Joshua Blank

We've compiled a brief list of Texas Politics Project resources for those who, out of vocation or avocation, will be keeping an eye on the 2022 Texas primary elections and President Joe Biden's State of the Union address. There are of course a ton of shared crib sheets and Twitter accounts to follow out there, but I’ll let you sort that out per your preferences. But if you have sources you think are particularly good and might be flying under the radar, by all means, send them along

The State of the Union address is a chance for presidents to frame their successes, condition their failures, and overall, try to affect the trajectory of one’s presidency by shaping public awareness and congressional support for the president’s agenda. Biden faces challenges on multiple fronts that make it highly unlikely, or at least highly challenging, for his speech to overcome a broadly negative political environment.

It is commonly understood, based on observation of the actions of legislators and other elected officials, that primary voters tend to be more extreme versions of the party overall – but with little data brought to bear on this observation other than the actions of the officials this process produces. The most recent University of Texas / Texas Politics Project poll, and its oversample of primary voters, allow us to examine the ways in which the Republican and Democratic Primary electorates compare to the overall electorates.

The February 2022 UT/Texas Politics Project Poll adds a ninth assessment of Texans’ attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic to the Texas Politics Project polling data archive, adding to data collected in batteries from polls conducted in April, June, and October of 2020, and February, April, June, August and October of 2021. The time series allows reporters, researchers, elected leaders, public health officials, and the public a view of how Texans’ concerns about COVID, behaviors during the pandemic, and evaluations of the official responses have changed throughout a year of pandemic conditions in Texas.

The release of the February 2022 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll coincides with the beginning of early voting in the Texas primaries, so trial ballots and all things election-related in the poll are likely to attract the most interest. Incumbent governor Greg Abbott leads former Congressman Beto O’Rourke 47% to 37% in a hypothetical match-up in the November General Election. In their primary races, Abbott remains above the run-off threshold, while O’Rourke is unsurprisingly a virtual consensus candidate among Democrats. Beyond the horse races, the poll paints a picture of a state experiencing strong political crosswinds in several policy areas. In some familiar issue areas, public opinion appears closely divided as a result of sharp and intense differences among partisans. In others, majorities (albeit often slim ones) oppose the direction state policy headed in the last legislative session, frequently as a result of broad Democratic opposition supplemented by divisions among Republicans. 

This page compiles graphics for trends in job approval ratings of the current incumbents (President, Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators, U.S. President) that Texans assess on every poll. Bookmark the page for easy reference – we’ve also added similar graphics for trends in Texans’ assessment of conditions in Texas and the U.S., and some archival results for comparison with leaders no longer in office. This version updates the ratings with data from the Februrary 2022 University of Texas / Texas Politics Project Poll.

In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson and Josh Blank take a close look Latino voting patterns in Texas – and what common media narratives miss about the subject.

As the first serious winter storm descends on their state, Texans’ pervasive anxiety about the reliability of the state’s go-it-alone power grid has floated to the surface of public discussion like a North Atlantic iceberg. Weather forecasters and energy mavens assure us that the weather hitting a large swath of the state lacks the severity, duration, or geographic impact of the February 2021 disaster that left hundreds dead, millions of Texas without power in sub-freezing temperatures, and caused billions in damage. Polling we conducted both shortly after the 2021 outages and in the intervening months suggest that the seemingly widespread anxiety about the return of cold weather reflects the pervasive impact of the last storm, as well as a lack of confidence in the state leadership’s measures to ensure the reliability of the grid in the wake of last year’s failures. 

As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.

As campaigns and observers attempt to figure out where the most competitive legislative races will be in 2022, we can assess the change in competitiveness in electoral districts after redistricting by comparing the change in top-of-the-ticket 2020 vote shares won by major party candidates with the same results calculated using the new district lines.