The first data point is bad for him. Which means it’s good for the rest of us.
Gov. Greg Abbott had the lowest approval rating since February 2016 and his highest disapproval numbers during his tenure as governor, The Texas Politics Project’s August polling found.
The poll queried 1,200 registered voters in Texas, finding that 50 percent disapproved of Abbott’s job performance and 41 percent approved. Nine percent didn’t know or did not have an opinion, the lowest such number of Abbott’s time in office. The margin of error was 2.83 percent, and the poll was conducted from Aug. 20 through Monday, Aug. 30.
The Texas Politics Project, which is housed at the University of Texas-Austin, has been conducting surveys since 2008, and has measured Abbott’s approval since November of 2015. Abbott’s previous high for disapproval was April 2021, at 45 percent.
The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents said Texas was “headed in the wrong direction,” the highest such number it has posted. A spokeswoman for Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Everywhere you look in the poll there’s just signs that the mood here is very dour. And when you have one party that owns the policy environment, that’s not good news,” said James Henson, director of the poll. “The Republicans have had a pretty easy ride for the two-decades-plus they’ve been in power in the state. And there’s now a convergence of factors that’s really going to test their ability to govern. And we’ve seen a very clear approach to that in this last legislative session, and it doesn’t seem to going over very well.”
[…]
The poll also asked whether respondents approved of Abbott’s handling of COVID-19 specifically, and the findings closely mirrored his overall approval numbers: 53 percent disapproved, 39 percent approved and the rest didn’t know or had no opinion.
“The election isn’t tomorrow, it’s not until next year, but it’s been a long time since there was a widespread sense in the state that things aren’t going well, and I think we’re seeing more indications of that,” Henson said.
The usual caveat about this being one data point applies. It’s also important to remember, as we have seen in UT/Trib polls (among others) that Abbott’s numbers tend to be the best among the officials whose ratings are being checked, with President Biden being the closest competition. This poll only tracks Abbott, so we lack that context. Given the dip in Biden’s poll numbers (which I think will be at least somewhat transitory, but I am an optimist), it’s reasonable to think that he may still compare well to others. We won’t know until we see more data.
Just looking at these numbers, the two things that stand out are just how far Abbott has fallen from his early COVID peak, and how the number of “don’t know/no answer” respondents have fallen. He was still in solidly positive territory as recently as February, and was at even levels in June, when we were still thinking we’d get a hot vax summer and everyone was feeling good. It’s not unreasonable to think that the right wing legislative onslaught has eroded his numbers a bit – remember, as we have discussed before, he used to poll decently for a Republican among Democrats – and my guess that the numbers now reflect his intransigence on COVID mitigations. Moreover, with more people having an opinion on him now, it’s likely the case that the fence-sitters have been making up their minds, and what they have decided is they don’t like him.
Again, this is one poll, and as Prof. Henson says, we’re a long way out from next November. Abbott also doesn’t have a Democratic opponent yet, and as we know that matters a lot. Intensity of feeling matters as well, especially in an off year election when turnout is critical. Abbott has been focusing exclusively on the hardcore base, mostly because he wants to win his primary but also because he wants to have a lot of “victories” to crow about to keep them engaged. Maybe this means Abbott’s stature will suffer. There’s plenty of reasons why that should be the case. It’s still too soon to tell for sure, that’s all I’m saying.
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