As you know, I’ve been computing a poll average for the Presidential race in Texas based on post-primary numbers, meaning that I start with the April 25 UT/Trib result and go from there. As of the June 25 Fox poll, I’ve got Trump leading Biden by the small margin of 46.5 to 44.5, or just two points. There was actually quite a bit of polling done before April 25, but I was paying closer attention to the primary numbers, and didn’t give a whole lot of thought to the horse race that far out. I may have missed a poll or two in there as well.
Fortunately, Texas Elects has been keeping track going back to last November. Here’s what they’ve got, minus the Fox poll, which was their main story in this post, and the two from this week:
Recent Presidential Polls
- Trump 48, Biden 46 – Public Policy Polling (June)
- Trump 48, Biden 48 – Public Policy Polling (June)
- Trump 44, Biden 43 – Quinnipiac Univ. (June)
- Trump 47, Biden 41 – Emerson (May)
- Trump 43, Biden 43 – DMN/UT-Tyler (May)
- Biden 47, Trump 46 – Public Policy Polling (April)
- Trump 49, Biden 44 – UT/Texas Tribune (April)
- Trump 45, Biden 44 – DMN/UT-Tyler (March)
- Trump 46, Biden 43 – Univision/Univ. of Houston (February)
- Biden 48, Trump 47 – CNN/SSRS (February)
- Trump 47, Biden 43 – UT/Texas Tribune (February)
- Trump 44, Biden 42 – DMN/UT-Tyler (February)
- Trump 51, Biden 46 – Texas Lyceum (January)
- Trump 48, Biden 47 – CNN/SSRS (December 2019)
- Trump 45, Biden 39 – DMN/UT-Tyler (November 2019)
- Trump 46, Biden 39 – UT/Texas Tribune (November 2019)
Links go to our coverage or commentary on the polls.
So we have ten post-primary results, and nine from March or earlier. How do the two compare? Well, crunching the numbers gives me 46.7 for Trump over these nine polls, and 43.4 for Biden, with his two worst results being the two oldest ones. Take those two out and you get Biden at 44.7 over seven polls, putting him exactly two points behind Trump, just a smidge farther back than he is now post-primary.
Now let’s be clear, I’m not making any scientific claims with this data. There’s plenty of professionals out there who can give you a much more nuanced view of the situation, and you should be reading what they have to say. What I am saying is that these numbers have been remarkably stable, with Trump consistently polling below fifty percent. I didn’t start tracking 2016 polls consistently until June that year – to be fair, there were far fewer such polls then, as basically no one thought Texas was in play, especially after the butt-kicking Dems got in 2014 – so I can’t make a good comparison, but it feels like things are fairly steady now. That could certainly change, because Lord knows this year has been a hell of a thing. But the basic story here has been that it’s a close race, and that has been true all along.