Hello and welcome to the Punch Bowl News Readback Podcast.

I'm your host, congressional reporter Max Cohen.

Today I'm joined by Ali Mutnick, who just returned from a days-long trip on the ground in Texas

to cover both parties competitive Senate primaries.

Ali, welcome back from the Lone Star State.

How was it?

Thank you, Max.

It was a lot of driving.

Most of reporting in Texas is just driving.

That's the real secret here.

It is not glamorous.

And you were all over the state.

Just to give our listeners a sense of the trip,

just tell everyone all the cities and towns you went to in the course of your, what, three, four days on the ground?

Yeah, I was almost far by the end of it.

I flew into Dallas and then I drove about two hours east to Tyler, Texas, which I learned is in Nathaniel Moran's district. And then I drove

a long way to Austin through Waco. And then I went pretty much right back to Dallas, Fort Worth,

from there.

Yeah, that's that's all over the state. And as you said, Texas is a huge expanse. That's why it's so expensive to spend on TV there, right? And you found that out first and foremost. So, okay,

cool. Let me hear about some of your overall overviews, right?

Because last week on the podcast, we talked about Texas. Did your views change from being on the

ground and seeing the candidates actually campaigning? Interesting. I think I definitely got

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