Blogs: Joshua Blank, PhD

Ted Cruz is back in the news, and while many in Washington are upset with his recent role in scuttling an immigration bill in the House, here in Texas, he's doing just fine - which explains a lot.

Partisan charges of political corruption have flared around the edges of the 2014 Texas elections, yet they haven’t become the focus of media coverage in the marquee races or fundamentally changed their dynamics or our expectations of the outcomes in November. Why is it that intimations of corruption and political malfeasance stay in our peripheral vision while rarely coming into the kind of Sharpstown-like spotlight that defines an election?

The border crisis has been called a lot of things – a humanitarian problem, a policy failure, a reminder of the unpredictable nature of globalization. It's also a reminder that Texas is already playing an outsized role in the 2016 GOP presidential race.

Both Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott have been reluctant to make abortion a major campaign issue, but as polling shows, Abbott's hesitance likely benefits him more than Davis' benefits her.

In Texas, the surprisingly complex patterns of public opinion on immigration call into question the conventional wisdom informing media coverage — and even political strategy.

The new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll leaves no doubt about which faction of Republicans is the driving force in Texas politics right now.

It's only June, but there's virtually no evidence yet that Texas Republicans should be concerned about November.

The drama that played out at last weekend's state Republican convention may have seemed trivial, but it illustrates a bigger shift underway in the Texas GOP.

As Rick Perry hedges that he could yet again seek a presidential nomination, and the issue of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants continues to arise in GOP primary races, polling results help illustrate the challenges the issue poses for candidates.

David Dewhurst’s predicament — abandoned first by most Republican primary voters and then by one of the bellwethers of the Texas big business establishment — reveals how the Texas GOP has changed since he first became lieutenant governor in 2003.