Quinnipiac: Abbott 48, Beto 43

A lot closer than their previous poll, from December.

In the race for Texas governor, 48 percent of voters support Republican incumbent Greg Abbott, while 43 percent support Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of Texas registered voters released today. This compares to a Quinnipiac University poll in December 2021 when 52 percent of voters supported Abbott and 37 percent supported O’Rourke. In today’s poll, Republicans (90 – 5 percent) and independents (46 – 40 percent) back Abbott, while Democrats (96 – 2 percent) back O’Rourke.

There are also big differences by gender, race, and age. Abbott wins the support of men 59 – 33 percent, while O’Rourke wins the support of women 52 – 38 percent. Abbott wins the support of white voters 63 – 30 percent, while O’Rourke wins the support of Black voters 73 – 11 percent and Hispanic voters 50 – 41 percent. O’Rourke leads among voters 18 – 34 years old (56 – 35 percent), while Abbott leads among voters 35 – 49 years old (50 – 38 percent) and voters 50 – 64 years old (57 – 37 percent). Among voters 65 years of age and over, Abbott receives 50 percent, while O’Rourke receives 45 percent.

[…]

Fifty-one percent of voters think that stricter gun laws would help to decrease the number of mass shootings, while 47 percent think they would not. This is a change from a Quinnipiac poll in June 2021 when only 42 percent of voters said that stricter gun laws would help to decrease the number of mass shootings and 56 percent said they would not.

Voters support 58 – 38 percent stricter gun laws in the United States.

Voters support 93 – 6 percent requiring background checks for all gun buyers.

Voters support 73 – 25 percent raising the minimum legal age to buy any gun to 21 years old nationwide.

Voters are split on a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. Forty-seven percent support a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, while 49 percent oppose it.

See here for the December Q poll, which had Abbott up by a 52-37 margin that looked like an outlier to me; most other polls have had Abbott up by 6 to 11 points. Abbott’s approval rating was 52-42 in December, and 47-46 here, while Biden’s was 32-64 in December and 33-61 here. Whatever has Beto doing better in this poll compared to the earlier one, it’s not an improvement in the President’s fortunes.

Jeremy Wallace of the Chron points out that Abbott is doing better among independents and Latinos against Beto than Ted Cruz had done in 2018 (46-40 among indies for Abbott versus 56-40 for Beto against Cruz; 50-41 among Latinos for Beto against Abbott versus 60-36 against Cruz). That’s all true, but in the December poll, Abbott led 47-37 among indies, and also led 44-41 among Latinos. It’s all a matter of which comparison you want to look at. That said, I agree with the basic premise that these underlying numbers aren’t great for Beto. He did vastly improve on his performance among Dems (96-2 here versus 87-6 in December), which suggests to me that partisan enthusiasm and maybe the voter turnout model are more in his favor now. That’s something that only more poll samples can answer.

You know that I hate stories about single polls that refer to races “tightening” or leads “widening” or what not. No one poll can ever tell you that. Indeed, a day or two before this one came out there was another poll by an outfit I’d never heard of that claimed Abbott was up by 19, which obviously would contradict Quinnipiac’s narrative. I am naturally skeptical of new pollsters, and this result looks like a huge outlier even without that. It’s still a data point, whatever you make of it, and my point is that no one poll tells you anything more than that. Hopefully we’ll get some more data, and maybe see what the picture resembles now. The Chron has more.

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• Some opening thoughts on the 2022 election
• Precinct analysis: The better statewide races
• Precinct analysis: Beto versus the spread