I’ll get into a broader discussion in a minute, but for now, there’s this:
President Donald Trump leads former Vice President Joe Biden with the support of 50% of the state’s likely voters to Biden’s 45% in the 2020 race for president, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
The Republicans — Trump and his running mate, Vice President Mike Pence — had strong support from white (62%-34%) and male (55%-39%) voters, while the Democrats, Biden and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, are the favorites of female (51%-46%), Black (87%-11%) and Hispanic (54%-37%) voters in Texas.
Among Republican voters, 92% favor Trump, while 96% of Democratic voters said they’ll vote for Biden. The state’s independent voters prefer Biden, 45%-37%, over Trump.
Despite the dramatic swings in events and issues during 2020, the contest for the hearts and minds of Texas voters has changed little in the race for the nation’s top elected office. The latest poll is a case in point; the survey was conducted during a period that included the first presidential debate and Trump’s hospitalization for COVID-19. Even so, the result is in line with previous UT/TT surveys. In February, a UT/TT Poll found Trump ahead of Biden 47%-43% in what was then a hypothetical head-to-head race, because the Democrats had not chosen their nominee. In April, Trump led 49%-44%, and in June, 48%-44%.
[…]
While Trump is 5 percentage points ahead of Biden in the head-to-head matchup, he comes up a bit short of what might be expected of a Republican on a Texas ballot. In a generic congressional race pitting an unnamed Republican against an unnamed Democrat, the poll found the Republican had a 7-percentage-point advantage (51%-44%) among Texas voters. In a generic race for the state Legislature, a Republican would have an 8-percentage-point edge (51%-43%). And Republican John Cornyn, seeking reelection to the U.S. Senate, has an 8-percentage-point lead over Democrat MJ Hegar in this poll, outperforming the president by 3 percentage points with Texans.
For what it’s worth, the UT/Trib poll has been more favorable to Trump than many others have been, and that remains true when compared with other recent polls. In October of 2018, they had Ted Cruz leading Beto O’Rourke by six points, 51-45; in 2016, they had the race as closer than it ended up, putting Trump up 45-42 over Hillary Clinton. In that race, they accurately pegged Clinton’s level of support but underestimated Trump. In 2018, they nailed Ted Cruz’s number but undershot Beto. Both the 538 forecast (Trump 51.2 to 47.8) and the Economist forecast (Trump 51.4 to 48.6 in the two-party vote) have it closer than this poll, but are nearer to where Trump is than to where Biden is.
In 2018, the Trib poll that had Cruz leading Beto by six had similar levels of partisan support for each candidate, but a bigger lead among indies for Beto. They had other Republican candidates leading by double digits – the next closest race they had was Ken Paxton leading Justin Nelson 48-36 – with Republican support often a bit overstated and Democrats way underestimated. That’s not unusual for a lower profile race, which everything other than Cruz-Beto was in 2018.
The UT/Trib poll is also in the “Trump is doing much better with Latinos this year than he did in 2016” camp, which we have explored before, though not quite as much as some other pollsters. I find this dichotomy fascinating and would much rather read someone’s attempt to analyze it instead of the eighty-seventh article about how Biden needs to step it up among Latino voters that is mostly based on Florida. This is one of those times for the old “the only poll that matters is on Election Day” proverb.
I’ll leave you with this before we go.
When early voting starts on Tuesday, Jill Biden will be in Texas hoping to boost turnout for the Democratic presidential ticket led by her husband, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Democratic sources say Jill Biden will make stops in Houston, Dallas and El Paso, although exact times and locations have not been released.
The Joe Biden campaign has begun to invest more heavily in Texas as polls show a closer-than-usual race in the Lone Star State.
Earlier this week, the campaign launched a TV ad blitz aimed at voters in San Antonio and El Paso. On Monday and Tuesday, Doug Emhoff, husband of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, campaigned along the Texas border and in San Antonio and Dallas.
The New York Times cited unnamed sources in reporting that Democrats are trying to persuade Harris to campaign in Texas herself.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter early Friday morning to assert that his campaign is in great shape in Texas.
You can click over or search Twitter yourself if you find the need for that in your life for some reason. Does it mean anything that Jill Biden is scheduled to come to Texas next week? Well, it is the start of early voting, so that’s a reason. They could be sending her other places – candidates’ and surrogates’ time is a very precious commodity – so the fact that they think it’s a good use of that time to send her here is encouraging. I don’t know how much more I’d read into it than that.
Another poll that understates Biden’s support with hispanics. I’ll stick to the 538 average that has it Trump +1.5. I wouldn’t be suprised if PPP or Data For Progress, who all the pundits and experts on ET say are D-internals, nail the race here in TX.
There’s 5% missing, that’s a big 5%.