Saw this on Twitter:
NEW: The latest Telemundo poll shows a majority of Texas Latinos favor Beto for Governor:
@BetoORourke: 54%
@GregAbbott_TX: 31%This is BIG news.
— Antonio Arellano (@AntonioArellano) 11:42 AM – 28 September 2022
In the comments I found this link to the data. This was a live phone poll of 625 Hispanic registered voters in Texas, who said they were “likely” to vote. There isn’t a representative-sample poll of the state, this was specifically a poll of Hispanic voters, so that’s what you get. Of interest was the breakdown of the numbers by geographic region – read these as the totals for Beto, Abbott, “other”, and “undecided” left to right:
Dallas/Fort Worth 57% 27% 3% 13%
Houston Metro 57% 30% 2% 11%
San Antonio 54% 29% 3% 14%
Brownsville/McAllen 48% 37% 5% 10%
Corpus/Laredo/El Paso 54% 32% 2% 12%
I don’t know what the 2020 numbers would have been in this formulation. Assume there’s a fairly high margin of error for each, and proceed with caution if you want to draw any conclusions.
I was curious as to how this topline 54-31 number compared to the Hispanic subsamples from other polls, which would also have much larger margins of error as they would be considerably smaller in number. Going through my archives for September, I got this:
Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation: Beto 53, Abbott 39
Spectrum News/Siena College: Beto 58, Abbott 36
DMN/UT-Tyler: Beto 41, Abbott 37 (the two third party candidates combine for 13%, and I will very much bet the under on that)
UT/Texas Politics Project: Beto 52, Abbott 33
UH-TSU Texas Trends: Beto 53, Abbott 38
This result is a bit better for Beto than these others, but not so much so that you’d raise an eyebrow at it.
Telemundo also did a national poll of Hispanic voters in conjunction with NBC News, and I would say that the Texas numbers are more or less in line with the national ones. That’s maybe a bit of a shift from recent years, where Dems generally did a bit better outside Texas with Hispanic voters, but not a huge shift. It’s also consistent with the claim that Republicans have gained some ground in recent years, certainly in comparison with 2012, which looks like a high water mark for Dems right now.
Moving on, I got this in my inbox last week:
Asian Texans for Justice (ATJ) today released a statewide report, “The Deciding Margin: How AAPI Voters Will Shape the Future of Texas,” which found that four out of five Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in Texas feel Asian American interests are not well represented in government now. The organization commissioned the poll to demystify an often misunderstood and misrepresented major voting bloc in the state.
“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in Texas have been sidelined on the margins of Texas policy and politics for far too long,” said Lily Trieu, interim-executive director of Asian Texans for Justice. “But the data are clear: AAPI voters are not a silent minority on the margins of Texas politics. They have the potential to be the deciding margin for the future of Texas.”
The fastest growing ethnic group in Texas and nationwide, AAPIs now make up 6.3% of the Texas population. Not only does Texas have the third largest AAPI population, but it is outpacing AAPI growth nationally. According to the 2020 census, Texas’ Asian American population grew by 66.5% and the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population grew by 62% – compared to the national Asian American increase of just 38.6%.
Key Findings:
The majority (64%) of AAPI in Texas are highly motivated to vote in the November 2022 midterm elections.
The most important policy issues to AAPI voters in Texas are economic recovery, inflation and cost of living, education, and voting rights.
The overwhelming majority of AAPI Texans are in favor of legalizing abortion (77%), gun safety legislation (83%), and making voting more convenient (85%).
AAPI Texans have more in common with other communities of color (Black and Hispanic) than white Texans when it comes to policy issues, such as Medicare expansion, abortion rights, gun reform, voting rights, and the banning of Critical Race Theory.
Compared to Texans overall, AAPIs are more likely to identify as Democrats (42% of AAPIs vs 31% of the general population). An equal 29% identify as both Republicans and Independents. AAPI Republicans lean to the left of all Republicans statewide on a variety of issues polled.
Only 20% of AAPI Texans believe AAPIs’ interests are well represented in government now. Almost two-thirds (64%) of AAPI Texans say it’s important to have elected officials who look like you and share the same background.
“Asian Texans are often mistakenly viewed as apathetic about politics,” said Ashley Cheng, founding president of Asian Texans for Justice. “Politicians have just been apathetic about us for far too long, but that is changing.”
The landing page is here and the report is here. No horse-race numbers, but the revelation that AAPI voters are to the left of the state overall was of interest. Read it and see what you think.
55 days and counting………….