MJ Hegar
Last week PPP took a look at the Presidential race in Texas, and this week we checked in on the Senate race. MJ Hegar trails John Cornyn just 49-46, making up for the Republican lean of the state thanks to a 55-34 advantage with independent voters.
Hegar is running close to Cornyn even though he still has a 15 point advantage in name recognition on her. 76% of voters have an opinion about him with 39% rating him favorably and 37% unfavorably. 61% of voters have an opinion about Hegar with 32% rating her favorably and 29% unfavorably.
There’s evidence within the numbers that if Hegar had parity with Cornyn on name recognition she would have a very good chance at winning the race. Among voters who know enough about Hegar to have an opinion about her, she leads Cornyn 51-48.
This is the third Cornyn-Hegar poll PPP has released this year and they’ve gone from a 7 point lead for Cornyn to a 4 point lead to now just a 3 point lead. That’s a similar trajectory to the one the 2018 Senate race followed and Hegar has already reached the point where Beto O’Rourke finished last time. With two and a half weeks to go she has a chance to pull off the upset as more voters tune into the race and become familiar with her.
The polling data is here, and this result was reported by Daily Kos and the Texas Signal. The Presidential poll referenced is here, and it has Biden up 49-48, 50-49 with leaners included.
There have been several polls of Texas lately, generally showing Trump in the lead. That PPP result is one of the better recent ones for Biden, and this Senate poll is one of the best of the cycle for Hegar. Generally, Cornyn’s level of support is close to Trump’s, and Hegar’s trails Biden’s by a non-trivial amount, which I usually attribute to a higher portion of “don’t know/no answer” responses among Democrats. I have believed, and I still believe, that the Senate race result will be pretty close to the Presidential result. I don’t think it will be like 2016, when a significant number of Republicans skipped voting for Trump. I think it’s more likely the case that this will be like a typical Presidential election, where there’s some dropoff from the Presidential levels to the other races. It’s possible that Cornyn could wind up with a better percentage – maybe there are fewer Republican undervotes, maybe he gets a few crossovers, there are some possibilities. I will say, I can imagine Biden carrying Texas but Hegar losing more easily than I can imagine Trump carrying Texas with Cornyn losing. Obviously, I’m rooting for Biden and Hegar. Maybe all that money coming in for Hegar will help.
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