Rep. Beto O’Rourke
Democrat Beto O’Rourke trails U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, by 6 percentage points, according to a new poll commissioned by Giffords, the gun control group started by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.
The survey, done by the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling, found Cruz leading O’Rourke 48-42 percent, with 10 percent undecided. O’Rourke’s deficit narrowed to 1 point — 44-45 percent — after respondents were read a series of statements about his and Cruz’s positions on guns, including O’Rourke’s support for an assault weapons ban.
Cruz has seized on that support to criticize O’Rourke as too liberal for Texas, saying he’s campaigning on “aggressive gun control.” But the poll found a majority of voters — 51 percent — were much or somewhat more likely to get behind O’Rourke after hearing that he wants to outlaw assault weapons.
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The poll surveyed 861 Texas voters from May 21-22 using automated telephone interviews. It had a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.
You can see the poll data here. As a reminder, here are the other polling results we’ve had so far:
WPA, Jan 5: Cruz 52, O’Rourke 34
PPP, Jan 27: Cruz 45, O’Rourke 37
Quinnipiac, April 19: Cruz 47, O’Rourke 44
Quinnipiac, May 31: Cruz 50, O’Rourke 39
Remember how those two Q-polls gave everyone whiplash, going from “The race is statistically tied!” to “So much for that so-called ‘blue wave’!” in what seemed like minutes. Maybe it would be helpful to point out that if you take the average of those two polls – which is to say, treat them as a combined sample rather than two separate and independent data points – you get Cruz 48.5, O’Rourke 41.5, or something very close to this result. If you average all five polls, you get Cruz 48.4, O’Rourke 39.2, and the main reason Beto’s total is that low is that one early Republican firm’s poll, which I think we can all agree now looks a bit like an outlier.
One other point to make is that in this PPP sample, Donald Trump has an approval rating of 49 approve and 46 disapprove. He was at 47/44 in that second Q-poll, the one with Cruz up by 11. Trump’s approval has bounced around in various polls, not all of which included horse-race questions, and not too surprisingly where there are race questions the Dems tend to do better the worse Trump does. This result is an exception to that; indeed, that earlier PPP poll showing Cruz up by 8 did so in the context of Trump’s approval being negative by three points. In some ways, I find this the most encouraging part of the PPP result.
As for the “now that you know this about the candidates’ views on gun control” stuff, you can take that as you want. At least O’Rourke will have the wherewithal to make sure people know about that aspect of Cruz’s candidacy, but beyond that I’m back in “it’s just another data point” territory. I want to believe, but I need further convincing.
Just need the Russian cheeto traitor to keep being himself and the Trump supporters, formally Republicans, to keep being the same spineless self serving fools that they have always been.
The economy is a big factor. When times are good many people will not be in a hurry to vote or get upset with Cruz.
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