Everyone take a deep breath about the latest Quinnipiac result.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke
Fifty-four percent of Texans backed Cruz, while 45 percent backed O’Rourke in the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
As for each candidate’s images, 52 percent of Texans surveyed had a favorable view of Cruz, with 44 percent viewing him unfavorably. O’Rourke, however, was slightly under water in how Texans viewed him: 45 percent of respondents had a favorable view of O’Rourke, compared to 47 percent who view him unfavorably.
[…]
The poll also took a snapshot of Texas’ gubernatorial race, showing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott with a prohibitive lead over his Democratic rival, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, 58 percent to 38 percent.
Strikingly, while Valdez and O’Rourke have consolidated support among African Americans, Abbott and Cruz garnered sizable Hispanic support. Cruz had the backing of 37 percent of Hispanic respondents while nearly half of Hispanics surveyed — 46 percent — supported Abbott.
Sixty-two percent of Texans viewed Abbott favorably while 32 percent of Texans had an unfavorable view of the governor. In contrast, Valdez — an underfunded candidate — is still largely unknown for this point in the cycle. Thirty-one percent of Texans had a positive view of Valdez and 29 percent had an unfavorable view of her.
See here for the previous Q-poll of likely voters. They seem to have a more Republican sample than what we’ve been seeing with registered voter polls, which is both what you’d expect, and the same-old same-old that Beto is trying to upend. One way of looking at this is to look at the similar result from the NYT/Upshot live poll, which has gotten less mainstream coverage than the Q-poll has. They consider various turnout scenarios:
| WHO WILL VOTE? | EST. TURNOUT | OUR POLL RESULT |
|---|---|---|
| The types of people who voted in 2014 | 4.4m | Cruz +16 |
| People whose voting history suggests they will vote, regardless of what they say | 6.3m | Cruz +9 |
| Our estimate | 6.3m | Cruz +8 |
| People who say they will vote, adjusted for past levels of truthfulness | 7m | Cruz +8 |
| People who say they are almost certain to vote, and no one else | 7.2m | O’Rourke +3 |
| The types of people who voted in 2016 | 7.9m | Cruz +5 |
| Every active registered voter | 13.2m | Cruz +4 |
That’s it in a nutshell. Beto’s mission is to turn out less likely voters. A somewhat unspoken corollary to that is that Republican enthusiasm needs to be a little lower than usual as well. I think Beto is in a good position to outperform a poll like this, but that’s always a tough thing to do, and the kind of thing that many people will not believe is possible until they see it happen. Keep working at it. RG Ratcliffe has more.
Beto did not respond quickly enough to all the negative ads. That is almost always a mistake. He is no saint, but no else is either.
How many of us while young or maybe even old have not driven a vehicle after having one too many drinks. Only luck or fate kept us from getting stopped.
Eminent Domain, Cruz is supporting a wall that will do much worse than anything Beto even considered doing.
Sexual abuse is something else (I don’t know anyone nor would I associate with anyone that abused women) and yet the same people that use the above arguments against Beto have no qualms voting for a man that had nearly two dozen women accuse him of sexual abuse.
Good to have the math, but will come down to who gets thier supporters to the polls. Beto has a great chance at winning this race.
Pingback: Change Research (Land Commissioner): Bush 41, Suazo 36 – Off the Kuff