Omnibus polling update

One last Trib poll:

Rep. Beto O’Rourke

Republican Ted Cruz leads Democrat Beto O’Rourke 51 percent to 45 percent in the Texas race for the U.S. Senate, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Libertarian Neal Dikeman was the choice of 2 percent of likely voters and another 2 percent said they would vote for someone else.

Democratic and Republican voters, as might be expected, lined up strongly behind their respective party’s candidates. But independent voters, a group that often leans to the Republicans in statewide elections, broke for O’Rourke, 51 percent to Cruz’s 39 percent.

“The major Senate candidates were trying to mobilize their partisans, without a lot of attempt to get voters to cross over. And it looks like they’ve done that,” said Jim Henson, co-director of the poll and head of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “If you look for Republican defections to Beto O’Rourke, they’re not there. But the independents break to the Democrat instead of the Republican in that race.”

The poll of likely Texas voters was conducted before early voting in the general election began this week.

In several other races for statewide office, Republicans hold double-digit leads over their Democratic opponents.

They have Abbott up 56-37, Patrik up 53-35, and Paxton up 48-36. In these races, the Dems don’t get the independent vote like O’Rourke did, and their level of support among Dems is lower, which I will attribute to the usual cause of lower name recognition. As pollster Joshua Blank says later in the piece, the Dems voting for O’Rourke are very likely also going to vote for Lupe Valdez, Mike Collier, and Justin Nelson. A companion piece is about who is saying they will vote this year.

This post was begun before that poll was published, with the intent of capturing the other Senate race results that we’ve had in the past two to three weeks. Here they all are, from FiveThirtyEight, many of which have not been in the news.

Oct 21 – End Citizens United – Cruz 50, O’Rourke 46

Oct 18 – Ipsos – Cruz 49, O’Rourke 44

Oct 14 – Tulchin – Cruz 49, O’Rourke 45

Oct 13 – CNN/SSRS – Cruz 52, O’Rourke 45

Oct 13 – WPA – Cruz 52, O’Rourke 43

Oct 11 – Siena/NYT – Cruz 51, O’Rourke 43

Oct 5 – Emerson College – Cruz 47, O’Rourke 42

There are also the Quinnipiac poll that had Cruz up 54-45, and the CBS/YouGov poll that had Cruz up 50-44. All of these are Likely Voter polls. FiveThirtyEight ran everything through their algorithms and came up with an aggregate 5.8 point lead for Cruz, though their forecast for the actual vote share is 51.8 to 46.6, or a 5.2 point margin. They project turnout of just under 7 million, which needless to say would shatter records for a midterm election in Texas and which our first week of early voting turnout suggests is very much in play. They give O’Rourke a 21% chance of winning. We’ll see if any of that changes as the actual voting continues.

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4 Responses to Omnibus polling update

  1. Manny Barrera says:

    That was the same chance that Silver’s gave Donald Trump. The two latest polls show Beto gaining which is a good sign.

    It will be a very close raise as pollsters may not be getting who the voters are correct.

    Here is Harris County I expect that with maybe one or two exceptions, Harris County will be Blue.

    Take a neighbor to vote.

  2. Manny Barrera says:

    race

  3. General Grant says:

    That Ken Paxton might win an election is an indictment of the information level of voters.

  4. Bill Daniels says:

    @General:

    I believe Paxton is probably dirty here, screwing his own circle of friends, although the attempted political assassination of Kavanaugh should have demonstrated to all of us the importance of due process. Turns out Kav was innocent and at least one of his accusers and the CPL have been referred for prosecution themselves, for lying. Paxton may be truly innocent, or could be found legally innocent like Melendez in New Jersey.

    Having said all that, my vote came down to, do I want a Texas AG suing the Trump administration frequently, as Texas did to the Obama administration? My answer was no, so I voted Paxton.

    Looks like Gillum has been investigated by the FBI for taking bribes in Florida, but people who like his policies will be voting for him, regardless of his guilt or innocence.

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