KSEV Mornings · November 6, 2026 · Hour 1
Craig’s case for pulling back Texas governor emergency powers before Gina Hinojosa takes office, midterm turnout math, South Texas vote-harvesting indictments under Ken Paxton, and callers on messaging and mourning.
Republicans still control the Texas Legislature for a few more weeks, and Craig Coglianese says they should use that window. In Friday’s first hour of KSEV Mornings, Craig made the case for reining in the governor’s expanded emergency powers before Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa takes office, walked through why total midterm votes can rise while the share of registered voters falls, and took calls from Bart, Jimmy X, Jerry and David after a Fox alert on South Texas vote-harvesting indictments tied to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s probe.
Rein in the emergency powers before Hinojosa
Craig paid off the show’s first-ever KSEV Radio app push notification with a blunt pitch: pull back the emergency powers of the governor before Gina Hinojosa takes office. He said Democrats will cry that Republicans let Gov. Greg Abbott keep those tools and will not hand them to Hinojosa, but he argued the timing is the point. “Republicans have control of the House, of the Senate,” he said. “They have control of everything right now. So do the thing.”
Over several years, he said, Abbott’s emergency powers grew partly because Republicans held both chambers, so getting bills through was not that hard. Craig was candid that Texans did not always love Abbott’s choices, “certainly didn’t love them during COVID.” His line now is not to strip the governorship of ordinary powers. “You’re going to give her traditional office powers of the governorship,” he said. “You’re just not going to allow her to have the additional emergency power to circumvent the Senate,” especially once the House is Democratic and the Senate stays conservative and the two sides will not want to pass the same agenda.
Turnout: 61 to 51
Craig pushed back on the idea that midterm turnout was somehow historically high once you look at registered voters, not raw ballots. Total midterm votes were higher than ever, he said, but Texas added about 500,000 newly registered voters since 2024, and the share of registered voters who showed up still fell. “It was like a 10% difference. It went from 61 to 51,” he said. “That’s what it means when a political talking head tells someone that people didn’t show up, that people stayed at home.”
His read of the electorate was simple: “A lot of Democrats were motivated to vote and a lot of Republicans weren’t. It’s just a simple fact. Look it up for yourself.” When you are the party in power, he added earlier, you have to sell wins as the nicer group, not run the attack campaign that worked in opposition. Democrats ran negative, he said, and it worked.
South Texas indictments, and Craig’s line on Texas elections
Craig played a Fox News alert on people indicted in South Texas for alleged vote harvesting. The report named Democrat Manuel Medina, accused of providing compensation for vote-harvesting services on behalf of former Texas House candidate Cecilia Castellano, with payments allegedly moving through cash apps. The case sits on top of earlier indictments under Ken Paxton.
Craig was careful about what he would and would not claim. “I don’t think right now… that the election in Texas is illegitimate, meaning a lot of people cheated,” he said, pointing to Texas laws that make that harder than what he remembered from Illinois. He credited Paxton as “very good at fighting it” and noted Paxton is “still the Attorney General for a couple months,” so the office can keep pressing the cases before the handoff.
Jimmy X out of “48 hours of mourning”
Jimmy X called after what he called “48 hours of mourning.” His opener: “No one voted for something on Tuesday. They voted against something.” He pointed to Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt and to Ericka Lomick, who won after suspending her campaign amid felony questions, as examples of voters rejecting one side more than embracing the other. Jimmy said Republicans had flawed candidates too, starting with Paxton, and that late money, arrogance in supposedly safe states, and weak social-media messaging left the party behind Democrat billboards and online work.
Craig agreed the messaging piece was late. He praised Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s “Lieutenant Dan” podcast as excellent, but said the problem was timing: “He started it four or five months before the election happened. He should have started it two years ago.” His forward look was for state Sen. Paul Bettencourt: “We need the billboard to be up now… We need the podcast to be out there now… so that it’s a build for two years and not a desperate fight for three or four months at the tail end.”
Bart on Russiagate unfinished business
Bart called from Spring about the Russiagate “burn bag” and whether anyone would be held to account. Craig said he trusts Dan Bongino’s public take that Epstein co-conspirators could not be proven the way some hoped, and he treated 2016 as unfinished business worth following if real evidence still exists. He thanked Bart and kept the focus on proof, not vibes.
Jerry and David on why people peeled off
Jerry dialed in frustrated with Trump-centered politics and with Abbott on property taxes, while saying he still likes Dan Patrick. Craig pressed him to define Abbott’s alleged “dirty deeds” and defended the Abbott-Patrick-Paxton record of protecting Houston from local Democratic control. David called about his 21-year-old college son flipping anti-Trump after living online; Craig talked about stratified internet news diets and the need to fight one-source radicalization without pretending the other side’s media diet is healthier.
Also in this hour
- Craig opened on Notre Dame vs. Miami as a College Football Playoff must-win for the Irish (Notre Dame ranked 11th, Miami No. 1) and argued Notre Dame should stay independent because of its NBC deal and playoff payout structure.
- The KSEV Radio app’s first push notification went out ahead of the emergency-powers segment, and Craig said it worked.
Hear Craig and Wayne live weekdays from 7–9 AM Central on AM 700 KSEV, The Voice of Texas. Visit the KSEV Mornings show page for live-listening controls and more episodes. Listen live weekdays 7-9 AM CT on the KSEV app.
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