The Texas Politics Project

Respondents were asked: "As you may know, Texas faces a budget shortfall of between $16 billion and $27 billion over the next two-year budget period. We will now ask you a short series of questions about how lawmakers should deal with this shortfall.

"In attempting to deal with the budget shortfall, state lawmakers have two basic options at their disposal: cutting spending and increasing revenue. Please choose your preference for how state lawmakers should close the budget gap on a 0-10 scale, where 10 indicates that you prefer that state lawmakers close the gap entirely through revenue increases, and 0 indicates that you prefer that state lawmakers close the gap entirely through spending cuts."

The party identification classification scheme used here is developed through two questions to each respondent. First, respondents are asked: Generally speaking, would you say that you usually think of yourself as a : Democrat, Independent, Republican, Other, or not sure." Respondents answering that they consider themselves to be Democrats/Republicans are then asked: "Do you consider yourself a: strong Democrat/Republican, or a not very strong Democrat/Republican." Those respondents choosing the former are classified as strong Democrats/Republicans, while those choosing the latter are classified as not very strong Democrats/Republicans. Respondents answering that they consider themselves to be Independent or Other are asked: "do you consider yourself to: lean Republican, lean Democrat, not lean either way." Respondent who choose the first answer are classified as "lean Republican," respondents who choose the second answer are classified as "lean Democrat", and respondents who choose the third answer are classified as "independent."