We knew this poll was coming, and it confirms what we have been seeing elsewhere.
PPP’s new Texas poll finds a relatively tight race, at least on the curve of recent Presidential election results in the state. Donald Trump leads with 44% to 38% for Hillary Clinton, 6% for Gary Johnson, 2% for Jill Stein, and less than half a percent (0) for Evan McMullin. In a head to head contest Trump leads Clinton 50-44 in the state, which Mitt Romney won by 16 points in 2012.
A Democratic victory in Texas this year remains a stretch but within the numbers there are signs of Democrats being positioned to become seriously competitive there in the years ahead. Trump’s lead is based entirely on his holding a 63-33 advantage among seniors. With voters under 65, Clinton leads him 49-45. And when you look just specifically at voters under 45, Clinton leads Trump 60-35. Older voters are overwhelmingly responsible for the Republican advantage in Texas, and generational change is likely to help Democrats become more competitive.
A big piece of that generational change is the increasing racial diversity of the electorate in Texas. Trump has a 69/25 lead with white voters but the reason the state’s so competitive overall is that among non-white voters Clinton has a 73-21 lead, including a 68-27 edge with the state’s booming Hispanic population.
Clinton’s unpopular in Texas, as you would expect, with a 36/59 favorability rating. But Trump’s not a whole lot better off with only 40% of voters seeing him favorably to 53% with a negative opinion. The tax return issue continues to plague Trump with 64% of voters thinking he needs to release his returns to only 25% who don’t think it’s necessary for him to. Even Trump’s supporters, by a 43/41 spread, think he should release them. Another issue that has the potential to cause Trump problems down the road is if he refuses to participate in the debates as scheduled. 77% of voters think he needs to do that to only 14% who don’t think he needs to and among his own supporters there’s an even stronger sentiment- 82/12- that Trump needs to participate. If Trump is stubborn about that it could cause the bottom to fall out on his support even further.
The full polling memo is here. A few thoughts:
– If President Obama were running against Trump, he would be trailing by only two points, 48-46. Let that sink in for a moment. Obama’s approval/disapproval numbers are 42/54, which is a tiny bit better than Trump’s favorable/unfavorable numbers of 40/53.
– This is Clinton’s high-water mark in Texas so far, which puts her in Obama’s polling range from 2012, while Trump continues to lag way behind Romney’s poll numbers. All this is of course consistent with the race being closer now than it was four years ago, but it’s not yet suggestive of Clinton doing better than Obama did. PPP did poll Trump/Clinton straight up, and the result there was 50/44, which is more in line with her exceeding the 2012 level, but it’s not a two-candidate race, so all that shows is that she has the potential to grow.
– Trump’s numbers among white voters are closer to what Romney got, but still a few points behind it. The 69-25 figure cited about is from the Trump/Clinton two-person choice; with all four candidates listed he leads by a more modest 64-21 among whites. He does have the potential to grow as well, as Gary Johnson gets 5% and 8% are undecided. It’s also well within reason that this just portends a decrease in Republican turnout. It’s still too early to say.
– This is the first poll of Texas I’ve seen that includes all four candidates. Johnson’s 6% and Stein’s 2% would significantly exceed their numbers from 2012 if they hold up, but as we know from national polling data, third party numbers tend to be exaggerated in polls compared to what ultimately happens at the ballot box. This is a weird year, of course, so one wants to tread carefully in making any broad claims. Unfortunately, there’s no basis for comparison in the 2012 numbers, as none of the polls from September onward included Johnson or Stein, who represented the L and G parties that year as well. The one data point we have is in the UT/Trib poll from October 12, 2012, in the Senate race (see page 3), where Lib candidate John Jay Myers polled at 3% and Green David Collins was at 2%. In actual voting, Myers wound up with 2.06% and Collins with 0.86%, higher than their Presidential counterparts but lower than their poll totals. Make of that what you will.
– The age split is encouraging from a Democratic perspective, but old people vote, and a 20-year timeline as suggested in the polling memo is forever. The Democrats’ base problem remains the same – base turnout hasn’t grown, at least in non-Presidential years, since 2002. If Democratic turnout increases this year, then perhaps there is some hope to get an increase in 2018. Of course, one could have made the same claim after 2008, and we know how that went. Solving the base turnout issue is the Hilbert problem for Texas Dems.
PDiddie has more.
I am surprised that Johnson is only polling at 6% in Texas.
Thought it would be higher considering Bush supporters opting for Johnson instead of voting for neo-Fascist Trump who had mocked/bad mouthed/tormented a favorite-ish son/brother of a president during the primaries.
Libertarians need Johnson to pass the 5% threshold in the state to maintain ballot access. The Green Party probably won’t have any statewide candidates cross the 5% threshold and will lose their ballot access for the foreseeable future due to the high petition bar for party ballot access.
This will impact future election races where the only 3 ballot access parties will be Rep, Dem and Lib. Libs, conventionally thinking, will pull from Rep candidates.
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I appreciate the name-drop, Kuff.
Here’s something else worth noting from October 2012. Another poll in Texas had Stein running at better than 2%, considerably more than her eventual tally of 0.31%.
I wish I had an explanation for how Jill got just under 25,000 votes in Texas, while I received more than 67,000. I don’t have THAT many friends and relatives in the state. Chris Kennedy barely campaigned for Railroad Commissioner and ended up with 153,664, good for 1.99% in a four-way race.