Blog Posts

Despite the steady decline in his overall approval ratings nationally, trends in the President's standing among Texas Republicans remains a solid asset in GOP primaries.

James Henson and Joshua Blank join the response to the much-discussed memo from Ragnar Research's Chris Perkins on signs of sagging participation among Republican primary voters in Texas, and make some connections with the shifting politics of immigration and border security in the Texas GOP.

The main takeaway from hypothetical head-to-heads in the U.S. Senate race in Texas isn’t that Talarico is “ahead” – it’s that voter mobilization may be the main challenge to Republican success in the 2026 general election.

In a new Second Reading podcast, James Henson and Josh Blank look at the quasi-normal looking polling on the general election matchups for Texas Governor and Lt. Governor, and assess macrolevel indicators of the political mood in Texas.

James Henson and Joshua Blank look at highlights from the just-released UT/Texas Politics Project poll, including resurgent concerns about prices and the economy, the sharp partisan differences fueling overall opposition to the U.S. war with Iran, and some interesting underlying numbers in the U.S. Senate race and the Cornyn/Paxton/Talarico triangle

The University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll regularly asks Texas voters to provide their assessment of national, state, and personal economic conditions. In this post, trend graphics for those views are presented and updated with each survey.

The April University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll finds Texans feeling the pain from a sharp rise in gas prices fueled by war in the Middle East, with 61% of Texas voters “very concerned” about the price of gasoline and energy amidst renewed worries about the economy and prices overall.

James Henson and Joshua Blank check in on Gov. Abbott’s pressure on Houston, Dallas, and Austin to change immigration enforcement politics and planned spending by both parties on Texas Congressional races, then go deep on the Texas Lyceum Poll’s look at Texans’ views of the quality of life in Texas.

In a new podcast, James Henson talks with Bayliss Wagner of the Austin American-Statesman and Hearst Newspapers about her reporting on the scandals that led to Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales' exit from the U.S. House, including the role of non-traditional and social media in the emergence of the story in mainstream media.

James Henson talks with Professor Robert D. Moser of The University of Texas at Austin Government Department about U.S. interest in Iran, how the escalation of the conflict with Iran intersect those interests, and the consequences of the war for national and international politics.