And we have our first general election gubernatorial poll of Texas that has Bill White in it, courtesy of Rasmussen.
Incumbent GOP Governor Rick Perry leads White 50% to 40% among likely Texas voters. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, given that match-up, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who runs second to Perry among GOP Primary voters, runs better against White than the incumbent. Hutchison leads the Democrat by 15 points, 52% to 37%. Four percent (4%) like another candidate, and eight percent (8%) aren’t sure whom they’ll vote for.
White leads Debra Medina 44-38, not that it really matters. No crosstabs for non-premium customers, so I can’t give you a critique of their sample. What I can tell you is that the first poll I could find from my 2002 archives had Perry leading Tony Sanchez by a 42-32 margin. That was in July, after Sanchez had spent millions on TV ads. The story referenced a poll from June that had Perry up by 20. All things considered, this early on and with White not having been on TV at all, it’s not too bad. I’d prefer to see Perry under 50, but as this is the first poll out there – I believe R2K will be surveying Texas soon as well – it’s what we’ve got. I have a feeling we’ll see plenty more of these before all is said and done.
Note also that White does better against Perry than he does against Hutchison. I wonder if we’ll start to hear more from the Rick Hardcastle contingent.
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