan to be submitted in advance, which accounts for things like weather, the crew, suppression tactics (such as water, specialized rakes and leaf blowers) and smoke modeling.
Ultimately, given the high winds, the team on the Rollinses land decided to burn back to the black line in smaller strips instead of one roaring blaze. But even those sections could generate significant heat as the orange glow jumped from stem to stem. The gusts cleared most smoke quickly, but each time a new strip ignited, the plumes towered into the distance.
When just a few smoldering spots remained, the group gathered to debrief and share H-E-B sandwich trays. Pairs inquired about other teams’ strategies, but mostly, the crew was pleased with the safety and their progress – finishing the project in about three hours.
“Man, it’s beautiful,” Kelli Rollins said as she took a picture of the charred field against the blue sky. “I know that’s a weird thing to say, but it is.”
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