November 8, 2026: All Newsclips

Lead Stories

With Susie Wiles’s departure, big business loses a sympathetic ear

Lobbyists and surrogates for some of the world’s largest companies had a go-to strategy when they saw no other path to head off a damaging policy from President Trump: call Susie Wiles. Throughout her tenure, Trump’s departing chief of staff became a sounding board for corporations and advocacy groups trying to influence the administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Her departure, announced Friday, will leave many businesses searching for a new interlocutor within the White House. Leading Wall Street executives have often turned to Wiles and her staff. JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and his team have been in regular contact with her, as well as her former deputy, James Blair, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser has also had some interactions with both Wiles and incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to people familiar with the matter.

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It was Wiles, along with Vice President JD Vance, who helped broker a truce between Trump and Elon Musk after their public falling out. Musk recently poured roughly $500 million into Republican midterm efforts. Wiles was known to encourage companies to invest domestically. After a foreign auto manufacturer announced a new plant was being built in the U.S. earlier this year, Wiles texted “thank you” to officials at the company, according to a person who received the text message. But while Wiles was viewed as a sympathetic ear by corporate titans, their entreaties to her sometimes failed. Shortly after Trump imposed sweeping tariffs last year, a healthcare-trade group contacted Wiles and advocated for the administration to pare back the trade levies, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The tariffs continued despite the lobbying effort, the person said. White House spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said both Wiles and Miller have “tremendous” relationships. “This administration will continue building powerful partnerships, advancing the president’s America First agenda, and delivering historic wins for the American people,” Alvarez said. Wiles didn’t return requests for comment.

Houston police to stop alerting ICE during traffic stops

The stunning wave of Republican defeats is already having an effect in Texas. Mayor John Whitmire of Houston said he was directing city police officers on Friday to limit their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during traffic stops, bucking a policy imposed on Texas’s largest city by Gov. Greg Abbott. Under an executive order from the mayor, Houston police officers will no longer alert ICE agents when they encounter an unauthorized migrant during routine traffic stops or in connection with other low level infractions. Instead, officers will only alert ICE in cases where a person has been arrested and is being brought to, or has already arrived at, a county jail. “If they’re charged with a new crime, we’ll let ICE know as we get them to the jailhouse,” Mr. Whitmire said in an interview with The New York Times. “We just are not going to deal with the nonviolent contacts.”

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The change in how Houston officers interact with immigration agents was a direct result of Tuesday’s election, Mr. Whitmire said. Mr. Abbott lost his bid for re-election to what would have been a record fourth term as governor. Sign up to get J. David Goodman's articles emailed to you. J. David Goodman is a Houston-based reporter covering the people and politics of Texas. “The governor was requiring us to contact ICE,” Mr. Whitmire said. “It created a lot of anxiety” among Houston residents. He added that the shift was “certainly consistent with the new leadership in Austin,” referring to the slate of Democrats elected to every major statewide position in Texas on Tuesday. “We won’t have new leadership until January,” Mr. Whitmire said. “But I’m willing to make a responsible decision that in the next two months we’re going to go to a more effective policy.” A spokesman for Mr. Abbott’s office declined to comment. The change comes as prosecutors in Harris County are pursuing a criminal case against an ICE agent who struck a Mexican construction worker in October with a vehicle in Houston, injuring him. A grand jury indicted the agent, Mario Alberto Morales, late last month. The county’s prosecutors were also investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo who was killed during an encounter in July with ICE agents in Houston.

Justice Department intervenes in Planned Parenthood lawsuit in Texas

The Trump administration is intervening in a high-profile Texas lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, taking ownership of a case that could fall by the wayside under the state’s newly elected Democrat attorney general. The Justice Department outlined its intention Friday night in a court filing in the five-year-old lawsuit, which had been championed by outgoing Republican attorney general of Texas Ken Paxton. The suit accused Planned Parenthood clinic operators in the state and the national umbrella organization, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, of committing Medicaid fraud. The move, just days after an election loss in deep red Texas, was a signal that the Trump administration could seek to supplant the Democrats’ power in former Republican strongholds, where officials had used litigation to further their agenda on social and policy issues. Under President Biden, the Justice Department in 2021 declined to step into the Planned Parenthood case.

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The Texas suit accused Planned Parenthood of fraud for collecting Medicaid reimbursements while Texas had sought to remove it as a Medicaid provider. Planned Parenthood has denied the claims, noting that courts did not bar it from collecting payments during the litigation. The state is seeking to recover $1.8 billion, which includes Medicaid reimbursements, interest and penalties. Planned Parenthood, which recently reported annual revenue of $2.1 billion, said that such a payout could result in its closure. A lawyer for Planned Parenthood said that the Justice Department’s intervention showed that President Trump was “undeterred by the election results.” “This is an effort by the Trump administration to shut us down,” said Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “It is going to weaponize the Department of Justice against us.” Representatives of the Texas Attorney General’s office and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump signals combative next two years with elevation of Stephen Miller

After a brutal election that gutted Republican power in Washington, President Trump has chosen one of his most loyal and divisive advisers as the new White House chief of staff, signaling a combative posture for the final two years of the Trump era. Stephen Miller, a fierce political operative who has been at Trump’s side for more than a decade, has been a vocal advocate of the no-holds-barred style of governing that delighted the president’s most die-hard MAGA supporters—and was repudiated by much of the rest of the country on Election Day. He succeeds Susie Wiles, who was seen as a moderating force on a sometimes impulsive president. Miller, 41 years old, was the architect of the aggressive immigration enforcement policies that turned off many voters, according to polls, contributing to Republicans’ historic losses on Tuesday. His elevation signals that the president has no intention of backing away from the immigration agenda on which he built his political brand.

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Miller is expected to push a maximalist approach to executive power now that Democrats control Congress. In the days after the election, Trump sent early signals that he would work with Democrats, but Miller has long advocated for a confrontational response to the wave of investigations that the newly ascendant opposing party is expected to launch. Though Miller has at times pushed for a muscular foreign policy, particularly in South America, he has suggested they wind down the deeply unpopular war in Iran, according to people familiar with the discussions, and called for refocusing on policies like immigration that made Trump popular with his base. Miller, when contacted Friday, directed questions to the White House. “He’s going to do a great job,” Trump told reporters after arriving at an event in Florida. An early test for Miller, according to associates of the president, is whether he can satisfy Trump’s desire to punish his perceived political enemies. One of Trump’s biggest frustrations with Wiles, according to administration officials, is that she and the Justice Department weren’t doing enough to go after people seen as leaking classified material, to jail reporters who publish such material and to prosecute his opponents. Though Miller was influential during Trump’s first term, his purview has greatly expanded in the second one. He has overseen policy rollouts concerning the president’s trade war and targeting of elite universities, along with spearheading the Pentagon’s unprecedented campaign of striking alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean, killing many on board.

Sotomayor sees U.S. in ‘rough patch’ for rule of law

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Saturday that the U.S. is experiencing a “rough patch” for rule of law and civic discourse, but one that can be overcome through a greater commitment to civility, equality and educating young people about America’s enduring values. “I think we're in a rough patch right now. There's so many challenges to it on so many different levels. This is a really critical point in our history,” Sotomayor said. “Is it going to end tomorrow? No.” “It's going to take some hard work. I don't know how long it's going to take to put us back on an even keel,” the Obama appointee said during an appearance at a conference in Virginia exploring the history and future of American democracy. “I'm hoping it's … in my lifetime. But even if it's not in my lifetime, I genuinely believe it will happen.” During an hourlong appearance at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, Sotomayor did not comment directly on the outcome of this week’s midterms.

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However, she did mention the “outpouring of voters” Tuesday as a positive sign of civic engagement. Voter turnout was about 49%, a figure exceeded in modern midterm elections only in 2018. Sotomayor lamented the fact that in recent years the electoral choices have seemed so stark to many people that they are scared by the possible outcome. “Every election now seems really important to people because they are, and that sense of fear, I know, is not comfortable for many people,” the justice said. ”I think we'll come out of this.” Sotomayor also pointed to a decline in civility as contributing to a fraying of America’s civic engagement. “That someone disagrees with you doesn't make them a bad person, and that's something we've forgotten,” the justice said. “Our politics today have devolved into personal name-calling, which is something that wasn't quite what I was used to when I was growing up … It was always a debate about ideas, rarely about people's personal motivations or about people's personality or personal peccadilloes."

State Stories

Secretary of State's office to audit voter registration system

The Texas Secretary of State’s office is auditing its voter registration system after a massive backlog of applications sent counties scrambling ahead of the midterm election. “While there is still work to do to wrap up our 2026 election cycle, it is important that we continue to think ahead about the needs of our Texas election community,” Director of Elections Christina Adkins wrote in an email to election officials Friday. “And to create a plan of action on how to address the ongoing concerns with the TEAM system.” The TEAM system has been around since the early 2000s, but was overhauled in July 2025 by the state and a Louisiana-based vendor called Civix. Since then, county officials have complained of major glitches they said slowed their work ahead of the midterm.

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Adkins said the state’s TEAM system, which stands for Texas Election Administration Management, will undergo an audit beginning in mid-December. The results will be available during the upcoming legislative session. In the office’s request for the third-party audit, it wrote that it had identified “critical areas of concern.” “These continued areas of concern pose a direct risk to election officials’ ability to meet its legal obligations for statewide election administration in an efficient manner,” the request from the secretary of state’s office said. Election officials across the state reported smooth and successful elections, but said they had to work overtime throughout the season to rectify issues with system errors — including the backlogs of voter registrations reported in September. During early voting, turnout numbers lagged on the state’s own website because counties had to manually enter mail voter data into the TEAM system, one by one.

State-appointed managers in Texas takeover school districts brace for imminent removal

Appointed school board managers in some of Texas’ districts under a state takeover said Friday that they are preparing to be out of a job as soon as January. Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned to stop state takeovers in public schools and to replace Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath with an educator on her first day in office, which would be Jan. 19. The new commissioner could immediately change the governance of the eight districts that were taken over by the state because campuses persistently failed academic standards. During a state takeover, a commissioner appoints managers who assume the authority of locally elected trustees. Hinojosa’s appointee could replace any or all appointed board managers at any time with new appointees, education experts said. Although Hinojosa hasn’t said if or when a new commissioner would replace appointed leaders, presidents of Houston and Fort Worth ISD’s board of managers said they’re making plans now.

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That includes speaking with elected trustees about what transition of power would look like to ensure they best serve students, they said. Ric Campo, the Houston ISD board of managers president, said some of the state-appointed managers plan to meet with the elected trustees Monday to lay out a “robust” plan. Campo said he’s making the assumption that the trustees must be ready by January. “I’ve always said — in public and to the elected trustees — that we’re working ourselves out of a job, and we’re happy to do it,” Campo told the Tribune. “What we really want to make sure happens is that we have a great, smooth transition, and that the elected trustees, when they do come back, are prepared and have the information they need to do the best job they can.” Trustees in districts under such state intervention remain in office but do not have the power to vote on anything, including to pass a budget or change board policy. The state takeover of HISD began in 2023, and Morath already planned to announce the timeline for the district to return to elected control by June.

Audio: 911 calls reveal confusion, chaos after Florida jet crash

When a Learjet 60 plummeted to the ground near a residential area in Florida on Nov. 1, people nearby frantically called 9-1-1, though they weren’t quite sure what they’d seen. On Saturday, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office released recordings of several calls alerting authorities that the Learjet 60 bound from Austin to the Bahamas had crashed into the ground near Cresthaven. “An airplane or a rocket – something fell from the sky,” one caller said. “We felt our house shake and then we heard an explosion when we ran outside.” Another caller thought a bomb had gone off, reporting that the impact caused a crater that still appeared to be on fire. “I would say take everybody out of it,” the caller said, seeming to suggest that officials evacuate the area. Meanwhile, a 9-1-1 caller who said she was a retired police officer reported a motorist near where the plane crashed into the ground, noting she was unsure of his involvement.

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Soon, first responders swarmed the scene, finding a crater where the plane crashed, killing all nine people on board. Debris was flung onto roofs and homes of nearby buildings. The crash killed Austin entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45, his wife Helen Sharp their children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, and Anita Maria Cetina, the children’s nanny. Also killed were their friends, Charmi Fehr and Rachael Reed, the pilot, 55-year-old Jeff Gregory, and copilot Nathalia Filgueiras, 20. While the National Transportation Safety Board has not determined the cause of the crash, investigators found pieces of the plane’s tail some 3.8 miles away from the crash site, indicating the parts broke off before impact.

Ted Cruz says Democrats are ‘drunk on their own power’ after midterm wins

Senator Ted Cruz said Democrats are "drunk on their own power" after their midterm victories, predicting the party will overreach despite what he described as a "generationally damaging" defeat for Republicans. Speaking on his Verdict podcast Friday, the Texas Republican argued Democratic leaders will interpret their gains as a mandate for a broader progressive agenda, even though he believes voters were primarily expressing frustration over economic concerns. "These guys are drunk on their own power," Cruz said. "They are high on their own supply."

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Cruz claims Democratic leaders are already misreading the election results. "The radicals are running the Democrat Party," he said. "They believe they have a mandate." The comments came as Cruz assessed the scale of Republican losses nationwide, which handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and expanded the party's Senate majority. "We're already at 54 Democrats. We could be at 56," Cruz said. "That is generationally damaging." Cruz argued Senate defeats are particularly difficult to overcome because senators serve six-year terms, potentially locking in Democratic gains for years. "It will take six years to have the chance to turn them around," he said. "Retaking the majority in the Senate is very, very difficult." Texas political analyst Scott Braddock, editor of Quorum Report, offered a different interpretation on his show, arguing Democrats won because James Talarico, Gina Hinojosa and other candidates remained focused on voters' economic concerns. "Republicans kept trying to bait them into having arguments about culture wars," Braddock said on his podcast. Instead, he said, Democrats stayed "laser focused" on affordability and the economy. "It's the economy, stupid, and guess what? It still is."

Democratic-majority Tarrant County Commissioners Court could redefine relationship with Republican sheriff

Newly elected Tarrant County Judge Alisa Simmons and Sheriff Bill Waybourn haven’t seen eye to eye when it comes to how the Sheriff’s Office runs the Tarrant County Jail. The two had a heated discussion during September’s commissioner court meeting over a jail death earlier this year. Waybourn told Simmons she was releasing incorrect information about what happened surrounding that jail death. “You keep saying these things and you keep putting rhetoric out there that was not true,” Waybourn said. Simmons answered, “When you get to the truth, you have to share the truth.” It’s among one of several clashes the two had during Simmons’ tenure as commissioner. Waybourn has been the focus of criticism from Simmons and other Democratic leaders over accountability from jail deaths. In the past, Simmons has requested a full review of jail operations by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Now, as several seats in Tarrant County flipped blue, including Simmons’ victory as county judge in the midterm election, the sheriff’s office could be facing more calls for transparency and accountability from the new commissioners court Democratic majority. In a statement Wednesday, Waybourn congratulated Simmons and other newly elected officials. “Public safety is not a political issue; it is a fundamental duty that requires cooperation, transparency, and professional collaboration across all levels of county government,” Waybourn said. “As we prepare for this upcoming administrative transition, my office is fully committed to working constructively and professionally with the incoming elected officials in our county.” KERA News reached out to Simmons and will update this story with any response. In the past Simmons has been vocal in her concerns over jail deaths, the lack of details provided about those deaths and the legal troubles brought upon the county. She’s also called on Waybourn to resign, calling him “unqualified to serve.” “Families deserve more than that,” Simmons said. “And people in custody, many of whom have not been convicted of any crime, deserve more than that. This jail is not the execution chamber.”

Bobby Pulido, the new scion of South Texas Democrats

Tejano star Bobby Pulido crushed the incumbent Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz by 24 points last night in a fierce blue backlash against gerrymandering, immigration crackdowns, and the high cost of living in South Texas’ Congressional District 15. With 30 years of touring and two Latin Grammys under his belt, Pulido was a formidable opponent for the lesser-known congresswoman from the start. His nostalgic 1990s hits became the soundtrack to a moderate, good-vibes campaign pushing back against the extremism of President Donald Trump, who previously won the predominantly Hispanic district by a stunning 18 points in 2024. The red ripple and gerrymandered maps that ushered in De La Cruz as the first Republican to represent the 15th district proved to be a short-lived and failed experiment, one of countless casualties in last night’s blue tsunami. The congresswoman’s last-ditch efforts to distance herself from the immigration raids that have disrupted life across South Texas proved futile as Pulido’s star status propelled him higher and higher in the polls.

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He performed at countless quinceañeras, the Texas Democratic Party convention, and at rallies alongside Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico. On October 17, the 53-year-old musician gave his final performance, La Ultima Desvelada, at a sold-out arena in Edinburg. But now that the music’s over, constituents will see what kind of congressman Pulido will be. Asked about how he connects with voters on important issues, Pulido told the Texas Observer in a July interview, “Issues are more important to journalists than they are to people. I think the people don’t look at it as ‘How do you stand on this issue?’ It’s ‘Can I trust that you care about me?’” He’s spent more time performing “Desvelado” for local audiences and taking pictures with fans than diving into his vaguely populist, centrist platform. “For over 30 years, you played my music at your weddings, your quinceañeras, and your carne asadas, and the past year you welcomed me into those same celebrations on the campaign trail,” Pulido said in a statement to the Texas Tribune. “Tonight, you trusted me with something even bigger than a song. You trusted me with your future, and I will work hard everyday to honor it.” The beloved figure will be joining the ranks of a not-so-beloved coalition that helped fund his campaign: the Blue Dog Democrats. The conservative Democratic group established in the 1990s is notorious for siding with Republicans in Congress on critical issues like abortion, gun control, and border security. Their numbers have been dwindling over the past decade, but Pulido’s victory alongside that of Johnny Garcia in Texas Congressional District 35, fortifies the group’s hold on South Texas—alongside Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez in Brownsville, who both also handily fended off the GOP’s attempts to take them out last night.

No. 10 Texas pulls away from No. 19 Missouri for crucial 34-20 road win

No. 10 Texas overcame early mistakes and a second-half deficit to secure a crucial 34-20 victory over No. 19 Missouri on Saturday at Faurot Field, keeping its College Football Playoff hopes alive. The Longhorns (7-2, 4-2 SEC) scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to pull away from the Tigers (6-3, 3-3 SEC), led by quarterback Arch Manning, who completed 28 of 38 passes for 297 yards and three touchdowns. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian praised his team’s resilience following the victory, particularly its ability to overcome turnovers and defensive penalties.

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“I’m very proud of the way they hung together, the way they responded to adversity,” Sarkisian said. “I think we had two fumbles today. We gave up a total of three points.” Texas entered Saturday’s matchup ranked No. 7 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, knowing a third loss could significantly damage its postseason aspirations. After trailing for much of the afternoon, the Longhorns took their first lead with 5:03 remaining in the fourth quarter when Manning connected with Raleek Brown for a 23-yard touchdown pass, putting Texas ahead 27-20. Missouri had an opportunity to respond on its ensuing possession, but defensive back Graceson Littleton came up with a critical interception with 1:41 remaining to give Texas possession. Brown delivered the finishing blow moments later with an 8-yard touchdown run to seal the victory. The Longhorns had to overcome a difficult start after Missouri quarterback Austin Simmons connected with Brett Norfleet for a 2-yard touchdown on fourth-and-goal to open the scoring.

Beto O'Rourke urges Texas Democrats to deliver after historic sweep

Beto O’Rourke has a clear message for Texas Democrats following their historic victories Tuesday: deliver. O’Rourke, whose narrow loss to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 foreshadowed that flipping the state from red to blue was possible, believes Democrats should pass three policies that could appeal to Texans across party lines in the 2027 legislative session: Expand Medicaid, raise the state minimum wage and increase public school teacher salaries. “Those are three things that would be felt by everybody, Republican or Democrat, rural or urban,” O’Rourke said Friday in a phone interview. The statewide sweep Tuesday gives Democrats control of the state’s levers of power — minus the Texas Senate — for the first time since the 1990s.

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However, O’Rourke knows that just as quickly as voters elected Gina Hinojosa as governor, Vikki Goodwin as lieutenant governor and dozens of Democrats to the House — giving the party control of the House for the first time since the 2001 legislative session — Texans can be just as quick to vote them out if they are unhappy with the state’s direction. “If Democrats can't deliver on this chance that Texans have given them, then they'll withdraw the offer,” O’Rourke said. “And what we need to do is build on the success by delivering for everybody quickly in a way that can be felt.” Democrats will control the House in the 2027 legislative session, but Republicans will maintain a majority in the Senate, where Goodwin will oversee the 31 senators. Over in the House, Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston is on a clear path to be the first Democratic speaker since the 2001 legislative session. She said Friday she had the support of the majority of House lawmakers. A Thompson speakership gives Democrats control of the legislative agenda in the House, and Hinojosa, as governor, will also lay out her legislative priorities for lawmakers. Goodwin's influence on the Senate agenda will depend partly on the rules Senators adopt. The split in the legislature means Democrats will have to find ways to compromise with Republicans, O’Rourke said. He acknowledged it won’t be easy. The path to compromise might require Democrats to arm-twist Senate Republicans and add public pressure from their constituents to show that the bills will benefit their communities. Voters will ultimately judge Democrats on what they accomplish, not that they tried. “I don't know that anyone is interested in grading you on effort,” O’Rourke said. “They're really holding out for the results.”

Dozens party outside Elon Musk's Austin home after midterm election

Outside of a West Lake Hills compound affiliated with billionaire Elon Musk, about 60 people gathered on Saturday to celebrate that the unprecedented amount of money Musk spent ahead of the midterm election went mostly to candidates who lost, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. They arrived at noon, spilling out of the two blue Fly-Rides party buses they had boarded downtown, plus a dozen cars, and held a dance party in the street. Festivities included music, birthday party hats, inflatable costumes and refreshments.

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Austin Police received a call reporting alcohol use at the event but said they didn't see any evidence of that when they responded. It was not immediately clear if anyone was home. Residents did not address the partygoers. Eli Cortez, 28, was one of the bus captains for VOCAL-TX, which organized the “People Over Billionaires Election After Party” with Popular Democracy and People’s Action. Cortez was gleeful as he sipped Martinelli’s cider from a plastic champagne coupe near the home’s tall wrought-iron fence. “When’s the last time that we were able to celebrate an election?” said Cortez, wearing a red party hat, while people chanted along to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” playing from a speaker on wheels. “We’re here celebrating Texans showing up en masse against MAGA’s agenda, up against billionaires’ interest in elections and celebrating real democracy.”

This MAGA Republican was abandoned by his party. He feels vindicated.

As Texas Republicans were left stunned by their losses in Tuesday’s midterms, one of them, who had been warning party leaders of possible Democratic victory for months, felt vindicated. Sid Miller, Texas’ outgoing Agriculture Commissioner, wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot. But for months he had urged Republican leaders’ to crack down harder on the data center boom — particularly zeroing in on Gov. Greg Abbott and, ultimately, not voting for him. A Stephenville rancher, Miller said a GOP loss — especially among rural voters — became clear to him a year and a half ago. “I saw how upset they were over vouchers, how upset they were over THC, and then the data centers came along, and it was just, ‘oh my God, this is, maybe, the final nail in the coffin,’” Miller said in an interview.

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Clayton Tucker, a Lampasas rancher, defeated Republican nominee Nate Sheets in the race to succeed Miller and became the first Democrat to claim the office in 40 years. He campaigned on promises to stop data centers, address New World Screwworm and make food affordable for Texans. Miller, who had been requesting either a special session or a one-year moratorium on data centers so the Legislature could act, often campaigned with Tucker. In an election where every county swung towards Democrats, rural ones that had traditionally been safe for Republicans were no exception. Analysts said a Republican win in the top-of-the-ticket U.S. Senate race would require strong turnout from the state’s most reliably red regions, like the Panhandle, East Texas, and parts of West Texas, but turnout fell in almost every county in those regions of the state. Sheets, the founder and former CEO of a raw honey company, defeated Miller in the March Republican primary with backing from Gov. Greg Abbott and others in the GOP establishment. Abbott criticized Miller’s “character flaws,” and said he "has never felt an obligation to tell the truth."

Tarrant County went blue in a historic election. Is the shift here to stay?

Tarrant County voters chose a Republican over a Democrat in only five of the 58 contested races at the federal, state and county levels. Is the shift to blue here to stay? Democrats without a doubt had a stellar election on Tuesday, Nov. 3, SMU political science professor Cal Jillson said. The results were overwhelmingly blue, and far better for Democrats than anyone could have imagined, Jillson said. But it doesn’t mean Tarrant County, or Texas, is officially blue. “This is just an opportunity for the Democrats to govern, and they will be evaluated just as Republicans have,” Jillson said. “Republicans were found wanting and replaced. If Democrats are found wanting, they could be replaced too.” In the 2018 midterm election during President Donald Trump’s first term, Tarrant County went for Democrat Beto O’Rourke over Republican incumbent Ted Cruz by less than 1 percentage point, about 4,000 votes in the U.S. Senate race.

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Though O’Rourke did not win, he was one of nine Democrats to win in Tarrant County of the 47 contested federal, state and county races. His success in Tarrant County was remarkable for Democrats of the reliably red county, but Republicans continued to take the majority of the wins until this year. The GOP losses on Tuesday were so widespread and historic that the election will be studied for years to come, Texas Politics Project research director Joshua Blank said. No one imagined Democrats sweeping the statewide ticket, he said, but Blank is still wary to call Texas blue. “Texas is not blue, Texas is competitive,” Blank said. He isn’t willing to call Tarrant County blue either. Tarrant saw the same pattern as many parts of the state, where fast-growing areas near urban centers swung heavily to the left. Though the turnout was historic, there are still more Republican voters out there who didn’t cast a ballot, Blank said.

A conservative billionaire, film studio and years long Texas fraud

Mindy Raymond thought she had found the job of her dreams. The veteran film and TV producer was given the chance to be president of a burgeoning movie studio in her home state of Texas. It was 2017 and the company was called New Republic Studios, which had just taken over the former Spiderwood Studios lot outside Bastrop. The nascent production house was led by John Robison, a charismatic, smooth talker with influential connections throughout the Republican party and a big vision. “Huge. It was massive,” Raymond recalled. “We had architects and designers … We wanted to be the biggest studio in Texas.” But it may have been little more than a dream. Over more than two years in business, employees at times went months without being paid, Raymond said.

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County records show the property was ceded back to its prior owner in early 2020. Former employees said the property was lost because of nonpayment, and Raymond was out $100,000 in wages and investments in other Robison companies. New Republic Studios stands as just one episode in a pattern of Robison companies that took money from investors in Texas with visionary promises that went undelivered. Robison, 63, was convicted of four federal counts including wire fraud and money laundering in July and sentenced in late October to 41 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to make $1 million in restitution for what a federal judge called a “brazen” scheme to defraud conservative billionaire Joe Lonsdale on the promise of building a campus for the University of Austin. The New Republic episode is just one of several since Robison landed in Texas that call into question whether his conviction for the $1 million swindle of Lonsdale was the first time the silver-tongued pitchman was accused of fraud — or was just the first time he got caught. Neither Robison nor his attorneys commented for this story. In 2013, Robison relocated to Texas from California, often telling people the move was at the behest of then-Gov. Rick Perry. He said Perry — who championed expanded incentives for film and TV projects — asked him to come home to build out the state’s media industry.

National Stories

MAGA voters reveal who they want to see lead GOP in 2028

With Democrats taking control of Congress in the midterm elections, MAGA voters are already sizing up potential successors to President Donald Trump in 2028 — with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly emerging as favorites among those interviewed by Fox News Digital. "I like [Rubio]," one American told Fox News Digital "I like that he's no-nonsense, similar to Trump." "Well, I like JD Vance obviously," another said. "I like Marco Rubio. There's some other ones too that are maybe not so much mainstream that are coming up that I like too."

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"JD is great too, but Rubio has a little more experience," one said. "He's articulate, he’s well spoken. He's got good ideas. I just really like him." Fox News Digital spoke with Americans attending a Trump rally in Bangor, Maine, as one of Trump’s final stops before Tuesday’s midterms that ended in a stunning blue wave. Fueled by anger over high costs and the war with Iran, Americans voted to oust Trump and his agenda, boosting Democrats to large majorities in the House and Senate. With Democrats looking to rebuke Trump and his allies, Republicans that Fox News Digital spoke with are looking for a presidential candidate to fill in Trump’s "footsteps." "I'm really open to see who can fill Trump's footsteps, not just the next person in line," one told Fox News Digital. "I wish Trump could run again," another said. Another brought up the prospect of another presidential run by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., who has tried to distance himself from the results of Tuesday’s midterms. In a news conference Wednesday, he praised Florida for keeping the state under GOP control — suggesting his governance was a reason Florida Republicans held on. "I would like to see either JD And Marco, or JD And Governor DeSantis," one said at the Trump rally. "That's what I would feel comfortable with. " Beyond Vance, Rubio and DeSantis, other prominent Republicans whose names have surfaced in early 2028 discussions include Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

UFC CEO Dana White declines Trump’s offer to become press secretary, source says

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he offered the White House press secretary job to Dana White, but a source familiar with the matter says the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO declined the unorthodox idea. “I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” Trump posted Saturday on Truth Social. He said he requested White bring “assistants,” listing six UFC fighters and posting their photos. “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!” he added.

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While one aide said Trump was joking about the offer, the president’s post came as he’s continued to search for a new press secretary following Karoline Leavitt’s departure and Katie Zacharia’s five-day stint in the role. Trump has struggled to find someone to fill a crucial position that he is personally invested in — a matter that has only become more important after Democrats won control of Congress and pledged to investigate his administration. On Saturday, White House communications director Steven Cheung reposted the president’s message, adding, “Hell yeah! Do it, @DanaWhite!” CNN has reached out to the White House and UFC for comment. White deflected on a question about the offer at a news conference Saturday, saying only that he plans to fly to Washington, DC, to meet with Trump on Monday. Trump fired Zacharia after one rocky briefing, making her stint as press secretary the shortest in history. Leavitt, who served as press secretary for a year and a half, left her role in August, saying she wanted to spend more time with her young family. She joined Fox News as a contributor this month.

Wall Street races for megadeals as countdown begins on Trump era

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House changed the political calculus around mergers and acquisitions, reviving companies’ desire for dream deals that had become difficult to pull off. Now, corporate America is on the clock. The rout by the Democrats in the midterms is creating a sudden sense of urgency in boardrooms, with executives wondering if they might have one last chance to pull off a transformational transaction while M&A-friendly regulators remain in place under Trump. Conversations with top advisers suggest the result is already prompting companies to ask whether they should move fast to bring big strategic moves forward. There’s a realization that a resurgent Democratic Party could work to frustrate the kind of blockbuster dealmaking that’s built up steam during Trump 2.0. and powered record revenue on Wall Street. Kevin Foley, co-head of investment banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the world’s top advisory firms, said companies should be ready to transact through another complicated operating environment.

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“The biggest risk may be assuming that, sooner or later, things go back to normal,” New York-based Foley said. “Standing still is always an option, but when industries are changing this fast, it’s the wrong one.” Fernando Rivas, a senior Wells Fargo & Co. banker, put it more starkly at an industry conference in Boston on Thursday when he said a “now or never” mentality will return to drive M&A in the near term. Trump’s two terms have accounted for an outsized share of the biggest deals. More than half of all announced transactions worth at least $50 billion and involving a US company over the past two decades have come while he was president, according to analysis of Bloomberg-compiled data. This year alone has seen landmark combinations in mission-critical sectors like power and technology, such as this month’s record-breaking $100 billion-plus takeover of laser maker Lumentum Holdings Inc. by Marvell Technology Inc. Elsewhere, the Department of Justice cleared Paramount Skydance Corp.’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. without antitrust remedies. There’s a particular urgency to get going with these more complex transactions. Megadeals can take months to negotiate and even longer to clear regulatory reviews around the world. Companies that wait until a 2028 presidential campaign is in full swing to move ahead with such deals risk seeing them become political footballs at the stump.

A reckoning may await data centers following a beating in the midterms

After a campaign season filled with outrage against data centers, the midterm elections ushered in a wave of Democrats pledging to clamp down on the energy-hungry behemoths. A tougher regulatory environment for artificial intelligence giants and data center developers is expected to follow, even if President Donald Trump — perhaps the industry’s biggest champion — stalls any federal crackdown. Data center regulation itself was not on most midterm ballots, and it wasn’t among the top issues for most voters. But hardline stances against the server warehouses were woven into the platforms of many candidates, including the Democrats who upended longtime Republican control of the governorships in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Nevada and Iowa, many of which are data center hotspots.

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Skepticism of data centers, and their impact on electricity prices, often blended with the fight for affordability — a key campaign talking point for Democrats. In Texas, Clayton Tucker, the first Democrat elected state agriculture commissioner since 1986, said his pledge to fight data center development was critical to his victory. Everywhere he went, he said, ranchers worried that data centers posed an existential threat to their dwindling water supplies. “You know, there’s an old saying around here that ‘whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,’” Tucker told The Associated Press. “And that’s exactly what happened.” According to data from AdImpact, campaigns large and small spent more than $380 million on television ads mentioning data centers. Democrats outspent Republicans on the topic by more than three to one. Sweeping wins by Democrats could have far-reaching implications for data centers. Besides taking control of Congress, Democrats flipped at least five governors’ offices and took full control of state governments in five more states: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan. Data Center Watch, a project of AI security consultancy 10a Labs, said it tracked winning candidates for Congress and governorships and found the vast majority had expressed support for stronger regulation or even a moratorium.

Trump orders DOJ to look into Democrats for 'threatening' people

President Donald Trump ordered the US Justice Department on Saturday to look into Democrats for "threatening a lot of people" with impeachment and other ?forms of punishment, saying in a social media post that their actions amount to a "criminal ?act," without providing evidence. Democratic candidates routed Trump's Republicans in midterm elections on Tuesday, giving them control of Congress starting ?in January. Party leaders have promised to reassert Congress' oversight of the executive branch once they are in power by holding hearings and conducting investigations into Trump administration actions. In his post, Trump accused Democrats of sending "threatening letters to many people, all innocent."

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Members of Congress have released copies of letters seeking documents ?on matters such as tech company ?donations for the large ballroom Trump is building at the White House. Trump's post also referred to Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who suggested in remarks ?last month at the University of Chicago that Congress should investigate people who have enabled Trump's policies. "I want young people coming out of school to say, 'Should I go work for the Trump administration?' … I want ?them ?to be like, 'Lord, that might be buying myself a ?ton of problems that I don't want. ?And so I might avoid participating in that,'" Slotkin said. "I want that deterrence message sent." Her comments, within weeks of the midterm elections, were criticized by some Republicans. Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah wrote on social media that Slotkin was threatening young people who wanted to go into politics. Slotkin responded that Lee had lied about her comments and wrote, "Spare us the manufactured outrage."

Anthropic IPO meets AI backlash after midterms show stinging rebuke of data centers

Americans were unequivocal at the ballot box this week as they expressed disdain for tech billionaires and mistrust of artificial intelligence. With that backdrop, Anthropic is about to try to go public. The AI company is gearing up for a potentially historic IPO, likely targeting mid-November for its Nasdaq debut. CNBC reported on Friday that Anthropic investors see the company aiming for a valuation of $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, down from a target of $2 trillion that had been floated in recent months. From Wall Street to Main Street, it’s becoming a tougher environment for Anthropic. The Nasdaq on Thursday suffered its steepest drop in 19 months, and it’s down to start November after October marked its worst month since March 2025. Chipmakers and neoclouds, the companies most closely tied to the AI buildout, are getting hit the hardest.

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Voters rebuked AI in Tuesday’s midterm elections, while sending Democrats to sweeping congressional victories across the country. Candidates who advocated for more stringent AI regulation won handily in states like Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Georgia, which will all now have Democratic governors, and local communities opposed data center-related ballot measures in 40 out of 41 cases. More than half of voters said AI data centers were a “crucial” or “major factor” in who they supported for Congress, according to an exit poll from NBC News. “People don’t want a data center going near them if it’s just going to house AI that’s going to help a big tech company profit,” Maura Austin, a behavioral scientist at the University of Virginia, told CNBC. “What Anthropic is doing when they’re going public with such a high valuation is they’re really leaning into that big tech, billionaire kind of caricature. I expect that’s not going to go well with the public.”

The only town in the U.S. that said yes to data centers

Harwood, North Dakota, may be the only place in the United States that voted in favor of data centers last week. The town, population 845, faced the prospect of a $3 billion, 1.8-million square foot facility on its outskirts. Resident Michael Swartz hadn’t liked the idea. He said he felt city officials had rolled over for a mega-developer who wanted to cash in on the artificial intelligence boom. “It’s changing … our small town, and I don’t know if it’s for the good,” he said. So Swartz, a software engineer, organized to get a measure on the ballot demanding independent reviews and public hearings for big new industrial projects, as well as proposed modifications and expansions of existing ones. It was one of at least 40 ballot measures in 10 states this election cycle that could have restricted data center development.

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On Tuesday, in dozens of cities and towns across the country, voters overwhelmingly endorsed those restrictions. They also elected candidates who campaigned against Big Tech. Nationally, too, the mood was decidedly anti-data-center. In TV network exit polls, 76 percent of voters said they would oppose the construction of a new data center in their community, and 57 percent (including nearly two-thirds of Democrats) said AI would do more to hurt than to help society. But confronted with same debate that played out in dozens of other communities, a majority of voters in Harwood were convinced of the merits of data center development. They gave a resounding “no” to increased oversight by a margin of about three to one. Harwood residents tend to describe their town as a bedroom community. There’s not much there besides a couple bars and a grain elevator, they say. Many residents commute to work in Fargo, North Dakota’s most populous city, and the surrounding metro area. From the beginning of the data center project, Harwood faced the prospect of losing it to their next-door neighbors. Although Texas-based Applied Digital had already contracted 900 acres when the project was announced, Harwood and Fargo disputed who had claim to annex the land. “It was always going to get built right around the same area that it was now,” said Blake Hankey, the mayor of Harwood. “If the data center is going to get put in this similar location, we might as well get the tax benefits and the tax revenue from it.”

Copyright November 08, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved