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Drilling down in the 2020 election and impeachment items in the February 2020 UT/TT Poll
The February 2020 University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll caught Bernie Sanders’ apparent rise and troubling times for Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential nominating contest, even as the race changes on a seemingly day-to-day basis heading into the end of the beginning of the delegate-earning phase of the contest. While the flow of the Democratic race remains rapid and unpredictable, Texans’ views of Congress are still, deep, and fetid. The impact of the impeachment process and its outcome were similarly settled, especially along partisan lines, though the attitudes of independents could potentially produce tricky undercurrents for incumbents. Donald Trump is getting some credit in Texas for a good economy even as his other job approval ratings remain deeply divided. Beneath all the Democratic presidential shifting and Trumpian chaos, the Democrats attempting to earn the right to challenge John Cornyn continued to struggle for attention -- good news for the incumbent. Find more on these points below.
Analysis: Cornyn's expected vote against impeachment is in tune with Republican voters in Texas
As with most things related to Trump, attitudes that are both intense and polarized along partisan lines are likely to motivate voters of both parties if impeachment remains an issue over the next seven months. Given voters’ attitudes, it’s hard to imagine Cornyn choosing another path, and just as difficult to imagine how his vote will change the existing partisan dynamic in the 2020 election.
Cornyn's expected vote against impeachment is in tune with Republican voters in Texas
Whatever the reason is for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's support for the president, it puts him tightly in sync with Republican voters in Texas.
Tracking Donald Trump job approval in Texas among key Republican groups
Donald Trump’s potential impact on Texas voters in the 2020 elections remains one of the key factors in both major parties’ strategies for the general election in November.
Polling data from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll illustrates that, when it comes to national politics, the Texas GOP is the party of Trump. The table below illustrates that in several major demographic categories, Trump’s job approval remains high three years into his presidency, and, while there have been some minor fluctuations, among most GOP constituencies his approval has held steady or even increased. Among the notable voting groups that have been the subject of attention from both parties, the President's approval numbers among Republican women were seven percentage points higher in October 2019 (85%) than they were in February 2017 (78%), shortly after his inauguration. In the suburbs, ground zero for both parties’ efforts in 2020, the president’s job approval among Republicans is at 88%, essentially unchanged since the beginning of presidency.
As the 2020 election campaign continues to unfold, we’ll update this table with new polling data and perhaps even new sub-categories of GOP voters where the data is available and relevant.
Glacial shift in Republican attitudes toward climate change masks significant differences between younger and older Texas GOP voters
The orthodoxy of climate change denial that ruled mainstream Republican politics is melting in some key corners of the Party, even if the change is happening at a pace previous generations had the luxury of calling “glacial.” Even as the septuagenarian figurehead of the national GOP openly mocks the most well-known, youthful climate change activist on the global stage, the signs of a pivot toward an acceptance of the basic fact of human-caused climate change is evident in the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of young voters, even Republican ones.
Texas Catholic bishops are critical, but in the pews, immigration views are split
Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to opt out of the federal refugee program is unpopular with Catholic bishops, but might find more favor among Republicans in Catholic congregations.
Impeachment of Donald Trump Might Give Texas Independents a Role to Play in 2020
As the 2020 election campaign gets underway in Texas, independents have become more important -- and more interesting. They are more important because Texas elections appear to be more politically competitive than they’ve been since before the turn of the century. They are more interesting both because their votes have the possibility of determining some election outcomes, and because their responses to the most powerful political figure shaping the 2020 election, Donald Trump, are much more divided and less fixed than are those of traditional partisans, most noticeably on the subject of Trump’s impeachment. This combination of factors makes independent voters more consequential in Texas elections than at anytime in recent memory, yet harder to handicap when it comes to their voting behavior.
Experience a Less Tense Discussion of How and Why the U.S. Constitution Provides for Impeachment
The morning after four constitutional law professors testified on the constitutional context for the impeachment of President Donald Trump before the House Judiciary Committee, the print version of The New York Times ran with the headline “Tension as Scholars Debate If Case Was Made to Impeach.” In a much shorter and less politically staged discussion of the impeachment provisions in the U.S. Constitution, Professors Jeffrey Tulis and Gary Jacohbson sat down with Professor Dan Brinks, chair of the UT Austin Government Department, for a conversation recorded November 8 in the Liberal Arts Development Studio at UT.
Why Texas Republicans are launching trial balloons on gun laws
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have regularly positioned themselves with an eye on each other and another on primary voters, donors and the state’s interest group universe, each trying to occupy the more conservative position. But in their responses to the recurring mass shootings in Texas, that has changed: The two have edged into conversations about “red flag” laws and increased background checks — positions that have been off limits for Second Amendment advocates housed mostly, if not exclusively, in the Republican Party.
While one might be tempted to attribute this repositioning to a rapid shift in public attitudes toward gun safety resulting from frequent, local mass shootings, public opinion data suggests that the more likely source of Abbott’s and Patrick’s change of heart might just be, as with so many other recent changes, an increasingly competitive electoral environment in which primary elections aren’t the only elections that matter.
Rounding Up the Most Recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polling Data on President Donald Trump as He Visits the Austin Apple Campus
President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit an Apple facility in Austin this week. We’ve rounded up the most recent polling data from the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll on Texans’ attitudes toward the president. Our data archive also contains over 100 items related to Donald Trump going back to 2015. You can page through them by looking at a compendium of results tagged with his name at the Texas Politics Project website. If you use the “share” tag in the upper right hand corner of each individual graphics, you’ll find links for downloading graphics in multiple file formats, and buttons for social media sharing.