en-US Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:23:39 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texans-perceptions-threats-us-and-gop-politics-after-paris-attacks The prominent role of a Syrian who was likely never really a refugee, but masqueraded as one to reach Paris in order to play his terrible role there, has created the rhetorical space for a new variation on the immigration and border security trope that appeals to a broad section of Republican voters. The Paris attacks will clearly make national security and counter-terrorism more salient for now – and there was a significant portion of the GOP that saw terrorism as salient before the attack. But the quick incorporation of immigration as a central component of the national GOP response to Paris makes it unlikely that counter-terrorism will gain enough intensity to dislodge immigration in the gut reactions of GOP primary voters. The speed with which this incorporation has occurred suggests that, in fact, it may reinforce these reactions – and their impact on the GOP presidential race.

]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2015 08:54:31 -0600 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-data-points-week-politics-november-uttexas-tribune-poll-edition While a more comprehensive analysis of the 2016 nominating race awaits the public release of the data and crosstabs from the November 2015 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll next week, the weekend pause in the Texas Tribune release schedule invites a few initial observations on the first wave of results.

]]> Tue, 01 Dec 2015 11:42:54 -0600 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-data-points-week-politics-november-6 It was a week in which Texas political headlines were generated by characteristically low-turnout Constitutional and local elections and the release of interim charges by the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives – which is to say, it was a week for insiders.

]]> Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:23:39 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/scary-texas-data-points-week-politics-october-30 Halloween is upon us, but it's already been a scary week for Jeb Bush and homeowners thinking about their property tax bills – but Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are trying their best to calm everyone down. Calm by nature, Dr. Ben Carson started the week off early causing a stir with his proclamation that he's against abortion in cases of rape and incest, while two of Texas politics' more animated politicians – Dan Patrick and Ted Cruz – essentially endorsed each other. Both Patrick and Governor Abbott also endorsed the legislature preventing so-called sanctuary cities in Texas, but not enough to require legislators to haunt Austin in a special session. Finally, President Obama followed the lead of Texas in pressing for a reduction in standardized testing – a treat for kids and their parents, who increasingly told pollsters they find frequent high stakes testing pretty ghastly. 

]]> Sat, 31 Oct 2015 18:37:11 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/data-points-week-texas-politics-october-23 The presence of Texas candidates for speaker notwithstanding, Paul Ryan decided he would take a stab at the least attractive job in American politics this week, leaving the state to make national news not by putting a Texan in the Speaker’s chair but by pushing the GOP’s ongoing attack on Planned Parenthood to a new level. Texas ideas nonetheless had their day in the Congress, as the Senate tried and failed to take up anti-Sanctuary City legislation. David Vitter at least probably appreciated the effort, but 2011 called and they want their issue back.  In the presidential arena, House Republicans teamed up with Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb to give the Clinton campaign a good week, while over in the GOP George W. Bush is So. Over. Ted. Cruz. And wants you to know it, apparently. It didn’t seem, however, to do much good, as the GOP 2016 stories at week's end were about Carson surpassing Trump in Iowa polling while the Jeb! campaign moved to cut payroll costs.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:48:02 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-data-points-week-politics-october-16 The era of “what, me worry?” when it comes to the effects of the oil boom came closer to the end this week with the comptroller’s downward revision of his revenue estimates, a revision based largely on the effects of the collapse in oil prices. The Lt. Governor followed with his serial interim charge announcements calling for “options to further reduce the tax burden on property owners.”  On the national stage, the vacuum created by the recognition that being Speaker of the U.S. House is a one-way ticket out of electoral politics led some GOP members to launch trial balloons. Meanwhile, over in the Democratic Presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton reminded Democratic voters that she’s the pro in the race with a mostly sharp, funny performance that also showed her shrewdness by effortlessly getting to Bernie Sanders’ left on guns. Speaking of guns, the media was buzzing – and in some cases seemingly altering their policy on language appropriate for family newspapers – with the announcement by some activists at UT-Austin of a protest against the new campus carry law that will involve the open carry of dildos.

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2015 12:32:43 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/public-opinion-annotations-texas-senates-interim-charges Lt. Governor Patrick's interim charges represent a potpourri of issues ranging from the unsung operational stuff of government to the more provocative issues that rouse the GOP's voting base. University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polling suggests that the GOP primary electorate is much less interested in the details of issues like water and electricity than they are in issues like immigration, border security, and the vociferous protection and expansion of gun rights.

]]> Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:38:06 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-data-points-week-politics-0 Much of the week was filled with continuing storylines that are illuminated below with polling data and other graphics – attacks on Planned Parenthood, Ted Cruz's campaign for the Republican Presidential Nomination, more of Hillary Clinton's vexed run for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and another entry into the race for the House seat currently held by Speaker Joe Straus. The end of the week turned much more sadly serious with another mass shooting at a community college.

]]> Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:23:15 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-data-points-week-politics-september-25 Speaker Boehner’s exit, Pope Francis’s speech to Congress, Jeb Bush’s comments on immigration in Houston, the legal and political wrangle over HHS spending on therapy for poor and disabled children, and Governor Scott Walker’s departure from the Republican presidential nomination race

]]> Fri, 02 Oct 2015 16:01:05 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/scott-walkers-exit-and-public-opinion-texas-gop Given the speed with which Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's campaign sank over the summer, his exit from the 2016 Republican presidential nomination contest won't leave much of a wake in Texas public opinion. The second choice preferences in that race reveal who Walker appealed to before he was forced to abandon ship, though the limitations of what early polling numbers can tell us underline just how shallow his appeal was – and that Walker's peak was too little, too soon. 

]]> Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:48:55 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/biden-second-choice-among-clinton-supporters-texas-still-long-shot If Biden's rationale for entering the primary is to win the nomination, his only real chance (without guarantee of success) is for one of the most durable political figures of the last two-plus decades of American politics to be forced out of the race by circumstances. This is closer to the presidency than virtually anyone in America ever gets – but far from a sure thing for Biden.

]]> Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:42:51 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/gop-attitudes-could-be-cruzs-trump-card-texas Voting is still months away, but a Donald Trump vs. Ted Cruz showdown in the Texas GOP primary next year is a distinct possibility. Based on polling, Trump's campaign rhetoric is likely finding a receptive audience in Texas - but one already very supportive of Ted Cruz.

]]> Thu, 03 Sep 2015 16:19:37 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/trump-raised-it-majority-texas-voters-favored-repeal-birthright-citizenship While proposals to repeal birthright citizenship have not been widely or consistently discussed proposals in the mainstream, University of Texas/Texas Tribune polling has included an item on this proposal as part of a battery of questions that explored different attitudes toward a range of immigration policy proposals in the February 2011.

]]> Thu, 20 Aug 2015 22:24:47 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/rick-perry-exit-2016-contest-would-likely-benefit-ted-cruz-texas-primary-race The news of the Rick Perry campaign's problems meeting payroll is feeding expectations that the former Texas governor's second bid for the presidential nomination is nearing its end. Their messaging notwithstanding, it's fair to consider the possible implications of a Perry exit by looking at who the Texas Perry supporters said would be their second choice among the remaining candidates in the June 2015 UT/Texas Tribune Poll.

]]> Tue, 11 Aug 2015 14:45:28 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/5-takeaways-new-uttt-poll-0 With a new slate of statewide leaders in charge, key questions about the tenor of Texas politics loomed large as the legislative session unfolded. New polling provides some preliminary answers.

]]> Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:15:10 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/race-and-attitudes-toward-police-texas Last week's incident in McKinney, TX involving a local police officer and a group of black teens has fed the ongoing national conversation about policing and race – a difficult topic made all the more challenging by the multiple dimensions involved in this instance, which include race, class, and views of law enforcement, to name just a few of the big ones.

]]> Fri, 08 Jan 2016 11:53:23 -0600 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/presidential-candidate-google-search-tracker With the 2016 GOP Presidential Primary likely to pit at least four candidates with Texas roots against one another (Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Rand Paul), we've using Google Trends data on each of these candidates to provide a proximate measure of how much attention the candidates are getting via Google searches. In a sense, this data highlights who is receiving the most interest from the public at a given point in time during the campaign. The graphics are dynamically updated to display data from today along with the previous 12-months. 

]]> Wed, 10 Jun 2015 13:02:37 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/who-really-wants-tax-relief-%E2%80%94-and-why Headlines and rhetoric out of the Texas Legislature this year suggest that the public is clamoring for tax relief. But the polling says otherwise.

]]> Fri, 06 Nov 2015 14:48:49 -0600 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/texas-gops-one-armed-hug-hb-4105-and-politics-fighting-gay-marriage Public opinion trends in Texas leading up to the defeat of HB 4105 make it seem likely that last night was probably the Texas Legislature's last substantial effort to ban same sex marriage rights with any hope of succeeding.  

]]> Fri, 15 May 2015 16:14:19 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/public-opinion-and-abortion-harmony-texas-and-us In a piece in The New York Times' Upshot blog, Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at U.C.L.A., notes a surprising degree of 'harmony' amongst the public when it comes to abortion attitudes. Attitudes in Texas largely reflect the attitudes Vavreck finds in the national data, though Texas attitudes evidence  a higher degree of polarization between Democrats and Republicans on the issue.

]]> Tue, 12 May 2015 16:12:40 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/governor-abbotts-slow-play-tax-debate-numbers Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:12:56 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/feet-fire-or-not-medicaid-expansion-texas-near-impossibility Expanding an unpopular program (Medicaid) to retain money allocated through that program under the guise of another wildly unpopular program (the ACA) seems like a long-shot here in Texas, and a surprisingly bullish negotiating strategy on the part of the Federal Government given public opinion in Texas.

]]> Mon, 06 Jan 2020 10:16:21 -0600 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/five-things-worth-knowing-open-carry-debate With open carry legislation still working its way through the legislative process, here’s another brief look at data on gun attitudes from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, and a consideration of the logic applied to data (or the lack thereof) on gun ownership in the current debate.

]]> Fri, 17 Apr 2015 09:43:50 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/what-tax-fight-says-about-texas-future How Texas lawmakers will cut taxes has emerged as the defining fight of this year's legislative session, highlighting the tension between the state's political culture and its rapid economic growth.

]]> Tue, 14 Apr 2015 09:05:56 -0500 http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/ted-cruzs-courtship-conservative-christian-voters Ted Cruz's standing with Tea Party voters and fundamentalist Christians in Texas and the timing of the Texas primary in the 2016 contest suggest basing the early phase of his candidacy on building support among both groups of voters makes sense for Cruz. He is well regarded by both groups in his home state, suggesting that if he builds a foundation among these groups in the early primary and caucus states, he is likely to augment his national base of support by attracting their votes in Texas. Texas is scheduled to hold a March 1 primary, with its large number of delegates likely to be apportioned among competitive candidate if there are still multiple candidates in the race with no clear front runner. 

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