The Last Coffee Talk Before the Polls Close: Turnout, the Line in the Sand, and the Next Hundred Years

This was the final Late Night Coffee Talk before the March 1 Republican primary, and Daniel Miller hosted it from the road in Corpus Christi rather than the office. He spent the front half on the closing days of his campaign for lieutenant governor, but the real argument was about turnout. Primary participation has been historically low, he warned, and low turnout favors challengers. A vote already cast is not the end of the job. The work now is getting other people to the polls and helping them make sense of a confusing ballot, because most voters never make it to a candidate forum and are looking to the people around them for guidance.

He was candid about how brutal the statewide candidate circuit has been this cycle. Events were poorly coordinated, candidates were driving across the state to hit two and three stops in a day, and one candidate was killed in a car accident doing exactly that. He also flagged a gubernatorial candidate getting banned from Facebook one week out from election day. Between the logistics, he laid out his own platform: militarizing the State Guard and deploying it to the border, ending the property tax, and the Texas Independence Referendum Act that Kyle Biederman filed a year earlier. He noted that copies of his book TEXIT drew more interest at events than the campaign push cards did, with many voters encountering the idea of an independent Texas for the first time.

Miller closed with the case he has made all year. He believes the next hundred years of Texas history are being written right now, that the status quo means a Texas that a century from now may be unrecognizable or gone, and that current leadership in Austin keeps picking the federal system over its own people. Invoking Travis drawing his line in the sand in 1836 and Sam Houston’s line that Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations, he asked viewers to do their due diligence and then to vote.

Questions answered in this episode

• What is the song that opens Coffee Talk? It is a track called Texian Arise from an unreleased album by TNM executive director Nate Smith.
• What would the national anthem of an independent Texas be? Likely Texas, Our Texas, the current state song, which TNM members helped push back into Republican conventions alongside the Texas pledge.
• I am voting for you, but how do I evaluate the other races and candidates? Check taketexasback.com for the 80-plus candidates, from governor down to constable and school board, who have signed the Texas First Pledge.
• How can I donate, and why give now when the polls look good? Give at dmcdonate.com, because the campaign still needs radio and signs through election day.
• How do I volunteer to work the polls on election day? Sign up at the campaign volunteer page and contact field director Paul Roby for materials and signs.
• Where can a newcomer get straight answers about TEXIT? Daniel pointed people to TNM’s frequently-asked-questions site, with roughly a hundred of the most common questions answered and a place to ask your own.