Here we go again with the DMN/UT-Tyler poll, which if nothing else always provides something to talk about. The unreadable DMN story is here. The Chron has a story with a semi-ridiculous headline about how Abbott has slightly increased his lead in the race. This is semi-ridiculous because the topline result is 46-39 in his favor, exactly what it was in the DMN/UT-Tyler poll from May. The comparison they are making is to polls from July, so if you want to go there it’s up from a five point lead in the UH Hobby Center poll, up from a six point lead in the UT Politics Project poll, but down from an eight point lead in the CBS News poll. This is why I prefer to compare between polls of the same type, and why I specify when comparing to other polls. It’s also why I preferred to stay away from “Beto is gaining” narratives in July, because as I said all it takes is one poll that shows a slightly bigger lead for Abbott and it all gets blown up.
Anyway. The poll data is here and I’ll give you the highlights with a few comments.
Abbott 46
Beto 39
Other 13
DK 1
Patrick 36
Collier 28
Other 15
DK 21
Paxton 34
Garza 32
Other 15
DK 18
Dem 48
GOP 50
“Other” is the sum of named Libertarian and Green candidates (one of each in the Governor’s race, just one in the other two) plus the “Other” response. For obvious historic reasons, I don’t expect any of these numbers to be that high in November; this is mostly people not committing to an answer at this time for whatever the reason. The fourth listing is for the generic “which party are you voting for in the US House race” question. Note that this was 49-48 for Republicans in May, and 52-45 for Republicans in February.
The main thing I’ll say about these individual results is that Beto gets only 81-12 support among Dems, with Abbott getting 85-8 among Republicans. Somehow, this poll reports 21% of Black voters supporting Abbott, which at least would explain the overall Dem numbers. Let’s just say I don’t find that particularly credible and move on. Beto has taken the lead among independents in this poll at 34-31; it was 36-29 among indies for Abbott in February and a bizarre 16-6 for Abbott in May – as I noted in the earlier post, that reporting seemed to be screwed up. Both Mike Collier (20-19) and Rochelle Garza (24-19) lead among indies as well. Neither was tested in May as they were still in primary runoffs.
Next is the approvals questions:
Name Approve Disap None
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Biden 41 56 3
Abbott 47 49 4
Beto 43 43 13
Patrick 41 39 20
Paxton 41 40 19
For Beto, the question is asked as whether you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. President Biden was at 39-58 in May, so this is an improvement. Abbott was at 46-50 in May, Beto was 42-44, Paxton basically the same at 42-41. Dan Patrick had a strange 50-41 approval result in May – this is more in line with other results and overall expectations.
Two issue questions about abortion:
Do you approve or disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to decide abortion policy?
Strong approve 31
Somewhat approve 11
Somewhat disapprove 10
Strong disapprove 39
Should abortion be illegal in all cases, illegal in most cases, legal in most cases, or legal in all cases?
All illegal 31
Mostly illegal 13
Mostly legal 30
All legal 25
I’ve copied the exact wording. Abortion polling is complex and highly dependent on how questions are worded. The one thing that is totally clear is that there is little support for the current law, which basically allows for no exceptions.
We’ll see if we get more results soon. August and September is usually a busy time for such data. As always, take any individual result with skepticism, not because they are untrustworthy but because they are each just one data point.