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With Hours Until Election Day, a Hard Look at Trump Across Texas

A roundtable with editors from Tyler, El Paso and Odessa on the last news day before the election.
Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon/KUT
A roundtable with editors from Tyler, El Paso and Odessa on the last news day before the election.

From Texas Standard:

It’s the final full day of the 2016 presidential campaign, but in Tyler, Texas, it's not politics on the minds of most folks today. It is, rather, the story of  ten-year-old Kayla Gomez-Orozco, the subject of a statewide Amber Alert since she went missing after a church service last Tuesday night.Her body was found Sunday morning behind a home in Bullard, Texas. About 300 people turned out last night at Kayla's elementary school for a vigil. A family member has been arrested and is being held in the Smith County Jail on a federal Immigration Customs detainer. The suspect had been deported in 2014 but returned to Texas a short time later.

The daily newspaper there devotes  its entire front page to Kayla's story and how parents are struggling to talk with their own kids about the incident. This is happening at a time when Tyler and the rest of the nation are settling in for an historic election.

Here's our last statewide editors' roundtable before the 2016 election, with editors from Tyler, El Paso and Odessa.

Allison Pollan, editor at the  Tyler Morning Telegraph:

“We really are focusing on the local news of the day, which is tragic with a little girl losing her life, but we’re still putting the news in the paper…. What we’ll be watching for is the 'never Trump' effect of ideological conservatives – seeing whether they go third-party or maybe even a write-in candidate for president.”

Bob Moore, editor at the  El Paso Times:

“The big issue is Donald Trump and the rhetoric he’s used throughout the campaign that targets Mexican immigrants and the border. El Paso is certainly leading the surge but it’s being replicated along the Texas-Mexico border... just a huge surge of Hispanic voter turnout in areas that are typically low turnout.”

Laura Dennis, editor at the  Odessa American:

“We’ve had a record number of early voters, with a little over 26,000 voting this time. I would agree that it’s probably the Trump factor — seems to be what’s getting people out there. We’re right in the middle of the conservative area of our state. There seems to be more Trump signs when you drive around town. It’s one of those things where I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

Post by Betsy Joles.

Copyright 2020 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.

Rhonda is the newest member of the KUT News team, joining in late 2013 as producer for KUT's new daily news program, The Texas Standard. Rhonda will forever be known as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first full-time hire for The Texas Standard?” She’s an Iowa native who got her start in public radio at WFSU in Tallahassee, while getting her Master's Degree in Library Science at Florida State University. Prior to joining KUT and The Texas Standard, Rhonda was a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio.