Jim Henson

In a special Second Reading Podcast, listen to a panel recorded at the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival last weekend with reporters covering the 2022 elections in four of the most competitive states in the country – Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Jim Henson talked with Jon Ralston of The Nevada Independent, Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constituiton, Andy Chow, Statehouse correspondent for Ohio's NPR and PBS stations, and Angela Couloumbis of Spotlight PA about the dynamics in these four key states in a panel recorded Saturday September 24 at this year's Tribfest in Austin.

The latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll finds Gov. Greg Abbott sustaining a polling lead over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, 45%-40%, albeit one that has narrowed as the gubernatorial campaign enters its final and most public phase. Beyond the top lines of the gubernatorial trial ballot, the poll results illuminate an election environment in which the gubernatorial contest between Abbott and O’Rourke is the most competitive race for the office Texas has seen in decades. Yet the results also reveal the advantages Abbott still enjoys among the Texas electorate, and the significant obstacles O’Rourke still faces in putting together a coalition of voters capable of overcoming the advantages, political and structural, that Abbott enjoys.

We send updates on new polling, data, and events via our recently relaunched email list. The emails tend to be short and relatively infrequent – open the post to fill out the simple sign-up form.

There are Democratic votes to be had in rural Texas. Looking back at polling between 2015 and June 2022, on average over that time span, 61.75% of rural Texas voters have identified as Republicans and 25.61% as Democrats. The data don’t demonstrate significant fluctuations in the party identification patterns of Texas’ rural voters over time, though the Republican share has not been less than 64% in 6 UT/Texas Politics Project polls conducted between June 2021 and June 2022. Democratic identification among rural voters has stood at 22% in each of three surveys conducted so far in 2022. The remainder of the rural registered voter pool, 12.57% on average, identify as independent, by which we mean voters who neither identify with, nor consistently lean toward, either party. So while a non-trivial share of Democrats appear to remain in Texas’ rural areas, in the recent term, the GOP advantage does seem to be slightly on the increase — consistent with broader trends in party system dynamics.

The Conservative Political Action Conference, meeting in Dallas August 4-7, bills itself as “the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.” Marketing aside, the marquee speakers at this years Dallas confab – former U.S. president Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban – testify to how powerful currents of authoritarianism and nativism are bringing to the surface a unabashedly reactionary resurgence within mainstream conservatism in the U.S. and Europe. 

The House investigative committee’s report on the Robb Elementary School mass shooting confirmed much of what had been trickling out about how the situation unfolded, particularly the failures of the law enforcement response and in the execution of school safety procedures at the school. Most media coverage of the report emphasizes the directness of the report in detailing the failures in implementation of safety practices at Robb Elementary, and the failure to follow established policy, lack of leadership, and general chaos among all law enforcement on the scene. But the report also reflects the politics of the moment in its lack of detail regarding the roles played by state agencies, particularly the heavily represented Texas Department of Public Safety – and, most glaringly, leaves the consequences of the killers’ choice of weaponry unaddressed, even as that weapon hovers over the very detailed narrative of what the law enforcement personnel were doing – and more critically, what they were not doing – in the hallway outside the rooms where nineteen children and two adults were murdered. 

As the Texas Democratic Party holds its election-year convention in Dallas,  we’ve compiled a selection of public opinion results among Texas Democrats from our extensive polling data archive. 

Like most sequels, the summer spin-off exploits lingering interest in the original, but hasn’t quite lived up to the hype –  so far.

Another week of 100+ degree highs throughout the state producing record-setting electricity demand and ERCOT conservation alerts is also recharging the politics surrounding the reliability of the state’s electric grid. Texans' doubts and anxieties about the reliability of the grid make the return of the grid as an issue in the 2022 gubernatorial election inevitable amidst wall-to-wall coverage of the scorching weather and calls to conserve.

A new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll finds 15% of Texans expressing support for a complete ban on abortion access in polling conducted primarily in the week prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s announcement of its landmark opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. While 37% of Texas voters say that they support "trigger law" that would ban abortion in most cases in Texas in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, no more than 36% would foreclose all access to legal abortion across a range of circumstances. 

The survey also found Texans expressing overwhelmingly negative views of the economy: 53% said that their personal economic situation is worse than a year ago; 58% said the Texas economy is worse than a year ago; and 73% said the national economy is worse than it was a year ago. All three represented the highest negative assessments since the poll began tracking these attitudes. With elections for statewide offices and the Texas legislature just over four months away, 59% said the state was on the wrong track — the largest share of negative responses in the poll’s history.

This page compiles graphics for trends in job approval ratings of the current incumbents (President, Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators, U.S. President) that Texans assess on every poll. Bookmark the page for easy reference – we’ve also added similar graphics for trends in Texans’ assessment of conditions in Texas and the U.S., and some archival results for comparison with leaders no longer in office. This version updates the ratings with data from the June 2022 University of Texas / Texas Politics Project Poll.