 OK, hi, this is Randy Bear with Nowcast Essay and Plaza de Armas here. We're kind of running around to all the various campaign sites tonight. And tonight, we're here with Philip Cortez, who is running for state representative 117 against John Garza. And Philip, you're looking pretty good right now. So results are your head. Well, we're excited right now. We were watching early vote very carefully. And for us to come out with early vote with a lead was important. And now, as election day results continue to come in, the lead is growing bigger and bigger. So we're training in the right direction. We're just hoping that it continues to go in that direction. And hopefully, I'll be serving the residents of 117 very soon. Great. So with this campaign this year, so what were some of the things that you kind of found out during this campaign? I mean, you had a pretty tough tight race with John Garza. We knew it was going to be tight. We knew that it's never easy to unseat an incumbent. And so we knew that we had to work twice as hard and get our message out to twice as many people. And I think you can tell where the turnout, countywide, the residents were ready to come and send a message, I think, to some of these state reps that we're not happy with some of the votes you took last year, specifically the vote on the $5.4 billion that they cut to our public schools and our institutions of higher learning. I think a lot of people were upset with that. And now the voters are letting them know. OK. What are some of the other issues that you had with regards to this campaign? Well, one issue that I was really concerned about, I served a part of this district for two terms on the city council. And I didn't see a lot of visibility from him, a lot of interaction with the communities, the residents, neighborhood associations. And so that's a concern anytime you have an elected leader not having a strong presence in the community. And that's an issue I heard over and over. Many residents were asking me, who is this John Garza? One senior citizen told me, who's this new guy that just jumped in the race against you? And so that told me a lot right there, that there was some issues with visibility, communication, and presence. OK. So right now, we just came from the pre-K party over there. And it looks like pre-K is starting to pass and everything. But one of the points that the mayor brought out was that pre-K was there really because of some of the gaps that the state legislature kind of left us with as far as education funding. What's your thoughts on that as far as you're going up to the Texas House? Well, first and foremost, I applaud Mayor Castro for having the courage to take on such a tough issue and make it a number one priority for his administration. And it looks like it's going well. And I want to congratulate him on his potential win. But he knows how important education is and that the key to any successful community is the strength of the knowledge base of that community. So for him to want to allocate a 1 1⁄8 cent sales tax specifically for the youngsters, the pre-K children here in the community, that's a big deal. And I was fully supportive. I'm so happy that it's passing. And I look forward to working with the mayor and the entire city council to find out how the state can help relieve some of that burden in the upcoming session. Do you think it's optimistic to that? I mean, you guys are down, kind of down in the legislature of you, but. You know, you would just have to crawl back little by little. And I think if we can pick up some key seats, then we might have some negotiating power here with the Republicans. Ultimately, I do believe, though, that some of the extreme votes that they took last year is coming back to hurt them. And now they realize that they can't go that far in this coming session. I hope they realize that, should I be successful and should others throughout the state remove some other incumbents? Well, it looks like we have one turnover of a seat tonight here with you. Well, we're hoping to turn it blue. We still got a lot of votes to be counted. But it's trending in the right direction. And I want to just thank the residents of House District 117 for giving me this lead, initial lead. And I'm hoping that they continue to have me in the lead throughout the entire night. Congratulations. Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Thank you.