It’s not really that great, to be honest.
Not Ted Cruz
Former President Trump’s popularity in deep-red Texas is underwater following the mob attack by his supporters of the Capitol, according to a poll from the progressive group Data For Progress commissioned for MoveOn.org.
The poll found that at least 51 percent of likely voters in Texas said they had at least a “somewhat” unfavorable view of the former president following the events of Jan. 6, with 42 percent saying their view of Trump was “very unfavorable.”
Forty-nine percent of likely voters had unfavorable views of President Biden, while 42 percent of likely voters had unfavorable views of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
The poll also found that 36 percent of GOP voters in the state would support barring Trump from running for office again, possibly the most significant break from the former president among his base registered by polling so far.
The poll data is here. I couldn’t find a blog post or press release on the Data for Progress website about this, just their tweet that linked to the data file. The poll is of 751 “likely voters” (remember, DFP uses web panels for their polls), and this is what I mean by “not that great”:
Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Ted Cruz? Favorable 49%, unfavorable 42%
Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Beto O’Rourke? Favorable 33%, unfavorable 46%
Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Donald Trump? Favorable 48%, unfavorable 51%
Q: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Joe Biden? Favorable 48%, unfavorable 49%
They had separate responses for “very” and “somewhat” favorable and unfavorable, and I combined the two for the numbers above. The Biden number isn’t bad, the Trump number is okay, the Beto and Cruz numbers are lousy. I would have liked to have seen a question about Greg Abbott, but given the above he probably would have done pretty well, and I would have been unhappy about that, so maybe it’s just as well. Beto’s “Favorable” number is likely dragged down a bit by having 21% of Democrats respond “Haven’t heard enough to say”, but even that is not great, since you’d like to think that likely-voting Dems would be sufficiently informed about him. (This may also have been the option chosen by Dems who were more or less neutral and didn’t want to round up or round down.) Only seven percent of Republicans gave a similar response about Cruz.
After that there was a question about supporting or opposing “former President Donald Trump from holding elected office in the future”, which referenced Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his role in inciting the Capitol riot (49-44 support). They asked a couple of similarly-worded questions about Cruz, then concluded with a simple “Do you think that Senator Ted Cruz should resign?”, which went 51-49 for Yes. Neither of these things will happen so this is more slogan than data, but there you have it. It is what it is, but I don’t think it amounts to much. The Texas Signal has more.
I had a good laugh after Sandy Cortez admitted that she was no where near the Capitol building during the January 6th protest, even though she accused Ted Cruz of trying to have her killed that day.
Sandy is the new David Hogg, and Cruz isn’t resigning, nor should he. I laugh at the legislators who were so shaken after the protest. Those same legislators reveled in subjecting America to violence all last year, but when a mostly peaceful protest impacts them, they get the vapors. LOL!
Terror for thee, not for me.
Bill, https://giphy.com/gifs/jade-fb-closures-byYvc9meProt2
Manny, just for clarity, who are the fascists? The 46% that says Beto is unfavorable, or the 49% that says Ted Cruz is favorable?
And,
How do those people become non fascists in your eyes?
SURVEY FINDINGS: TAKE WITH PINCHES OF SALT
In case anyone thinks that 51% unfavorable to Trump is meaningful because it’s a majority: It’s not because the reported margin of error is ±3.6 percentage points.
And that assumes that this rather smallish sample (N=752) is a reasonable representation of the voting population, and yields meaningful results.
That said, even if the true figure for the pervasiveness of Trump sympathy is at the lower or upper end of the +/- spread interval, that’s an awful metric, given that Trump has shown himself committed to the overthrow of the democratic process.
Next, this small collection of online respondents (“web panel”) represents what is described “likely voters”. Likely voters for what elections? There are differences in the actual electorates for presidential and mid-term/gubernatorial elections because of turnout variations. For that reason alone, the sample cannot be a good representative sample of likely voters for different types of elections. It might have been better to screen for respondents who actually report having voted in the 2020 election, or in 2018 for any questions about Beto vs. Cruz, or to screen for registered voters who say they plan to vote in the 2022 elections, to gauge attitudes toward O’Rourke vs. Abbott in a potential gubernatorial contest between those two.
QUESTION WORDING
“If Senator Cruz votes to acquit Trump for his role in inciting the January 6 riot that led to the storming of the capitol building and the death of a police officer during the Senate trial, would you support or oppose replacing Ted Cruz as your Senator?”
Comment: This is a loaded question (assuming the conclusion), a question that is too complex for purposes of opinion polling (too many components), and is additionally poorly worded (“the death of a police officer during the Senate trial”?). It is also ambiguous about the remedy: Replace how? — Expulsion from Senate by 2/3 vote of members, pressure to resign, voting against him when he is up for re-election years from now?
The other Ted-targeted questions are likewise loaded, but that’s not unusual for polling sponsored by an advocacy organization and perhaps not even a fair criticism in that context. I suppose it merits an “It is what it is”. And it’s not an academically rigorous survey of public opinion here.
Regardless, the findings at the minimum make good fodder for discussion, esp. the large differences between Democrats and Republicans, and the strength of remaining support for Trump.
How would the loyal readers of OTK, not to mention the esteemed co-commentators (including the contingent of “accused fascists”) have responded to these questionnaire items?
How would you?