As election day approaches, both the top-ranked candidates and the bottom-ranked candidates are putting in their last efforts to appeal to voters. CBS News Texas tracks polls and continues to cover political events year-round. texas state of mind.
But in the end it’s the people who matter and the people who decide what happens. To better understand what voters in the Lone Star State are thinking about when they cast their ballots, reporter Jason Allen and a CBS News Texas reporting team will spend the next few weeks traveling the state and I’m talking to people. From the Chihuahuan Desert to the Piney Woods.
last weekJason traveled 500 miles west to the annual Viva Big Bend music festival in the high desert. This week, we head to a place depicted in Richard Linklater’s 2011 film “Bernie” as a part of Texas that many Texans are about to leave.
AMARILLO – The Texas High Plains, which includes the cities of Amarillo and Lubbock, is a region with slower population growth than the rest of the state, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Office. Although the region’s gross domestic product is only 3% of the state’s total GDP, its contribution to Texas’ agriculture industry is significant, accounting for approximately 50%.
The CBS News Texas crew traveled to Amarillo in late July for the 29th Annual Original Harley Party. Many locals cite the small-town feel of their community as a reason they like living there. However, some expressed a desire to do more and have more employment opportunities.
“There’s not much to do in Borger,” one woman told CBS News in Texas. “And they need to get rid of all the drugs and crime.”
Another person who was showing off a custom bike said, “If we had a bigger factory or something bigger here, people would work more and get off the road.”
CBS News Texas also encountered a man at the event who was selling tumblers with built-in Bluetooth speakers decorated with pictures of snakes, American flags, and slogans like “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Come on.” . He told the crew that even though he was retired, he and his wife had to continue working to make a living.
“With the current economic situation, my social security and hers are not enough to survive,” he said. “I could say so much more, but I’ll stop there.”
“Everyone’s feeling a little tingly,” said another woman. “Everything went up.”
Alex Driggers, a High Plains native and Lubbock Avalanche Journal reporter, said the economy is huge for voters in the area. But so do their values and beliefs.
“People like Joe who live in Muleshoe,” Driggers said of what he considers typical High Plains voters. “He doesn’t make a lot of money. He lives a comfortable life. It’s very simple.”
There was no shortage of shirts, tumblers and other items emblazoned with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s name at the crimson Amarillo Harley party, but one attendee CBS Texas spoke to said , who was wearing a shirt that read “Nobody 2024.”
“Neither is good enough for me,” he said.
This article is one of several CBS news stories Texas is releasing to try to find out the state of mind in Texas in the weeks leading up to the election. Read the first report from Marfa here. We asked everyone we met on our travels about their must-have road trip songs. Below is a playlist of those recommendations.