Focusing on the track, not just the horses, as the 2024 race enters the final stretch in Texas

While we’re not ones to complain, it’s still fair to note that the closer we get to Election Day, the more attention gets paid to horse race results in polling – often at the expense of a deeper look into what polling can tell us about the context of that election. Much of University of Texas/Texas Politics Project polling conducted during the election season aims to illuminate the context of the election and, maybe even more important now that our polling project is well into its second decade, the arc of the ongoing developments in Texas politics.

Without getting too grandiose, we’ve gathered some of the results from the recently released October poll (conducted from the 2nd through the 10th) to give some more depth to the trial ballots – and to capture some of the contextual elements of the political universe in Texas as the 2024 election enters its final days. (And, to be as gentle as possible, to start thinking about the upcoming legislative session and what promises to be a very active and interesting round of elections for statewide offices in 2026.)

1. The Texas Democratic Party continues to house more moderates than the much more homogeneously conservative Republican Party of Texas. Among all registered voters, those identifying as Republican are far more likely to identify as conservative (79%) than are Democrats to identify as liberal (63%). 

The trend data shows a marked increase in the liberal turn among Texas Democrats over the course of Trump’s first term.  

But the movement of the Texas' Democratic voters into more alignment with the national party has not made Texas Democrats as ideologically uniform as Texas Republicans. Self-identified “moderates” — a group being fought over by both campaigns, especially in the U.S. Senate contest — are much more prevalent in the Democratic Party, with 27% of self-identified Democrats opting to describe their own ideology as moderate, compared to 15% of the state’s Republican registered voters.

2. Negative partisanship is alive and well in Texas, which works as a powerful constraint on crossover voting. Favorability ratings of the two parties repeated across the life of the poll illustrates how intensely unfavorable views of the opposing party are more prevalent than intensely favorable views of one’s own party. In the August 2024 UT/Texas Politics Project Poll, 41% of Democrats had a “very favorable” view of their party, while 67% had a “very unfavorable” view of the Republican Party. Republican views were similar in their proportions: 34% expressed a “very favorable” view of their own party, while 69% had a “very unfavorable” view of the Democratic Party.

3. The crossover voting potential is small but not zero. While there has been a lot of focus on “never Trump” Republicans since before he even ascended to the office of the presidency, it’s notable how little potential there is for cross-over voting throughout his first term and into this election cycle — at least as seen in polling data. If there are Republicans considering crossing over, there are very few. Among likely voters in the October survey, only 2% of Democrats and 4% of Republicans indicated that they would be supporting the other party’s nominee, suspiciously close to both each other and 0%, neutering most claims about the potential impact of split-ticket voters — at least in Texas.

The Senate contest tells a largely similar story, with 6% of Democrats and 5% of Republicans saying they’ll support the other party’s nominee, which, if these estimates from October were to hold for actual voting, would essentially cancel each other out.

Other items provide a somewhat higher potential for crossover voting. In a question repeated every October since 2016, voters are asked whether or not (regardless of their vote choice) the Republican and Democratic parties are welcoming to people like them. Over the eight years that this question has been asked, no more than 14% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats have indicated that the other party is welcoming to people like them. It’s fair to consider this a rather permissive upper bound to the possibility of cross-over voting in Texas in the hyper-polarized times that we live in. 

Nonetheless, the overall data this cycle and the lack of evidence of widespread crossover voting in recent elections suggest that the phenomenon of the "never-Trump Republicans" is more prominent at the elite level than among Texas voters. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t enough Trump apostates in swing states with razor-thin margins to make a difference. But in Texas, if you seem to know a lot of never Trumpers crossing over to vote for Harris, it’s probably a function of your social (and perhaps even professional) position rather than a sign of the mass defection of Texas Republicans.

4. Immigration and the border remain unifying touchpoints for Texas Republican voters. Yes, the economy and the impact of higher prices on the cost of living remain front and center among election issues. But while these issues may have crowded out the border in poll responses to questions about pressing national issues and what voters want the candidates to talk about during the campaign, most Texas Republicans still see immigration and the border as the most important problem facing the state.

In an open-ended item inviting respondents to say what issue is driving their vote most in the October UT/Texas Politics Project Poll, 36% of Republicans mentioned the economy or, more specifically, inflation or the cost of living, compared to 29% who mentioned immigration or border security related issues.

In the same poll, 53% of Republicans said immigration or border security was the most important problem facing the state – slightly on the low end of the range of Republican responses we've seen over the last decade of polling, albeit with a temporary decline during the first months of the pandemic.

As Donald Trump continues to talk about the threats posed by immigrants, his promised mass deportations, and Harris’ failure on the border in the final days of the campaign, he is likely to find a responsive audience among Texas Republicans. Concerns about economic issues remain front and center in the national election, more or less; but Republicans’ long-present focus on immigration and border security is never far from the surface. This facet of Republican opinions remains an asset to GOP candidates in an increasingly competitive Texas — not just because Republican voters pay attention to the issue, but because their elected officials' and candidates' loudly promulgated policy aspirations, and the tone of their rhetoric, resonate with Republican voters.

5. Democrats and Republicans continue to hold very different perceptions about problems in the electoral system. Misinformation is the leading concern among Democratic voters on the eve of the 2024 election, with 66% saying that it will be an “extremely serious” problem in the upcoming election. While Republicans also express concerns about misinformation (46% say it will be an extremely serious problem), their chief concern remains ineligible voters casting ballots, with 57% of Republicans saying this will be an “extremely serious” problem (despite the dearth of evidence in support of such a concern outside of the near constant and ubiquitous claims of non-citizen voting by GOP politicians). Concerns about democracy abound in both parties, but the specific worries are different in very familiar ways.

(To refresh your memory, our Presidential trial ballot found Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris 51% to 46%, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein earning 2% and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver registering 1%. In the U.S. Senate race, Ted Cruz led Colin Allred by a slightly wider margin, 51% to 44%, with 4% opting for the libertarian Ted Brown. As is the practice with our final pre-election polls, these are the results among likely voters, with respondents who didn’t make a choice among candidates given a follow-up “force” (i.e. “if you had to make a choice, who would you vote for”). To see subsequent polls by other organizations, see our Texas Presidential and U.S. Senate Poll Trackers.)