Andy Runyan

Married to the wife of my youth. Saved by grace alone. Cyber insurance nerd. Baseball fanatic.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

If you wear a pinstripe top…you have to wear pinstripe pants.

If you wear pinstripe pants, you can wear a solid top…but it cannot be white.

These are the baseball uniform rules set forth by the Baseball Gods. I do not make them.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

You want real life examples, right?

I have anywhere from 4-8 meetings on most work days.

If I am a minute or two late, nobody typically cares. 99 times out of 100.

If I am 10 minutes late, I have wasted everyone’s time and am being incredibly disrespectful.

[Robynn Garfield @robynngarfield]

My son (a high school junior) is taking three AP classes and is in a concurrent enrollment college finance program. He's got like a 3.8 GPA.

I just got an email from the school saying he's had too many tardies and is going to be placed on some sort of "citizenship plan" or whatever. I know attendance is a big deal in public education right now, and I understand why they have these disciplinary levers in place.

But I think kids who get good grades and take hard classes shouldn't get dinged for being 10 minutes late here or there. I've always thought if a kid has over a 3.7 GPA, his attendance shouldn't even be counted anymore.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@TJHannam10 Have used this verbal cue for 25 years and it’s amazing how something so small can change results quickly 👏🏻👏🏻

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@Smithin_It_Up Amen

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@CoachSwit Hey, as long as the check clears…😉

[David Klein @CoachDavidKlein]

Teach your players this dugout rule on day one:

Anything about OUR team is fair game ✅

Anything about THEIR team is off limits ❌

Cheer loud. Support your guys. Never make it about the players on the other team.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@coachdeesmith ….and 35 more yelling “GIT HIM! GGGIIIIIIITTTT HIM!”

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@LizWolfeReason Lord, please help me feel the same way about the American Evangelical Gospel

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

Imagine doing all that and not typing “Epstein” once

[JD Vance @JDVance]

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."

Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel

Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)

In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.

If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.

But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.

I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@Smithin_It_Up @Comeon_Blue I like it!

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

Imagine doing all that and not typing the word “Epstein” once

[Ted Cruz @tedcruz]

History was made last night.

For months, we were saying that 2026 was the most consequential midterm election of our lifetimes.

Unfortunately, we were right. Sometimes history is to be celebrated; other times, it is to be mourned. Always, it must be reckoned with.

2026 was not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was an ass kicking. It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation. What happened, and why? What are the consequences, and where on earth do we go from here?

When all the votes were counted, the problem wasn’t turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and voted, and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead. We’ve lost the House. We’ve lost the Senate. When all is said and done, we will have lost eight to 10 Senate seats.

We lost in historically red states, like South Carolina and North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. We lost in purple states, like Michigan, and New Hampshire, and Georgia. And we just barely won by just a single point in bright red states like Florida and Louisiana, and then there’s Texas.

Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas. In the Lone Star State, we lost every single statewide election. For weeks, I had been publicly warning on this podcast that we were in very real danger of losing everything in Texas. Far too few believed that was possible. I am very, very sorry that it came to pass. Texas has not had a Democrat governor since 1994. We haven’t had a Democrat senator since 1993. Now we’ll have both.

Why were the results so overwhelming? Pundits and analysts will break down the results for weeks or months or even years to come, but several things are already evident today.

Years ago, the very best political advice I ever got was from Heidi. She said, “It’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s about their kids, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their futures.” Too many politicians forget that.

Take the state of Kansas, for example, a state that has not elected a Democrat senator since 1932. It just did. Here’s what exit polling showed were the top issues in Kansas.

Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries. That was listed as number one by 30.6 percent of voters.
Corruption. Number two, 18.5%.
The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%.
The candidates are terrible, 7.9%.
The Canada trade war, 7.6%.
The GOP didn’t do enough to support Trump, 6.6%.
Republicans didn’t pass the Save America Act, 5.6%.
Trump’s focus on monuments, 5.5%, and data centers and AI, 3.8%.

The top issue, cost of living, is very real. Too many in politics dismissed it. They didn’t understand. They pointed to the macro numbers showing the stock markets soaring, median income at record highs, and poverty at record lows. Those data are true, but they don’t tell all of the story.

Here are some stats that are a lot more real and personal. Spam, Hormel’s processed meat substitute, broke record sales, selling 113 million cans last year. That is nearly as much spam as was sold during the entirety of World War II. 29 percent of Americans have used buy now, pay later for groceries this year. That’s double the share just two years ago.

In August, banks repossessed 42% more homes than they did last year. In 2024, car repossessions topped 2.3 million, above the 2009 peak in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis. In 2025, 6% of 401k holders took hardship withdrawals, paying penalties. That is a record, and triple the norm.

And here’s one that’s really stunning. Americans made more than 75 million paid plasma donations in 2026. That’s another record. That means 200,000 Americans every single day, with a needle in their arm, just to pay for groceries.

That is very real pain from real Americans, and too many Republican politicians seem like they didn’t understand or they didn’t care. Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high.

Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars.

There’s a very real economic disconnect. Our K-shaped economy is a yawning divide. Last year, we saw the world’s very first trillionaire, a modern-day Thomas Edison, at the very same time that millions were struggling to feed their families. Data centers being constructed were turning billionaires into centibillionaires, while simultaneously the average American’s electricity bill went up 30% in the last five years.

Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didn’t do enough to address their very real pain.

So, what do we do now? We need to listen and respond. We need to champion economic policies that make a real difference in working people’s lives, and we need to deal with the consequences.

Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue. As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas. That’s not something I ever thought I would say.

We can be certain that the Democrats in Austin and in Washington will overshoot. In Texas, they will try to raise taxes dramatically. They may even try to adopt a state income tax, or even a California wealth tax. They will try to shut down the energy industry, destroying jobs across our state. They will embrace the radical transgender agenda. They will persecute those they perceive to be enemies, especially Elon Musk.

And in Washington, they will attack Trump every single day, constantly. Impeachment hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution, and nonstop retaliation. Make no mistake. Nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed.

Sadly, that means many Americans will be hurt. Texans will be hurt. Their assault on business will make Texas a much less attractive place to start or grow a small business. Texas will become more like California if they succeed in halting all new investment into AI.

The economic results will be dramatic. Over $700 billion in new projects are scheduled to start in the next year. If the Democrats shut them all down, our country will very likely go into a recession. That will suit the Democrats just fine. They’ll just blame it all on Donald Trump.

In the next two years, we need to do two things.

One, fight the madness. I will work with Democrats when they’re willing to be reasonable. Last night, I called James Talarico. I congratulated him on his very impressive victory. It was a pleasant conversation, and I told him that I looked forward to working with him to try to benefit Texas.

So, if there are things like flood relief for the Hill Country, or trying to get the space academy to Texas, he and I will work together. But if the newly elected radicals push policies that hurt Texas, raising taxes, destroying jobs, opening the border, releasing violent criminals, threatening our children, undermining our constitutional rights, I will fight with all of my strength to defend Texas and to defend the Constitution.

And number two, we need to rebuild, getting behind policies that directly benefit the constituents we lost.

There’s a complicated story, no doubt, of what happened on Election Day, but as I see it, the key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters, what had rightly become the core base of our party, Evangelical Christians, who didn’t show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections, farmers and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people, who excitedly had voted Republican in 2024, and who shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics.

For Hispanics, there’s a strong overlap with young people and blue-collar workers. In 2024, just two years ago, I was proud to carry Hispanics statewide in Texas by six points, and we swung the Rio Grande Valley red for the first time in a century. It can be done, but in this election, those Hispanic voters overwhelmingly went back Democrat. We have got to turn that around.

And for young people, we need to be the party of the future. We need to champion policies that expand their future. Our two single biggest legislative accomplishments of the past two years, Trump Accounts and the school choice tax credit, which will unleash tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for kids, are generationally powerful. I was proud to author both of those transformational policies, and yet too few candidates all across the country ran on that record.

Too few voters were even aware of what we’d accomplished for their kids and their future. But we need to build. We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class for hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American, become an owner, to have real skin in the game, to create new generations of capitalists ready to reject socialism.

People voted as they did because they were angry. Ironically, the Democrats that they elected are going to advance policies that will make affordability worse. The Democrats want gas prices higher. They want to ban gasoline engines altogether. Their extreme environmental mandates will drive up food prices and the prices of everything else.

But hear me now: we will bring Texas back. I am filled with hope and optimism. Texas will be red again. We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pinko commie liberals. That ain’t us. Texas is still Texas.

We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives. The way we built the Texas economic miracle in the first place, and we will build and rebuild America as well.

When the zealots overreach, and they will, we will stand ready to lead in the direction of freedom, of prosperity, of safety, and security, and common sense. We will return to a new dawn of freedom in America.

It is dark right now, but it is always darkest before the dawn, and morning is coming. That is my fervent prayer, and that is my commitment to you.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@Comeon_Blue @Smithin_It_Up @Comeon_Blue there is no doubt!

…and while we are here, one of my favorite drills is live arm BP fastballs on the field from 40 ft alternating with a JUGS SL/ CB from game release point. Rounds of 10. 5 each.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@Riley_Gaines_ Cheat sheet for next time:

Stop focusing on the one issue that impacted you and almost no one else, and focus on not protecting pedophiles and starting new wars nobody wants.

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@coachkelley1 You left out a big one

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

Introducing the 14U 8th Grade Eagle Baseball roster. Congratulations, boys!

#TalonsOut 🦅⚾️

[Greene County Tech Golden Eagle Baseball @gctbaseball]

The 2027 Eagle Baseball schedule has landed
🦅

🏖️ Spring Break at @ripkenexpmb
8️⃣ 5A East doubleheaders
🆚 NEA matchups vs. top regional teams in 3A, 4A, and 6A

#TalonsOut 🦅⚾️

@KBoBaseballGuru @PrepBaseballAR @RRainwater1037 @ChrisHudgison

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

Many hours under the summer sun in AR

[Dan Cevette @DanCevette]

If you grew up playing WIFFLE BALL in the 80s and 90s, this one's for you...

We didn't just play Wiffle ball.

We built STADIUMS in our backyards.

I remember mowing the grass on the LOWEST setting to outline our field. Eventually the grass would die, which absolutely pissed my dad off. 😂

We chalked batter's boxes. Made our own outfield distance signs.

Our HOUSE ROOF was the right-field home run fence. Left field? A portable fence we built ourselves.

We scraped together whatever money we could find for replacement Wiffle balls at the local hardware store.

We organized tournaments that lasted ALL SUMMER.

Ghost runners. Made-up ground rules. Hit the runner with the ball to get him OUT.

We argued calls like it was Game 7 of the World Series.

No umpires. No coaches. No adults organizing anything.

Just neighborhood kids, a plastic bat, a plastic ball, and an imagination that never ran out.

And looking back 30 years later, something hits me...

We were learning how to COMPETE. How to solve problems. How to make our own decisions. How to handle winning AND losing.

We were developing baseball instincts without a single lesson.

We were falling in love with the GAME without anybody telling us we needed to.

We just called it PLAYING.

Man, what I'd give for ONE MORE summer afternoon on those backyard fields. ⚾️

Who else grew up this way? Tell me about YOUR backyard stadium.

[Greene County Tech Golden Eagle Baseball @gctbaseball]

Happy Halloween from GCT Baseball
🎃👻🧟‍♂️

#TalonsOut 🦅⚾️

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@Cerk26 @tangotiger I’m convinced we are watching Idiocracy play out in real time

[Andy Runyan @runyandy]

@obvious_shirts Why pay for him when you can donate to politicians?